Mob rule
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Mob rule or ochlocracy or mobocracy is a pejorative term describing an oppressive majoritarian form of government controlled by the common people through the intimidation of more legitimate authorities. Ochlocracy is distinguished from democracy or similarly legitimate and representative governments by the absence or impairment of a procedurally civil process reflective of the entire polity.[1]
Names
Ochlocracy comes from Latin ochlocratia, from Greek ὀχλοκρατία (okhlokratía), from ὄχλος (ókhlos, "mass", "mob", or "common people") and κράτος (krátos, "rule").[2][3] An ochlocrat is one who is an advocate or partisan of ochlocracy. The adjective may be either ochlocratic or ochlocratical.
Ochlocracy is synonymous in meaning and usage to mob rule or mobocracy, which was coined in the 18th century from the sense of "mob" meaning the common rabble that arose from the Latin phrase mobile vulgus ("the fickle crowd") in the 1680s during disputes over the United Kingdom's Glorious Revolution.
Origin
Polybius appears to have coined the term ochlocracy in his 2nd century BC work Histories (6.4.6).[4] He uses it to name the "pathological" version of popular rule, in opposition to the good version, which he refers to as democracy. There are numerous mentions of the word "ochlos" in the Talmud, in which "ochlos" refers to anything from "mob", "populace", to "armed guard", as well as in the writings of Rashi, a Jewish commentator on the Bible. The word was first recorded in English in 1584, derived from the French ochlocratie (1568), which stems from the original Greek okhlokratia, from okhlos ("mob") and kratos ("rule", "power", "strength").
Ancient Greek political thinkers
Polibius' predecessor, Aristotle, distinguished between different forms of democracy, stating that those disregarding the rule of law devolved into ochlocracy.[6] Aristotle's teacher, Plato, considered democracy itself to be a degraded form of government and the term is absent from his work.[7]
The threat of "mob rule" to a democracy is restrained by ensuring that the rule of law protects
History
During the late 17th and the early 18th centuries, English life was very disorderly. Although the Duke of Monmouth's rising of 1685 was the last rebellion, there was scarcely a year in which London or the provincial towns did not see aggrieved people breaking out into riots. In Queen Anne's reign (1702–14) the word "mob", first heard of not long before, came into general use. With no police force, there was little public order.[9] Several decades later, the anti-Catholic Gordon Riots swept through London and claimed hundreds of lives; at the time, a proclamation painted on the wall of Newgate prison announced that the inmates had been freed by the authority of "His Majesty, King Mob".
The
In 1837, Abraham Lincoln wrote about lynching and "the increasing disregard for law which pervades the country – the growing disposition to substitute the wild and furious passions in lieu of the sober judgment of courts, and the worse than savage mobs for the executive ministers of justice."[11]
Mob violence played a prominent role in the early history of the
See also
- Anacyclosis
- Anarchism
- Argumentum ad populum
- Bandwagon effect
- Cancel culture
- Collective consciousness
- Collective effervescence
- Collective intelligence
- Collectivism and individualism
- Communal violence
- Consensus reality
- Criticism of democracy
- Crowd manipulation
- Crowd psychology
- Diffusion of responsibility
- Direct democracy
- Group dynamics
- Herd behavior
- Illiberal democracy
- Lynching
- Mass psychogenic illness
- Mobbing
- Peer pressure
- Populism
- Presumption of guilt
- Political demonstration
- Smart mob
- Social group
- Spiral of silence
- Tyranny of the majority
- Vigilantism
- Vox populi
References
Notes
- ^ a b Hasanović, Jasmin. "Ochlocracy in the Practices of Civil Society: A Threat for Democracy?". Studia Juridica et Politica Jaurinensis. Archived from the original on 15 May 2018.
- ^ "ochlocracy". The Free Dictionary. Retrieved 31 December 2021.
- ^ "ochlocracy | Etymology, origin and meaning of ochlocracy by etymonline". www.etymonline.com. Retrieved 31 December 2021.
- ^ "Polybius, Histories, The Rotation of Polities". www.perseus.tufts.edu. Archived from the original on 26 February 2008. Retrieved 29 March 2008.
- ^ Plato Statesman, 302c
- ^ Aristotle Politics, Bk IV, Part IV
- ^ Blössner, Norbert (2007). "The City-Soul Analogy". In Ferrari, G. R. F. (ed.). The Cambridge Companion to Plato's Republic. Translated from the German by G. R. F. Ferrari. Cambridge University Press.
- doi:10.21464/sp32112. Archivedfrom the original on 24 December 2017. Retrieved 18 December 2017.
- ISBN 0-19-821702-1.
- ^ "Mob Rule and Violence in American Culture". colorado.edu. Archived from the original on 21 February 2010. Retrieved 20 January 2010.
- ^ "Opposition to Mob-Rule Archived 2009-01-09 at the Wayback Machine", The Writings of Abraham Lincoln, Volume 1.
- ISBN 9780252062360. Retrieved 23 June 2018.
- ^ "Cane Creek Massacre". TNMormonHistory. Archived from the original on 14 February 2022. Retrieved 23 June 2018.
- JSTOR 42621358.
Bibliography
- Libby, Ronald T. (2021), American Ochlocracy: Black Lives Matter & Mob Rule. Miami: Twelve Tables Publisher [ISBN missing]
- Campbell, Francis Stuart (pseudonym for Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn) (1943), The Menace of the Herd. Milwaukee: The Bruce Publishing Company [ISBN missing]
- EtymologyOnLine
External links