Waves of public hysteria

We seem particularly prone to these in the US.  The Germans tend to this as well.  "Welle." Is that the word in German?  

A few recent cases come to mind:

-The terrible fear of the end of civilized life that preceded the year 2,000.  

- The terrible fear of "the terrorists" that overwhelmed the country in the months after 9/11.  People hid out at home for weeks, refusing to go to work in places like the World Bank in Washington, DC.  People stared hostilely at each other on public transportation if there was anything unusual about a person's appearance.  "If you see something, say something."  Like a beard, perhaps

- The wave of insane trials in the 90s of the staff and owners of child day care centers for child molestation, satanic ritual, etc. on the basis of elicited testimony of three and four year olds.  A sample test question in court was "Is red heavier than yellow?"  Actual answer from a child witness - "Yes."  On the basis of such testimony many were sent to prison for long terms.  The public was quite happy with that.  No, the public was quite enthusiastic about it.

Now we have an MSM and social media induced madness over the death of St. George of Minnesota.  The craziness has led to successful mob demands for the destruction of historic monuments, toleration by business leaders of looting, and such whackiness as the proposed abolition of police forces and a reliance instead on the goodness of mankind.  The public, to include TeeVee executives have now meekly surrendered to the mob and are actually doing things like cancelling profitable programs that are about the police.  What are they going to do in the UK?  Half their programming seems to be about policing.  What will Her Majesty do if deprived of her favorite show, "Midsomer Murders?"

 pl  

Comments

[Bill H]

I still remember the Bush administration's justification for torture. "We were terrified out of our minds that there might be another attack." I could not understand how any grown man could make such an admission at all, much less think that it justified anything.

[Deap]

Covid threat reactions which remain deeply embedded in many people's psyche was another example of rampant hysteria trumping facts. (No pun intended, it is just a good serviceable word)

Common denominator: one's personal confrontation with mortality and existential fears. Existential fears can never be taken away by outside forces, words, promises or even external changes. They are embedded deeply within us and each of us has to confront them solely on our own.

At one time religious played a dominant role in responding and ameliorating existential fears. No longer. And this is what is now getting acted out in the covid hysteria and the BLM hysteria. There are too many lies and too many things avoided in this present blame scenario to be healing or functional at this time.

But as long as the Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer types bow, kneel and "put on African garb" in appeasement - the need to make peace with one's own existential fears and one's own mortality is momentarily circumvented by their inauthentic side show. Black intellectuals laugh at this white preening. Black radicals just up the price for submission.

We have let craziness lead to hot wars in the past, even within our own living memories. Because of existential fears tagging along with external fears. "Stopping communism which will destroy our way of life" - was that the only argument and was it ever valid?

Maybe Marianne Williamson was more prescient that given credit in the DNC debates. She sensed a deep darkness in the US soul. Too bad she demanded it carry a partisan label. She failed her own better instincts when she did that.

[Deap]

The anecdote that captured the psychic angst of the present moment: "I am panicking because other people are panicking". When asked why his shopping cart was stacked with toilet paper.

[akaPatience]

Should the reaction to climate change be added to the list?

The previous FLOTUS recently told young people in a virtual commencement address, "don’t ever, ever let anyone tell you that you’re too angry, or that you ‘should keep your mouth shut'”. It's been my observation that ever since her husband was elected POTUS, far too many young people seem to be in a state of perpetual anger, and it's had a deleterious effect on their perspective on life. A certain degree of adolescent angst is natural, a rite of passage, but the situation has become extreme. Pessimism is now pathological, and that's the way far-leftists seem to want it: Anger>Pessimism>Fear is a preferred dynamic.

Five years ago I hosted a Thanksgiving dinner for a friend, some of her kids and their friends. All throughout the evening I heard one grievance after another coming from the young people. There was no optimism whatsoever, everything was doom and gloom. I tend a little towards skepticism and pessimism myself but felt like a Pollyanna in comparison. Sheesh, what downers, yet they were all comfortably situated in the middle to upper-middle class. It was scary in a way. Ever notice how much dystopian/end-of-the-world entertainment geared towards Millennials there's been in the past decade? Between that and what they're evidently being taught in schools, is it any wonder many of them have such a gloomy outlook on life?

Invoking, manipulating young people to be perpetually angry, pessimistic and fearful seems to be one tool by which far-leftists keep the pressure on to have Big Brother make it all better for them. Optimists and even realists are ridiculed anymore.

[Deap]

John 8:32 King James Version (KJV)
And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

[Babak Makkinejad]

Many White people, in my experience, think themselves superior to Beige people as well as Browns and Yellows of this world.

I always found that amusing although somewhat grating.

I think long centuries of Western European ascendancy had gotten into their heads.

[Deap]

A black comedian's wry take on white guilt virtue-signaling: https://www.louderwithcrowder.com/white-guilt-comedian-virtue-signalling

[tedrichard]

how is what has happened the past few weeks in various americans cities meaningfully different than the salem witch trials of 1692-3?

from my living room window............no difference.

it appears history repeats because the sentiments of human beings never change irrespective of their education.

hard to believe we are the dominant specie on the planet and it says a lot for number 2.

[BillWade]

Not being racist can have it's perks. I was in one of the miserable Tampa DMV's and the aircon was barely working and the line was about an hour & 1/2. To pass the time I spoke to a much older than me Black lady in line just behind me. We had a great time talking that lasted about 15 minutes. I turned back around facing to the front of the line when another Black woman sitting at a desk motioned for me to come over. She was not part of the "line process". She had me give her my plate renewal documents and had me out of there in a few minutes. The weird thing about it was that she seemed hostile towards me, as if she was mad that I had been nice to someone.

I do believe a lot of Black people know the difference between a conservative White non-racist and a liberal White racist. The former will speak to them as they normally speak to anyone, while the latter will simplify their language assuming the Black person is not as bright as they are.

President Trump was well onto his agenda of getting everybody employed until the virus. The regime does not like this, not at all.

I see Joe Biden wants to fund the police. He'll now have to deal with the Minneapolis Sunrise Movement. They have two people who "think" Biden molested them.

[Jack]

Sir,

Let’s not forget the evil Russians in our bathrooms hysteria.

It seems that hysteria is the business model of our media enterprises who have now been successfully consolidated into a handful. Add in social media and any rumor can be amplified.

As an octogenarian too, I have noticed that Americans have become progressively much more easily frightened. Of course I remember the fear that led to the left’s god FDR interning Japanese-Americans just because of their ethnic heritage. I knew some of them as they went to school with me. They knew very little about Japan except what we all learned at school. I recall both my Dad and my grandpa saying one day it would be any of us. My grandpa was labeled a traitor for publicly speaking out against that. We’re there now with the surveillance state. I would recommend this interview and her book.

https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/03/harvard-professor-says-surveillance-capitalism-is-undermining-democracy/

We should not forget that market consolidation and the growth in mass surveillance by both mega-corporations and the state is a bi-partisan affair. Both the left & right want it to serve their own purposes. It is only an ever shrinking minority remaining that wants sound money, a truly competitive market economy, limited government that acts as a referee and liberty over safety.

[Diana Croissant]

First of all, I might suggest that instead of "welle" for "as well," a German might use "eben so" or "auch" depending on the construction of the German sentence.

As a nation with a large population with Anglo-Saxon heritage, there are many Germanic people living here. I am really Germanic myself, as my heritage on both my father's and my mother's side is German having come to America during the wave of immigrants from the Volga and Black Sea area, as they escaped the Bolsheviks.

I just wish more Blacks would take the leap and begin to exit large cities and try to find a way to live in fly over country in small towns and more western and rural areas where there is not a large population of people who have grown up learning to be prejudices against them.

I don't know, though. Everyone always calls me naive.

But, I grew up in a rural school district in which half my class was Hispanci. We even had a few Japanese families, along with the many Caucasian students. As a young child, my parents impressed on my sister and bother and me that we are all God's children. They, themselves, had faced some prejudice as young people when they grew up being called "dirty Roosians" because they dressed the way Russian peasants dressed, though they were really of German heritage and spoke old-fashioned German having been in Russia for a century in some cases farming the Volga River areas and the Black sea are after Alexander I took that from the Ottomans.

So, having endured some prejudice when they came here, they made sure we did not ever return the prejudice.

And, I have to give credit also to my excellent Social Studies and History teachers for their efforts to eradicate any signs of prejudice from our minds.

The problem for me was that in our part of the country, I never saw a Black person or met one until I was in college, when one brave young man came to our lily white teacher's college from Denver.

My major tendency to be prejudiced in any way comes from having to read about the Hispanic gangs that have always been in this area and which are still causing some mayhem around here.

In college sociology class we were given a small book on the concept of "machismo" in some Hispanic cultures--which somehow was meant to explain the many knife fights that occurred or even the hair pulling female fights over boys involving Hispanic teenagers.

But, as I mentioned, I also had a pretty large circle of friends, many of whom were Hispanic and whom I had known and associated with all my life.

The Blacks we read about in the news from the big Eastern cities and some from California, for example, are enigmas to me. I have also had to read sociological papers in college in regard to them, but without ever experiencing any interactions with them, I can't say I am prejudiced or not prejudiced.

I sure loved the movie "Glory" and I was captivated recently by the three-part History Channel documentary on Grant. I know Blacks mostly from that sort of vicarious learning. It does make me sad to know intellectually that the ghetto areas have to be extremely hard to grow up in. I did end up once as a passenger coming out of Baltimore's airport car rental garage, that we were told to be extremely careful about what routes we should and should not take. It was strange to be warned like that. Then later I watched the Freddie Gray stuff on Television, and it broke my heart.

[turcopolier]

Diana Croissant

Does not "welle" also mean "wave?" As an admirer of Sam Grant you may be pleased to know that Christ Church in Alexandria where both the Washington and Lee families owned pews is removing all traces of the two families from the church. I saw a cartoon today of Northam as a statue in black face standing atop the pediment of Lee's statue. That pleased me. BTW Grant was not interested in the fate of the Blacks. I watched the first hour of that mini-series and it was so ahistorical that I did not watch the rest.

[Laura Wilson]

Diana Croissant -- Did you mean ahistorical in fact or just not agreeing with what you had learned x# of years ago? John Meacham is not a schlock historian. You might want to read his book on Grant. New documents are being discovered and reviewed all the time...history is NOT a piece of granite...it changes and is enlarged and is enhanced as discoveries are made and our understandings grow. Otherwise, why would ANYONE study it...no change is boring.

[h]

I am unable to send you an email or reply to your email b/c I'm thinking this is not your email address - [email protected] Or is it? The emails I have sent w/pictures keep kicking back and it's that outlook address I received from you via your email. Maybe you could spell out your email in the email...maybe? h

[Valissa]

A counterterrorism expert on Laura Ingraham’s show last Wednesday night encouraged viewers to do online searches of these 2 movements from the 60’s since today's groups have similarities of ideology… there goes history rhyming again…

The Weather underground and their Prairie Fire statement https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/3469-a-second-wind-for-weather-underground-the-prairie-fire-statement

The Black Panthers 10 point plan… https://theblackdetour.com/black-panther-party-10-point-plan/

[Diana Croissant]

Now I will have to do more reading about Grant. I used to teach the universally required freshmen essay writing courses. One of the essays commonly found in the textbooks for the compare/contrast essay was one (whose author's name I now can't recall) about the differences between Grant's and Lee's characters.

But now I will have to read more. I, however, did think that the series explained how Grant's family was anti-slavery while his wife's family did own slaves. I wonder now if the scene in which he freed the slave he had been given was true. It did seem in that scene, howver, that he did that more because he had no real idea of how to use a slave. It also indicated that he was a bit indifferent to the question of slavery. Then later when they got to Vicksburg, the idea crossed his mind that freed slaves might be counted on to help fight for the North. So, yes, in that regard his only concern seemed to be The Blacks' use as help in fighting. And I was a bit surprised because the series also seemed to indicate Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation had been given in large part for the same reason: to perhaps gain more fighters for the North in the form of slaves who might take advantage of the situation.

I don't think the series painted Grant as especially interested in the question of slavery one way or another, except in regard to whether freed slaves could be counted on for fighting.

It's hard for me to imagine having grown up in a time and place when "owning" a human was considered possible.

I wonder if you ever saw the movie "Glory" about Shaw's regiment of Blacks. That was one of the most inspiring movies about the Civil War for me. But....I never checked its historical accuracy and so now I will have to do that.

And "welle" does mean "Wave" in German. I must dig out my old German/English dictionary to read more.

[Mathias Alexander]

To what extent can these things be manufactured and who might havve an interest in doing so?

[HK Leo Strauss]

The Beebs coppers all have a personality, know their classics and brave the world unarmed.

In the US, Hollywood has singularly been the NRAs greatest asset. It started with Rambos practically elevated prose and sank from there. Now it’s all SWAT, SEALs and super G-Men all the time on every channel. It’s a wonder Elmo doesn’t pack heat on Sesame Street.

One person elsewhere was wailing about liberals ending Blue Bloods. A show with a first episode opening to the lead detective torturing a suspect, followed by his father Chief (Tom Selleck) lecturing his uppity daughter (a DA) about Enhanced Interrogation. That only took 10 seasons to kill.

[English Outsider]

Diana - have asked around my German friends and such usages as "Eine Welle der Angst" ("a wave of fear") are common. "Anfall" seems to be the expression that would be used for individuals.

So far, judging by what I've seen and heard, the Germans as a society handled the virus better by far than we in England did. Simple stuff, like getting medical gear in faster and trying to ensure that the disease didn't get into care homes. That last is particularly important. Some other countries, Sweden and the UK among them, weren't so careful in that respect (neither was New York from what I've read!) and got hammered.

And Mrs Merkel, even to me because I really dislike her politics, was plain impressive when communicating what was being done and why on TV. Also the Germans don't seem to have run their health system down as much as we have so they had a better basis to start from.

You'd have to be a health expert to come up with a better-informed assessment but I reckon they come out well ahead on this one. As for "waves of fear" I think they could do with a bit more of that. The virus has hit the already dodgy economies of some other European countries hard. Unless the Germans dig deep into their pockets and get some cash over to the derelict Southern countries the EZ's a goner, and with it the entire trading model the German economy relies on.

[turcopolier]

HK Leo Strauss

You don't watch enough Brit TeeVee. These days the DCI of lowly origin but public spirit goes into the house after the Armed Police break the door down. Not too many gentleman detectives any more. There was one a while back about a "belted earl" (never understood the belted part)who was a Detective Inspector in the Met. Funny.

[turcopolier]

Diana Croissant

It is true that history continues to evolve but a lot of the really good books are quite old. The old, old trilogy on Grant by Lewis and Catton is IMO the best. As I said to you before, Sam Grant was really a ne'er do well who had a single talent which he did not even appreciate or like. He was a master of the art of war. This was largely sprung from his nature. He did not read much, and was a poor student at WP where the education was mainly about engineering. He did well in Mexico as a kid lieutenant because his whole being blossomed when he could hear the sound of the guns. The CW saved him from a life of mediocrity by giving him a canvas on which to paint. He did drink a lot but you know the famous Lincoln quote about that. Having said that I will affirm that IMO only he and George Thomas had the inner steel to beat Bobby Lee and his "boys." Thomas was a Virginian and politically could not be given supreme command. Grant's unbroken string of victories in the West made him the obvious choice after Meade failed to beat Lee in the autumn of 1863. Lee was embarrassed to say at Appomattox that he could not remember Grant from Mexico. It would have been "convenient" to "remember" but the Marble Man didn't have it in him. After Lee left the house to go back to sit alone in his tent, Grant sent over to the Confederate position to invite Longstreet and several more of his old pals to a poker game that night. The two men were very different. Do you know much about the war itself, or like some people do you only seek to understand its politics? BTW the mob in Boston defaced the monument to Shaw and the 54th Massachusetts. On the subject of Black Union troops, the 54th was probably the best of them. The rest (200,000) had a tough time. Union commanders generally had little confidence in them and used them for rear area security with a few exceptions most notably at the Crater where they took a hell of a beating.

[Seneschal]

"Many White people, in my experience, think themselves superior to Beige people as well as Browns and Yellows of this world."

I've experienced that myself but does this include Persian white people, or are they exceptional in your experience? Having worked among the Beige, the Browns and the Yellows in their own lands, I've yet to encounter a tribe that doesn't include members who think their tribe is superior to all the rest. Such will always be the case so long as human beings drink from different wells.

[turcopolier]

h

Do you see the e-mail me button just under my picture? Every troll in the world finds it.

[Babak Makkinejad]

Thank you and I consider myself Beige.

Before living in the United States I never paid attention to race as a component of my identity - and I think that is also true in India.

But the United States is quite clearly a race-conscious society and she has taken that race-consciousness with her and spread it where she has gone.

East Asians, certainly Korean and Japanese, in my experience, are also race-conscious societies but lacking US dominance, have not been the major cause of elevated levels of this consciousness - however false it might be, as the Western Diocletians.

And I want to be clear that by race I mean defining external physical characteristics of human beings.

Tribalism is quite evident in Southern Persian Gulf, the way they treat non-Arabs - they are the biggest bigots around - probably right up there with Hindu Brahmins.

[AK]

HK Leo Strauss,

The Beebs coppers in London also recently literally turned tail and ran away from a crowd of angry protesters and sought refuge in the Foreign Ministry office building.

https://twitter.com/PMBreakingNews/status/1269720939807326216

Perhaps they don't necessarily "brave" the world unarmed after all, and might be better served with enhanced means to protect themselves. From what I've read, this all started when they tried to arrest a black person. Not clear as to the alleged offense, but nonetheless, this is what unarmed police are forced to do, eventually. If they value their own lives, that is.