Thursday, August 11, 2011

Let Them Eat Cake

Title suggested by Gastro George.

Andrew Sparrow in the Guardian offers a round-up of the commentariat's reaction so far, including David Aaronovitch.

The highest realistic estimate I've seen for rioters in one place was 200, and pictures of that event suggest that it was too high. It also seems that one must make a practical distinction (if not a moral one) between rioters and looters — people who entered shops already broken into to steal goods. There is some evidence of the same people moving from one location to another. With the number of arrests at about 500, I seriously wonder if many more than a few thousand people were involved in rioting.

This is important because it tells us two things. First, we are not dealing with a mass criminal insurrection. And second, that a remarkably small number of people, if they are mobile and use surprise, can cause mayhem out of all proportion to their numbers. I was told this by Tony Blair once, in the context of terrorism, and it's true.


I considered adding this in the comments to the last post, but it seems to merit its own to me. Though this deserves to come under the "with exemplary timing" heading.

Why is Aaro so keen on playing down the numbers? He was doing it on Twitter "@DeborahJaneOrr Quite possibly. How many then, roughly? 2, 3k [rioters]?"

I think his preference for low, rather than high, numbers is correct. But it's obvious that he's going too low. Mad Mel seems to think that the whole underclass is rising up, propelled by the Gramscian-liberal-Church-of-England nexus of evil.

What's the point of the Blair name-drop? It's a very obvious point, and hardly limited to modern terrorism. It's how the French resistance worked. It was the thinking behind the original SAS operations in WWII (IIRC, which I may not); it's in Herodotus, the Iliad, and, again IIRC, Gibbon. Dave studied history: I'm sure he knew more about this than Tony Blair. BTW, can circumstances really tell us something we already know? Because if they can't, that brings Dave's two things down to one. And I wasn't aware of anyone suggesting that we were "dealing with a mass criminal insurrection."

Also, thanks to the Cous Cous Kid in the last comment's, Dave's final para.

Because, yes, we have been here before, with a relatively small number of young men, high on violence and low on personal skills, finding a way to drive the rest of us mad. This analysis is both gloomy and hopeful. It suggests that, short of a world war to send them to, difficult and violent young men will always be with us. The numbers matter, of course, and we can and should whittle away at them with firmness. But we won't eradicate them altogether, and if improvement is always slow and adapting difficult, we can - of course - make things worse quickly, by reacting with impatience, prejudice and stupidity.


The last sentence is of course very sensible. I'm not sure about having world wars just to send "young men, high on violence and low on personal skills" off to. Armies aren't very keen on that sort really. Dave seems to envisage modern warfare as "The Dirty Dozen" on a more ambitious scale.

Am I overdoing the pacifist thing by suggesting that a sport like rugby is a better outlet for young men's tendency to difficulty and violence than, say, going to war with Germany again?

7 Comments:

Anonymous Nathaniel said...

What absolutely disgusting crap from Aaronovitch. Considering what sending these young men off to a "World War" means, he's basically calling for their extermination, or at least literal decimation, even if it's a half-serious joke.

New Labour Milibanded has reached the stage where its main spokespeople like Harriet Harman find it more politically expedient to, just by chance, drop mention of the cuts into discussion of the riots, than to forthrightly discuss why ripping out social supports is not a good idea (in front of conservatives like Michael Gove) who have their unsubtle marching orders and lines. Aaronovitch has to hang on making them apolitical nuisances, rather than symptoms of non-idealist non-voluntarist causes, just like his opinions regarding Islamic terrorism as given to him by Blair.

8/11/2011 07:32:00 PM  
Blogger john b said...

Nathaniel - that seems a dementedly strong overreaction. Aaro's obviously making a serious point in a slightly satirical faction, that "apart from options that are unthinkably awful, we don't have any quick fixes".

I've used the same construction when talking about people's demands for harsher policing - "the only way harsher policing could have stopped the riots is if it'd featured live automatic weapons. Assuming you don't believe in mass slaughter, harshness isn't a helpful tool". Pretty obviously, I don't believe in mass slaughter.

8/12/2011 07:02:00 AM  
Anonymous Sarah AB said...

I agree with john b.

8/12/2011 07:05:00 AM  
Anonymous bubby said...

Robert Merton nailed this 70 years ago. It's a shame we don't here more from social scientists and less from the saloon bar bores.

8/12/2011 11:01:00 PM  
Blogger ejh said...

Am I overdoing the pacifist thing by suggesting that a sport like rugby is a better outlet for young men's tendency to difficulty and violence than, say, going to war with Germany again?

Only if it's Union. To play League, they'd have to be fit.

8/14/2011 05:41:00 PM  
Anonymous organic cheeseboard said...

off topic but hey, this is 'world of decency'... was just on the spectator website. you'd have thought that, given they lost their previously most active blogger (Mad Mel), they'd ask their other bloggers to step up to the plate, wouldn't you? well Nick Cohen's last blog piece was posted on... the 23rd July. Wonder if he gets paid per article...?

8/15/2011 08:46:00 AM  
Anonymous Alex said...

Bit late, but I have the incredible urge to respond to this with snark:

And second, that a remarkably small number of people, if they are mobile and use surprise, can cause mayhem out of all proportion to their numbers. I was told this by Tony Blair once, in the context of terrorism, and it's true.

It's a shame the Blair Cabinet used this worldly wisdom as its governing philosophy.

8/25/2011 11:32:00 AM  

Post a Comment

<< Home