Starlings are beautiful birds, yellow beaks, colorful feathers, short tails with a sense of community. They hail from Europe transported by man into America where they are known to bully other birds for their own survival. It doesn’t make them bad or for that matter good. It shows the implanted survival code in their DNA.
There is another startling yet awesome phenomena that Starlings participate in, it’s called “murmuration.” Just before sunset many starlings fly around above their roosting abode as a warning to predators about “strength in numbers” to prevent being a prey to another forager. This phenomenon is both mesmerizing and beautiful as the collective swoops about forming and deforming cataracts in the sky.
The fundamentals behind these flowing architectural waves of silky ethereal shapes remain to protect against the outside predator and via the collective force of the many impose on the lesser a sense of dread. And that is where we lay our tale.
Homo Sapiens have through history shown themselves to be capable for doing the same. Not being flying creatures, humans have resorted to a similar behavior but on land. Their movements are as mesmerizing as the Starlings. Historically we have dealt with perceived threats in a unified manner. Preventing predation is in our nature. To protect and prevent harm to ourselves and our progeny is a calling within our DNA. The World Wars are a classic example of such threats that were neutralized to find peace and harmony. Yet there is, as is exemplified in the Starling behavior a certain undercurrent of bullying that emerges with this power of a collective acting in unison. We as humans more often than not, fall prey to the “Us verses Them,” mentality, allowing the unfolding of a stage of rage.
Again, history is a guide to such a behavior. From a recent past, one can look at Mao Tse Tung’s China to Stalin’s Russia and thence to Hitler’s Germany. What this human murmuration was all about was the singular focus against a common enemy. In Germany, Hitler exploited the “Arian Race” to eliminate the rest in gas chambers and then with the growth of his power he started bullying the neighbors and finally invading neighboring countries, just like the Romans did centuries ago conquering borderlands until their empire finally collapsed upon reaching the distant Hadrian Wall. Stalin and Mao using the Communist manifesto eliminated all questioning minds and murdered hundreds of millions in their quest to find ultimate power. Even the United States was not free from such murmuration with the McCarthyism that focused on a singular enemy the Communists in the government and in thence in every house, leading to the classic family against family and friend against friend to turn over the “bad people.” Such tactics were employed as late as 2021 when New Jersey Governor suggested from his bully-pulpit that friends and families need to “out” those that were not social distancing during COVID. From similar pulpits in other countries the Leaders have used bullying tactics against their citizens, some with total lockdowns, others with policing and imprisoning and still others withdenying a livelihood if individuals are not compliant with their diktats. Some of these “leaders” have become unhinged, calling names and others are using a vengeful mechanism against the non-compliant. Even some teachers have gotten into the act of taking other’s health decisions into their hands. This all may sound unsettling, and it is. But collective human behavior is not a recent event. From collective bargaining for better working conditions and pay raises we have arrived at the Teachers Union not wishing to open schools while simultaneously enjoying the $190 Billion given by the US Federal Government during the pandemic and being aware that closing schools have resulted in a rash of teenage and youth suicides from depression and loneliness. Such a travesty should not go unnoticed.
We look to this human murmuration and wonder what makes humans do such awful things. And Professor Mattias Desmet a clinical psychologist weaves his comments such; “large-scale mass formation emerges in society when specific conditions are met—social isolation, the lack of meaning in life, free-floating anxiety, and frustration and aggression—all interacting to create a situation whereby society is extremely vulnerable to the rise of a totalitarian state.”
Indeed, when we look through the historical perspective, we find a plethora of examples that highlight and confirm his views. To find a common enemy and solely and intensely focus on it, to the detriment of all other thoughts creates a hypnotic state which commences the beginning of a murmuration. As all riots do, the initial sharp focus is deeply held by 5% of the rioting group and another 10% venerates those with such deeply held beliefs, attracting the 30%+ into the chaos of this hypnosis. This moderately coalesced large group adds to its fledgling corpus with those fearful of being left behind, with those fearful of losing their livelihoods, with those fearful of losing a promotion or bonus, with those with a mindset of go along to get along. Thus, a murmuration takes flight. Most of the latter versions of the followers are also highly educated and the collective is a means to a personal end and to not be left behind. While most in the group consider this belonging, a virtuous deed. Some are on standby to move to the next great societal wave. All in all, the cult of the many seeps into the minds of most as time ticks on, some are transformed while others stand their ground. A rational person would look for smoke or fire, when someone yells, “fire” before charging out of the crowded movie theater with the herd of humanity as it tramples on itself in pursuit of safety. But in this minor example and in such large-scale disruptions where a common enemy even if it is an invisible, is identified, reason is supplanted with fear and the marionettes in the background can play the tune to the hypnotized crowd. As Hannah Arendt so eloquently put it, “In their fear of death, those living fear life itself, a life that is doomed to die… The mode in which life knows and perceives itself is worry. Thus, the object of fear comes to be fear itself. Even if we should assume that there is nothing to fear, that death is no evil, the fact of fear (that all living things shun death) remains.” Perhaps more of us should reconcile with life and learn to experience delight in nature, in love and life with one another and escape from the shackles of this ill-found fear that so pervades the essence of our being? Forget the indignant intolerance of the few that sit in judgment enforcing their uniform obedience and demand fealty. Separating children from parents or other “un-fully-vaccinated” family members as proposed recently will be a stain on our psyche as a society, as James Baldwin wrote, “The sea rises, the light fails, lovers cling to each other, and children cling to us. The moment we cease to hold each other, the moment we break faith with one another, the sea engulfs us, and the light goes out.” Do not let the light go out! As Seneca wrote, “we suffer more often in imagination than in reality,” is true. For all the misaligned threadbare raw emotions of fear that climb on our backs to misguide us on the wrong path, there is always the truth and reason that brings us back to reality! He further admonishes us, “Accordingly, some things torment us more than they ought; some torment us before they ought; and some torment us when they ought not to torment us at all. We are in the habit of exaggerating, or imagining, or anticipating, sorrow.” So don’t!
What of those rational ones, that stand their ground?
These are the free thinkers, who question the motives, the rationale, the reason, the beginning and who look at the projected very end and find tiny imperfections that have caused the gash in the societal fabric to release the murmuration. They are a heterogenous group, some educated, some not, some at highest level of societal echelon in universities and colleges and leadership positions while others are the quiet thinkers, thinking. They are firm in their belief and stoic in their suffering. Such are the individuals who change the countenance of the society back to reality again. It is this group that fosters advancement of the society as a whole and wrenches away the reigns from the idle and weak crowd-pleasers and takes back the power from the charlatans and deliver it to the rightful owners, the people, themselves.
COVID, the common enemy has found such murmuration. It is the common enemy of all. We as humans have shed all loyalties to each other for the sake of personal safety. We have forsaken the traditional model of do good to your neighbor by becoming “snitches” against them. We have forsaken our productivity as humans to the lull of four walls and fear. We have given up our liberties and freedoms so that the Great Wizard behind the curtain also a human, with his own embedded frailty, will provide the safety and security for our being. We have abrogated our responsibilities to be good citizens. We have become subservient to a whim, subservient to a collective, to a mesmerizing murmuration. We need not anymore!
Murmuration have meaning both away from predation (the common enemy) and towards intolerance and bullying as we learn from the beautifully feathered bird called lovingly, the Starling.
