Birdnow's Aviary

October 21, 2022

Collective Madness

Chester McAteer

"Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one...We find that whole communities suddenly fix their minds upon one object, and go mad in its pursuit; that millions of people become simultaneously impressed with one delusion, and run after it, till their attention is caught by some new folly more captivating than the first."

"Let us not, in the pride of our superior knowledge, turn with contempt from the follies of our predecessors. The study of the errors into which great minds have fallen in the pursuit of truth can never be uninstructive. As the man looks back to the days of his childhood and his youth, and recalls to his mind the strange notions and false opinions that swayed his actions at the time, that he may wonder at them; so should society, for its edification, look back to the opinions which governed ages that fled.â€

â€• Charles MacKay, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds

In other words: Stupidity is Addictive!

Tim adds:

Once I saw a nature show about some wolves and buffalo in Canada. The wolves would show up, wait patiently, while facing off with the much bigger buffalo. The Buffalo would eventually become restive and one would try to make a break for it then the whole herd would stampede - giving the wolves exactly what they wanted. Worked every time. That is like modern Man, especially conservatives. The left are the wolves, who wait patiently for us to panic and run. And eventually we do so. We share the collective madness. It's not just applicable to politics, but to all of life. We wouldn't be talking about "transgenderism" or "equity" or "white supremacism" now in a rational world, but everyone is afraid to buck the group think. So the whole society declines into collective madness. If those idiot buffalo ever attacked the wolves they could kill them all, and the same holds true of us. We could end the madness now just by sticking together and not panicking. But we won't do that. We prefer to go to our doom than to step out of the fold and fight.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 09:48 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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1 A friend of mine once told me that you could go out on a street corner and stand looking up and within a few minutes everyone within sight would be standing with you, also looking up. At nothing. I told him he was nuts and he challenged me to try it. I did, and he was right. I stood looking up at nothing and everyone in sight was looking up, at nothing. No one asked what we were looking at. They just started looking up. It was weird.

Posted by: Bill H at October 21, 2022 04:28 PM (Q7br2)

2 Right he was Bill. I've experienced that phenomenon a time or two.

Once my wife and I were at a Cardinals game and we were waiting for the crowd to disperse. We found the only open space - a spot near the stairwell, and we looked out over the cityscape. Soon the crowd collected around us and they all started peering in the direction we were looking, convinced something was happening. It was amazing; everyone just assumed we had something worth seeing.

It's happened in stores frequently too, where people all crowd around the one section we are looking for an item, and they dog our heels. Or I've been fishing in a boat and had other boats five yards from us the whole way down the river.

People are herd animals. It frankly annoys me.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at October 22, 2022 08:11 AM (N9qAf)

3 In other words: Stupidity is Addictive!

Posted by: Breitling Replica at May 26, 2023 09:04 PM (SUYyh)

Saudi Arabia and OPEC+ have assured that gas prices are going right back up and Biden is as ridiculous as Baghdad Bob.

Posted by: Fake Watches at May 27, 2023 08:01 PM (3pfeY)

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