
On Days of Disorder - barry-cotter
https://scholars-stage.blogspot.com/2020/05/on-days-of-disorder.html?m=1
======
barry-cotter
> This then is the general pattern of riots: An event occurs that signals to
> would-be rioters that they may soon be able to riot. This event gathers a
> crowd. A significant percentage of this crowd—though rarely, it seems, the
> majority—are eager for destruction. An entrepreneurial would-be rioter tests
> the crowd for the presence of other rioters by engaging in a minor (yet
> easily perceived) act of carnage. Other rioters follow suit, and as the
> number of offenders grow so do their willingness to take increasingly brazen
> acts of vandalism, theft, or violence.

...

> It is supremely important to understand the sort of era one is in. At the
> level of the ordinary citizen, the trend of the age may prompt a family to
> fill their larders or purchase arms. At the political level different
> calculations must be made. Just how durable is the order? How many people
> will willingly oppose it, given the opportunity to do so? Have they begun to
> do so? How will I act differently in world where no one believes the center
> will hold? There is a whiff of the self-fulfilling prophecy in these
> decisions; once the signal is sent out, each small defection from the order
> is evidence that the broader mandate has gone up in smoke. The world united
> shifts to the world divided, and the struggle for the future begins.

> But a signal must first be sent. In this respect fallen mandates and roving
> mobs differ little from each other. No civic order can be breached until the
> ambitious have broken a few windows.

