Institute of Marine Administration and Sciences, Istanbul University, Turkey
Received date: 29/07/2016; Accepted date: 05/08/2016; Published date: 13/08/2016
Visit for more related articles at Research & Reviews: Journal of Social Sciences
This review article derives on an article containing thorough information on psycho-socio-criminological theories about mass criminal activities or collective misdemeanor; as compiled and formulated by a Turkish scholar and now-retired- judge (and for a time the very president) of the Turkish Supreme Court of Appeal; namely Sami Selçuk. The valuable work got published in French, in the journal of the Department of Political Science of Ankara University. Related views of Sighele, Tarde, Le Bon, Mac Dougall, Freud, Jung, Adler, Espina and Reiwald are considered in some detail. Sociological approaches by Geiger, Kautsky, Lippman, Dewey, Allport and above all Durkheim are also highlighted concisely. Even prominent classical crime-novelists’ names are not neglected to be cited at the end of the text.
Crime, Criminality, Infraction, Culpability, Collectivity, Crowd, Mass, Mob, Throng, Society, Individuality.
This study contributes in the existing literature of criminology studies in the sense that it makes a fairly complete mention of the leading crime scientists, who constitute the forefathers or pioneers of the theory-developpers, in the field. The section of endnotes contains tiny portraits of the scholars, obtainedfrom the internet thanks to a painstaking task. Those pictures help the readers in getting the given knowledge “embedded” into their memories; since visual remembrance is known to be superior to verbal memory, in general. To motivate the reader further; the author included two illustrations of his, as well. Sami Selçuk, author of the main source handled in the review-article, is a university-professor of criminal law, presently. A number of auxiliary sources are also employed by S.Çaya, in addition to many comments and explanations.
Crime is a historical problem of human societies, which was always fought against through various measures depending upon the predominant culture. A society free of crime and full of genuine peace is missed by people, especially modern urban people, who know that they might be possible victims of crimes, themselves. Yet; those same people are also sure that such a wish could be nothing but a utopia.
We know quite well that criminal acts constitute a social phenomenon. Besides; according to Durkheim, this is just a normal social phenomenon. In fact; according to the great French sociologist; as expressed in his work titled “The Rules of Sociological Method”, not only is crime normal but also it is easy to prove its usefulness! Contrary to current ideas, the criminal person does not appear any more as a drastically unsociable being. He is not a parasitic, alien non-assimilating body within the society. Rather; he is a regulating-agent of social life! From this point of view; crime should not be conceived as a malice confined into very narrow limits. When the crime rate is lower than the ordinary level, the society should not congratulate itself. This is simultaneous with and reinforcing upon a social disturbance. In times of economic hardships the number of shots and wounds committed is registered at its lowest value. On the other hand; it seems that Karl Marx preceded Durkheim in this topic. He had written the following statements: A criminal commits a crime. But; if the ties between that so-called crime the entirety of productive activities of the society are examined closely; we feel obliged to get rid of certain prejudices. The criminal not only produces criminal acts but also the criminal law. He also produces the professor who teaches the criminal-law courses. Besides, he produces all of the police-apparatus as well as the administration of justice comprising detectives, judges, juries etc. History easily proves that criminality can not be separated from life in society and is observed in all societies. It is a constant aspect of life within the society as well as a disease; it goes without saying that the crime-phenomenon is old as the world itself. Since the early stages of history, crimes were seen in all civilizations and in all places. This is why law defines sanctions against all acts which disturb peace or aim at property. Also; this is why the envisioned penalties vary with the political and economical situation, culture, tradition and other aspects of the involved community. Besides; the social reaction is a defensive reflex of the society against acts which disturb it. Despite this reaction which is often very strict; in our time; this crime trouble has attained large dimensions by its size and new models. These last years, the challenge of crimes and new dangerous forms of delinquency are much talked of. In particular; collective crimes which set free emotional reactions multiply rapidly in the modern world. Faced with that growing tendency of crimes; despite the scientific progress in research, a satisfying solution can not be obtained. In fact; industrial societies ask if the climbing rate is an epidemic of their boost; while the less developed societies ask if it is the price they should pay achieving the level of progress they crave for. On the other hand; the collective conscience of people desire that socially intolerable crimes of all kinds be hit by severe penalties.
According to Robert’s Dictionary; a group is the reunion of several persons in the same place. Most of the time, such groups constitute accidental / occasional, spontaneous, unorganized assemblies. As for a gang; that is a group of men who fight together; who are arranged under a common chief. In other words; a gang is formed for a purpose or with some affinity towards a goal. It is organized rather than being of casual or irregular nature. But one must admit that the several existing definitions of the two by many scholars get confused with each other, frequently. Some scholars do distinguish groups with institutional support, spontaneous groups, quasi-groups (half-groups) from sheer gangs. Nevertheless; they do this by showing a sliding from one category onto the other, instead of a keen rupture. For example; choir-members and mechanical workshops are spontaneous groups with precise aims and as such do not fit into a preformed structure. Some quasi-groups are divided into sub-groups with respect to their stability: Friendship groups are stable while delinquency groups, no matter how well-organized, are only transitory. Gangs are better organized smaller groupings with localized, nucleic properties; they have members and leaders and are hostile against the social environment. Despite the complexity of studies drawing certain results (vast re-assembling youth circles like hippy or beatnik currents), in our opinion, one can not refute the better organization of gangs with respect to other groups. This aspect should not be forgotten; otherwise, “one single tree may mask the visibility of an entire forest”.
The departure point of psychology or even that of group- psychology is, of course, the individual. Here the issue is not the study of groups or masses. Rather; the issue is the study of the modifications which the particular psychic state of the individual undergoes when he finds himself surrounded by a multitude of other individuals. However; this does not come to mean that the psychology of a group could, on the total account, be derived from the psychology of the individual. This is why numerous scholars have been examining, for quite a time, groups in the larger meaning of the term, very profoundly, from the point of view of criminality, criminal responsibility and culpability. Now; we shall look at the principal theories.
Sighele; an Italian psychologist-sociologist-criminologist; published two books towards the end of the nineteenth century: “The Criminal Crowd” and “The Psychology of Sects”. His views are of the following kind: Sociology dictates laws on homogeneous and organic aggregates, paralleling those laws of individual-psychology. Collective Psychology, however, ought to dictate its laws for non-homogeneous and inorganic aggregates. As a matter of fact; a crowd constitutes a perfectly heterogeneous aggregate; since it is composed of individuals of all ages, two sexes, all classes and social conditions, all degrees of culture and moral principles. It is inorganic because it forms without previous agreements, just suddenly in an improvised manner. Sighele especially underlines the essential traits of mobs. The mob is formed of entirely heterogeneous elements, from people who are strangers for one another. Their sudden organization caused by a spark of passion springing up from one of them, electrifies this disorder in such a manner that the mob acts like a single being. For a mob, the minutest events take on enormous proportions and the smallest provocation can lead to a crime. As a matter of fact; even the leader often emerges as the scapegoat upon whom the whole collectivity discharges the responsibility of its fault. The sect is a crowd which is sorted out and permanent. The mob is a transitory sect which did not choose its own members. The sect is the chronic form of a mob. The mob is the acute form of the sect. The mob can be considered as the primary undetermined element which could beget a sect. Regarding the phenomena of delinquency involving mobs; Sighele concentrates on processes of imitation, moral contagion and suggestion / inculcation. This suggestion / inculcation has the strongest effect and provides the passage to epidemic crime. Within a mob; unity of time and place along with the immediate connection among the persons carries away the rapid contagion of emotions onto the furthermost limits. This transmittance acts almost always in a negative sense. Sighele believes in the existence of an innate murderous propensity. For him what Carlyle said is also true: “The civilization is just an outer shell beneath which the savage passion of man can burn with its infernal fire”. Sighele affirms that a mob does not form without reason or purpose. But this purpose is recognized by a small number. The greater number of persons conglomerate around the initial group simply by the force of persuasion.
Sighele states that the participants of a lynch crowd know beforehand that they will commit the crime; they had considered the essence of the crime; thus, only a weak excuse can come in their favor. Sighele interestingly said the following:
Often court members judging a sensational crime especially of a collective nature, themselves exhibit characteristic traits typical of a mob-like phenomenon. The judges themselves can not resist to such ways!
French-sociologist-criminologist Tarde wrote several works on collective psychology; two of which are: “The Laws of Imitation” and “Opinion and the Mob”.
His vivid imagination comprises vast perspectives especially in the domain of grace (mercy) and his psychological base is larger than that of Sighele. According to Tarde; it is imitation which is the main factor of cohesion and continuity for the society. He employs the word “sociability” for “being imitative”. His definition on this topic is as follows:
A collection of beings such that they are either all busy imitating one another or else, without actually imitating one another, do look alike because their common traits are old copies of the same model. In fact there are two manners of imitation. To do exactly like one’s model or do exactly the opposite. For a mob; there is no intermediate place between loathing and adoring; horror and enthusiasm; the cries of “long live!” and “death for so-and-so!”. A trifle is enough to change divination to eternal damnation. In Tarde’s doctrine; all mobs resemble one another with respect to certain common traits: Their extraordinary intolerance, their ridiculous pride, their sickly susceptibility, the surprising sense of irresponsibility which originates from the illusion of being allpowerful and finally the total loss of the sense of measure which is based on the extremeness of the members’ mutually exalted emotions. However Tarde also signifies the existence of “crowds of love”, “throngs of festivals” in opposition to “crowds of hatred”. He skillfully explains how those latter collectivities contribute to knit or thicken social ties alongside the formerly dealt barbaric and primitive aspects of crowds [1].
Among his other works, the French scholar left a particular influence in social sciences thanks to his book “Psychology of Mobs”. His theme upholds the thought that we must definitely have knowledge on the problem of mobs and masses, if we are to understand the political, social and cultural evolution. The large perspectives presented by le Bon, deal with crowds next to the critique of labor classes. He says: The age we are entering will really be the age of mobs. The destinies of nations are prepared not with the advices of princes, but in the very soul of crowds. It is important to know that, today, the claims of crowds become more and more clear and aim at a total destruction of the actual society from top to bottom, all this to bring back the primitive communism which was the normal state of all human groups before the dawn of civilization. The principal traits of the individual within the crowd are: Fading away of the conscious personality; orientation of sentiments and ideas in the same direction by way of suggestion and contagion; tendency to transform those inculcated thoughts into action. The person is not himself any more. Rather; he has become a sheer automate, who can not guide himself by his own will any more. So; the individual is engulfed by the throng. He is now in a special state, which very much resembles the fascination of a hypnotized person in the hands of his hypnotizer. The conscious personality entirely fades away; while personal will power and differentiating ability get lost. A serious regression is in question. Thus; merely by the fact that he is part of an organized mob, man descends several steps down the ladder of civilization. While isolated, he was maybe e cultured person: Now within the crowd; he is a barbaric instinctive creature. In a mob, even if some members were distinguished scientists; they would acquire the traits of mob-members pertaining to everything outside the scope of their specialization. Their faculties of observation and critical minds would weaken. While a single person can tolerate contradiction and debate; a mob would never do so. The mob, as an irresistible power; does not tolerate any delay or any obstacle between its desire and its satisfaction, either. Le Bon coined related concepts like “Psychological Mob” and “psychological Law of Mental Unity of Mobs”. In a throng, sentiments and actions are epidemic in the sense that the individual easily looses his personal interests in the favor of collective interests. The origin of suggestibility derives from reciprocal influences exerted by the members. Le Bon concludes that the intellectual plane of collective behavior is always inferior to that of the individual. When taken separately, people are likely to have pacifist habits. When in union, the same people do not hesitate in approving the most fierce propositions (like sending innocent ones to the guillotine and tearing one another into pieces).
This great psychologist, in contrast to Le Bon, clearly established the difference between the organized and unorganized (in his wording “primitive”) crowds. The higher the level of organization, the more complicate is the psychological aspect. Excitation or intensification of excitement is the most striking result of the formation of a throng. The members are detached from themselves and instead seized by a great wave of excitement. They thus loose the consciousness of their individualities Figure 1.
Figure 1: Ku Klux Klan members in southern American states in former times (illustration by the author).
MacDougall points out that the particular excitability of the mob, (as well as the absence of responsibility) contributes to lessen the level of intellectuality. According to the scholar, the army represents an organized crowd, in which a determined will is manifested. Despite his study of collectivity, the scholar is little interested in criminality.
The creator of psycho-analysis published two works regarding our subject: “Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego” and “Totem and Taboo”. According to Freud; Psychology is the fundamental science; even Sociology can not study human behavior without the aid of Psychology. Moreover; Psychology rarely deals with the isolated individual. Rather, it refers to the individual in contact with similar people (except in the case of narcissism like the predominant stage of early childhood). Imitation put forward by Tarde or suggestion put forward by Le Bon or primitive emotional induction put forward by MacDougall all leave place for the concept of “libido” in Freud’s understanding as the “cement” which unifies human relations. Just as brothers and sisters identify with one another in their common aspirations; for Freud; members of a crowd identify with one another in a similar manner. Freud’s models for collectivity are the two superior, organized, permanent and artificial mobs: The Church and the army. His focus especially deals with the relation of the rank-and-file with the chief [2,3]. (The submission of the mob to the chief is thereby explained by libidinal ties resembling the feelings of the child towards the father [in accordance with a regression mechanism]). In his work we can not find the motivation of criminality, either. He was just content to explain the contagious nature of the offence in collectivity. He was also mistaken in establishing the structure of the throngs uniquely on libido. Maybe he should have spoken of an emotional structure of the mobs. This would have the advantage of implying not only the libido, but also the aggressive instinct.
In the works of the famous Swiss psychologist Jung, we can find many assumptions regarding criminality. He affirms that mobs are like blind animals. Eruption of the collective forces within the mob’s composing members, does cause some astonishing modifications in the psychic state of the involved people. This is how a mild and sensible being can change into a savage beast! Sighele, Tarde and Le Bon have the same judgment [4].
According to Jung if one were to choose a hundred very intelligent men, together, they would soon form a stupid agglomeration! This is because, after all, each is also equipped with all sorts of vile traits of the primitive man, below the surface. Jung refers to alienation or self-estrangement as well as the concept of collective subconscious, whereby the subconscious is always in struggle with the conscious. There is always a risk of provoking the reaction of the subconscious forces, leading to an undesired disequilibrium. Balance is e very important and underlying concept for Jung. He maintains that in a crowd a person undergoes a swelling or inflation of personality, tying him with the others and imparting him an illusion of all-powerfulness. The collective-man threatens to suffocate and swallow the individual. The mob is always anonymous and [accordingly] irresponsible.
Adler, the founder of the individual’s psychology, concentrated his studies on the inferiority complex. So, firstly, one must be occupied by the tendency to surmount a situation of inferiority. The individual who sees himself (or who believes himself to be) disfavored, can find the biggest possibilities of compensation or overcompensation in crowds and nowhere besides the crowds. Adler’s ideas proved to be fertile in the domains of pedagogy, education and criminology. Adler attributed a capital importance to the sentiment of community besides verifying the productive (positive) aspect of a mob! He affirmed that a collective movement can follow good intentions as well as bad intentions. The aspiration for a real value is the purpose of not only the individual but also of the masses.
Adler rejects Freud’s view of the mob-leader relation. (As it is known, Adler was first a follower of Freud, from whom he later detached himself). He affirms that the feeling of all-powerfulness that the individual undergoes within the crowd destroys, if only for a moment, all feelings of inferiority. The forces of the other members of the mob do become one’s own force. There comes a feeling of exaltation which he cannot experience in other circumstances.
Espinas explained his ideas in the matter of the phenomenon of masses in his work titled “Animal Societies” He exerted a lot of influence on Tarde.
According to Espinas, the isolated man neither feels nor thinks like the man transported into the middle of a crowd. He affirms that to do understand his viewpoint one just needs to observe an assembly in front of which an orator is speaking: With the first brilliance of the orator’s eloquence, his excitement is transmitted to the audience in a multifold degree. Each will react by clapping hands and doubling his attention.
This scholar also points out that another primary manifestation of the psychic state of the crowd is that of brotherly love.
According to this eminent criminologist, aggressive states attain their culminating points during mass movements like wars, civil wars or revolutions. An organized state sublimates the aggressive impulsions in order to constitute a healthy society. A regulation may thus direct collective aggressiveness in the same manner that a penal code was substituted for feud, private war or the justice of lynch. Indeed; it has been possible to domesticate aggressiveness in the interiors of national communities [5]. Thereby; rather than a search to eliminate the efficacious forces of masses; it ought to be convenient to put them into the service of a [benign] purpose; to canalize and sublimate them. A society can upstart to master a collective movement or current of a considerable scope, [in theory]. However; [in practice]; in our day; collective infraction does not seem to cease, despite very severe [and despite all the related rhetoric; still more of retaliatory than reformatory nature in essence] sanctions in application. As our author himself recognizes; numerous lynches occur even in peace-times. Doubtlessly; crime and insanity co-exist in the very bosom of the modern human society, despite all efforts to combat them in the possible measures.
The German sociologist Geiger defines a collective organism as a self-ruling unity, whose existence is independent even from those actually composing it. The crowd is exclusively revolutionist and possesses an impersonal / undiscovered / nameless character. In the eyes of Kautsky a follower of Marx in the midst of a mob, the person develops forces which far offshoot the measures he could be capable of as an isolated being. American author Lippman rejects the hypothesis of a “collective soul”, replacing it with a supra-soul (sur-âme). For him, the mob could not constitute an organism because it continually undergoes the effects of suggestion / inculcation. This is the reason why it is incapable of logical judgment. According to Dewey an important representative of the doctrine of behaviorism, all sorts of behaviors [the behavior patterns of mobs included] must be traced back to that [good old] process of stimulations-and-[resulting]-reactions. (After all; behaviorism owes its soaring development to the conditional reflex discoveries by the Russian scientist Pavlov Allport another behaviorist, holds the view that a mob is an agglomeration of individuals whose attentions are directed towards a common objective, which provokes a reaction in them, accompanied by a strong and also shared emotion [6]. Thus a mob can be distinguished from a group indulging in a common action; because in the latter, attention of each individual is habitually concentrated on his own proper work. Finally for Durkheim, the great sociologist, the attitude taken in this issue is clearly against the school of psychology, in particular against the theory of Tarde. The collective phenomenon, best epitomized by a mob, is recognizable from the exterior traits. It presents itself to the composing individuals as a power, which for him is strange, of outside character and irresistibly forceful.
Enthusiasm, anger, pity or whatever feelings do not originate from ourselves in an assembly. Rather, they come to us from the outside and drift us in spite of ourselves. Later; we just perceive that we have undergone those feelings instead of having produced them. Sometimes it happens that they make us horrified. They are so opposed to our nature! It is through this mechanism that individuals who are normally mostly inoffensive, when united in [and swallowed by] a mob, can’t help being drifted towards acts of atrocities.
The socio-psychological aspects of the question of collective infractions are thus examined by us.
Last but not least; we might as well mention that writers like Zola, Taine, Malraux, Tolstoy, Zweig have described the phenomena of masses as well as social scientists.
1) Indeed; according to the Sacred Books; Adam’s son Qabil (Cain) was the first one to shed blood. He killed his younger brother Habil (Abel) out of jealousy.
2) While registered to a language course in Texas, I personally witnessed this tendency. Many Americans were in fact admiring the harshness of the corporal penalties displayed by the Islamic Sharia! One of our instructors once made the following speech:
If somebody were to intrude into my house, I would shoot him first and then drag his corpse into the house. A sheriff friend of mine explained that if you kill the aggressor (or thief or whatever) within the very dwelling of yours, the penalty is much less. So; by dragging him inside; I would arrange that impression myself. The same instructor also said that he was crazy about the scene in the movie Dirty Harry (starring Clint Eastwood), where the hero (Harry, the detective) holds the handgun’s barrel against the temple of the criminal and says: “Make a move, will you? [so that I will be entitled to pull the trigger]. Go ahead, make my day!” As a matter of fact Texas was a state which had re-established the capital punishment some time after abolishing it. In two particular states (Oklahoma and Utah) the condemned-to-death used to be executed by getting shot. A white shirt containing concentric aiming-circles at the heart-spot was slipped on the prisoner and the firing-squad was chosen by lotteries from among volunteering (!) citizens. I have been told that the citizens were very eager to get a place on the squad, let alone the case of absence of applications! (The more common methods are lethal injection, electrocution, gas chamber and even the archaic-hanging). The typical American citizen can not even tolerate somebody’s trespassing his territory. A visiting American college student narrated the following case-history while I was an undergraduate student at Bosphorous University: I was once hitchhiking and I ran into a barn where I wanted to stay. When I knocked on the farm-hose door for permission, nobody opened. I knew the owner was inside. I decided to sleep in the barn anyhow. While asleep, the man busted me with a group of cops. I hadn’t even infringed a lock. The barn’s door had not been locked. I had no weapons on me. I had no bad intentions. I implored the man not to bear complaint on me. He refused absolutely. So, I was jailed for a few days. The Americans, in short, are so fed up with crimes that they are much in favor of harsh penalties as compared to Turks, members of a developing country, who are much more lenient and prone to forgiving.
3) I remember an old black-and-white American movie: Prison deserters under close following take refuge in a tower overlooking the city. The museum section of the tower contains an age-old artillery cannon. Gang members quickly repair the old weapon and decide to use it as a trump against the forces of security. First, they have to verify the affectivity of the weapon. In one episode, the gang-leader orients the cannon-barrel towards the sky-scrapers and shouts at the besieging policemen:
―”I have been told that I am an enemy of your society! In a little while you will witness what I will just do to that society of yours!”
4) Those traits cited by Tarde are among the elements which build the groupthink of a cohesive group. Now, groupthink is a very recent concept developed within the scope of Social Psychology.
“When a ‘small, cohesive group’ indulges in ‘errors and mistakes of judgment’ by not acknowledging wrong decisions, it means that the group is in groupthink. Such a group ‘clearly underestimates the strength of the other side’“. “Illusion of invulnerability, illusion of unanimity, rationalization of negative information, stereotyping of out-groups are [among] the symptoms of groupthink”.
5) It will be quite interesting to note that in the military, collective offences are penalized more severely than separate ones. They are associated with a revolt, which is unforgivable in the military paradigm. Even collective petitions submitted for insignificant but rightful demands are forbidden.
6) At this point one remembers the execution of Antoine Lavoisier, the Father of Modern Chemistry, during the French Revolution. An envious pseudo-scientist in possession of political power was the main instigator and others joined in the horrible decision. After all, the man was a noble. One of the judges is known to have said that the revolution does not need scientists!
7) I remember a documentary ―and of course propagandist― Soviet movie in black-and-white showed at a university’s (leftwing- oriented) cinema club, many years ago. The commenting-speaker at the background, an enthusiastic male voice (loaded with obvious fervor of his communist ideology) using the English language impressively, kept commenting on the visual material constantly. In one particular episode showing the bayonet-training session of the U.S. marines; he explained: ―“Here one cannot talk about individuals, at all. Rather, one might as well talk about war-machines. Those soldiers are being brain-washed to kill!” (The young marines at this scene were shouting out war-cries while shadow-fighting collectively, waving their bayonets in cadence). One might go ahead and say that this is the way it goes in any armed force, especially in war times, when it comes to training the plain soldiers: An organized crowd is deliberately manipulated by the high command in order to inoculate and provoke certain hostile feelings directed towards the so-called “enemy” nations.
8) Being anonymous is generally associated with being prone to commit wrongdoings or outrageous acts. After all, bandits make their faces anonymous with masks when they commit robberies. In a wild party; the darkness provides some anonymity and changing colored light beams bemuse the participants, rendering them more prone to go “wild”.
9) In the Islamic creed, participating in a sinful act increases the horror of the sin in a multi-fold manner, as compared to sinning alone. The parallel holds true for virtuous acts. Solidarity in view of a good, helpful act for any needful being is supposed to increase the “degree” of the gained virtue, tremendously.
Interestingly enough, the Turkish Penal Code (and I have a feeling that it may be true for other penal codes as well) foresees heavier penalties if a given crime / felony (murder, wounding, sexual assault, burglary) is committed with culprits. Turkey, though a “derivative” of the former Ottoman Empire, is a secular state established through a revolutionary movement and the idea beyond a secular juridical item overlaps with the religious idea at this specific point.
10) Freud’s initial influence on younger generation of scholars was indeed tremendous. During his life time, however, this very impact began to decline ―for many scholars, essentially, his preoccupation with sexuality proved to be an overestimation or exageration―and still is continuing to diminish, despite the still undeniably significant place of Freud in Behavioral Sciences. As a matter of fact; some scholars nowadays are known to argue that Freud is more of a cult-leader than a scientist who gathers disciples around his charisma rather than students. In any case other names also left him along the course of their own scientific development paths. One is Wilhelm Reich. Still another is the female scientist Karen Horney.
11) This feeling of exaltation must be true for football fans, especially hooligans who resort to property destruction and corporal violence by making the rival fans scapegoats. “Little” men with insignificant roles in society, once a week in the stadiums, “metamorphise” into lions for some psychological compensation or even over compensation, in this manner; at the cost of the peace and good order of the society.
12) That particular aspect of crowds, namely, brotherly love, is especially conspicuous in religious groupings of all possible kinds. In other words; it appears that the special feeling does not pertain to mainstream-religions alone but also comprises their offshoots as well as the newly-established cults, and this, even more so.
13) Below lies the picture of a book written by Paul Reiwald (from the Internet).
14) It is an irony of life that, for instance in America, many racist lynches did occur just in the aftermath of the First World War (which ended in 1918):
“The Chicago riot of 1919 flared from the increase in Negro [Black] population. Between July 1917 and March 1921, fiftyeight Negro [Black] houses were bombed and recreational areas were sites of racial conflict”. “Negro [Black] soldiers returning home suffered indignities. Of the seventy Negroes [Blacks] lynched during the first year of the war, a substantial number were soldiers! Some were lynched while still in uniform!”. “The Ku Klux Klan appeared in the south to keep the Blacks ‘in their place’ after the civil War”. “It has reappeared at intervals in various parts of the country as a movement to protect ‘real Americans’ against Blacks, Catholics, foreigners, atheists and liberals”. “The end of the Civil War did not bring genuine freedom and equality for Blacks [either] … In addition Blacks faced the danger of lynching campaigns, often led by the Ku Klux Klan during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century”.
Menu