🚀 go-pugleaf

On Sat, 29 Jul 2000 12:56:30 +1000, "Jacques Chester"
<jacques.chester@student.usyd.ee-dee-you.au> wrote:

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>MAD MAL <m.bradley@student.murdoch.edu.au> wrote in message
>news:Pine.GSO.3.96.1000728155151.22538H-100000@student.murdoch.edu.au.
>..
>>
>> Interestingly this thread has been diverted to doom and gloom
>> predictiond based on our views of human nature and capacity for
>> violence...
>
>I'm not so concerned about the individuals,
>Mal - I just happen to recognise that
>individuals in mobs tend to surrender their
>own individual rationality. It's probably
>a pack instinct inherited for times of
>extreme danger - everyone attacks at once,
>in a frenzy.

Not true. they don't surrender anything, they acquire a whole new set
of behaviour on top of what is already there.
>
>It can be defeated, but it takes a good deal
>of work. One of the groups who have a
>good control of replacing the irrational
>mob with a obedient one is the military.
>The romans excelled in creating disciplined,
>well-ordered armies - and crushed the
>hitherto unstoppable hordes of various
>nations.

Yeah, and they did it by taking on a whole new set of behaviour. The
situation is what determines the behaviour. ie. Nazi Germany, Seattle
etc. Nobody loses themselves or their normal set of responsibilities.
There is another set of responsibilities based on the objective at
hand. Too many people claim that groups lose control, that doesn't
happen, what happens is that they adjust their behaviour to achieve
the objective. The demonstrations in Seattle were well planned from
the start. Unfortunately there was a few people there to cause trouble
who achieved exactly that. Nothing happened that wasn't intended. It's
just that individuals who exhibit that behaviour are quickly stamped
on. For groups it's a different story.

>If it can be kept spread out and in a good
>mood, yes it can. If crowds jam up, the
>odds of violent outburst rises.

Providing you prepare yourself for the crowd, chance of violent
outburst does not arise. When you go to a football game with 80000
people, you might see the occasional fight. But those people lose
control because of alcohol. What happened in Seattle was not because
of the crowd, the crowd was required for what happened to actually
happen. Is this making sense?

>
>You must also consider the "thinning" effect.
>That is, when things turn violent, those
>people possessed of their senses and in a
>non-violent frame of mind tend to leg it.
>Suddenly all that's left are the
>troublemakers, sans any moderating elements.
>
>> IT IS THE POLICE WHO HAVE TO RETAIN CONTROL OF THEMSELVES!!
>
>This is *always* an issue. Police are just
>as vulnerable to the same kind of mindless
>action as anyone - but they furthermore
>have the weaponry to make their actions that
>much more brutal.

People in groups don't lose it. There is whole different set of
behaviours that groups have. People don't lose their identity, they
acquire a new one which the group gives them. The cops who beat up
Rodney King are a good example.

>
>> Police must accept their loss of control during the carnival and
>> hold the barracades, and no doubt there will be plain clothes( and
>> others) spotting peoples who are on the nastier side...
>
>I'll be interested to see what the police
>plan is.

No doubt they'll go there expecting trouble, and as such they will
incite the violence. Again, people go there with a plan and an
expectation of what will happen. Those who go there expecting trouble
will inevitably find it or deliberately cause it.

>
>> > There really is no other choice.
>>
>> OH, BUT THERE IS...
>
>Such as?
>
>When a protest becomes a riot, negotiation
>and mild coercion cease to be options. A
>rioting mob has nobody who leads it that can
>be talked to or even intimidated. It only
>understands one language: force. As I've
>pointed before, this is true of any mob.

True, that still doesn't mean the violence happened because of the
crowd.

>
>> > I don't believe that violent mob action is even
>> > remotely productive.
>>
>> Mob action yes, but the violence isnt necessarily from a protester
>> or order controller point of view...
>
>I hope it doesn't happen, Mal. Prove me wrong.
>
>> > There is, of course, a cynical body of thought
>> > that suggests that the "organisers" know all
>> > this, and are seeking out confrontation for
>> > the attention it will bring to "the cause".
>>
>> The thing is that the various tribes work independantly, some may
>> not even like one another, but for the S11 day they are part of the
>> carnival, some tribe could be thugs but I know of none
>> personally...
>>
>> Confrontation is appart of the process and getting 'the' message
>> across...
>>
>> Some people will be more confrontational than others, even
>> violent...
>
>Which is how Seattle devolved into a civil
>riot. Started off well, some people took
>the whole "fuck the system" thing to heart,
>and then wondered why the police beat them
>up and gassed them.

Did you grow up in the northern territory by any chance? You haven't
been in many crowds have you? And you have a strange view of the
world. Do you actually think these people went there to riot for the
sake of it? They always have an objective, whatever that might be.
With pommy soccer hooligans it is to prove that Britannia still rules.
With the people in Seattle, it was to send the WTO and the US
government a message. They achieved that and more.

>
>To some people, this response is proof of
>their beliefs. Fair enough. But do they think
>that continuing to incite police violence
>is really going to improve the situation?
>Not really. If anything, they'll make it
>worse. First Law of Bad Management: If
>something isn't working, do more of it.

Again you assume that the police have no role in inciting the
violence.

>
>[..]
>> But what of your view on globalisation?
>
>I think that there are material gains from
>trade for all countries. I also think that
>there are very dangerous consequences in
>backing away from trade as fast as we have
>moved towards it.
>
>However I do think we need to slow down the
>process of integration. As the saying goes,
>"Preach the need for change - but never
>change too much at a time". Globalisation at
>the moment is an overrevving beast that
>has been dangerously distorted by certain
>nations (in particular, the USA and China).
>I think we'd do well the take the foot off
>the accelerator some, and start considering
>certain critical structural issues. Such
>as: where will the demand of the next
>fifty years come from? Who will supply that
>demand? And will there be a mismatch? And
>what happens when too many people miss out?
>And how do you spread the benefits of
>growth across international borders?

That's what Karl Marx said 150 years ago. ""The exploitation of the
world market has given a cosmopolitan character to production and
consumption in every country. Old established national industries have
been destroyed or are daily being destroyed. They are dislodged by new
industries whose introduction becomes a life and death question for
all civilised nations. In place of the old local and national
seclusion and self-sufficiency we have intercourse in every direction,
universal interdependence of nations"

Karl never gets credit of course. He described globalisation 120 years
before it was renamed in the 1970's. A new term, globalisation, was
invented to describe the exact same thing as what has been happening
since about 1800, as if it's a new phenomenon. After ww2 we had the
same pace of change we have now. Back then it was considered to be
healthy, now it's seen to be dangerous. What has actually happened is
that more people have been left behind and more countries can't keep
up with those holding the reins. There is no need to "slow down" as
you say, the problem is that the safety net has been taken away. We
can keep up the current distribution of wealth and watch the whole
thing self-destruct, or we can put the safety net back. There is no
point telling people "the world has changed". What has actually
changed is that too many countries and too many people are blaming the
victims, instead of their own behaviour, for the problems we now have.
In the current economy, ether will be winners and losers, the only
problem is that we used to care about the losers and now we don't.
Which is why plenty of people are pissed off.

>
>It's the industrial revolution all over
>again, in many ways.