"What is a crowd?
A crowd is mindless, unbearable, fickle, unpredictable beast with no name. It's a flock of sheep...a pack of wolves. A horse tame in the harness, but dangerous when set free. A crowd is a burning fire raging out of control. It's a contagion - a fever filled with delirium - a concrete surface of crowded breaths - clouded souls fallen into empty eyes - child wards liberated by the sway of the pack descend the ladder of civilization - morbidly nervous and excitable they boil up to the surface of the cauldron of a city and reduce down to the primitive. Abandoning intelligence, judgement and thought, they are vulnerable to agitators, infiltrators and desecrators. A crowd needs to be ruled. Thirsty for obedience, it seeks out its patriarch, its despotic father - cheap tyranny - commander - to be manipulated - controlled.
What is a crowd?
A crowd is not us"
~ Bill Buford ~
'Among the Thugs: The Experience, and Seduction of Crowd Violence'
|
I was in Boston on the 19th for the counter-protest against
some he-men Nazis and white supremacists.
I was in there on the Common with 40,000 others.
I could sense the mindlessness of the throng.
I could sense the ever-so-subtle edging into violence...
The whispering urge to strike "at them"...
It wasn't fun.
One can notice the same phenomena
in all sorts of gatherings, not
just protests....
~