Dear Friend and Reader,
READING THE NEWS this weekendВ about a Wal-Mart workerВ who was trampled to death by theВ rush of early-morning Christmas shoppers on Black Friday, I am reminded ofВ the title of Denis Johnson’sВ play, Shoppers Carried by Escalators into the Flames,В which explores the descending madness of a family in a trailer-park America setting consumed by television, violence, addiction, poverty and most of all, consumption.
If you’ve been part of a group with a singular purpose byВ going en masse to a store, getting to work, getting your morning coffee; you’ve participated in herd behavior. InВ that settingВ you’ve relinquished your individual sense of containment and let the group ride you toward your collective goal. Your needs, as in the case of the WalMart opening, become the group’s need and the group takes over.
Wikipedia describes herd behaviorВ as a way that individuals in a group can act together without planned direction. Taken to an extreme, such asВ a violent rush of fans at a soccer match, or panic at a Wall Street selloff, or a riot at the RNC convention,В herd behavior can amplify into a headlong group rush resembling a kind of momentum-based madness resulting in injury and death.
We’ve all participated in herd behavior at one time or another. Pushing to get in queue for a bus or a subway train, cramming as many people as we can into an elevator, we do thisВ so we can get toВ work on time. Ever try toВ walkВ 5th Avenue in mid-town ManhattanВ in the height of the tourist season? Even in mellow, hyper-politically consciousВ Berkeley, CAВ where I live, the crowd outside of the Berkeley Bowl supermarketВ on a Saturday morning atВ 8:45am, fifteen minutes before the store opens, can be a threatening growl, particularlyВ during the holidays. Never get in front of aВ citizen of the People’s Republic of Berkeley when you can get a deal on bulk almond butter at The Bowl.В It could get ugly. People get weird when they wantВ what they want. But that’s small scale excess compared to Wal-Mart.В