Mobs (and collective hysterias etc.) are dangerous. Studying the dynamics of mobs is crucial for understanding them, and potentially inhibiting or defusing them.
But notice that to admit that mobs are a dangerous sort of “object” does not mean the individuals within the mob are not culpable. Of course they’re culpable!
What’s going on is that there are two very different levels of explanation:
Mob level and individual level.
Science is filled with explanatory levels of this kinds.
Within neuroscience, for example, we may study the brain as a whole, computational (say) entity. Or we may instead study the neuronal details.
In computer science this is just Marr’s algorithmic and implementation levels.
My point since the start of Covid is that it’s crucial we learn the general principles undergirding the moral panic we experienced, because there will be more.
And more.
And each more greatly affecting all humankind at once.
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Learn more about the principles behind mass hysteria:
Free Expression Group, FreeX.group
\_ooFWIRED Magazine, www.LooFWIRED.com
Societal Level Evil, the movie: