CROWDS
I have been thinking about why so many of us enjoyed squeezing into the huge hall of Highland Brewery to cheer for our team, the USA, as we watched a game that we could barely see on a distant screen. The same must be true for the huge crowd gathered in Central Park.
But as I thought about it I realized that was almost equally true of the people who paid thousands of dollars to attend the game. 60 or 70 thousand people shoulder to shoulder in the stands, many of them dressed in outlandish red, white and blue costumes, standing up through the whole game screaming with their explosive energy propelling the USA team on. If they just wanted to see the game they could have seen in much better in their living room on a large screen with close up views of the action and replays of important moments. The view from high in the stands was not much better than my view of the game on my iPhone as I stood in the back of the crowd at Highland Brewery.
And that brought back the atmosphere at the Trump rally that I photographed in Asheville a couple of years ago. Again everyone was dressed in red, white and blue, often with obscene threats emblazoned on their t-shirts. Because I was wearing a MAGA hat I was one of them with a glorious feeling of togetherness enlivening everyone who stood in line. No wonder people attend Trump rally after Trump rally, each time feeling the ecstasy of all out approval and delight. Trump is only the excuse. It reminded me of the only Grateful Dead concert I ever attended where the whole crowd swayed and danced to the music. And this reminded me of my time in the army when we would march four abreast in a long column, in lockstep with each other, with the feel of power that such a large group bonded together gives. That ecstasy must have been what soldiers in the past marching off to their mutilation or deaths in lockstep with the drums beating and fifes playing. It was that same feeling that films of Billy Graham’s religious revivals that I saw in my childhood in missionary Landour where the enthusiasm of the crowd would impel person after person to come forward to be saved. I even think of Hitler’s monster rallies which had the same mesmerizing effect.
All of this is a result of being in a crowd, of being much more than an isolated individual, of being much more than myself, of being part of something grand and important. No wonder football games begin with the national anthem and a burst of patriotism, before men begin to pummel themselves on the field and the crowd whips into a frenzy of fandom. Onward Christian soldiers, marching as to war, with the cross of Jesus going on before. Maybe this explains part of our current polarization, maybe it is what makes us join one tribe or the other with great enthusiasm and a feeling of defending our group identity. Polarization could be as much about belong to a tribe and feeling powerful as about what the tribe believes. Once you join the tribe, in order to belong, you have to profess the beliefs of the tribe whether you personally believe all of them or not. And once you commit to a tribe and belong, it is almost impossible to break free regardless of what you personally believe.
Anyway, this is my current understanding of polarization and why it is so powerful.
BILLYBABA’S WANDERING 