The Pantaloon : Mobile Vulgus : Brother Wagwit

The Pantaloon
Edited by Brother Wagwit
Earlyish in the 21st Century

Mobile Vulgus

Co-opting populist extremes for political gain is nothing new. For thousands of years it has been an expedient tool for power grabs in villages, city states, kingdoms, empires and republics.

Power grabs are integral to structured societies. The civility, or lack of, with which they are consummated, is determined by the presence or absence of social and legal covenants, agreed upon or not, by the powers that be, according to prevailing customs and mores.

The Greeks, arguably the first articulators of seminal ideas that birthed what we now call Western Civilization, knew well the limitations of government by the people. They understood that the voting power of the populace, both the notion and the act, is the foundation of democracy; but they were ever so wary because democracy is inherently an institutionalized form of mob rule. A frequent euphemism is that democracy is the tyranny of the majority, a devil’s bargain that can quickly get out of hand.

As for democracy itself, Plato did not believe in it. Aristotle said it was OK with certain well-defined caveats. The French experience in the late 18th century was not uplifting, and the American version has worked, so far, somewhat, because of a complex system of power sharing and checks and balances.

Some of the framers of the United States Constitution, well-versed and enlightened folks, were well aware of the perils of relying on The People to inform and make policy determinations. So much so they spelled out specific instances of what lurking predicaments to avoid and what the remedies could be if needed. Here a small sample, a revealing text from Federalist 55 (by either Hamilton or Madison):

“Nothing can be more fallacious than to found our political calculations on arithmetical principles. Sixty or seventy men may be more properly trusted with a given degree of power than six or seven. But it does not follow that six or seven hundred would be proportionably a better depositary. And if we carry on the supposition to six or seven thousand, the whole reasoning ought to be reversed. The truth is, that in all cases a certain number at least seems to be necessary to secure the benefits of free consultation and discussion, and to guard against too easy a combination for improper purposes; as, on the other hand, the number ought at most to be kept within a certain limit, in order to avoid the confusion and intemperance of a multitude. In all very numerous assemblies, of whatever character composed, passion never fails to wrest the sceptre from reason.”

The takeaway from these insights is that a multitude is a hard thing to control. There is no such thing as an intelligent or reasonable horde, it is all raw energy and passion, a combustible mix that repeatedly leads to violence. And as history frequently reminds us, a mob is just as likely to execute a directed power grab as it is to get diverted and turn against its instigator.

Our current crop of public representatives are several degrees removed from the intellectual acumen of the founding fathers, and are evidently slow to grasp the consequences of stirring up passions in a crowd. A head on a platter is never a desirable outcome, yet it frequently is the result of inciting the great unwashed to action. There is no finesse or nuance to an impassioned hoi-polloi on the warpath. It’s a plain old mob run, a moving pack of madness, mobile vulgus.

Slop slopping downhill with nowhere to stop.