masterwordsmith-unplugged

Collective behaviour is indeed complex as it is activity involving a large number of people, often spontaneous and sometimes controversial. With our constantly evolving society, more and more, it has become very difficult to study or even to understand!!!

Firstly, collective behavior is wide-ranging as it involves an incomprehensible range of human acts, thought and behavior. For example, how can we understand fads such as body piercing, rumors of the most bizarre types or almost insane mob behavior which dates back to the time of Julius Caesar or even what transpired on the road to Golgotha? That brings me to my next point.

Secondly, collective behavior is difficult to explain. While on one hand, a simple rumor can take cyber world by storm, another one could result in guffawed laughter or scorn by skeptical readers. So how one earth can we draw the line between what is a ‘credible’ rumor and what is not? How would we know? It is an impossible question that has no answers because each situation has different variables which by itself remain volatile and ever changing according to the whims and fancies of the receiver of the message. Such is the variety of human character.

Thirdly, many types of collective behavior are transitory. Some social institutions such as the family or educational institutions can be studied or understood more easily than others but other social phenomena such as rumors, fashion, riots etc tend to be transient in nature and so are difficult to study.

Most forms of human behavior cannot be understood :-) . While experts can predict tsunamis, earthquakes and other natural disasters, can they correctly study and predict human responses from people, especially when they are provoked? A good example would be voting behavior!!!

Why do people follow the crowd???? Why do they not stand up for what they believed in? Why is there the tendency to conform to common patterns of behavior and thought patterns of certain icons or opinion leaders? Is the inquiring mind not important anymore? To answer these questions, consider the categorization of crowds listed at the end of the post.

When I look at the political drama unfolding before me, I realize that many love to play games, mind games or political games and so on. Games are played outside adult awareness and they are our best attempt to get our needs met – although of course we don’t necessarily succeed.

If neuroscience and psychology can teach us anything about politics, it’s that we should approach the sport with a sense of irony and an appreciation for contingency. Yes, crucial issues are at stake – let’s not forget that – but the political process is rarely about these issues. Instead, it’s about reaffirming an irrational identity and tickling those gut feelings that operate at a very subterranean level.

We shouldn’t be surprised when every transition in politics – even that between two or three political personalities committed to some vague post-partisan future – veers into identity politics and the culture war…its apparent in the emerging blog war. I can’t help but watch these conventions through the lens of Jane Goodall, as a gathering of social primates affirming their role within the tribe. Politics is an emotional sport, defined by teams with visceral identities, and not some rational arena in which issues and analysis take center stage. Of course politics always degenerates into some version of Us versus Them: that’s just human nature.

Politics is a primate sport. We’re used to marveling over the fact that the taller man usually wins, that commanding, alpha-male jock toughness is de rigeur for successful political postings. Sometimes even political females’ appeal drives home the perhaps inevitable but nevertheless regrettable fact that female political success is at some level going to be grounded in primate appeal, too. But even if it does not, these alpha-male primates keep attacking the threatening male as well as target the females whom they perceive as showing allegiance to the threatening male.

Some say that women and men behave like monkeys when it comes to political issues. We can even learn from them about ourselves. Important research is being conducted nowadays on that topic. But pay attention: it seems it’s not the taller or the stronger ape who always wins, but the one who succeeds in mastering the social relations and building a larger net of allies.

James Scott wrote about the Malay peasantry in his thesis on”Weapons of the weak”…but that was then. Brechtian modes of resistance in everyday life in order to appreciate the full range of possibilities and limitations under conditions of inequality are things of the past, at least in Malaysia, so we think and talk. Many, many Malay, Indian, Chinese and all poor of every ethnic group now know about weapons of the strong….they know it because we have moved into the 21st century, whence political criminals like the Milosovics, the Charles Tailors, the Pinochets, the Marcos’ and the Radavan Karadicks get hounded by a global citizenry no matter how long it takes…they will be brought to account for their actions, the money they stole and place in so-called safe banks will be returned, the people they unjustly tortured or killed will have their voices heard…even if it is done posthumously…

But the politics of patriarchal, primitive, primate politics in Malaysia is having its last fling…at least I hope so…it will help them if they can learn that they have to change and embrace the reality…

So, I learnt, its not you or me who is confused of these games, it’s the monkey politicians who are trying to do a tightrope between maintaining the primate politics and giving the appearance of doing politics and policing in 21st century Malaysia and against those who are breaking ranks with the alpha-male.

In the book, “The Ascent of Man” [sic], the author says: ‘Knowledge is not a loose-leaf notebook of facts. Above all it is a responsibility for the integrity of what we are, primarily of what we are as ethical creatures. You cannot possibly maintain that informed integrity if you let other people run the world for you while you yourself continue to live out of a rag bag of morals that come from past beliefs. That is really crucial today’.

There are all manner of political, religious, and social movements, which impose their view of reality, their version of the truth, the goal of which is to control and maintain an ever-increasing base of followers. Their proselytizing campaigns, for instance, are designed to play on the common fears of the masses – they know people are afraid and they offer a solution designed to allay those fears. Well-known examples of this kind were the structures in Germany during the Nazi years, in Eastern Europe under the Soviets, Iran under Khomeini, and Kampuchea under Pol Pot. There are many other examples including religious fundamentalist movements. Some movement leaders define an enemy who must be destroyed, an enemy defined as the source of primordial evil. Other movement leaders see the evil in ideas and life-styles. People are offered oversimplified answers that dispel fear created by doubt and uncertainty created by internal psychological conflict and external social forces. This has become particularly dangerous today because of sophisticated communication technology and increasing expertise of the psycho-social sciences.

But this is a crucial point to remember in crowd behaviour. In any kind of social system, the largest group of players is the bystanders. By definition, they do not get actively involved, especially in emergency situations. Where one or more persons are in danger, bystanders could, by taking some form of action, affect the outcome of the situation even if they were not able to avert it. In any emergency, whether that threatening the life of one person or many, bystanders have great power if they choose to exert it because they are by far the largest group in any social system. By not intervening, they give tacit approval to the misuse of power they are witnessing. According to folk wisdom, we have to be part of the problem or part of the solution…and not to decide is to decide.

At the end of the day, it is fear that makes for bystanders. And its not just fear of the powers that be but also fear schooled by family, friends, teachers, religious preachers, etc. We need to empathize with bystanders. But there is hope for change – if bystanders can change their fearful behaviour, they can affect change in the social system that has caused them their fear in the first place.

In a nutshell, the society in which we live is one that is dynamic because it has the power to shape individual choices. Yet, at times the familiar seems strange and the strange seems familiar!!! We live our lives in terms of the choices that we make and many factors influence those choices till we may not know why we made that choice in the first place!! Put that together collectively – then you may begin to see the real mystery of collective behavior and how it is so difficult to understand society, people and even ourselves.

2. Convergence Theory which argues “that that people who wish to act in a certain way come together to form crowds”.
3. Emergent-Norm Theory – developed by Ralph Turner and Lewis Killian (1993). They concluded that social behavior is never entirely predictable; but if similar interests draw people together, distinctive patterns of behavior may emerge in the crowd.