Beyond Rivalry

I've read Leroy Sievers' My Cancer every morning for a couple of years. It's often a difficult way to start the day, and it's an important touchstone for me, too. His latest scans showed cancer in multiple places (9 June) and his story seems to be taking yet another turn. Many of the commenters also have cancer or care for someone with cancer.

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This blog entry, by Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution today, from and about the novel Atmospheric Disturbances, got my attention:

"'It may be that friendship is nourished on observation and conversation, but love is born from and nourished on silent interpretation. ... The beloved expresses a possible world unknown to us ... that must be deciphered.'

"That is Gilles Deleuze and it is the front quotation in the new novel Atmospheric Disturbances, by the very beautiful Rivka Galchen.  The key premise of this novel is that a 51-year-old psychiatrist suddenly believes that his wife has been replaced with an exact look-alike; he refers to her as the Simulacrum.  I read it straight through."

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I'm still reading Alain de Botton's Status Anxiety and about to begin Charles Tilly's Why: What Happens When People Give Reasons ... and Why. When I saw it recommended, it reminded me of a House MD episode, "It's a Wonderful Lie" (ep. 4x10), and House's assertion that the "only reason to give multiple reasons is that you're seasching for what the person wants to hear." 

It's been another month since I last blogged about mob violence, which continues pretty well unabated. Below are some of the latest incidents reported, and some commentary on the phenomenon by others. (And here's why I'm doing it.)

I won't be making the Girardian connections for each of these as I have previously because the connections are the same as always -- scapegoat is often someone from the margins (disabled, poor, stranger, female, old, young, from another caste or class or country, seen as privileged, etc. ), mob often forms spontaneously or grows larger as the scapegoating occurs due to accusatory mimesis, perpetrators easily justify the scapegoating as necessary and right, scapegoating's intention is to bring about peace in the community.

INCIDENTS

** 15 May 2008, Baltimore MD: "Child Was a 'Demon'"
"One Mind Ministries of Baltimore, MD, allegedly starved an 18-month old child because he was viewed as a ‘demon' ... after the baby wouldn’t say 'amen' at mealtime." The baby's "body was found last month in a suitcase in Philadelphia two years after his death." Immediately after his death, "the baby was placed on a mattress, on which cult members said God would resurrect him from the dead."  Examiner article here.

** 31 May 2008 Para, Brasil, in the Amazon: "Brazilian Tribes Say Dam Threatens Way of Life" reported at NPR

Indigenous people protesting a proposed hydroelectric dam on the "remote, pristine Xingu River," near the mouth of the Amazon River, attack Paulo Fernando Rezende, a representative from the state's electric power enterprise, with machetes as he speaks to them about the dam:

"Roquivan Alves Silva takes the microphone and declares: 'If necessary, I will make war to protect the Xingu and the people of the entire region.' Moments later, the Indians rise in unison. A mix of warriors and women moves menacingly across the room toward Rezende. Then suddenly they're on him. Machetes and sticks flailing, they push Rezende to the floor, poking him with their weapons. The warriors rip his shirt to shreds and carve a deep gash in his right arm. Blood pooling on the floor, Dom Erwin, the Catholic Bishop of Xingu, steps in. The gymnasium hangs suspended between fear and euphoria. Chief Tabata, whose tribe lives in the Xingu National Park in the state of Mato Grosso, says he feels the Eletrobras representative lied. ... 'We have to hurt them. They weren't respecting the Indians. ... That's our fight. I want the people, the white people to understand why the Indians are so angry.'"

** 2 June 2008 Imphal, Manipur, India: Woman killer lynched: Mob justice at Umathel:

"In a macabre incident, a woman (45) was hacked to death by a man (60) who was subsequently lynched by an angry mob at Umathel Mamang Leikai under Waikhong Police Station this morning. ... According to police report, at around 6 am today, Sangai was returning home from collecting monthly subscription of a Marup from a person at Umathel Mamang Leikai.  While she was preparing to cross a bailey bridge, Khullachandra, who was then splitting bamboo, came from behind and hacked her on the neck killing the woman on the spot. When the news of the incident spread, angry locals came out in large number and beat up Khullachandra to death. The body of Khullachandra has been picked up by the Waikhong police. None of his family members have come to claim the body so far."

** 2 June 2008 Flushing, New York: "Mob Violence Against Falun Gong Worsens in Absence of Police"

"About forty Falun Gong practitioners were surrounded on Main Street in front of the Flushing Library Saturday evening between 5 p.m. and 7 p.m. by a large, angry mob. According to eyewitness reports and Epoch Times reporters on the scene, the mob was emboldened by the absence of the police. ... 'These mobs, there were hundreds of them, at least 200-300 of them.'" ... There is speculation that the Chinese consulate is organizing the mobs and that "some of the violence is being aggravated and encouraged by well-placed individuals among crowds of Chinese. On Sunday, an unidentified Chinese man, standing among a large crowd of Chinese on Sanford and Kissena Streets, described how he had attacked a female Falun Gong practitioner the previous week, ripping the sign she was holding and knocking her to the ground. The man, who was described as about 5'7" and in his mid-40's with scars on his face, encouraged people in the crowd to attack Falun Gong practitioners themselves." More on an earlier incident here.

** 9 June 2008 Bagamoyo, Tanzania: 

Kate Kozonasky reports on her blog of an incident of mob violence: "A few nights ago ... us girls were sitting outside at night, probably around 730, inside out home base just talking. All of the sudden, we heard this massive ROAR of people coming from outside the gate; it was ridiculous. at first it just sounded strictly like shouting, but as we ran outside our protective gates to see what the fuss was, we realized that at LEAST 150 people were running down the road with torches and spears, screaming "THIEF!" Our Tanzanian security gaurd explained that this often happens in Bagamoyo when there is a crime; when something happens and a citizen witnesses it, he has to scream to get others attention to catch the criminal themselves, because police are not affective here. So apparently, a man stole from a local store and they were literally chasing him out of the town to kill him!"  

COMMENTARY examining triggers for mob violence:

South Africa: Ugly Politics Aggravate Xenophobia by Terence Corrigan and Faten Aggad, 4 June 2008: The "recent eruption of mob violence targeting foreigners living among us" in South Africa" have been put down to "xenophobia,"  but this, the authors contend, "cannot on its own explain the violence. After all, South Africans have been living alongside foreign nationals for decades. This suggests that other factors are involved. We need to understand what they are – urgently." Factors the suggest and explore are (1) the inability of the existing democratic process to mitigate conflict; (2) the 'uneven' South African policy on immigraton, which leads to grievances such as "anger at competition for jobs and services, envy at the perceived success of foreigners, and suspicion of other cultures;" (3) a political system that fails "to channel people's grievances into formal channels;" (4) "a lack of understanding on the part of ordinary people as to how they can make themselves heard."

South Africa: Graca Machel Warns of Revolt Among Victims of Pogroms, 10 June 2008:

"Mozambique's former first lady, Graca Machel, who today heads one of the country's most respected NGOS, the Community Development Foundation (FDC), on Tuesday warned of possible revolt among the tens of thousands of Mozambicans who have fled from anti-foreigner pogroms in South Africa. ... Should the government prove unable to satisfy their demands, and to reinsert them into Mozambican society, that could lead the victims of the pogroms to revolt against their own government" with mob violence.  ...

"She added that the solutions to such problems must lie in the establishment of governments that are able to respond to the needs of their citizens, and reduce the likelihood that they will be driven to the margins of society. Machel claimed that the mob violence in South Africa was aimed more against the sub-human living conditions in the townships than against foreign citizens. She argued that the attacks had been unleashed by people who were 'rejected, marginalized and unused' by the South African system. (However, contrary to this view, there is good evidence that the initial riots were far from spontaneous, but were organised by self-styled 'community leaders'). Machel argued that the development models adopted by African governments have produced millions of marginalized and excluded people, living in conditions favourable to outbreaks of brutal violence. 'Extreme poverty dehumanizes people and leads them to madness,' she said. 'That's what happened in Rwanda over ten years ago.'

South Africa: Xenophobia on Trial at Boekehuis: Dark Tales and Hope by Liesl Jobson, 2 June 2008:

"Johannesburg readers crammed into Boekehuis" recently to "talk about xenophobia in literature. ... Store manager Corina Van der Spoel [chaired] the event," introducing "the topic with a series of salient readings and reflections, starting with an excerpt from the Goldstone Report of 1993/4, which noted the different ways that perpetrators, victims and bystanders react to massive human rights abuses -- the callousness with which innocent people are murdered, raped and tortured, and the shallow excuses produced by the perpetrators for such brutality.

"'He finds similar behaviour everywhere,' said Van der Spoel. 'The situations are universal. Throughout the world one must recognise that any people, anywhere, has the potential for evil on a massive scale. And all victims, whoever they may be, need the opportunity to heal. No continent, no region, and no people are immune from it.'" ...

"Van der Spoel also quoted from the Southern African Migration Project's World Values Survey on International Attitudes to Immigration, which she described as 'astounding'. In calibrating attitudes to foreigners it was found that South Africans held the harshest anti-immigrant views among the 29 nations surveyed.  'More than 20% of people surveyed here wanted all foreigners barred from entering the country on any grounds, compared with 13% holding this view in Britain, 11% in China, and 4% in the USA and Mozambique.'"

Pakistan: Burning of robbers shows lack of justice, police inefficiency by Zamir Sheikh, 26 May 2008:

Speaking of "the unfortunate burning of two alleged robbers by an angry crowd in Karachi recently" -- due to "a daylight robbery in a flat located in the congested locality" -- Skeikh points to "the rising unbearable cost of living" as a possible cause.

He also notes, "The desperate element in the street justified the mob justice arguing that there is no other way than to handout instant justice to the perpetrators of heinous crime. ... It is difficult to single out one single factor as the cause of the incident. It was just the instant anger with no restraining saner voice in the mob that caused the gruesome and inhumane act. But if discussed from various angles, one could reach the conclusion that snail pace process of justice, overburdened police force dominated by a few corrupt elements, tribal justice system prevalent in some areas the country and lack of trust of the judicial system were some of the factors that forced the unconscious mind of an enraged mob to indulge in an act which is prohibited both by the God and the man made laws.

"None other than William Shakespeare had written about the mob mentality in his famous drama Julius Caesar, how Mark Antony is his funeral speech played with mobs emotions in order to whip them into a frenzy of rage. 

"The crowd that caught hold of the robbers as soon as the victims raised hue and cry had to react immediately and in the fit of mob anger they found no alternate than to beat them near death. Some one in the crowd who might have seen or undergone the sufferings of facing a similar personal experience lost his sanity and resorted to an act which otherwise under normal circumstance he would have just avoided and handed over the culprits to the police."

Pakistan: Rule of the mob by Ishtiaq Ahmed, 7 June 2008:

"In the wake of viciously gruesome attacks recently by angry mobs on criminals -- robbers and thieves -- caught recently red-handed on the scene in Karachi and other parts of the country, Gallup Pakistan conducted an opinion survey on May 18 and 19, 2008 ... Fifty-two percent (52%) of the total respondents were of the opinion that beating to death and then burning the bodies of those robbers apprehended on the spot was the "right thing to do" while 42 percent (42%) disapproved of such brutal methods. ...

"If we now recall that in the past few weeks a Hindu worker has been killed in a similar fashion by a mob which suspected him of blasphemy, incensed lawyers beat up pro-Musharraf ministers of the previous government in Lahore, and rival groups of lawyers fell upon each other in Karachi, causing a number of deaths, then the situation becomes very worrisome. It is symptomatic of not only a state and its institutions failing to establish and uphold law and order but civil society failing as well to inculcate norms and ethics that discourage violent conduct.

"When such a situation becomes endemic the name for the phenomenon is ochlocracy, devised by the ancient Greeks to describe mob rule or mob justice. Sometimes another word, "mobocracy," is applied instead to describe the power of the masses, in contrast to the power of an established ruling elite. ...

"The outbursts of mob fury and the concomitant 'rough' justice meted out to the culprits [in Pakistan] reflect not only loss of faith in the political leaders and state institutions' ability to maintain law and order and practice justice. Rather, in a more serious manner such extreme behaviour is a manifestation of helplessness and despondency in relation to the ruling class. "

More on Pakistan's blasphemy laws and the consequences for those accused of it. ("The blasphemy laws impact everyone, regardless of religion -- and the tragedy is that almost every case is completely fabricated. ... The reason is simple. The blasphemy law requires no evidence other than an accusation made by one person against another.")
 

Now a sixth severed foot has washed up on the shores of British Columbia, encased in an athletic show like all the others.

It was a hoax!, an animal paw skeleton stuck in a shoe.  (Isn't that a bit obvious? I guess not.)

Anyway, the first five feet were real human dead feet, four of them right feet, the fifth foot, which washed up on Monday, the only left foot. The leading theory seems to be that the feet and shoes might belong to four of the five men who were killed in a float plane crash in the area in Feb. 2005 (the fifth man's remains were found and identified soon after the crash). Where are the rest of the bodies? Why would the feet all detach? 

I don't know if I would be taking more beach walks or fewer if I lived near the Campbell River in Vancouver, B.C. ...  Hello, CSI: Canada!

More facts and theorising ...  "The leg bone was still attached to the foot bone and there was no remaining muscle. The leg bone was 'cut on a straight line" just 3 to 4 inches above the ankle.' ... DNA profiles developed for the first three feet do not match any known missing-person cases. ... It's unlikely the feet are washing in from the Pacific Ocean. Rather, they're probably originating from B.C. waters. ... A disarticulated foot could float for up to 1,600 kilometers in a buoyant sneaker."

23 June 2008 update: More speculation, particularly as DNA testing has now concluded that three of the feet don't belong to any of the plane crash victims. Results are still pending for the remaining two feet.

10 July 2008 update: Two of the five feet belong to the same person, a male, and one of the feet belongs to a woman. As that article mentions at the end, another foot washed up on Tuesday in southern Sweden.  Photos of the 'Canadian'shoes at the National Post, plus more details.

Deepa Ranganathan at Slate gets doctor's advice for making the transition from late-night party girl to virtuous greeter of the dawn -- or at least, observer of the sun while it's still in the eastern sky ...

Fun article. She speaks of morning people, "who count among their ranks Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi, nearly every American president, and even Jesus. (See Mark 1:35: 'And in the morning, rising up a great while before day, he went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed.') Night people are stuck with psychopaths like Adolf Hitler and Juan Arreola, the guy in Pennsylvania who nearly killed his girlfriend's 2-year-old last year, explaining to a judge, 'I'm not a morning person.'

The advice is pretty simple:

1. Choose a new wake-up time no more than two hours before your current wake-up time

2. Avoid bright light a few hours before bedtime. Wear yellow sunglasses if you have to.

3. Don't drink caffeine or alcohol after 3 p.m.

4. Take an over-the-counter melatonin supplement six or seven hours before the old bedtime each day. 

5. On waking, immediately take a half-hour walk, so as to soak up the sun.  Where I live, this experiment can take place every month of the year if the aspirational rising time is 7:45 or later, or if it's earlier, only during those months when the sun makes an appearance before you do. In any case, try to choose a time when the sun is not only up but also effective: "Outside, sleet fell from a heavy, gray sky. 'This is the kind of morning that makes you glad to be alive,' my boyfriend grumbled.")

(Note: I'm writing this while I'm wide awake and setting it to publish at 6 a.m. on Wed., when I won't be.)  

Interesting psychological phenomenon: After one person does a favor for someone else, the recipient values the exchange more highly than the giver does (probably for reasons of social expectations in the roles of giver and recipient). But, as time goes on, "the value of the favor decreases in the recipient's eyes, whereas for the favor-doer, it actually increases."

One can see yet another avenue here for the hissing and oozing of resentments: In the end, the giver sees herself as generous, as someone to whom much is owed, while the recipient feels that the giver didn't do all that much, and every day the feelings grow stronger ...

Reported first at Marginal Revolution, then at Overcoming Bias.

Original study linked here ("What Have You Done for Me Lately?"), which notes (p. 2) that "researchers who study how people keep track of their contributions in exchange relationships [interesting idea in itself] have found evidence of an egocentric bias," which they posit may be related to a need for self-enhancement. I.e., we tend to flatter ourselves that we are more generous than others, that what we do is more giving.

I especially admire the detailed analysis in Flynn's paper of the (largely unspoken and unacknowledged) ritual of the giver-receiver interchange:

"For a receiver, asking for a favor places him or her in a vulnerable position. According to Goffman (1971), an episode of favor exchange is a type of ritual that 'asks license of a potentially offended person to engage in what could be considered a violation of his rights ... at the same time (the receiver) exposes himself to denial and rejection.' As such, the receiver's primary role in an episode of favor exchange is to express gratitude to the giver for not taking offense at the favor request (Green, 1975). Gratitude can be expressed in many different ways, perhaps by (1) emphazing politeness in framing favor requests (e.g., 'I'm sorry to impose, but ...'), (2) offering nonverbal signals that convey thankfulness (e.g., smiling), or (3) verbally acknowledging felt appreciation (e.g., 'thank you'). By expressing gratitude through speech and behavior, the receiver may minimize the likelihood of rejection (Drake and Moberg, 1986). ... [R]eceivers may hope that expressions of gratitude reaffirm the giver's altruistic inclinations, which is turn benefit the receiver in future episodes of exchange (Greenberg and Frisch, 1972).

"The perspective of the giver contrasts sharply with that of the receiver. A favor request presents an imposition by asking 'for something outside of the addressee's daily routine' (Goldschmidt, 1998). One might expect the giver to react with displays of annoyance and frustration, but this is rarely the case. Rather, as Goffman (1955) explained, the giver is obligated to "save" the embarrassing situation and reestablish social order in the relationship. This is accomplished by responding courteously to the receiver's request, and, if the request is reasonable, offering compliance in a generous or magnanimous fashion (Grice, 1975). An apparent imposition must be downplayed, perhaps by (1) offering compliance with alacrity, (2) refraining from reminding the receiver of favors performed in the past, or (3) making statements to diminish the significance of the favour (e.g., 'it was nothing' or 'no big deal'). The giver employs these tactics to reinforce the receiver's sense of indebtedness by refusing immediate forms of reciprocation and to maintain his or her reputation as a generous exchange partner (Blau, 1964)."

In other words, favour-seeking and favour-granting is a ritual that with one hand disrupts the peace and with the other reinstates it -- and not only does it reinstate the peace, it actually further secures the social bond, as the giver is reinforced in her 'altruistic inclinations' which lead to future giving, and the recipient is left owing something to the giver.

All of this reminds me of an essay I read recently at A rebours, looking at Rene Girard's take on "generosity" in The Merchant of Venice:

"Girard starts by observing Shylock’s explicit venality and the Christians implicit venality.  Instead of viewing the Christians as moral and Shylock as self-interested, Girard shows how this distinction is a false dichotomy.  For him, the superficiality and generosity of the Christians is linked to a more hierarchical and more manipulative economy than Shylock’s financial interests. ... Debt to Shylock only implies a purely economic relationship, while the generosity of Antonio places the borrower on a deeper level of debt.... 'Real generosity makes the beneficiary more dependent on his generous friend than a regular loan … grounded no longer in strict territorial borders but in vague financial terms. The lack of precise accounting makes personal indebtedness infinite.'"

From Morning Edition this morning:

Romanian Village Re-Elects Dead Mayor. The news that he had died of liver disease just after voting started on Sunday "did not deter supporters, who gave him a 23-vote win over a living opponent." One said: "I know he died, but I don't want change." More here,

The latest photos ... Click to enlarge; go here for best viewing: