Boredom with the ‘dog days of summer’ means that riot season is right around the corner. What is it about large groups of people that allows them to be set off on the path of violence by a few provocateurs? And where are the handful of heroes we need to restore civility to our civil dialogue?
Bill Whittle and Alfonzo Rachel focus on the moral and ethical questions surrounding top issues of the day. Thanks to our Members, they bring enduring values to the 24/7 news cycle. If you’d like to become a producer of this show, Become a Member.
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18 replies on “Mob Mentality: Why Riots Start and How to Stop Them”
Bill: I was in Miami during the riots. The Liberty City riot started at the corner of a business I had visited earlier in the day. While I was there, an employee of the business was visited by her ex-boyfriend, who wanted to borrow her car. When she denied him he ripped the keys from her purse anyway. He proceeded to take her car and use it to sideswipe 9 parked cars until crashing into a tree (the only one within blocks).
The riot started that afternoon.
You go Zo! Bill is almost there.
Bring that mob to Florida. We don’t negotiate with terrorists.
What a wonderful discussion.
Isn’t it interesting that spokesmodel Fauci changed his toon on masks when the riots were peaking. Nice cloak of invisibility.
Kill people and smash things… (you just “triggered” me 😀 )
In the last few days I’ve run across video ads for computer games that … well they absolutely made me sick. I’ve never been a computer game player, and the ones I’ve played weren’t much past the technology of the early 1990’s. Sim City is probably the most complex game I’ve played.
But these games … but these games I’m seeing advertised…. you, the main character, as either a human or a skeleton or a lion or something … go around basically brutally physically killing random anonymous people who are just going about living their lives. They’re not Nazis or Zombies … nothing to denote they are any sort of threat to anybody. It’s absolutely sickening.
Why would anyone want to play these games, and what does playing a game like this do to your attitude toward your fellow man?
I’m not a guy who’s for censoring things … by law. But my God. They are the opposite of good.
Oh, the Stacey Abrams “Jim Crow 2.0” … they should be sued for libel. Or at least putting out an absolute lie as an ad.
The punishment should be that they need to put out a retraction ad, with her delivering it, telling people why they were wrong.
I always tell people we live in a Republic that uses democracy as a tool.
Mob mentality. It’s a thing. I’ve never been caught up in it… I’m not saying I couldn’t be, but I haven’t been. I’ve certainly seen it.
When I think about what happened all last summer and before with the BLM/Antifa crap and what sadly happened at the Capitol on Jan 6 (which really wasn’t a whole lot like what we saw on the streets with fires and such …) Susceptibility to mob mentality is a human weakness that the morals we’ve developed over the centuries are designed to mitigate.
At the core I think there were instigators who were there to cause a mob mentality incident.
Leftist ones, because there aren’t a lot of examples of American “conservative” examples of this to point to and they are always trying to manufacture them for the cameras. And probably some people on the right who really thought “this is the time”. And this time they got it to work. But it happens a lot, LOT more on the left.
Why?
You might be onto something about the relative concentration of virtuous people in these populations.
solidarity? no way. children need to see a father in the home who lays down the law and means it himself, not because mom told him too.
Great post, guys. And this is exactly the kind of content that’s perfect for the eweekends that I tried pestering you for a while back!
Selfish, hateful, narcistic people have started riots in America today. That is destruction for the sake of self aggrandizing extortion culture.
Good, honest, freedom appreciating people need to start a revolution in America, that is designed to build better for the honest, law abiding, freedom practicing culture.
This is why Zombie Flicks and movies about the end of the world are so popular. When life is easy, all that’s interesting is the destruction of easy life.
Living a life of integrity and virtue, even when no one is watching, comes from an awareness of God’s standards of righteousness. There are so many in this country who no longer regard God nor His standards as worthy of their attention. When that happens, as it has, the sin nature takes over–everyone does what is right in their own eyes (to quote God’s Word). And here we are in this mess. And then that is combined with this generation (or two) who has not been raised but rather has just gotten taller but are still spoiled into thinking that their way is right even when it does harm to others. They have no purpose and have never faced up to real challenges to make their lives contribute to rather than subtract from their own good and that of others. So, self-satisfying demands and mobs make them FEEL like they are accomplishing something, make them FEEL like they are virtuous and courageous in the face of challenges, make them FEEL like they have purpose. But in fact they are simply weak and compliant in committing evil and giving themselves over to the power that controls them–and that power is NOT God but rather the other side.
I am cautious to recall that anonymity is swept away today by big tech, government overreach, and weak willed citizens (if indeed we can still call most Americans “citizens”). If the invisibility of the private citizen invites evil we have a fundamental problem in our individualist philosophy.
Retribution for ideas, principles, beliefs, and standards from the government was not only curtailed by limited government but by the realization of a moral right of people to be private (anonymous, invisible) citizens. We have clearly lost control of the size and scope of government. Shouldn’t we press for MORE individual anonymity?
Doxing is a great reason why we ought to see that anonymity is a virtue to the vast and overwhelming majority of people. Cancel culture is definitely a reason for distance and anonymity in individuals.
Certainly the removal of masks from those who do illegal things is preferred. I just do not understand the idea that invisibility somehow equals a tendency toward the nefarious.
perhaps I misunderstand the full scope of the assertions made on the invisible individual in this video.
Moral people value liberty. Free people foster tolerance of individual uniqueness, i.e., differences. You’re right that limiting the power and scope of both government and our intrusive monopolies is the ideal to which we should aspire. But the overreach, demand for conformity, and retribution springing from a faction of our fellow citizens’ hearts is the problem. Limiting scope won’t fix that, it will only limit the number of victims.
I follow what you mean. To some degree I agree with that assessment. My biggest issue is with the vilification of anonymity. I trust that Bill has a strong grasp on the core philosophy of Individualism…But this seems to be 180 degrees to it.
I didn’t take his meaning that way. Like many things in life, anonymity can serve a positive purpose as a tool of defense as you correctly point out, but it can also embolden the villainous to commit greater offense, which is how I understood his point. I’m old enough to remember the first Mayor Daley issuing orders to shoot to kill arsonists, shoot to maim looters when the West Side went up in flames after the King assassination. Is a person more tempted to carry that nice new TV out of through the smashed appliance store window when no one is looking or when facing down 12,000 national guard and federal troops armed with fully loaded M14 rifles and bayonets?
Certainly. Fame can make people arrogant. Wealth can make people lose touch with reality. Bad coffee can make people cuss out the girl at the Dunkin Donuts drive through.. All true…But the word that matters the most in those statements is “can”.
“The people that choose invisibility” in Bill’s statement seem predestined rather than “could be tempted”. It seemed out of character for a liberty and individuality minded man to lasso that much of the populace with generalities. I’m largely a quiet, introverted man. Anonymity is a nice bit of calm in this world of cancel culture, hate and spite.
Sadly, we have actors, singers, performers of all stripes (including social media “stars”) doing awful things out in front of everyone with a pair of functional eyes. Introverts, flying like Superman onto your television or computer screen. Standing on podiums and capitol steps screeching out instructions to do damage to people, property and our nation in general. They didn’t require anonymity.
Those that break into homes ( or taco stands ) are bringing themselves and their victims to the brink of death. Whether that is during a riot or not, I have no mercy, nor any sympathy for them. Ever. Ever.
I don’t think the M14 figures into the discussion of anonymity so much as the discussion of defunding police. However, I do give you top tier respect for recalling a great rifle. Always wanted one of those…Or two…Bakers dozen.
Thanks for sharing your intriguing perspective.
True words of clarity and wisdom. Get them right here at BillWhittle.Com.
Good people don’t riot, good people don’t smash things, good people don’t use threat of violence to force their message on anyone.
Good people stand up for justice, refuse to surrender their constitutional rights, and let their actions speak louder than words.