Hysteria and mob psychology

Shouting fire in a crowded theatre solely for the sake of mischief is not protected free speech. In America, one could be prosecuted for Reckless Endangerment. Falsely yelling “Fire” in a crowd will get you arrested. It can cause unwanted panic and people can be injured, killed.

In 1518, the Dancing plague occurred in Strasbourg, Alsace, where people there took to the streets and danced for days without rest and over a period of one month until many collapsed and died from heart attacks, strokes or exhaustion. It was a classic case of mass hysteria.

In more recent times, Tanganyika’s laughing epidemic of 1962 started at a girl’s boarding school, which affected 95 of 159 students. The epidemic spread to a nearby village and the school had to be closed.

Some mass hysteria cases were staged as was the Halifax Slasher case of 1938 where people claimed a mysterious man with a mallet was attacking them. It was later discovered that it was just a fabricated, attention-grabbing incident and a number of persons were sent to prison for public mischief.

When a former government minister storms the Parliament, screams, and shouts and stages her own Best Village show, you wonder if we might not be a little bit infected with the mass hysteria disease since we have been described as a country of mimic men and that we emulate the Darwinian primate in a monkey see, monkey do follow-fashion manner.

Although nobody else picked up the cue that day to make old mas of the Parliament, one feels now that the seed is planted, and the stage is set for others to follow the ex-Minister.

It is a fact that the Nazis were able to create a mass hysteria and mass conditioning of the German people because millions of Germans believed in Nazi propaganda and adored Hitler. Hitler took advantage of this anti-Semitic hysteria he created across Germany inducing ordinary people into becoming hyperactive members of his evil movement that would eliminate six million Jews.

On a microscopic scale, Trinis get together to block roads and burn tyres when they feel the State is neglecting them. Some of those who get involved are persons who by nature would prefer to stay out of trouble; but because the psychology of the mob differs from that of the individual, they leave their families and home and take to the street to confront the law — not knowing whether things would escalate to the point of real violence.

It is unbelievable the kinds of doves who become hawks in a moment of madness. A professor of clinical psychology At Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand, included a lecture on crowd psychology in his annual course. To illustrate mass hysteria he regularly showed TV news footage of teenage crowds greeting the Beatles at the local airport in the 1960s.

One year when he ran the footage, he heard squeals and bursts of laughter from his students. When the film ended, he asked what had caused the hilarity.

Replied one student, “We recognised some of our parents!”

Just some months ago Beetham residents went ballistic and started a protest over the shooting of one of them by the police; the protest reached such a boiling point that an aged female resident lifted up her skirt to expose herself in such a manner that she would live the rest of her years regretting her heat-of-the-moment action.

A Trini stands in the town square and is apparently looking up at the sky; another fellow joins him in his stargazing pose and before long, there is a long line formed. A stranger seeing this line of curious stargazers in broad daylight asked what were they staring at and nobody could provide an answer until he got to the original stargazer who told him he doesn’t know what the rest of the line are looking at, but he just has a stiff neck.

This might not be a classic case of mass hysteria, but it shows the monkey see, monkey do, syndrome and its potential for follow-fashion danger.

Riots at sporting events, especially football often leave behind death and destruction of apocalyptic proportion. May 24, 1964, Argentina and Peru are playing in Peru with Argentina leading 1-0 two minutes before full time when Peru had a goal disallowed which instigated the Peruvians. A local drunk who charged down the field was followed by hordes of Peruvians. What followed was a huge stampede resulting in the death of 320 people and injuries to 500 more.

It took a drunk in this incident to spark a moment of mass hysteria. Point: be mindful exemplars.

lsiddh@yahoo.com