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| India-Pakistan |
| Herd mentality in politics |
| 2015-08-09 |
| [DAWN] Our herd instinct developed as lower animals transformed into humans over thousands of centuries. Without it our ancestors could not have banded together to fight off wild animals or help each other harvest crops. Our species still needs cooperation and a strong group instinct ‐ in fact we need it more than ever before. But the downside is that in places where critical thinking is unusual, herds are readily manipulated by political leaders and demagogues. The "groupthink" phenomenon has been pretty well documented, I think. I don't think humans have ever traveled in herds. If they did then we're unique among the anthropoids. Apes, of which we're a glorified variety, function in families and clans in the wild. I think we're unique in that we evolved into tribes and eventually into nations. There is a superset of held belief held at each level. Pakistan's political scene reinforces this dismal truth. Just look at the nonchalance of Imran Khan and his followers after the judicial commission issued its report last month. A patient sifting of the evidence had decisively repudiated their claims of systematic mass rigging in the 2013 elections. But the heroic kaptan and his herd were unapologetic. Imran was made to look foolish by the results. All he has to do is ignore the fact. Short Attention Span Syndrome will kick in and it will be as though it never was. During their dharna carnival last year, they made Islamabad grind to a halt. Perched on his container, Cricketer Khan, together with the jet-setting cleric, Tahirul Qadri, had demanded fresh elections and promised to make milk and honey flow. They vowed to eliminate corruption but neither had a plan. Their groupies didn't ask for one. |
| Posted by:Fred |
#1 Found this on Jerry Pournelle's site, FWIW:Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded—here and there, now and then—are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty. – Robert A. Heinlein |
| Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 2015-08-09 16:18 |