The dangers of the Safety of the Crowd
When the few control the many, the many need to assemble to have an influence
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Hello everyone, today’s broadcast is about crowds: ‘the safety of crowds’ is often a highly repeated phrase in today’s world, but it does have its dangers- both physical and non-physical, to those in the crowd and to those on the outside. Crowds however, are just like any tool: not inherently evil, can be used for both good and for bad: Lets dive into it:
The urge to blend in
Loneliness is one of the few feelings that can be truly crushing. That’s what makes crowds so great, especially if you share common values with the people in them. Sports events, religious gatherings such as masses, concerts, marches and even simple social gatherings all give the attendees a sense of belonging, a powerful sensation that has been with us since the dawn of civilisation.
Faced with a crowd of people, we are often heavily tempted to morph into it, temporarily surrendering one’s individuality in return for a sense of camaraderie and safety.
Crowds give feeling of security, which provides a blanket of security to people, giving them this newfound pseudo courage. Its like in any sports arena such as boxing, ordinary people wouldn’t hesitate to shout obscenities or insults at the athletes. Meet them one on one on the street, only the craziest would dare say a fraction of what they said earlier.
Another benefit is the sense of anonymity, assuming that the responsibility of their actions is diffused among the crowd. Wearing a mask gives one a similar feeling that responsibility or consequences can be evaded. They can now act how they want, without feeling guilty or worried about what would happen to their perception. Crowds are maybe the closest thing we have to truth serum. In the right setting, seeing how a person behaves in a crowd may tell you exactly who that person is.
Another thing crowds can also do is to morph one’s sense and normality compass. With the decline of individualism, one’s standards are less important and influential, and therefore the extremes may seem more normal. For a mild example, imagine walking down a street when suddenly you hear shouting. You look over, and it’s a person walking alone- weird right? But if you look over and see a crowd of people, I’d argue that one could easily reason it away by assigning it to ‘typical crowd behaviour’.
This pressure on one’s views on normality can exert pressure on ones actions too. Lets go back to that same street: you get going to go to work when you see one of the passerby’s wearing underwear on their head, you would think they had a hell of a night, or were crazy. If you see everyone on the street wearing underwear on their head, there definitely would be a small part of you considering getting a pair of your own.
When the Blend Comes With Bits
Of course, this pressure can manifest itself for more malevolent ways. For instance, with distorted normality, many may feel that their more, lets put it, controversial opinions or chants, would have an audience in the crowd. And pressure, in the form of association, now means that those opinions, chants and actions are linked to you.
This action does not even have to be ‘accepted’ by the crowd, but by doing these things from the starting point of a crowd provides them with a sense of anonymity- they didn’t do it, the crowd did. This apparent diffusion of accountability is what often tempts people into doing the actions that often turn crowds and protests into riots.
Taming the Bull
When protests and marches go awry and devolve into riots, anti-riot tactics are used to try reduce the benefit that a crowd provides. Crowds provide anonymity, a sense of power, and by dispersing the crowd, these benefits which hide the actual criminals vanish. That is why many of the modern anti-riot tactics, aside from attempts to contain and restrict the movement of hostile crowds have methods that enable people within the to escape or to leave the others, thinning the crowd.
Equipment such as sound cannons, ADS', tear gas is used to disperse crowds: these try to bring back people’s sense of individuality and panic about their own well-being, causing them to run away from crowds, further thinning them out. Once the crowds are dispersed, police can move in and apprehend the more aggressive rioters and protestors, restoring relative calm back into the crowd, ensuring minimal harm is done to protesters, and surrounding areas (at least, in theory).
The ruler’s nightmare
Historically, crowds have a special place in human history. A mass gathering of people has almost always represented a significant event, for good or for worse. And it’s not just militiarised crowds such as armies that can enact huge change, but just a large bunch of regular folk too. One could argue that the crowds of Eastern Europe proved to be the final push to tearing down the Berlin Wall and communist satellite governments.
Crowds are powerful, they can topple governments, force change, often by going straight for leaders, whether its going for presidential palaces, government buildings or plazas. That’s why public areas are so important and significant, as these squares, avenues and public areas enable the masses to congregate into one.
This is what makes what’s going on in Egypt very interesting- millions of dollars are being used to build a New Administrative Capital, aiming to relocate embassies, ministries, a parliament, presidential building; other government agencies.
On one hand, such a project is likely to provide significant externalities to Egypt’s government and country as a whole. New infrastructure projects bring in money, jobs, future revenue streams, attracting businesses and tax revenues and improvement in life conditions. A more organised layout is sure to improve intergovernmental cohesion and image of Egypt abroad.
However there is one more additional benefit: this new capital is located 45km(28 miles) east of Cairo, with only a highway connecting the new capital with the sprawling Cairo. This means that the government will be far and more inaccessible to the public, especially if there will only be meagre levels of public transport available.
This is important as Egypt’s history has featured many protests against the government, many of them congregating in the infamous Tahrir square, and has been described as the 'epicentre’ of the Egyptian revolution', as protests that initially gathered here eventually snowballed into a revolution that ousted President Hosni Mubarak in 2011.
This could no longer be possible, as even if protesters gathered in the square, it would have less influence as the government, presidential palace and army headquarters are kilometers away in the desert, only accessible through a highway: This physical distance also separates the link between the government and its people, as the public cannot hold the government to account as easily.
The Two Cents No-one Asked For
Although I do not want to wade in too deep into the ongoing crisis in the Middle East, one thing that I want to comment on is the apparent homogenisation of the conflict. Remember how I argued that crowds act to reduce one’s individuality? While this is often tacitly agreed to, in this case this is certainly not uniformly the case- the crisis is often seen as being between Israel and Palestine, even as far zoomed out as Jews versus Muslims.
But by painting such broad strokes, it creates the ‘us’ versus ‘them’ mentantality. It ignores the distinction between Palestinians and Hamas, between Jewish people and the government in Israel, between the millions of Palestinians and Israelis protesting and working together to try solve this issue in any other method than warfare, in order to step off the cycle of bloodshed and death. All these different distinctions, but with overt generalisations, everyone is just lumped into two polar tribes.
I’d argue that a more palatable reflection of the crisis would be between Hamas and the right wing government of Netanyahu- everyone else, by association, by location, some willingly but most unwillingly, have been dragged down into the crisis along with them. these two factions have a long history with one another, and it actually hasn’t been all hostile: Netanyahu has actually treated Hamas as an asset, as supporting Hamas (Facilitating transfer of funds into Gaza) served to destabilise efforts by Palestinians to form a more cohesive state featuring both the West Bank and Gaza.
When the few control the many, distractions, dilution of responsibility, and diffusion of accountability is the goal when dealing with crowds. This is often done by providing the masses with an alternate, enemy to divert their attention (usually immigrants and foreigners become the focus). If this fails, it is best to try associate oneself with a group or another crowd, which then enables the few to benefit from the diffusive effects of crowds.
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That’s all from me for now, but stay tuned for future broadcasts,
This has been Kunga’s Written Radio,
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