The power of a mob
How about a little glance into the past...
I was recently reminded about something my grandfather told me when I was young.
Back during World War II, he was a member of the Knights of Columbus - and he went to one of their regular meetings one evening. During the meeting, one of the members was called out of the room for a moment. After the person had left the room, the evening's speaker began to tell the group that the person who had left the room was recently discovered to be a Nazi spy. Mind you, America during the war was a Nazi hate machine, just as it became a communist hate machine during the McCarthy trials and many other kinds of hate machines during its torturous travels to today.
The speaker provided "evidence" of the spy's doings and by the time the man came back into the room, the mob was ready to tear him to pieces. Remember that the Knights of Columbus is a Catholic men's organization...
When the mob had siezed the traitor, the speaker let the cat out of the bag - it had all been a setup. The man wasn't a traitor...never had been. He was just another K of C member who agreed to go along with the little ruse - to prove a point. The mob rules, if you let it. These peace-loving Christians were ready to kill someone because they were acting as a group...
This affected my grandfather deeply - deeply enough that he desperately wanted me to understand how he had been duped by a powerful speaker and a united group of people. He was plainly wanting me to beware of such things.
According to my grandfather, they were sworn to secrecy that the event had occurred. But when he told me about it, he noted that the message was too important to hide, and was many years gone anyway.
Don't let the mob rule. Make decisions for yourself. Otherwise, history may repeat itself.
Don't believe the mob rules? Think again...
I was recently reminded about something my grandfather told me when I was young.
Back during World War II, he was a member of the Knights of Columbus - and he went to one of their regular meetings one evening. During the meeting, one of the members was called out of the room for a moment. After the person had left the room, the evening's speaker began to tell the group that the person who had left the room was recently discovered to be a Nazi spy. Mind you, America during the war was a Nazi hate machine, just as it became a communist hate machine during the McCarthy trials and many other kinds of hate machines during its torturous travels to today.
The speaker provided "evidence" of the spy's doings and by the time the man came back into the room, the mob was ready to tear him to pieces. Remember that the Knights of Columbus is a Catholic men's organization...
When the mob had siezed the traitor, the speaker let the cat out of the bag - it had all been a setup. The man wasn't a traitor...never had been. He was just another K of C member who agreed to go along with the little ruse - to prove a point. The mob rules, if you let it. These peace-loving Christians were ready to kill someone because they were acting as a group...
This affected my grandfather deeply - deeply enough that he desperately wanted me to understand how he had been duped by a powerful speaker and a united group of people. He was plainly wanting me to beware of such things.
According to my grandfather, they were sworn to secrecy that the event had occurred. But when he told me about it, he noted that the message was too important to hide, and was many years gone anyway.
Don't let the mob rule. Make decisions for yourself. Otherwise, history may repeat itself.
Don't believe the mob rules? Think again...
posted by Erik | 6:00 PM
1 Comments:
What a great story. We know someone who saw American History X (mmm ... Edward Norton) and thought that the skinheads in the movie made some pretty good points. So Trevor and I were talking about how skinheads have a compelling message for people who don't want to think for themselves. It's kind of sad.
It reminds me of a time in junior high, science class I think, when our teacher had us pretty much convinced that people with brown eyes were smarter than people with blue eyes. I remember all the heads nodding and people saying, "Yeah, yeah, that makes sense." And it was both sides -- the brown-eyed people nodding with smug superiority, and some of the blue-eyed people accepting their lot in life, almost smacking their hands to their foreheads as if they should have known.
It's so easy to get duped, so it's important to think critically.
Oh, and PS -- you know you blogger can publish to ektunes.com if you want it to. Easy as pie.
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