Book Information: Path to Collective Madness

Greenwood Publishing Group
http://www.greenwood.com/books/BookDetail.asp?dept_id=1&sku=C7220

Terming outbreaks of ethnic hatred and violence from Bosnia, Rwanda, Sri Lanka, and elsewhere outbreaks of "collective madness," in which the individual subsumes his identity within the group and acts with the group often against his own individual interest, Gupta (peace and urban studies, San Diego State U.) offers an explanation of the causes of such outbreaks. He identifies six groups of participants and nonparticipants in collective actions: "true believers" and "conscientious objectors" motivated by ideology; "mercenaries" and "collaborators" motivated by personal self-interest; and "captive participants" and "easy riders" motivated by fear. After exploring the psychology of collective violence, he discusses case studies of Rwanda, Jonestown, and the relative lack of racial violence in the United States. Finally he offers suggestions for governments and NGOs to avoid outbreaks of "collective madness."

Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).

October 21, 2001

For a while after the end of communism, says Dipak Gupta,"we thought that capitalism and individualism would flourish. We thought there would be no more collective madness."

Although many experts raise the specter of apocalyptic attack by terrorist groups with nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, it is clear that while such possibilities attract instant attention, a great deal of damage can be wrought by using simple, readily available conventional weapons."

So wrote Dipak K. Gupta in "Path to Collective Madness: A Study in Social Order and Political Pathology," published this fall.

Gupta hasn't exactly gone around capitalizing on his prescience, though. He hadn't even remembered that he'd written it until Dennis Wills used the quote in introducing Gupta for a talk he gave at D.G. Wills bookstore -- probably because acts of terrorism, in
themselves, aren't Gupta's area of expertise, which is ethnic violence, and national and international conflict. (Gupta is research associate at the Fred J. Hansen Institute for World Peace, co-director of the Institute for International Security and Conflict Resolution, and a professor in the School of Public Administration and Urban Studies at SDSU.)

One of Gupta's areas of interest, he said, is "how is the mindset created that will allow these 19 young [terrorists] -- educated men, they certainly weren't losers -- to be created? And ... why is it we don't see violent political action by African-Americans? The Kerner Commission in 1967 talked about race revolution, race war. It never came. ...

"There are other books that talk about collective madness, but they only study places where incidents have taken place -- they don't study where they didn't take place."

Gupta is less than sanguine about the years ahead of us. One of the chapters in "Path to Collective Madness" is even called "The Insane Future."

"In the Western world, we're in a long, stretch limo," he said, "riding through the most dangerous part of town."