A case of herd mentality?
Shanta Gokhale
A friend of my mother’s, let’s call her Vimlabai, was famous for her amti. Amti is the sour-sweet dal, strongly flavoured with kala masala, that is a staple of everyday cooking in many Marathi homes. This lady became famous for her amti because she spoke continuously and fulsomely about its virtues.
Amongst her friends were some who were sceptical and others who were gullible. The sceptics, including my mother, said why should we believe that her amti is extraordinary? Just because she says so? The gullible said, come on, why would she lie, a grown up woman like that? Her amti must indeed be extraordinary. Had Vimlabai been a politician in pre-election mode, she’d have had thousands testifying to the ambrosial qualities of her amti from every platform and stage till it got built up into a major miracle of human endeavour. The crowds would then have hung on every word she said, unmindful of the fact that they had heard the very same words before. Cheering furiously, they would have chanted, “Vee Vant Vimlabai” and sung, Jis desh mein amti behti hai, hum ussi desh ko chahte hein.
After all, crowds are initially just innocuous gatherings of individuals with diverse backgrounds and interests. They become a herd only when Malcolm Gladwell’s “tipping point” is reached. Adolf Hitler made that happen with a simple and obvious ruse. He would plant a group of German officers minus uniforms amongst the crowds attending his rallies. These officers would cheer and clap thunderously, till soon everybody around them was cheering and clapping.
When the speeches were broadcast, the sound of thousands cheering entered drawing rooms, gradually converting listeners into believers. The medium thus became the message, a truth that Marshall McLuhan was to formulate 19 years after Hitler had shot himself dead in his trench.
Countless writers and playwrights have argued trenchantly against the damage human beings do to themselves and society when they turn into a herd. Avidly reading Adil Jussawalla’s recently published collection of “essays and entertainments”, Maps For a Mortal Moon, I came upon his impassioned diatribe against the herd instinct. He begins with the question, “Is it a human trait to regard our heroes as omniscient, infallible, even immortal?”, goes on to suggest that human herds are “more stupefied and bovine than those poor creatures suffering from mad cow disease”, and concludes with, “Abandoning reason is one way by which a human being not only becomes human in the worst possible sense but also a beast in the worst possible sense.”
That is the conclusion to which Ionesco’s Rhinoceros also leads us. Initially, one human being in a small French town turns into a rhinoceros. Then several others do. The aggressive Botard reasons that it is impossible for the whole town to be in the grip of rhinoceritis, because people are too intelligent to be tricked by the rhetoric of a mass movement. But soon Botard too turns into a rhinoceros. The infection spreads rapidly, laying low everybody from equivocating intellectuals to housewives. Finally, the mild, shy, non-posturing Berenger, refusing to capitulate, is the only human being left in the town.
Young German playwright Marius von Mayenburg’s The Ugly One, is the story of Lette, a talented engineer whose boss tells him he can’t present the plug he has invented at a convention in Switzerland because he’s too ugly. Lette has radical reconstruction surgery done on his face, and becomes so good-looking that the other characters run to the nearest plastic surgeon to have their faces reconstructed to look like him. Our politicians’ “supporters” have found a less expensive and more theatrical way to look like their adored ones. They wear masks.
Finally we come to George Orwell’s Animal Farm where Snowball the pig, teaches the herd to chant, “Four legs good, two legs bad”, an easy to memorise maxim that neatly captures the founding principle of Animalism.
I suspect Mamtadi’s flop show at Delhi had something to do with her supporters not having cooked up a magical chant. “MaBa! MaBa!”, a call to MOTHER in two languages, would have done the trick. Mere paas maa hai etc. Not having a chant and not having gone around the country wearing diverse headgears and not posturing as the onewoman solution to all of India’s ills, meant empty chairs in Delhi. That’s the way the cookie crumbles.
A friend of my mother’s, let’s call her Vimlabai, was famous for her amti. Amti is the sour-sweet dal, strongly flavoured with kala masala, that is a staple of everyday cooking in many Marathi homes. This lady became famous for her amti because she spoke continuously and fulsomely about its virtues.
Amongst her friends were some who were sceptical and others who were gullible. The sceptics, including my mother, said why should we believe that her amti is extraordinary? Just because she says so? The gullible said, come on, why would she lie, a grown up woman like that? Her amti must indeed be extraordinary. Had Vimlabai been a politician in pre-election mode, she’d have had thousands testifying to the ambrosial qualities of her amti from every platform and stage till it got built up into a major miracle of human endeavour. The crowds would then have hung on every word she said, unmindful of the fact that they had heard the very same words before. Cheering furiously, they would have chanted, “Vee Vant Vimlabai” and sung, Jis desh mein amti behti hai, hum ussi desh ko chahte hein.
Exaggeration? Perhaps. But only a small one. Admittedly, the crowds wouldn’t have sung unless Vimlabai had augmented the effect of self-praise with subtler strategies.
After all, crowds are initially just innocuous gatherings of individuals with diverse backgrounds and interests. They become a herd only when Malcolm Gladwell’s “tipping point” is reached. Adolf Hitler made that happen with a simple and obvious ruse. He would plant a group of German officers minus uniforms amongst the crowds attending his rallies. These officers would cheer and clap thunderously, till soon everybody around them was cheering and clapping.
When the speeches were broadcast, the sound of thousands cheering entered drawing rooms, gradually converting listeners into believers. The medium thus became the message, a truth that Marshall McLuhan was to formulate 19 years after Hitler had shot himself dead in his trench.
Countless writers and playwrights have argued trenchantly against the damage human beings do to themselves and society when they turn into a herd. Avidly reading Adil Jussawalla’s recently published collection of “essays and entertainments”, Maps For a Mortal Moon, I came upon his impassioned diatribe against the herd instinct. He begins with the question, “Is it a human trait to regard our heroes as omniscient, infallible, even immortal?”, goes on to suggest that human herds are “more stupefied and bovine than those poor creatures suffering from mad cow disease”, and concludes with, “Abandoning reason is one way by which a human being not only becomes human in the worst possible sense but also a beast in the worst possible sense.”
That is the conclusion to which Ionesco’s Rhinoceros also leads us. Initially, one human being in a small French town turns into a rhinoceros. Then several others do. The aggressive Botard reasons that it is impossible for the whole town to be in the grip of rhinoceritis, because people are too intelligent to be tricked by the rhetoric of a mass movement. But soon Botard too turns into a rhinoceros. The infection spreads rapidly, laying low everybody from equivocating intellectuals to housewives. Finally, the mild, shy, non-posturing Berenger, refusing to capitulate, is the only human being left in the town.
Young German playwright Marius von Mayenburg’s The Ugly One, is the story of Lette, a talented engineer whose boss tells him he can’t present the plug he has invented at a convention in Switzerland because he’s too ugly. Lette has radical reconstruction surgery done on his face, and becomes so good-looking that the other characters run to the nearest plastic surgeon to have their faces reconstructed to look like him. Our politicians’ “supporters” have found a less expensive and more theatrical way to look like their adored ones. They wear masks.
Finally we come to George Orwell’s Animal Farm where Snowball the pig, teaches the herd to chant, “Four legs good, two legs bad”, an easy to memorise maxim that neatly captures the founding principle of Animalism.
I suspect Mamtadi’s flop show at Delhi had something to do with her supporters not having cooked up a magical chant. “MaBa! MaBa!”, a call to MOTHER in two languages, would have done the trick. Mere paas maa hai etc. Not having a chant and not having gone around the country wearing diverse headgears and not posturing as the onewoman solution to all of India’s ills, meant empty chairs in Delhi. That’s the way the cookie crumbles.
Disclaimer: The views expressed here are the author's own. The opinions and facts expressed here do not reflect the views of Mirror and Mirror does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.
