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Just Mass Hysteria

Entry 2084, on 2020-10-28 at 13:44:47 (Rating 4, Politics)

There have been many famous cases of mass hysteria over the centuries. Some were relatively benign, but others were quite harmful. Looking at many of them today it's hard not too laugh and think "what were they thinking; we are far too sophisticated to act like that now", but are we?

Here are a few famous and bizarre examples of mass hysteria from the past, which I sourced from a quite extensive list on Wikipedia...

The dancing plague of 1518 was a case of dancing mania that occurred in Strasbourg, Alsace. Numerous people took to dancing for days, many to the point of exhaustion, and there were even reports of deaths. Why? A irrational obsession which started for no obvious good reason, and spread to others who heard about it.

A more sinister example was the Salem witch trials, which happened between 1692 and 1693. They started with adolescent girls who had fits that were described by a minister as "beyond the power of epileptic fits or natural disease to effect." A series of hearings resulted in the execution of 20 citizens and the death of five others. It spread to nearby towns where other people were accused of practicing witchcraft.

More recently, and perhaps less serious, there was the Tanganyika laughter epidemic of 1962. The laughter started in a mission-run boarding school for girls in Kashasha, Tanzania with three girls, then spread throughout the school, affecting 95 pupils. Symptoms lasted up to 16 days, and the teaching staff were not affected. The school was forced to close down, but the epidemic spread to a village, where 217 people had laughing attacks. The laughing epidemic spread to Ramashenye girls' middle school, near Bukoba, affecting another 48 girls, then another outbreak occurred in Kanyangereka and two nearby boys schools were closed.

And similar events have occurred even more recently. In 2016 there were many reports of sightings of people in evil clown costumes in the United States, Canada, and 18 other countries. But there was little evidence to support this being based on reality, and it was eventually dismissed as a case of mass hysteria.

Obviously large numbers of people can become totally deluded and convinced of events which have no basis in reality. Th phenomenon is quite interesting in itself, but I am using it here to introduce a more controversial idea: that is that many of the political beliefs in fashion around the world are also examples of mass hysteria.

So what are these beliefs? Well, if you haven't already guessed, here they are...

1. Climate change. Don't worry; I haven't turned into a crazy climate change denier! I think climate change is real, and I think it is primarily caused by humans, and I think we should have a plan to cope with it. So where's the hysteria here? Well there's Greta, of course. Her activities are a very obvious example of silly hysteria, as are many of the protests and other actions motivated by her.

So my claims of hysteria here are not completely equivalent to the classic cases I listed above. They tended to be based on absolutely nothing or very little, but the examples I am listing, including climate change, do have a foundation in reality; it's just the way many people treat that underlying true element which is irrational.

2. Metoo. No doubt sexual abuse exists in many forms, and some of it is quite serious. So no one should be saying that it is without any merit at all. But the way it spread, and the way it was taken up by many celebrities, and the way they now seem to have mainly lost interest, all seem to make it look like another case of hysteria.

3. White supremacy. The concern with so-called white supremacy has very little merit at all, yet it is trendy to use it as a cause for many real and imagined societal problems. Look behind the scenes and there is rarely any real truth in these claims, yet the concept has become very popular with some sections of society. It's almost as if it was... yes, mass hysteria!

4. BLM. I have commented in previous posts on how I reject most of the claims of the Black Lives Matter movement. Sure, there have been obvious examples of anti-black racism in the past, but I don't think systemic racism exists to any significant extent in the US today, and I don't think the police there treat any race worse than others when the big picture is examined.

But look at the way BLM ideas have been adopted, both in the US and around the world, and it makes it look like it is a real and undisputed phenomenon with great significance to everyone. Again, celebrities have jumped on the bandwagon and demonstrated massive hysteria, along with sickening hypocrisy.

5. Racism. The word "racism" gets a lot of use today, often in situations where it has no real relevance. It is used instead of having a real argument in many situations, as if calling someone a racist wins a debate. It's very silly stuff, and yes, I know real racism exists, but in the vast majority of cases it's just hysteria.

6. Finally the big one: COVID. I will make the same disclaimer here as I did for climate change: I don't think COVID is fake, I do think it is moderately serious, and I think some precautions are called for. But many of the reactions around the world are irrational. Have most governments examined the negative consequences of severe lockdowns in comparison to the advantages? And how many have looked at how a short-term reduction in infections and deaths might not translate into similar gains long-term?

The way the attitudes to COVID, and the reactions to it, have spread around the world does have some of the attributes of yet another case of mass hysteria.

Note that the modern cases I am suggesting are far more wide-ranging than anything in the past, but his could be just a result of the far more efficient communications systems we have in place now. It's very easy for ideas to spread through news media, social media, and other forms of electronic communications which were not available previously.

As I get to the end of this post, I realise that it sounds somewhat conspirational. I would like to finish by clarifying my message. All six of the phenomena I discussed here have some significant aspect of reality to them. My issue is with the way they are treated by authorities, celebrities, and many of the general public. Problems need to be treated seriously and rationally, not hysterically!

Comment 1 (5589) by Derek Ramsey on 2020-10-30 at 11:34:38:

Webster’s defines hysteria in two ways. The first is a psychological sense and isn't what we mean here. The second is "behavior exhibiting overwhelming or unmanageable fear or emotional excess".

OJB said: "I don't think COVID is fake, I do think it is moderately serious, and I think some precautions are called for. But many of the reactions around the world are irrational. Have most governments examined the negative consequences of severe lockdowns in comparison to the advantages? And how many have looked at how a short-term reduction in infections and deaths might not translate into similar gains long-term?"

Hysteria is not synonymous with irrationality or overreaction. If a giant asteroid the size of the moon was on a collision course for earth, the resulting hysteria would be quite rational. So, what caused mass COVID hysteria? It wasn't organic. Rather, it was cultivated and encouraged. In other words, the hysteria is the effect of an underlying cause. The irrationality and overreaction preceded the hysteria, so stopping the hysteria will not stop the irrationality or the overreaction.

In my state, the pandemic more-or-less ended in May, but kids are still not able to go full-time to school. They have to wear masks and have limited-sized, social-distanced classrooms. The risk of COVID to children is negligible. Many parents would send their kids full-time even if no interventions were taken. The state's supreme court correctly struck down the government's stay at home orders and crowd size restrictions as unconstitutional, and the government is still maintaining that they were correct. Most people are not hysterical or living in fear. In my part of the country we wear our masks, and most people don't care one way or another. While a minority freak out when I don't wear a mask, this is rare. Mostly, people are just pragmatists who are calmly following orders. And yet, those orders are often irrational and/or an overreaction. Hysteria does not explain this.

Can you find even one example of hysteria in any significantly sized locale where governments have not explicitly mandated lockdowns, masks, or social distancing?

Comment 2 (5590) by OJB on 2020-10-30 at 11:35:49:

Yeah, I’m not sure how well my intended sense of the word "hysteria" fits with the (second) definition you gave. I wanted to convey a sense of emotional over-reaction with little basis in reality and little chance of effectiveness. I think that does fit fairly closely.

As far as your comparison with an asteroid strike is concerned, I would say panic, depression, etc might be emotional but understandable responses. A hysterical response (in my intended sense) might be wearing tin-foil hats for protection! That would be because one person started the trend, then it spread in an irrational way. See the analogy here?

It's the governments response which I am claiming is the hysteria. Lockdowns are the result of hysteria, for example. Note that I am not totally convinced by my own argument on that one, because I recognise both the pros and cons of lockdowns (as per our previous discussion).

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