Collective excitement is a delicious intoxication, in which sanity, humanity, and even self-preservation are easily forgotten, and in which atrocious massacres and heroic martyrdom are equally possible. This kind of intoxication, like others, is hard to resist when its delights have once been experienced, but leads in the end to apathy and weariness, and to the need for a stronger and stronger stimulus if the former fervour is to be reproduced.
Source: Power, a new social analysis, 1938, by Bertrand Russell, chapter 2
More info.: https://russell-j.com/beginner/POWER02_160.HTM
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Collective frenzy takes many forms, ranging from those that can be positively evaluated -- such as disciplined cheering in sports -- to those that should be rejected, such as war fever (for example, the growing anticipation of a "Taiwan contingency").
Not all forms of cheering in sports are praiseworthy. When fans rejoice in or even hope for errors by the opposing team simply to secure a win, it undermines the true value of watching sports.
One of the most reprehensible forms of collective frenzy is the xenophobic fervor directed against foreigners. The Upper House election will be held the day after tomorrow, but it is disheartening that many people, having taken in false or unreliable information from social media, so easily join in the chorus of anti-foreigner sentiment.
It is worth noting that "foreigners," in this context, usually do not include Westerners. Rather, what stands out is the flood of verbal abuse directed at people from South Korea and China.
If such voices were merely howling like distant dogs, they could perhaps be ignored. But when the media, bound by the convention that political parties should not be criticized during an election period, refrains from calling out discriminatory speech, the foundations of democracy gradually begin to erode.
-- Is this concern merely unfounded anxiety?
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