6 ms·

I read an interesting editorial a few months back -- can't remember where -- that basically made the counter-intuitive point that we are not headed towards tota

I read an interesting editorial a few months back -- can't remember where -- that basically made the counter-intuitive point that we are not headed towards totalitarianism. Far from it. We are headed towards mob rule. The writer used the various strikes and protests in Europe as an example. His point was that as the nation-states became less relevant, people would begin to more closely associate in virtual groups than geographic ones. I _also_ read the recent leaks about China, which leads me to believe that the Chinese think they can keep a lid on the internet. This could be the beginning of a long, drawn-out period of chaos and overreaction by all sides. Sure would suck to have to choose between that and totalitarianism (even if, in the end, totalitarianism wouldn't work) Perhaps this is some author's overactive imagination though. I sure hope so.

smackay 16y ago
Public demonstrations in Europe these days are generally well-behaved. Probably the main motivation for taking to the streets is to ensure that the government at least acknowledges an issue rather than simply ignoring as was case in the past. The anarchist groups active today are a little less troubling than groups like the Red Army Faction, Red Brigades and the Irish Republican Army that were a feature of the 1970's and 1980's. The real danger of mob rule might come from unscrupulous politicians making capital from social tensions. The recent series of expulsions of Romany from France and Italy were certainly a very troubling reminder of Europe's recent history.
- jacquesm 16y ago
  1989 is only a bit over 20 years ago: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolae_Ceau%C5%9Fescu http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolae_Ceau%C5%9Fescu And I do not doubt that if some European politician got it in to their heads to try something really stupid that such 'reminder' demonstrations would turn violent pretty quickly. In France it wasn't 5 years ago that 100's of cars were burned every night and in the Netherlands squatters do battle with the riot police with some regularity. Mob violence is never far away.
  - landhar 16y ago
    I think that the events in France don't belong to this list. France is dealing with a lot of youth criminality from ghettoized communities. The burning of cars was not backed up with any political claims. It only reflects how authorities are losing control over certain neighborhoods.
    - jacquesm 16y ago
      The burning of cars was - as far as I understand it - a direct consequence of multiple decades of festering trouble that was not adequately recognized or responded to by politicians. The shortest complete description of the background on this was something like 'these youths are protesting not against any specific policy but against being born in to a situation that they find it almost impossible to escape from in the country that they are nominally a citizen of'. If you can do better than that be my guest, but I definitely see them as motivated by politics, even if not directly attacking a specific policy or having a concrete goal. It's more an act of frustration with life set off by the friction between police and these youths, specifically one incidence was the spark that set off the powder.
  - jbooth 16y ago
    Not that I disagree with your point, but 1989, while only 20 years ago was a different era. Especially regarding Romania or anywhere east of Berlin. It's closer to 1979 than it was to 1991 in a lot of regards.
    - jacquesm 16y ago
      I'd argue that on the surface everything seems different but that underneath that surface more of it remains than you might think. I've lived 'east' of Berlin for a while and still spend quite a bit of time there and in Romania and this particular sentiment strikes me every time I'm there. In the big cities the differences are large but outside not nearly as much if at all. Poverty is still quite present and the fat cats have found ways of getting fatter. At least it's gotten easier for people to get around, provided they have the means of doing so.
  - 16y ago
Perceval 16y ago
>we are not headed towards totalitarianism. Far from it. We are headed towards mob rule. In Plato's Republic, he set up a cyclical theory of the progression from one form of government to the next. From aristocracy to timocracy to oligarchy to democracy to tyranny and back again to aristocracy. The transition between democracy and tyranny was ochlocracy, a.k.a. mob rule, out of which emerges a demagogue.
- ebaysucks 16y ago
  Plato might have underestimated the power of the internet.

smackay 16y ago

Public demonstrations in Europe these days are generally well-behaved. Probably the main motivation for taking to the streets is to ensure that the government at least acknowledges an issue rather than simply ignoring as was case in the past. The anarchist groups active today are a little less troubling than groups like the Red Army Faction, Red Brigades and the Irish Republican Army that were a feature of the 1970's and 1980's. The real danger of mob rule might come from unscrupulous politicians making capital from social tensions. The recent series of expulsions of Romany from France and Italy were certainly a very troubling reminder of Europe's recent history.

jacquesm 16y ago
1989 is only a bit over 20 years ago: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolae_Ceau%C5%9Fescu http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolae_Ceau%C5%9Fescu And I do not doubt that if some European politician got it in to their heads to try something really stupid that such 'reminder' demonstrations would turn violent pretty quickly. In France it wasn't 5 years ago that 100's of cars were burned every night and in the Netherlands squatters do battle with the riot police with some regularity. Mob violence is never far away.
- landhar 16y ago
  I think that the events in France don't belong to this list. France is dealing with a lot of youth criminality from ghettoized communities. The burning of cars was not backed up with any political claims. It only reflects how authorities are losing control over certain neighborhoods.
  - jacquesm 16y ago
    The burning of cars was - as far as I understand it - a direct consequence of multiple decades of festering trouble that was not adequately recognized or responded to by politicians. The shortest complete description of the background on this was something like 'these youths are protesting not against any specific policy but against being born in to a situation that they find it almost impossible to escape from in the country that they are nominally a citizen of'. If you can do better than that be my guest, but I definitely see them as motivated by politics, even if not directly attacking a specific policy or having a concrete goal. It's more an act of frustration with life set off by the friction between police and these youths, specifically one incidence was the spark that set off the powder.
- jbooth 16y ago
  Not that I disagree with your point, but 1989, while only 20 years ago was a different era. Especially regarding Romania or anywhere east of Berlin. It's closer to 1979 than it was to 1991 in a lot of regards.
  - jacquesm 16y ago
    I'd argue that on the surface everything seems different but that underneath that surface more of it remains than you might think. I've lived 'east' of Berlin for a while and still spend quite a bit of time there and in Romania and this particular sentiment strikes me every time I'm there. In the big cities the differences are large but outside not nearly as much if at all. Poverty is still quite present and the fat cats have found ways of getting fatter. At least it's gotten easier for people to get around, provided they have the means of doing so.
- 16y ago

Perceval 16y ago

>we are not headed towards totalitarianism. Far from it. We are headed towards mob rule. In Plato's Republic, he set up a cyclical theory of the progression from one form of government to the next. From aristocracy to timocracy to oligarchy to democracy to tyranny and back again to aristocracy. The transition between democracy and tyranny was ochlocracy, a.k.a. mob rule, out of which emerges a demagogue.

ebaysucks 16y ago
Plato might have underestimated the power of the internet.