I felt the unmistakable itch of a good, old-fashioned rant coming on – the kind that bubbles up like a kettle left screaming on the hob, demanding release before it scalds the lot of us. As for the sordid details of why, well, I shall spare you the tedium. Some things are best left festering in the dark, like an unclaimed sock in the back of a damp cupboard.
Now, I do have something rather more refined – an opus, if you will – on the subject of moral panics and mass hysteria, but that’s a beast for another day. Today, however, I need to unburden myself, to rid my mind of this particular irritation before it festers like an infected splinter. So, brace yourself – this won’t be gentle.
There is something both grotesque and predictable about the way people fling themselves into collective hysteria, like a herd of spooked cattle stampeding towards the edge of a cliff. The phrase often attributed to Charles Mackay – ‘Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one’ – rings more disturbingly true in the present age than ever before. Today, we do not even require physical crowds to trigger mass insanity; a few viral tweets, a sensationalist headline, or a tear-streaked influencer can incite the kind of frenzied lunacy that would make the Witchfinder General blush.
The Herd: Gullible, Hysterical, and Permanently Offended
The contemporary crowd does not merely go mad; it does so with a theatrical flair that would put a Victorian asylum to shame. Social media has transformed collective irrationality into a grotesque spectacle, where moral panics spread faster than syphilis in a brothel. Each week, a new outrage is declared, a new villain is found, and a new punishment is demanded. The herd is always on the hunt for its next sacrifice, galloping blindly in whatever direction its self-appointed shepherds decree.
The sheer gullibility of the modern mob is staggering. It takes only the most dubious claim, the most melodramatic sob story, or the vaguest accusation for a horde of online zealots to froth at the mouth, demanding retribution. Rationality is the first casualty in this theatre of absurdity. Nuance is not merely ignored; it is actively despised. To even hesitate before joining the latest witch hunt is to mark oneself as suspect. There is no room for contemplation in a world where the loudest, shrillest voices dictate the narrative.
The Glorious Idiocy of Performative Outrage
No age has been quite so enamoured with the pantomime of virtue as ours. We have not merely adopted mob justice; we have infused it with the shallow, attention-seeking tendencies of reality television. The modern crowd does not seek justice so much as it seeks spectacle. It is not enough to denounce someone in private; one must do so with dramatic flourishes, public declarations, and a carefully curated performance of righteous indignation.
Take, for example, the rise of ‘cancel culture’ – a term that sends some into fits of pearl-clutching denial while others wield it like a bludgeon. In its purest form, it is nothing more than an exercise in performative moral hysteria. A single off-colour joke from a decade ago, an opinion that deviates slightly from the accepted orthodoxy, or even an association with the ‘wrong’ person is enough to invite social exile. The mob does not seek understanding, redemption, or even truth. It seeks a scapegoat. And once the scent of blood is in the air, the feeding frenzy begins.
The most laughable aspect of this manufactured outrage is its sheer inconsistency. One day, a public figure is a hero; the next, they are a pariah. The standards shift according to convenience, and those who were once lauded as paragons of virtue find themselves devoured by the very beast they helped create. There is no loyalty among the mad, no sense of history, and certainly no forgiveness. The mob is an ouroboros, endlessly devouring itself in its insatiable hunger for fresh scandal.
A Case Study in Derangement: Trump, Musk, and the Baying Mob
Nowhere is this madness more evident than in the violent, frothing hatred directed towards figures like Donald Trump and Elon Musk. ‘Trump Derangement Syndrome’ (TDS) may have started as a joke, but it has become a disturbingly accurate diagnosis. The sheer level of venom, the deranged obsession, the glassy-eyed, white-knuckled hysteria – it’s as if half the population has been hypnotised into believing Trump is some sort of Lovecraftian entity that must be banished from existence at any cost.
And it’s not just words. The assassination attempts, the mobs attacking political opponents, the lunatic vandalism of Tesla vehicles – this is the behaviour of unhinged fanatics, not rational individuals. People are setting fire to Tesla charging stations, keying cars, and attacking complete strangers simply because they drive a vehicle associated with Musk. They may as well be burning effigies in the town square, wailing at the moon.
Musk, in particular, has been fascinating to watch. He was a darling of the left when Tesla was the great hope for green energy. But the moment he started advocating for free speech, questioning woke ideology, and exposing Twitter’s past censorship practices, he became an enemy. Now, suddenly, Tesla cars are being vandalised, and Musk himself is painted as some kind of supervillain. It’s pathetic.
The fact that Tesla drivers are being targeted shows how deep this derangement runs. People aren’t just attacking a public figure anymore; they’re attacking random individuals who simply own a car. It’s pure mob insanity, the kind that history has seen before in book burnings, witch trials, and political purges. The exact same psychology is at play – the need to purge, to destroy, to eradicate perceived heresy.
And the media, of course, fans the flames. They take these obsessions and feed them with relentless propaganda, ensuring that the mob stays whipped up into a lather of hate. They never stop to ask whether they are, in fact, creating the very violence they claim to oppose.
The Lonely Path to Sanity
If madness is a collective affair, sanity is a lonely pilgrimage. To stand apart from the herd – to question, to doubt, to resist – is to invite ostracisation. It is to be branded a reactionary, a contrarian, or worse, a free thinker. And yet, history has shown time and again that the masses are almost always wrong. The most disastrous economic bubbles, the most shameful moral panics, and the most egregious political movements have all been fuelled by the unchecked hysteria of the crowd.
Sanity, when it comes, comes quietly. It does not arrive with fanfare or applause. It creeps in, slowly, like dawn breaking over a battlefield strewn with the corpses of those who were so convinced of their righteousness. Those who were once at the heart of the mob, shrieking for justice, wake up to find themselves alone, wondering how they could have been so blind. Some never recover, too invested in the fantasy to admit they were fools. Others slink away in shame, hoping no one remembers their role in the carnage.
A Herd Destined for the Abattoir
As I watch the latest round of mass hysteria unfold, I find myself both amused and horrified. The players change, the accusations shift, but the pattern remains the same. The crowd, ever eager for its next high, will continue to fling itself into one frenzy after another, blind to the fact that it is little more than a collection of marionettes, jerked this way and that by forces it barely comprehends.
And so, I step aside. Let them froth and wail. Let them gnash their teeth and rend their garments. I will take the road less travelled, the one where reason, patience, and a healthy dose of cynicism reside. The herd can keep its madness; I prefer my sanity.
Wording 