The Mob

This summer I witnessed the running of the bulls in New Orleans. A man dressed as a bishop with a bullhorn yelled from the balcony: "For he that drinks Sangria with me today shall be my brother!", and then hundreds of people dressed in white and red ran screaming down the streets of the French Quarter chased by roller-derby girls with curved horns and baseball bats. Men wore shirts that said "NOLA bulls 2009. Por Qué no?".

I've been fascinated by mobs, especially groups of people that get together seemingly for no other reason than just to be around other people. Pure groups. When large masses of people form, its not surprising that bizarre things happen. It's surprising when nothing abnormal happens.

The base of a political theory has to, at base, join up with the way masses of people function. Thurman Arnold begins The Folklore of Capitalism with this premise: "Today, when sophisticated men speak of democracy as the only workable method of government, they mean that government which does not carry its people along with it emotionally, which depends on force, is insecure." The need to connect with the enthusiams of the body politic is a cold fact recognized by leaders across the political spectrum.

Since our institutions are built to respond to the enthusiasms of masses of people, it would help to understand a little about the dynamics of groups of people. Arnold argues that since individuals are full of contradictory drives and goals, then the groups they form are full of contradiction. Thus, at heart, we want our leaders to reflect the contradictions we all feel. Bill Clinton was such a successfull politician because of his foibles. Whole organizations have to reflect the full spectrum of forces acting between and through individuals: "Thus the American industrial organization is a hard-boiled trader, a scholar, a patron of modern architecture, a thrifty housewife, a philanthropist, a statesman preaching sound principles of government, a patriot, and a sentimental protector of widows and orphans at the same time."

Individuals have an infinite capacity to contradict themselves. This capacity is only amplified when lots of them get together. The bulls are actually women on roller skates. New Orleans is not Pamplona. There is no danger of goring. And yet everyone becomes what they are not and runs screaming down the street. Nothing is produced except enthusiasm. There is no ulterior motive. Por qué no?

Organization

The New Orleans running of the bulls as about as close as you can get to the abstract limit of pure-getting-together-without-an-ulterior-motive. In general the enthusiasm of groups is organized towards some end: "political realism about democracy was brought home to us by the success of the dictatorships in Russia and Germany. In these countries the revolutionary governments undertook deliberately to arouse the intense enthusiasm of their poples and to keep it at a high pitch. The method used was not rational; it was the rhythm of uniforms, salutes, marching feet, and national games..." As Arnold recognizes, an organized body can be formed out of a mob by using rhythm, music, and ceremony in general. The undetermined enthusiasm created by what William McNeil? calls "Moving together in time" -- marching, saluting, moving rhythmically with others -- is given content. Music, to take only one tool that can form a unified body out of a mob, works because, like drives that respond to rhythm, it does not know the law of non-contradiction. Whoever, or whatever, attaches himself to music can take on the ability to (temporarily) resolve the contradictions that run through a group.

The organization of a body of people by music is most clearly seen at a concert of purely instrumental music. There is no content to a Mozart symphony. The musicians are playing with pure organization. The anxiety and tension created by a piece of music is produced by the danger of it all "falling apart". A (classical at least) composer approaches the edge of what a listener can keep organized in their head, only to bring it back from the abyss. This pure organization creates a body politic without a goal, without a content. It can do this because it suspends the law of non-contradiction for a period of time. Sometimes, though, it can all "fall apart". Take the response to the first performance of Stravinski's The Rite of Spring as an instance of the composer leading a group of people to an organization that was just too foreign. Or for the reverse processs, take the end of Robert Altman's movie Nashville. During a concert sponsored by a political canidate the diva is killed. It looks like a riot is about to break out. The other star singer, who has political ambitions, grabs the microphone and yells: "This is Nashville, you show 'em what we're made of. They can't do this to us here in Nashville. Okay, everybody, sing!" And as a young woman steps into the fallen diva's shoes, everyone sings: "You may say I ain't free. It don't worry me."

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Arnold is emphatic that no one person can by pure force of will or pure creative power change the organization of a group. "Men--even learned men-- cannot 'think up' forms of social organization." Thus if you want to get anything done within a group of people, you need to abandon the dream of changing them: "The politican does not attempt to change the mythology. He works with it unscrupuosly to get results." The interia created by a group of people is too great to move by pure force of will or intellect. So a lawyer certainly doesn't create things from nothing. The idea is that the contradictions that animate a body of people must be respected. They need to be both spiritually and practically satisfied. On a spiritual level the contradictions are temporarily resolved by cathartic ceremony. And more or less behind the scenes the contradictory practical needs must be met by effective institutions. Right now