Mob Mentality Analysis

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Mob Mentality: Violence Martha Collins’ father lost his sense of right and wrong like many people in Cairo due to a mob mentality. Martha Collins, the author of Blue Front, shows how her father regrets some of the actions that he was involved with during mob outbreaks. When people are put into a situation alone verses in a group they have different reactions. People in groups have a tendency to over react and to make the situation bigger than what it is. In Martha Collins book, Blue Front, she shows us how the mob in Cairo Illinois lost their humanity and empathy, “Often they cut off parts for souvenirs. / This time they cut out the hear they sliced it up. / Sometimes they cut off fingers they cut off toes. / They cut off other parts to cut …show more content…
The people in Cairo did not want change. “According to Mill, government and social groups that tried to tell people what to think or how to act failed to respect the boundary between individual liberty and the good of society” (Commentary on John Stuart Mill.) According to this statement it is the governments fault for the actions of the Cairo people. But this is just not true. People should not have to be told to be excepting and to have empathy for another human being. People should not have to be told to not hunt down another person and to tear them apart limb from limb just for the fun of it. It is the peoples own fault for their terrible actions. The people in this town should have got the facts before jumping to conclusion and dissembling another human in front of their …show more content…
“Nothing is as frightening or should be as feared as a mob; that gathering of people whose emotions have made them a mass of zombies! People no longer responsible for their actions as separate individuals but have become one entity without reason, consideration or caution” (Ogunjobi). When you think of the word zombie the first thought that comes to mind is the dead roaming the earth and eating brains. When she uses the word zombie she is describing a person who has lost all sense of humanity and let all sights of good vanish, their minds went blank and they acted on anger rather than thinking through the problem. This quote best represents the people in Cairo Illinois. People no longer think of their actions as what I did but in the sense of what we did, making the situation not as bad. These people could have solved their issue with a simple conversation but with angry “emotions can be fanned into explosive flames by ideas and persuasions that would otherwise be ridiculous and even nonsensical where a mob is formed” (Ogunjobi,) these accusations grew into gruesome actions of a bunch of individuals. She explains that a person’s emotions can be a dangerous weapon when in a group or mob. She is also saying that the ideas that are fueling the mob is making people do things that they would not normally do. “You find people behaving in a manner almost alien to their nature as they become