Chaos and the Mob
Posted by sek8 at February 27th, 2006
Chaos theory states that once turbulence exceeds some critical threshold the behavior of matter (air, water, ect.) becomes unstable and unpredictable. It recently occured to me that this theory has a lot to offer sociologists and behavioralists. Three examples come to mind immediately:
1) The behavior of the seniors in line for the senior basketball game. After waiting for an hour or so in the usual fashion the line system, which has always worked before, became a mob scene with people grabbing handfulls of wristbands from the line moniters.
2) Parking outside of my building in an off-limits lot. Across from my appartment there is a parking lot that is designated off-limits to the people in the appartment complex, but that always seemed to be empty. After the brave disobedience of a few parkers, there are now consistently 12-15 cars parked in the lot illegally.
3) The DukeObsrvr Blog. After a few nasty blog posts in which the anonymous author attacked everyone at Duke, the blog has now become a free-for-all of Dukies hating on other Dukies.
My point is only that perhaps there is something to be gained by studying where exactly the threshold to innappropriate behavior lies in social situations.
Parking in the illegal lot started by one of THE Illegal parking elites: Ms New Booty. I got parking fines to back that title
Ms. New Booty