Mobs and silos
More than 50 years ago I did something I have regretted ever since and wish I had never done. It was Halloween and in our rural community there was a tradition of young people playing “tricks” on their neighbours. And yes, most farms still had outhouses, and many of them got tipped over every Halloween. Soaping or waxing car windows was another common “trick.”
There were about eight of us friends who had talked for several weeks to come up with a unique, creative “trick” more in keeping with our level of brilliance. There was a family in our church community who were renowned for their pristine farmhouse, yard and driveway.
They happened to be the aunt and uncle of one of us, and somehow we settled on the idea of dumping some used oil on their pure-white concrete driveway.
So late Halloween evening we piled into the fastest pickup among us – a Ford 390 – three in the front and five in the box. We drove past the farm and seeing all was dark the driver backed onto the driveway, one of us threw the pail with about a gallon of used oil onto the driveway, and with tires squealing we took off.
There was much guffawing and bravado for the rest of the evening, at the same time as we agreed that we had better keep our ingenious Halloween “trick” secret for fear of consequences.
As soon as I was alone going home I began to sense that we had done something very wrong.
In the days that followed there was still guffawing but I think all of us began to more and more see the hurt we had caused. Unfortunately our group of brave young men never worked up the courage to confess our wrong to the family or try to make amends or ask for forgiveness. (Our contrition was not encouraged when my friend’s father – a brother-in-law to that family and who had heard and figured out what happened – on the following Halloween asked his son if we needed some more used oil for the evening.)
We had done something which none of us would have ever done by ourselves, but in the bravado of the group screwed up the courage and rationalizations to do.
United action – “there is strength in unity” – is a very powerful dynamic in life capable of achieving much good. On the other hand united action can just as powerfully be applied to nefarious purposes – think “mob”: mob rule, or mob justice or lynch mob.
People will often do things when they are part of a mob that they would never do as individuals. That Halloween evening when my friends and I unthinkingly surrendered our individual consciences and clear thinking to the whims of the group we each wanted to be part of, we became a mob.
It seems to me that mob-like behaviour has become a very common reality in our day and age, and contributes greatly to the toxic polarization and culture wars we have been living through. The internet and its ability to connect us with people who think and believe like us has made it far more common for our society to divide into teams/mobs – us and them. It is easy to spend all our time reading and listening to people we agree with, and to find warm unity in condemnations of those who think otherwise.
This phenomenon is often described as silos: we find comfort and security by confining ourselves to silos filled with people, media, websites, videos, ideas, arguments, politics, etc. that we are comfortable with, and easily show disdain for the silos different than ours.
The politics of our era are a depressing illustration of this dynamic – lately you’ve been seeing this with our neighbours to the south as much as I have. There have always been political differences and debates, but not the outright vitriol, hatred, condemnations, lying and dirty tricks we see every day.
And much of the news media has ceased to report objectively, instead piling on by deliberately presenting information with biased ideological spin, both on the left and on the right.
Is this really who we are, who we have become? Is there any way we as nations can walk our way back out of the horrible mob-abyss we have begun to descend into? How can ordinary folks like us possibly have any influence over this situation?
The way things are will not change until you and I change, beginning by recognizing the mob-silos we have unthinkingly surrendered our individual consciences and clear thinking to. And the best way to start is by valuing and seeking conversations with people who think and believe differently from us. For this to be possible we will need to stop getting all of our information and opinions only from sources that agree with us.
Moreover, when in our silos and especially when we read and write online, we are sheltered from meaningful personal interaction with people different from us, and we feel greater licence to read, believe and write hurtful and often hateful things about others. That’s “mobish.”
The best tonic for our society’s malady is respectful personal interactions and relationships. Mob behaviour thrives in anonymity – the KKK wore covers over their heads; many of today’s protestors wear face coverings to conceal their identity – but withers when people sit around a table and choose to have face-to-face conversations with folks they disagree with.
That’s something we can all do.