Mob Rule is Evil

Everywhere man exists, there exists the potential for evil. But evil isn’t limited to governments that turn on their citizens and overreach their authority or individuals who have committed horrendous crimes. Crowds also violate the rights of others.

People frequently get together for a common purpose, such as worship services, peaceful protests, parades, and concerts. People also gather to enjoy the camaraderie and competition of sports. Some sports are well known for team loyalty and rivalry at both the professional and amateur levels. Most games end peaceably, even with the intense emotions present. But not always. 

Mobs act on emotion, not rationality

Occasionally, the heightened emotion of the competition causes fans to riot. Even more curious is this often happens after the rioting fans’ team wins. During sports riots, the crowds often overturn and burn vehicles, vandalize property, and paint graffiti. People even get assaulted and killed by the mindless actions of rioters.

So why do people in groups get caught up in the violence, acting in ways they wouldn’t if acting Individually? 

In one of the foundational books on crowd psychology, Gustav Le Bon believed crowds had three main characteristics: 

1. the disappearance of conscious personality
2. the turning of feelings and thoughts in a similar and definite direction
3. being brought together

Crowd behavior is heavily influenced by the individual loss of responsibility and the feeling of a universal behavior, both of which increase with crowd size. This would certainly explain how sports fans get caught up in the frenzy after a championship win. When part of a crowd, even irrational acts can become contagious.

Peaceful gatherings can turn bad, very quickly

When crowds form for a protest, demonstration, or other large gathering, the chance of the group developing a mob mentality increases as the group starts to act on its collective rage, hatred, or fear. 

In Men In Black, Agent K summarized how a group can quickly go from peaceful to violent: “A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals, and you know it.”

In 2017, protesters in Berkeley turned their anger against conservative speakers they didn’t like. Following the lead of ‘anti-fascist’ infiltrators, protesters turned violent and damaged university and other property and attacked people in the crowd.

When mobs lash out, they often injure their own communities

But mobs don’t only target the people they’re protesting against, but often lash out within their own communities, causing death, damage, and chaos in their own backyard.

In 1992, mob mentality kicked off the Rodney King riots, a week-long uprising that killed 63 people and caused property damage estimated to exceed $1 billion within the very South Central Los Angeles community (as it was known then) that was protesting against the acquittals of many of the charges against the police officers accused with King’s beating. 

Similarly, the 2014 Ferguson unrest wound up destroying property within the community as anger over police actions turned into violence.

But evil does not always prevail 

Despite the attacks, death, arson, looting, and chaos, good people have stepped up to fight this evil:

• During the Rodney King Riots, a mob pulled truck driver Reginald Denny from his rig and nearly beat him to death. A local resident, Bobby Green Jr., saw live news coverage of the attack and drove his car to the intersection and saved Denny from his attackers. 
• A few hours later, Fidel Lopez was pulled from his truck and attacked at the same location. Reverend Bennie Newton saw the attack on TV and drove to the intersection and rescued Lopez, telling the rioters, “Kill him, and you have to kill me, too.” 
• Members of the Korean-American community armed themselves and stood up to the mob. Even so, more than 2,300 small Korean-owned businesses suffered losses, and nearly $400 million in damages. But imagine how bad it could have been had the “Roof Koreans” not stood their ground against the mob.
• In New York, workers at a small convenience store intervened when a teenager ran into the store to escape a mob chasing him. Edward Lara, the store’s owner, and several of his employees broke up the beating and ran the others out of the store. When asked how he felt being lauded as a hero, he replied, “I just did what I’m supposed to do as a human being.”

Fighting evil from within

Sometimes the protesters themselves step up and fight the evil within their own ranks. During the Ferguson riots, protestor Gregory Weston and a group of others protesting the shooting gathered to stop the mob from continuing to loot local businesses. “This night wasn’t supposed to be about looting. It’s bad when people take something so good and ruin it with something like that.”

In 1996, Keishia Thomas used her own body to save a demonstrator at a KKK rally  because it was the right thing to do. Ms. Thomas, who was only 18, said she risked her life to protect a man whose ideas she came to protest “because he’s a human being, too.” Twenty years later, she still gets death threats from people who believe she betrayed her race.

Fighting evil isn’t a one-time thing

Evil exists and infects everywhere that people are found. Government and its leaders become power hungry and corrupt, individual citizens can commit horrendous acts, and mobs can become destructive and deadly very quickly. It’s your duty to God, your community, and your family to resist evil wherever you find it.

Edmund Burke said, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” 

Be the good man who does something.