At What Price Civility, Monkey See, Monkey Do

Is it just me, or are there more out-of-control folks wandering amongst us?  Did these people always exist?  What prompted them to crawl out of the woodwork?

Crawling Out of the Woodwork

I’m sure a psychologist somewhere is writing a book on this topic, but I think it is some manifestation of imitative behavior.  The psychology of mob mentality is described as when people lose their sense of individual responsibility and respond to heightened emotions, anger, and hostility.  The riots of January 6, 2021, at our nation’s Capital would be such an instance.  In fact, many of the participants in that mob now in trouble with the law are trying to use mob influence as an excuse for their actions.

Trump Mob Attacks Nation's Capital

I think that mob behavior is but a single facet of a much larger problem.  When people are provided with a prominent figurehead who exhibits extreme aberrant behavior, they are more comfortable mimicking that behavior.  Just 203 days after Donald Trump was sworn in as the 45^th president of the United States, we had self-identified members of the alt-right, neo-Nazis, Klansmen, and radical militias, hold a rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.  Counter-protestors showed up.  Then, about a half-mile away from the main rally site, a white supremacist used his car to ram through a group of counter-protestors.  He injured 35 people and killed one.  His mother thought he was at a Trump rally. He received two life sentences and an additional 419 years for other offenses.

KKK at Charlottesville, Virginia

During the pandemic that began in the US in early 2020, we saw people begin to come unhinged.  We saw the nation’s president ignore the virus, downplay its importance, and refuse to wear a mask when scientists and medical personnel advised that such mask-wearing would save lives.  That president would later catch the virus and would recover only after he afforded himself the absolute best medical treatment available.  He would continue to downplay the pandemic, insist that business and the nation’s financial stability was more important than the cost in human lives, and he would ignore all attempts of his scientific and medical advisors to guide the nation through the crisis.  He secretly got vaccinated but word leaked out several days later.

Is it any wonder then, that others would mimic his behavior?  How can we act surprised when the “Karens” and “Kens” in our communities take that same attitude and flaunt their personal beliefs over that of science and the law?  How can we expect even civil behavior or a modicum of common decency?  They all seem to have taken the former president’s attitude and made it their own.  People are now walking around with hair-trigger tempers.  One single perceived affront and stand back.

A recent event unfolded on an airplane where a passenger and a flight attendant got into an altercation.  The female passenger felt that the solution was to punch the flight attendant in the face and knock out two of her teeth.  While there may be more to this argument, it still stands that it was a disagreement that could have been solved without resorting to violence.  The offending passenger was arrested on a charge of battery causing serious bodily injury and was taken to a local detention facility.  She was forever banned from flying Southwest Airlines.

While masking requirements for air travel have been at the heart of many such incidents, this one seemed to center on closing a tray table and not following instructions.  The airline industry reports that in the most recent 2-month period beginning in early April, there were 500 such onboard incidents.  Surely, pent-up emotions from recent restrictions, masking demands, and other unfamiliar requests to change our behavior, have now manifested in outrage.  The FAA used to see 100 to 150 cases of disorderly or dangerous behavior aboard passenger planes in a typical year.  Since January 1, 2021, the agency has seen over 2,500 cases with about 1,900 involving passengers refusing to wear masks.

I believe the overall rise in violent acts committed by people who had heretofore avoided such activity is partly the response to pandemic fatigue, but more importantly a mimicking of the horrible examples of our former president and many in Congress or in gubernatorial positions around the country.  Mob mentality occurs when people get caught up in their surroundings where previously unacceptable behavior becomes acceptable, responsibility is diffused within the group and emotions get amplified.  Mix in a dose of MSMD (monkey see, monkey do) and thoughts of aberrant behavior are manifested in aggression.

With social media added to the mix, it no longer takes a physical gathering to make a mob.  People feed off the posts and rants of others to amplify their own previously repressed feelings.  Like the pandemic that spreads by close contact with infected individuals, the propensity for violent acts is exacerbated by the media, both social and mainstream, that depicts other violence.  Coverage of events in Washington State can fuel hostility in Wisconsin, New York, or Florida.

Eventually, this pandemic will be just a memory, but deep-seated anger and hostility will still be with us.  The national divide was inextricably widened by a giant wedge of Trump.  His rhetoric fanned the flames of suppressed hostility, racism, xenophobia, and the like, and created a wildfire that engulfed an entire political party.  What was once smoldering resentment is now a five-alarm fire.  By some definitions, a five-alarm fire is one that requires assistance from other municipalities or jurisdictions.  Let’s hope we can get this under control before our nation follows the fate of the Roman Empire.

We need to demand civility within our government officials and hold them accountable for their behavior.  This holds for both sides of the aisle.  Our leaders should lead by example.  We should not tolerate the likes of those who would prefer to shut down our government before negotiating any legislation.  I believe that if Mitch McConnell was told he had kidney stones, he would refuse to pass them.