THE UNTHINKING MOB

A mind that does not think for itself is a mind which is actually betraying itself. Yet that is what most people do. School teaches us to do this. Sit still, don’t question your teacher, receive the lesson, play it back on the test and you will be approved, get good grades, and move on. Those who learn this well will be doing this decades later. They sit still when they watch the news on television or on the internet, they hear the political talking points a dozen or five dozen times, and that’s what they repeat. Uncritical credulity. And now with the pat answers, people can feel comfortable that they understand. Case closed. Now, what movie do you want to watch?

If there’s any example of extreme unthinkingness— it is a mob. In a way we’re fortunate this year because we don’t have to theorize about mobs— we have been watching mobs in many of the major cities. We hear them screaming and shouting media’s talking points. The mob in Louisville Kentucky and other cities this week is a classical example. Instead of actually thinking and asking relevant questions— all they focus on is the end results. They didn’t get what they thought was right, so they protest. But what are they protesting? The judicial system worked—a jury of peers looked at the evidence and drew their conclusions from the facts of the case.

Facts included “Breonna Taylor’s boyfriend fired first” and the police returned fire in self-defense. They knocked on the door and announced “Police” which was confirmed by other people living in the apartment building, it was not a “no-knock” warrant.

Now an active and effective mind considers the facts, weighs the evidence, and reasons to a logical conclusion. Even the person who delivered the final verdict, Daniel Cameron, the General Attorney of Kentucky, and a black man said that “justice by riots” is not justice, “that is revenge.” If we ask who is actually responsible for Breonna’s death, it is her boyfriend who initiated the gun fight. If he had not done that ... she would not have died.

Those from the Democratic left have been calling for people to rise up, call for justice, demand protests until they get justice. Yet all of that is non-sense to thinking people. That’s just the taking points of BLM and the media who endlessly present today’s “Lesson” for all the immature minds to mindlessly repeat. Some so much do not like the facts, they try to change the facts. The most ridiculous are those who say that Daniel Cameron is not really black!

A mature mind confronts problems to be solved, searches for relevant evidence, weigh the evidence against context, the rule of law, values, ethics, etc., come to a reasoned conclusion, test it with others, etc. That’s executive thinking and it requires calm objectivity. The emotional thinking that we see in the mobs is mobilized by lots of cognitive distortions— exaggerations, over-generalizations, personalizations, awfulizing, identification, etc. You can hear it in their illogical chants:

“No black man is safe in America.” None? No where in America? “Police are committing genocide against African Americans.” Of course, that goes against the fact that 96% of all black men are killed by other black men.

The problem with the unthinking is that sound reasoning doesn’t compute for them. Nor do facts. Emotional reactivity is what leads them to scream, chant slogans, throw things, threaten to burn things down, etc. and become violent mobs. It undermines democracy, humanity, and morality. Screaming “No justice, no peace” in the shouts of a mob is actually a threat. It is threatening, “My way or highway of destruction.”

That undermines the democratic agreement which every democracy is built upon. We establish processes of justice and we keep updating and refreshing them so that we become “a more perfect” union. Yet it is always human— always fallible. Recognizing that every justice process can be improved— that’s where reasonable men and women put their focus, not rioting in the streets.