[FRIAM] merging with the mob

[Steven A Smith]

Glen/Nick/Marcus/List -

When reading Ben Franklin's autobiography as a young man (me not Ben), I
remember being disturbed by his observation about the members of the
Continental Congress as (paraphrase) "building factions in response to a
particular topic, then dissolving and reforming them into different
factions for the next topic".  

I thought he was criticizing this behaviour, that he was suggesting that
this was "fickle".   I now am not sure if that was the case, I think
instead, it was (at least) my own projection.  As a strongly
individualistic personality, at least by circumstance, I think I found
the possibility of (more) persistent tribalism/factionation being a holy
grail...

I know I am still *highly* conflicted about my own role with "tribe".  
I don't like to have to be anti-choice to be pro-life (or pro-death to
be pro-choice), I don't like to have to be anti-semitic to question
Israel's treatment of Palestinians, I don't like to have to be a
"Republican" or "Conservative" if I might not support the current
Democrat running (or in office) or not agree with every detail of the
current instance of a collective "Liberal" or "Progressive" issue.   It
seems that tribalism too often degenerates to false dichotomies.  

As for "mob", I understand that Glen was deliberately invoking it to
cajole/confront us with it's negative implications.   My own biggest
discomfort(s) with "the mob" is twofold:  1) I seem never comfortable in
a "Mob" because I can't shake the awareness that they could "turn on me"
in a heartbeat if I didn't manage to remain fully compliant with their
rhetoric; 2) I am equally uncomfortable with my own "berserker"
element... next to having my own tribe (mob) turn against me on a whim
is the fear I will wake up and realize that I have been entrained in
something abhorrent to me.  

I really respect Glen's contrarian contributions, so don't mean this to
be an argument *against* "merging with the mob", merely bracketing
aspects of it that I think are key in doing it "righteously" if there is
such a thing.

Looking briefly at the complementary space, after 50 or 60 years of
being "me" and having a fairly strong "individualist" bias, I accept
that there is something fundamentally flawed with that as a default
solution.  Sure, every hive species seems to have "rogue" members who do
not live within the hive, and our closest familiars in collective animal
species (herd and pack animals) have examples of highly individualistic
"batchelor" outliers who do not participate in the herd/pack from
"inside", though I think they generally contribute as "outsiders" in
some sense.  


Carry On,

 - Steve


On 1/25/18 9:59 AM, uǝlƃ ☣ wrote:
> On 01/25/2018 08:42 AM, Nick Thompson wrote:
>> Apologies for arriving late at the party and then quibbling, but .... I assume we all agree that not all groups of people with a common set of values and interests are "mobs".
> We can't really agree on that unless we define "mobs" in such a way as to allow persnickety particulars. 8^)  Because I don't find anything wrong with groupthink, or mobs, it will be difficult for me to justify those persnickety particulars ... and the round-and-round sophistry we'll have to go through to arrive at them.
>
> The truth (as in the eventual consensus after years of haggling) will be "everything in moderation, including moderation".  Being trapped by an entraining pattern is good, as long as it's not permanent.
>