Something strange happens to individuality when people merge to form a group. It doesn’t seem to matter what kind of group it is or whether the merging is intentional or incidental.
I was in Darling Harbour yesterday watching a busker preparing to perform his routine. He was wearing a faded red lycra bodysuit and had unruly strawberry blonde hair. He wore black sneakers and was probably about 162cm tall (5’4”). All rather inconsequential. He rode a unicycle and wore a radio mic headset giving him height and volume and, apparently, power to control the masses.
He began by calling people to stand around him in a circle. The naturally curious responded good naturedly, standing and waiting for the ‘show’. But to get the attention and compliance of others, he began to target them specifically.
“Hey you two there walking past with the big straw hat and the coloured bag. Where are going? Spare a few minutes…”
The couple hesitated, looked at each uncertainly, clearly embarrassed, aware that the crowd was watching them. They stopped and joined the spectators. The busker’s attention moved to someone else.
“Where are going?” he called to a group of young people moving off. They stopped and returned.
“Are you going to deny your children the opportunity to witness a truly magnificent act?” the voice blared over the speaker. Several families in the vicinity stopped and joined the spectators, rather than risk being singled out. No-one ignored him and just kept walking.
Once he had amassed a sizable audience, he began issuing directions as he pranced around atop the unicycle. I’m not sure what the basis of his ‘act’ was, it didn’t appear to have any substance, but crowd compliance was his goal.
If someone became restless, he would draw attention to them and they would immediately desist. I wondered why.
He gave a request for the audience to clap hard, to draw the attention of passers-by (presumably to increase the volume of proffering at the end of the ‘act’).
“I can see you in the back,” he called. The people in the back rolled their eyes at each other, but still clapped harder.
I didn’t get it. Why is that these people don’t – or can’t – just walk away? They were clearly uncomfortable – obviously didn’t want to be there following his instructions. So what if he called after them? He would be making an idiot out of himself rather than them if they ignored him. But it seemed no-one was prepared to take the risk.
Are we so conditioned to do what we are told – even if it makes us unhappy or feels wrong, that we blindly follow instructions? Is our desire to ‘fit in’ so strong that rather than risk being singled out, we will follow the crowd irrespective of how it feels? Meanwhile the crowd gets bigger and more influential (or powerful).
Whilst this may have been a relatively benign example of pack mentality, it’s not much of a leap to recognise that this is how bullies amass their power — relying on the fact that no-one will challenge for fear of becoming a victim. It would have only taken one person or a small group of people to walk away from the lycra wearing unicycle man to make a point. Others would have followed.
Similarly, it only takes one witness to challenge the behaviour of a bully and therefore diffuse their power. Others would follow.
City Observationist 