CSI Show Teaches Concept of "Crowd Thinking"

I settled in for my Thursday night routine: a cup of decaf Orange Pekoe tea and CSI. This show never fails to tantalize and captivate me. Only three times since the series started have I been so disturbed by a storyline I couldn't watch --- this week's was one of them. Actually, I wanted to stop watching it after the first fifteen minutes. It was less due to gory explicitness and more due to the storyline itself.

The topic was gang-like beatings called "fannysmackin'". The idea is to surprise an unsuspecting person then punch and kick him or her into unconsciousness, or worse. It's senseless, ruthless, cruel and, seemingly, done with no conscious on the part of the beater. In fact, one girl who participated stated, "Oh, it's all in fun, ya know".

Fun? Taking down and beating a person while they scream for mercy is fun? Before the first commercial break, those people in the opening scene had swarmed and beat three other people. There was no reason for their actions and whom they chose was completely random. They did it "just for kicks" - no pun intended. What's worse is, even though glorified to get people to watch the show, this sort of thing happens more often than we think. What sort of person would do things like this and feel...nothing? Contrary to popular belief, such people aren't only "young delinquents"; they can be honor role students, lawyers or even doctors.

Anyone who's taken a first year psychology course has been introduced to the concept of "crowd thinking" and probably familiar with terms like diffusion of responsibility and deindividuation. These terms describe how people can lose their individuality in a crowd and mindlessly follow the majority. The individual takes no onus of what's done because "someone else will". This mindset frees the person from responsibility or consciousness. A good example would be a riot where it just takes one person to get things going and others follow.

The term deindividuation means a person stops seeing himself as an individual and more as "part of a machine". If, for example, one person approaches another person to beat him alone, they'd most likely be identified, whereas if the person were part of a crowd, identification is less likely. Believing this is what reduces a person's usual inhibitions against aggressiveness and makes it easier for him to try things like "fannysmackin'". Looking at it from this perspective can make it easier to believe how riots or beatings can occur because people get "caught up in the emotion of the situation".

Grissom described a military tactic called "swarming" in which animals use in nature instinctively. Think how bees are: this group of animals see their target, surround it so it can't escape then attack it from all possible angles increasing their chance for success. What Grissom is saying is these actions are purposeful and done with full awareness of what's going to happen. Therefore, although in the psychological explanation of deindividuation and "crowd thinking" there may be some people who do "lose it" and meld into what a crowd is doing. But "swarming" shows most people who participate in such activity know exactly what they're doing, what the end result will be and participate freely with no influence. So...what do we do?

The young people on the show were arrested and charged with the murder of the man they killed at the beginning of the show. As the CSI team was getting ready to leave for the day, they discussed the case and each person shared their thoughts on how kids can turn out this way. Someone mentioned not having parents who were there enough, another person blamed where they lived (Las Vegas), and violent television or video games were also listed as a possible influence.

After consulting on possible excuses, Sara responded with, "I don't understand. You guys are putting the blame on everyone else except those kids. They knew exactly what they were doing and had fun doing it. There's no excuse for that. They got what they deserved."

I'm sure most people would agree with her. However, is putting these people in jail without trying to understand the reasons behind why they behave this way good in the long run? We're putting them into isolation to think about what they did but not the way we hope they will. These angry kids will get angrier, their feelings will harden further, and when (or if) they finally get out, they'll have even more fuel to continue with the behavior they were put in rehabilitation for in the first place.

As disturbed as I was with the content of this week's CSI, I was very impressed they were brave enough to put it out there. I totally agree people who behave so violently should be punished and should be separated from the rest of society. But they should also be talked to and listened to so we can understand where such behavior comes from. How can we end such activity if we aren't doing anything constructive to make it stop? Aren't we just as bad for knowing things go on and not do anything about it? Aren't we adding to the problem by plucking these people out of our society instead of giving them the tools they need to manage within it?

If they don't want help or are psychopaths, such as Charlie Manson, then they shouldn't be given the opportunity to mix with other people. I'm not naïve to think everyone can change. However, I do think most people can change but we need to study these people to learn from them, we need to listen to understand them, and we need to offer assistance to help stop their violence. I'm by no means defending such behavior. But to make a difference, we have to start with these young people and show them we can't make violence go away with violence. Perhaps, if we can figure out how to teach this wisdom we'll never have to go through the events at Columbine or, the equivalence here in Canada, the Dawson College shootings in Montreal.

Just as Sara asked her colleagues on CSI, Micheal Moore posed the same question to Marilyn Manson in his movie Bowling For Columbine. When asked what he would have said to the young Columbine boys who gunned down their classmates then ended their own lives, Manson didn't even hesitate in his response:
"I wouldn't have done anything. I would have listened to what they had to say. It was the one thing nobody did."

Wise words from a person most see as a deviant too.