Friday 5 March 2021

Atavistic Urges.

Mob Psychology: Deep down inside us dwell all manner of dark and violent impulses. In times of social stress and/or crisis, these “atavistic” urges have a nasty habit of rising to the surface like an insufficiently weighted corpse – and unleashing mayhem.

ARE WE AS SAVAGE as our forebears? Would we still gather in our thousands to witness the public execution of a notorious felon? I’d like to think not, but something tells me that if the opportunity presented itself, far too many of us would be unable to resist the temptation to go and gawk at horror.

The word for this impulse is atavism. Deep down inside us dwell all manner of dark and violent impulses. In times of social stress and/or crisis, these “atavistic” urges have a nasty habit of rising to the surface like an insufficiently weighted corpse – and unleashing mayhem.

Our forebears understood this deep-seated human need to see horror answered with horror; pain with pain. In the crude mathematics of vengeance, it was necessary to balance the outrageousness of the crime with an appropriately severe degree of public retribution.

In this regard, the ancient authors of the Old Testament who demanded an eye for an eye understood their audience a lot better than the impossibly gentle Jesus. To love one’s enemies is the counsel of perfection. Human-beings just aren’t that good at being “kind” – especially to those who don’t deserve it.

Atavism was on my mind this past week, as the public’s fury with the persons responsible for returning Auckland to Covid-19 Alert Level 3 and the rest of New Zealand to Level 2 rose to a level where even Queen Jacinda the Kind felt obliged to echo it.

The gospel of Jesus just wasn’t cutting it anymore: New Zealanders had had enough of their Prime Minister’s kindness; what they wanted to know now was whether she also knew how to be cruel.

No problem.

Jacinda’s fury is the opposite of a raging fire. It’s a cold front straight from the Antarctic. When she enunciates the word “frustrated” it has the sound of an icicle being snapped into little pieces. Her controlled rage is thrilling, but it’s not enough. The Team of Five Million wants more.

A year ago, when the Global Pandemic was just getting its eye in, we huddled together around the bright fire of Jacinda’s leadership like Cro-Magnon hunter-gatherers. In times of crisis, there are few atavistic urges more compelling than the terrified tribe’s desire to surrender its will to a strong and trusted chief. Jacinda’s call for “kindness” answered to perfection the nation’s hunger for unity and reassurance. Social divisions dissolved; ideological quarrels ceased; we were all in this together: of course we could be kind!

And how we rewarded her! There was a point on Election Night 2020 (right about the time Rangitata fell to Labour) when I just threw back my head and laughed. The deep roar of that massive red wave sweeping the country was compounded of pride in the tribe, fears overcome, and that huge surge of relief that comes from dodging a bullet. “We” had done it! Kindness Rules!

Or, does it?

Human-beings are good in a crisis – even a long one. Just think of our parents and grandparents, bearing-up under six years of total war. What we’re less good at, however, is going in and out of crises. What Judith Collins, with uncharacteristic verbal felicity, calls “yo-yoing”.

Our rational faculties tell us that with Covid-19 still raging across the planet, and the poor Americans burying more than half-a-million victims; the virus’s occasional leakage into our own communities has to be expected and accepted. Every time we go back into Lockdown, however, our capacity for kindness diminishes.

And when we discover that through either stupidity, sheer selfishness, or both, a member, or members, of the Team of Five Million have upended the lives of their fellow citizens and cost the country hundreds-of-millions of dollars by not following the rules of the game, well, our kindness evaporates altogether.

In those circumstances, the atavistic impulses rising from our psychic depths will be especially dark and dangerous. Having established that somebody has broken faith with the tribe, the tribe will seek retribution – public retribution. It will need to be satisfied that the guilty party’s transgression has received the appropriate punishment.

If we still had stocks, then these malefactors would be in them.

Should the transgressions of these fools lead to unnecessary deaths, however, just watch the public mood turn even darker.

The atavistic cry, then, will be: String the bastards up!


This essay was originally published in The Otago Daily Times and The Greymouth Star of Friday, 5 March 2021.

9 comments:

Kat said...

Jacinda presents the very opposite to "Dirty Politics"......people are still getting used to it. If the PM has to show some genuine icy frustration at the behaviour of some people's actions to get her message across then all power to her.

Chris Morris said...

The problem with retribution is all too often, the mob latches on to the wrong person. And they don't see reason. There was that pediatrician who had his house attached because the rabble thought he was a pedophile. http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/182683
And recently Jacinda attacked Case L, when it was her own department at fault. There hasn't yet been an apology for this shocking case of bullying and mob incitement.
That risk of getting it wrong is why no matter what the situation, the leaders need to be very circumspect about what they say. And to be absolute sure of the facts. They are responsible for what they say.

Unknown said...

There is a saying, "dont set your children up to fail", in a sense how has the government allowed the environment where so few have been put unknowingly in a position to create so much havoc (I say unknowingly, if they were fully informed of the impact of their actions or policed to prevent their actions they would either do differently, or not have been able to do so). Pursue these people and you will martyr them, then try and get your vaccine roll out.

David George said...

"To love one’s enemies is the counsel of perfection. Human-beings just aren’t that good at being “kind”
Christianity is a religion of personal responsibility, you, not your tribe are responsible to God for your actions.
Collectively, in the mob, we're transformed into a terrifying beast. There's no forgiveness or genuine compassion or accountability or bestowing of the gift of redemption, they arise, not in the collective but in individual hearts. Under the cover of the mob all hell can break loose.

Guerilla Surgeon said...

"Christianity is a religion of personal responsibility, you, not your tribe are responsible to God for your actions."
Is that why Christian churches have done more to spread Covid 19 than pretty much any organisation on earth? Perhaps you should start thinking a little more collectively.

Brendan McNeill said...

"Christianity is a religion of personal responsibility" A statement so well understood by the majority of Christians that it ought to go without staying, and yet today it needs to be repeated. The ability to take personal responsibility, and not to wallow in self defeating blame, victimhood and resentment is one of the defining factors that made Western Civilisation entirely more functional than the majority of its competitors.

Sure, we are human, and historically Christians have behaved as badly as anyone else, and often still do today. However the inherit knowledge that we are individually responsible before God, not only for our own lives, but for those of our family, and importantly also for our neighbour is what makes a society imbued with the Christian faith so transformational.

You cannot legislate for compassion or kindness, and reducing these virtues to political platitudes is a pointless absurdity. This is the weakness of socialism. It attempts to introduce the Kingdom of God through public policy, legislation and political persuasion. You cannot achieve through law what can only be born of the Spirit.

greywarbler said...

Generalisations abound here. Individual souls and collective immunity - people can forego their individual scruples or ways under the influence of a wide and concentrated hegemony. But that can work both ways, and I thought that democracies were tilted to passing on good values throughout the society, and reducing the bad ones, like road kill numbers. But it has to be taught and modelled, practised and reinforced, and if there is insufficient of either then you get what we have now in NZ. Cherry-picking the ideas that suit the individual best, and not much attention to the soul with religions being deficient in this too is what I see, and so in reaction there is a similar disregard for relevance, fairness, examination, in each competing narrative.

Nick J said...

Is that why Christian churches have done more to spread Covid 19 than pretty much any organisation on earth?

Big statement, evidence please. Proof please.

Guerilla Surgeon said...

Proof is confined to the areas of mathematics and the law. But here is a fair bit of evidence.


https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/2153599X.2020.1749339
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/08/us/coronavirus-churches-outbreaks.html
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-france-church-spec-idUSKBN21H0Q2
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-southkorea-church-idUSKBN25Z1MU
https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/coronavirus-exposes-evangelical-christianity-s-flaws-church-can-be-force-ncna1189946
https://www.france24.com/en/20200303-south-korea-seeks-criminal-charges-against-christian-sect-over-coronavirus-spread
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/apr/04/america-rightwing-christian-preachers-virus-hoax