The Burning of Vancouver

Vancouver Canucks lost the final game of the Stanley Cup finals. What happens? Shit we lost! Lets burn the city down! This is an interesting line of reasoning. How did they think? Did they think? Is this something that is general in contemporary Western society? We see these outbreaks of civil violence from time to time. What is interesting is the reasons behind; what triggered these events.

Gustave Le Bon (1841-1931) wrote a book in the end of the 19th century; The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind (1896), he called it. Le Bon claimed that a mass is no smarter than the most stupid individual within it. Consequently an army is no better than the worst soldier within in it.

Here Le Bon was supported by Genghis Khan, who answered a concerned and worried Mongolian general, looking at the Great Wall of China;

"Don't worry, a wall is no better than the worst soldier guarding it!" Of course Genghis Khan was wright and managed to penetrate the Wall and conquer Northern China.

One Canadian hockeyplayer once said:

"The game of hockey has often been compared with war, but it is more serious than that!"

Looking at the events in Vancouver on 16 June 2011, it seems that he got a point there, though I doubt that people being defeated by an opposing army, went on burning down their own city. I have always believed that was the privilege of the winning side! Be sure that this behaviour would even have surprised Genghis Khan!