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David Palmer's avatar

Thank you, Manny, for reminding me of the positive side of crowds: your choral group.

As someone who is unsocial by nature I get nervous when people coagulate into groups. If you were to ask me whether I like people, my answer would be: by and large yes when they are alone, for most people are rational and kind when you get them one-one-one. But when people surrender their personal identity to that of a group they easily turn irrational and unkind. The trouble with humanity is that most of its members most of the time seem to be hell bent on submerging themselves in a crowd of some kind. And even a positive crowd, such as a choral group or a police force, can be infected by some nasty emotion that might be repulsed by an individual but which will spread like wildfire in any crowd.

I think all human crowds are either herds or packs. The mass hysteria created by the government and legacy news media in 2020 created a herd as frightened people huddled together in search of security. But then, because fear (that comes from feeling one is not in control) can easily switch to anger (which creates a semblance of being in control) that national herd began to take on the elements of a pack, hunting the outsiders, the 'lone wolves' that cause any herd to feel threatened. The government and news media, of course, knew this would happen.

Ardern has a degree in communication studies, so Goebbels will be one of her heroes and she would have known exactly what she was doing. I'm still unsure whether she is guilty of criminal negligence leading to the deaths of thousands or malfeasance leading to the deaths of thousands, but either way she understands propaganda.

My wife and I have adopted as one of our current standards the phrase 'know it but don't think it'. In other words, it's essential to know and remember what happened, but it's not a good idea to think too much about it for one tends to get penned into anger, retribution and paranoia.

But it's necessary that some people do think about it on behalf of us all, and keep digging up evidence and finding intelligent ways to help us address our memories and heal ourselves. You are one of those people, Manny, for which I thank you.

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robyn payne's avatar

Brilliant summarisation of our divided society. Thankyou for posting your viewpoint on groups.

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