In a recent post I used the phrase “mass hysteria” in reference to politics. I was serious.
Widespread outbursts starting election night 2016 (which continue today) appear to be mass hysteria. I’m not being flippant or using the term as an insult. Throughout history mass hysteria has periodically erupted. It’s probably hard to recognize mass hysteria when you’re in it.
Remember when your mom yelled at you for the stupid things you did with your friends? “If all the kids in town jumped in a lake would you do it to?” It feels like everyone suddenly jumped in a lake. There is tremendous peer pressure to jump in a lake with them. I’m treated like a fool because I’m not jumping in the damn lake like I should. Socially, at work, on social media, in every TV show and movie, and everywhere else I am told that my I should get with the program and jump in the lake like “normal” people. I stubbornly refuse to jump in that lake with all the other people. Doesn’t that by definition mean I’m the outlier? Doesn’t it mean I’m missing out on a “mass” movement?
First lets define mass hysteria. I’m no psychologist but here’s my best shot:
Hysteria: “Behavior exhibiting excessive or uncontrollable emotion, such as fear or panic.”
It’s entirely possible to be displeased with election results without being hysterical. Hysterical is emotion that’s excessive. Doesn’t this look excessive?
A peaceful democratic transition of power didn’t have the outcome I’d prefer.
Doesn’t this look uncontrolled?
My life in a wealthy, industrialized, first world nation is completely ruined!
We’ve all been hysterical occasionally (unless you’re stoic to the core). Once I hooked a nice pike and flipped out when the line broke. I was excessively pissed off. Perhaps you’ve met a sports fan the day their favorite team got pummeled? Often, hysterics is just a person who’s having a bad day until they lose perspective.
It’s only mass hysteria when it cascades through the population.
Mass Hysteria: “…(also known as collective hysteria, group hysteria, or collective obsessional behavior) is a phenomenon that transmits collective illusions of threats, whether real or imaginary, through a population in society as a result of rumors and fear…”
That’s exactly what we’re experiencing. The transmission of collective illusions of threats. Can you watch cable TV without hearing transmission of dire anti-Trump predictions and warnings? If you go to a mall, have dinner at a restaurant, or get a cup of coffee how often does that include a dose of anti-Trump rhetoric?
Every president has detractors but folks are excessively keyed up about the Orange Menace. They claim Trump causes a reaction of urgent, powerful, fear, revulsion, hatred, etc… If you read the definition for hysteric, it seems to fit. I don’t think they’re faking it. They say their emotions are deeply felt and I believe them.
It’s OK to dislike the President but if you’re acting like he’s going to personally rape your cat you’ve lost perspective. People who will never be in the same room (and only rarely in the same state) as Trump act like he’s riffling through their garbage cans at night. The reaction is not justified by real world conditions. Also, throwing a brick through a Starbucks in Washington DC when Trump has been in office 11 minutes is not reacting to anything he has done in office.
The current reaction is out of scale. Reasonable citizens expect to be disappointed by elections roughly 50% of the time. I’ve been disappointed by election results. Who hasn’t?
Non-hysteric people handle disappointment well. In 2012 Mitt Romney got 60,933,504 votes but lost to Barack Obama. That’s 60,933,504 people who didn’t get what they want. Did Mitt’s supporters burn cars? Did they call Obama a Nazi and riot in Salt Lake City? Did they scream helplessly at the sky (their words not mine)? Did they wear pussy hats? Did they shoot congressmen?
House Majority Whip Steve Scalise of Louisiana was shot while playing baseball. Some nations resolve political disputes in this manner, but it is not common for America.
Were there riots in Portland because Mitt Romney lost? Why not? After all, 60,933,504 voters were disappointed. Yet they quietly went about their business. Well balanced people rarely riot.
Even for Portland this is not normal behavior.
Also, there’s wildly divergent explanations for facts we all agree on. Trump garnered 62,979,636 votes. (It’s on Wikipedia ya’ll.) My explanation for this is that 62,979,636 citizens intentionally voted for Trump (or his hair).
An alternative point of view involves vaguely defining a situation were 62,979,636 votes are explained away. They’re portrayed as something other than an honest citizen’s choice. Anything from mis-counts to “collusion” with Russia.
Think about it. What exactly is this event of horrific ill-defined Russian collusion that they’ve been investigating for well over a year? Nobody argues that Putin sent paratroopers into 62,979,636 houses with 62,979,636 guns to force 62,979,636 voters to tearfully vote in a way they didn’t want to vote. So what’s the beef? What rationally experienced event could make 62,979,636 free citizens’ votes not count?
This rankles me. There was (possibly) an attempt to influence me and therefore I’m supposed to clutch my pearls and impeach a sitting democratically elected leader? Nope! I encounter attempts to influence my choices all the time. Every political speech by every politician is an attempt to influence me. Politicians claim they will “fight for me”. Really? In a cage? With clubs? Can I watch? Violent imagery is attempted influence.
Bernie said he’d eliminate my student loans. Isn’t that an attempt to influence me? Hillary said everyone who didn’t vote for her was deplorable. Isn’t that an attempt to influence me? Trump said if I voted for him I’d win so much I’d get tired of winning. That’s as unsubtle as humanly possible and unquestionably an attempt to influence me. JFK told us we’d go to the moon and he was a hero. Carter told us to put on a sweater and he was a one termer. Politics is nothing but influence.
Commercialism is influence too. Nike ads tell me flashy sneakers will help me dunk a basketball. Medical ads offer to make my dick hard and imply women will lust for my handsome physique. Women are told to buy hygiene products that allow them to ride horses and do yoga while menstruating. A hard dick and hot women? Can you get more blatant at trying for influence? Also, by what logic do tampons come with horses?
Sometimes the very act of influencing me to have an emotional response is the point: Facebook wants me to get sad about a sick polar bear. If I keep my head and reflect that bears are mortal and die every day (just like flowers and fireflies) Facebook doesn’t bulk up its hit count.
None of this is even remotely unusual. None of it means I should freak out and riot in the streets.
That’s why I’m calling it mass hysteria. What just happened was the 58th consecutive quadrennial American election. The results were not as expected but that’s why we actually have elections. Otherwise we’d just ask Nate Silver to hand over a crown. To me, the 2016 election was nothing to lose sleep over. Others saw a disaster and they had an excessive reaction which they continue to transmit to like minded people.
I have some sympathy. It must suck. People in the throes of it seem to be in an unpleasant mental state. They’re unhappy. They’re stressed. They’re suffering.
How to bridge the gap? Throw a line to the suffering. “It’s not so bad, the lights are still on and the beer’s cold. Have a brew and relax.” I don’t know. It’s hard to let go of a strong emotion once it has you in its grasp. It’s hard to spend a couple years screaming in rage and then one day say “meh”. Maybe it simply must run its course.
I call it like I see it. If mass hysteria has happened in the past, it can happen today, and it would look like what we’re seeing. Presumably, it’ll fade with time. The Salem witch hunts lasted about two years. Except for the 20 executions and 5 that died in prison everyone recovered. (I didn’t say mass hysteria never comes with a body count. Ask the French about their revolution! Watch your six!)
Good luck. Keep your head and avoid crowds. This too shall pass.
I don’t understand how some of these people manage to sustain their current level of righteous indignation. They seem to lurch from one perceived injustice to another without so much as a break to take a breath. What are they going to do when something happens that requires a legitimate response? And if they are so sure that we’re doomed because of who won the last election, why don’t they put all that energy into preparing for the inevitable?
“And if they are so sure that we’re doomed because of who won the last election, why don’t they put all that energy into preparing for the inevitable?” Good question. I posit because it requires effort beyond “screaming at the sky”. I’ll admit to doing that when sh*t gets real sometimes…then I pick up and move on because only I can fix whatever my “me sad-ism” is. Or maybe they just need to take a good dump and feel better (classic advice from my Grandmother).
I agree wholeheartedly. Much of the attraction to “saving the world” is because it’s a pretend alternative to the real work of improving yourself. If whiny nitwits who gathered to scream at the sky spent the same time in self improvement (or small improvements to their local situation) they’d be far better off; hit the gym, read a thoughtful book, clean the gutters for an elderly neighbor, pick up trash, etc… All of those entail actual work but also come with a real world payoff. Such a lost opportunity to spend your time yammering about the bogeyman (or Trump)
You’re misinterpreting this. If you want me to explain why, I will, but not today, my workload is too heavy.
It’s very possible I’ve interpreted things wrong. It’s hard to sum up a situation when you’re neck deep in the situation itself. I suspect it’ll all seem clearer (and hopefully less dire) in a few decades. No worries about a detailed explanation. Attend to work; which is far more important than a random blogger. In fact, my amateurish attempt at “diagnosing” a current state of the zeitgeist isn’t very important unless it leads to deeper insights. I’ve come up with nothing much more than “ride it out” so it’s mostly a moot point.
This amount of mass hysteria is nothing. Wait until the technological singularity enables libertarians to build swarm gadgets to militarily eject the state from their lives. At that point most voters in the US will run around believing the sky is falling because a political centralization isn’t in control. I don’t most human beings can emotionally tolerate having their non-libertarian power stripped from them. The inherited great ape instinctual brain support for monkey troop politics means they will go crazy if not able to exercise it.
This is where I live:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mad_Gasser_of_Mattoon
Nice example of what I’m talking about! (I’d never heard of it before now.)
I think you’re analysis of the situation is pretty good as far as it goes. It just doesn’t delve into the “why” of it.
The “why” is the part that leads me to believe you’re prediction “This too shall pass” may not be entirely accurate.
Why do the wailing people believe that a Trump presidency is a disaster? Why do they, against all evidence, refuse to believe that 62,979,636 of their fellow Americans actually WANTED Trump to be President (or at least wanted Trump more than Hillary (shudder)).
I have a theory: Because people who believe the state should be providing for their student loans, and “basic income” and medical care, and dictating to us what kinds of cars to drive, and whether we can fill in a ditch on our property, and how much water our toilet can use per flush, and whether we can get a plastic straw with my slushy, and how big a soft drink we can buy…etc, etc, etc ad nauseum, basically believe that we shouldn’t have any say over our lives. That we should just shut up and do what our “betters” tell us.
And who are our “betters”? Why…they are, of course. Why can’t we just follow along and let them tell us who to elect and how to live every aspect of our lives? Don’t we rubes understand that they can make our decisions and take care of us MUCH better than we can do it ourselves?
The Gall!
That’s why the hysterical reaction. That’s why the anguish and tears. This election wasn’t just a repudiation of their candidate for president. It was a repudiation of THEM. It was a repudiation of their superiority. Of their benevolence. Of their wisdom.
How DARE we!!!
I agree with your description of “why”. The folks upset about Trump would be perfectly happy if their team was in control of the levers of power that they loathe when Trump has the wheel. I just didn’t want to go too far down that rabbit hole.
Long ago the left was convinced Dick Cheney was evil incarnate. As the Obamacare debate heated up I would say “do you really want Dick Cheney in charge of your medical care?” You could almost see the internal gears slipping. They had never considered any possibility other than a powerful bureaucracy that was run by themselves or someone who was exactly like them… forever. The idea that power, once aggregated, might someday be run by your worst enemy was simply not on their radar screen. It did no good but it was fun to watch.