Mob mentality cycle
The LambdaConf debacle is surfacing an utterly terrifying mob mentality that has unchecked capability to destroy any person, at any time, based solely on their views, opinions, or lifestyle. If you think this is okay, I’m here to help you find your way back to decency.
For this remedial class, I intend to take advantage of the power of abstraction: I’m going to derive general rules through the dissection of specific examples. In total, I want to highlight two specific patterns of human behavior that, under the loupe of abstraction, are revealed to be one and the same thing.
Then
First, we have the centuries of human tragedy that preceded — and precipitated — the US Civil Rights movement which, by the late 1960s, culminated in a seminal public policy triumph that gave paper emancipation to a large swath of the American population. The American blacks lived through agony that defies my ability to wield words in describing it. Worse yet, the whole affair manifested as senseless, pointless cruelty. It simply happened, exactly like other man-made horrors of centuries past. Slavery in America was business as usual by the standards of human societies that came before us.
That dark period of slave ownership was all about keeping in power the monoculture that benefited from owning slaves. White men, who held in their hands the means of agricultural and industrial production, were keen to maintain the status quo in which they could continue to act as owners of the world and many of its men; sovereign determinants of wealth distribution; gatekeepers of human happiness; controllers of those who they deemed beneath them.
By all standards those white slave owners had a good racket going: they were in charge, secure, and unimpeded in their activities. None of them had to stand alone, since they were part of the dominant culture. None had to worry much about the continued solidity of their hold on everyone else, for even if one slave owner faltered, others would step in to protect the status quo.
America’s slave owners were a true monoculture: no one but their kind could prosper here, and no one dared to. I was glad to see them go, but we managed to replace them with a monoculture of another kind.
Now
Fast forward to 2016: we live in an advanced age! Maybe so, except huge numbers of people are still living in poverty and without guaranteed access to quality healthcare, so it’s early to count our blessings.
Our society isn’t all peaches and unicorns either. The slave owners of yore were replaced by a ruling technocratic class of progressive, liberal, far-left, privileged, and deeply entrenched individuals. To some members of our society, especially those far removed from places such as Silicon Valley, this ruling class might be an abstract group. To myself, however, these are concrete people with names, LinkedIn profiles, and conference speakerships. These are thought leaders who readily forge ahead in their business conquests as well as social justice campaigns. These people make hard and fast decisions about who and how they hire. These are the people who gave us horrors such as shareholder value, culture fit, and “crushin’ it” with reckless abandon — health, family, and everyone’s well-being be damned.
These are also the people who firmly took sides in various social debates — with disastrous results. What looks like social justice to one person is oppression to another. The Internet is well stocked with stories of folks who made known their somewhat outmoded, misguided, or poorly thought out views, only to be ostracized by communities that they formerly found themselves part of.
Worse yet, the new liberal majority has taken it upon themselves to take away the livelihoods of those whom they consider to be beyond the pale of some set of acceptable ideologies. This is where the power of abstraction will come in handy.
Abstract all the things
On one hand, we have the rich white slave owners who used their control over the means of production to hold down a population of oppressed American blacks.
On the other hand, we have the rich liberal class of technocrats, which uses its control over the means of production to exercise thought police powers over the population employed by said technocratic control class.
It is easy to draw parallels between these monocultures. A clear pattern emerges: a dominant group uses its economic power to force not only its general policies onto the population at large, but also control what people think. The very ideas in our heads are now subject to economic embargoing by the ruling class.
The modern technocracy is a well-entrenched monoculture of the purest variety. Standing up against it is tantamount to career suicide: imagine what would have happened if I were to write this essay under my own name? I would have lost my job, my friends, my standing in the community — all on the basis of throwing a challenge in the face of those who brand the thoughts and feelings of others as thoughtcrime, wrongthink, or whatever dystopian terminology sounds more horrifying.
Worse yet, even a fleeting attempt at such dissent would result in a long-term, continued impact on my ability to provide for myself and my family. Labels, cheap to make and easy to deliver, would follow me around forever. This has happened before and will happen again.
After?
Those of you who think this is okay should be damn well ashamed of yourselves. You must be fuming by this point in the article, imagining the writer as some kind of white supremacist, surrounded by mounted animal heads, numerous guns, and hanging implements for KKK bed sheet attire, while torch-wielding posses patrol the writer’s large East Texas ranch against intrusions by racially impure elements.
You’re wrong: I’m neither of those things. I don’t own a gun, I live in a large, highly diverse American city. I’ve been subject to discrimination myself, and I’ve fought tooth and nail to rescue others from attempted discrimination. People of many creeds, colors and origins consider me a friend; I do so likewise, because how else is one to live? An echo chamber isn’t a fun place to be. It would be lonely, grimy, and depressing.
I’m not here to defend legacy ways of thought. Racism isn’t okay, subjugation is wrong, slavery was a mistake — a horrible waste of human potential; an inexcusable imposition of inescapable suffering upon innocent families. You and I agree on those points! I’m here to make clear one thing: those of you who are ready to scalpel from the living flesh of society anyone — and I mean it, anyone! — who doesn’t think exactly like you, those of you who are fuming right now will one day sorely regret the missed opportunity at being the bigger persons.
You will regret not having taken the high road when you still could. You will regret not having fostered an unassailable unity based on genuine understanding, civilized discourse, patient teaching and — best of all — the mercy that countless generations before you failed to apply towards the end of this balkanization that will one day play a pivotal role in the downfall of our species.
Don’t wait: take this opportunity to finally make this world a better place. Stop chasing the latest fad of what some call “social justice”, which is — regrettably — anything but! Show that you’re bigger (no pun intended) than the bigotry that you’re claiming to fight.
Show with your actions, not words, that you’re as big as the entire human race. Show us how it’s done, and we will all follow.
Break the cycle of mob mentality.
