Obvious Leo wrote:marjoram_blues wrote:
Leo - I was concerned that you were implying that the women's experiences were some kind of a hysterical reaction.
I had a feeling that you'd misunderstood my meaning. The hysteria was a property of the perpetrators of the attacks, not of the victims, and I simply forgot that many people associate hysteria with female behaviour. However Freud's exclusive definitions of human behaviour are seldom used in the psycho-social literature these days. Hysterical behaviour is nowadays seen as a gender-neutral term and it is actually men who are more likely to be associated with it in such a mass setting.
A similar thing happened in Sydney only a few years ago when a fight broke out on a beach between a skinhead gang and a Lebanese gang. Within an hour thousands of young people were involved in it and they were flocking to the beach from all over Sydney in order to take part. Hardly any of them knew what the fight was about and even fewer cared. They just somehow got caught up in a weird psychological moment. I'm not suggesting that Cologne is an analogous case but there are certainly some points of similarity.
OK Leo.
First off - re you had a feeling that I'd misunderstood your meaning. 'I had a feeling' that you would respond like this. In fact, I did not misunderstand your meaning, I was looking for you to explain what you meant by 'mass hysteria' and why your first reaction was that the Cologne attacks were similar. Earlier you wrote:
It strikes me that the outrageous behaviour in Cologne might be an example of a different sort of phenomenon altogether. Football spectator violence, Los Angeles riots, London riots, Rwandan massacres etc are NOT expressions of uncontrolled human instinct. They are expressions of a collective madness which can overcome large groups of individuals when their personal ethical frame of reference is overwhelmed by frenzy.
The final sentence ( emphasis added) could have been interpreted as applying to the groups of women involved. They were the targets overwhelmed by the 'frenzy' of sex attacks by large, organised groups of men. So, it was right for me to question your exact meaning. Even if it meant that I would receive a reply which has somewhat of a put-down nature to it. I was not associating hysteria with female behaviour nor coming from an intellectual framework. However, it is clear that there remains a certain negative attitude to female victims of sexual crime and offences which needs to be addressed. I see evidence that there was a neglect on the part of the police and the incident being glossed over; the initial police assessment was that there was a 'relaxed atmosphere'. No hysteria here then. Just political panic that the events would not be good for Merkel.
Also, you cut down a quote of mine which if given in full would show that I understood you were talking of the perpetrators:
'Gangs of men are made up of individuals; they are organised. And yes, criminal behaviour should and will be pursued. I'm not sure that this is an example of mass hysteria, erupting from a trivial incident'.
I don't believe that the events in Cologne and other German cities are indicative of a 'weird psychological moment'.
However, I take your point about the potential for politicians to use this to suit their own ends. It is possible to induce the kind of 'mass hysteria' related to mass public near-panic reactions.
My concern is that the police couldn't - or wouldn't - handle it. Too many attacks and crimes happening all at the same time. What if instead of being organised crime involving sexual attacks terrorising women, it had been a major terrorist attack. We would all have heard about it, immediately.
This is not a one-off of the kind you illustrated. This is the type of planned chaos which terrorist groups look to perpetrate. And gain from. There is real concern about security.
You reply to Skip's: 'the targets of such rampages are never random: they are pre-selected by the culture and the socio-political climate of the times'
I have no doubt that this is true but such a pre-selection must not be conflated in any way with an organised conspiracy to undermine the cultural values of whichever society happens to be on the receiving end of it.
Women are an easy first target of such organised groups of men. Given recent events in Europe, it is not a great stretch to view this as part of the attack on our cultural values.
As we both agree, this is a complicated situation to be viewed from all perspectives possible. The sexist aspect is only one, but I warn against it not being taken seriously enough. In this country, there was a cover-up involving gangs of men from a different culture who systematically sexually abused young girls. People should not be afraid to tackle the serious sexist attitudes and criminality due to fears of being labelled 'racist'.
Talking about labels, glad to hear that you identify as a 'feminist' - interesting that you continued, 'Men are vain and females can outsmart them because of this'. Is this 'feminism' ? Or sexism. Or trivialising by generalisation...