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Reading the riot actors
OPINION
Reading the riot actors We are still none the wiser about what happened during the English riots. Only an in-depth empirical study will tell us, says Stephen Reicher THROUGHOUT history, one of the first casualties of riots has always been scientific understanding. From the French Revolution to modern-day riots such as those that caused chaos in English cities last month, concerted attempts by authorities to limit the ways events are explained make empirically grounded understanding virtually impossible. One of the common methods that politicians use to strangle debate is to pass description off as explanation. Prime Minister David Cameron’s statements in the days following the English riots are a classic example of this. On 11 August, the day after order returned to the streets, he asserted to the House of Commons that the disturbances were “criminality pure and simple”. Later, at a youth centre in Witney, he stressed the events were not about race, social welfare cuts or poverty. “No, this was about behaviour.” Of course, he was right in characterising looting, arson and violence as criminal acts. Equally, the riots were self-evidently about behaviour. But what caused this behaviour? To insist that it is enough to apply the criminal label is to prevent us even asking these essential questions. Another way in which politicians have restricted explanation is by intimating that any reaction other than condemnation is tantamount to condoning violence. The UK’s education secretary Michael Gove reacted furiously to the suggestion by Harriet Harman, deputy leader of the Labour party, 30 | NewScientist | 17 September 2011
that government policies limiting give substance to the slogan youth opportunities might have “never again”. had some relevance, castigating Those politicians and pundits her for “making excuses for what who have tried to outlaw societal has gone on here”. In this context, explanations of the English riots whole academic disciplines have advanced alternative become suspect: in political theories, largely blaming the vocabulary, “sociologist” and violence on the pathology of the “jihadi” have acquired a kind rioters. Cameron’s declaration of moral equivalence. that they are inherently criminal It is worth noting that much and lack moral standards is one contemporary social science – variant of this. Another is the including my own discipline of common suggestion that the social psychology – arose out of rioters lost their moral standards an attempt to understand the in the crowd; that they were Holocaust. Many of the leading “In political vocabulary, post-war social psychologists ‘sociologist’ and ‘jihadi’ were Jewish scholars. Their aim have acquired a kind of was not to condone but to gain moral equivalence” practical insights that would
mindless, swept up by the contagion of the moment or perhaps preyed upon by unscrupulous agitators. These theories translate into convenient solutions. In the short term, don’t try to reason with rioters but use a big stick to repress them; in the longer term, look at the sickness within their communities that has turned them into amoral beasts. That only leaves the question of which communities are dysfunctional and in what ways. Thus Cameron locked horns with former prime minister Tony Blair over whether we should be talking about a broken society or a narrow but recalcitrant underclass. The first problem with all this is that we do not yet know exactly who participated in the riots, what sections of society they came from, why they participated and what they did. How can we explain an event when we do not know the true nature of it? The second problem is that explaining the disorder in terms of the pathologies of those who took part – they must be either mad or bad – flies in the face of all we know about crowds and riots. Perhaps the greatest investigation into the nature of riots was the Kerner Commission, established by US President Lyndon Johnson to find out the causes of the civil unrest that erupted in Detroit and other US cities between 1965 and 1967. The commission sent teams of investigators into the affected communities to study those who had taken part. What they found challenged many preconceptions
Comment on these stories at newscientist.com/opinion
Stephen Reicher is a professor of psychology at the University of St Andrews. He has advised the UK police and government on crowd psychology
One minute with...
Dava Sobel The best-selling author explains why she fell for the man who turned the universe inside out Your new book is about Copernicus. What sparked your interest in him? I’ve been interested in him forever. He’s the person who turned the universe inside out. My interest in writing about him came in 1973, the 500th anniversary of his birth. The magazine Sky and Telescope had a cover story about him. As soon as I heard how he had been afraid to publish his On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres for decades until a man called Georg Rheticus visited him and convinced him, I remember thinking that must have been an extraordinary conversation. Why did you decide to turn his relationship with Rheticus into a play within the book? I had always imagined it as a play – I have a theatre background. Of course, no one knows what they actually said to each other, though there are some interesting hints. For one thing Rheticus was Lutheran. Copernicus worked for the Catholic church and the bishop of his diocese had banished all Lutherans, so it isn’t clear how Rheticus entered the city and how Copernicus was able to keep him there for roughly two years. For the purposes of the play I imagined Copernicus had to strike some bargain with the bishop. What was it like to switch to writing fiction? It was very different and difficult. I’m a reporter and I don’t like to make things up. The first few drafts were staid and boring. It was only after I wrote the book around the play and told the real story that I felt able to let the characters have some dramatic freedom. I am aware that it is a major risk to blend fact and fiction this way. But I don’t like to write about someone unless I feel I can add something to help make the character more understandable. I think the play does that. You’ve admitted to having a “long-term crush” on Galileo. Do you always fall for the scientists you write about? Yes, I think it’s important to feel something like a love for the person, because it’s a long time to sit alone in a room. It’s not like journalism when you’re moving from topic to topic. That sense of some kind of bond with the person makes it easier.
Profile Dava Sobel is the author of Longitude, Galileo’s Daughter and The Planets. Her latest book, A More Perfect Heaven: How Copernicus revolutionised the cosmos, will be reviewed in New Scientist next week
Your books all have astronomical themes. Will you stick with this? Yes. It’s what interests me most. Tell me about your fondness for eclipses. An eclipse is one of the most beautiful sights imaginable. It is emphasised by physical effects such as the way the temperature suddenly drops and the way the animals respond, including the human animals. It’s emotionally stirring, a feeling of seeing the universe in operation. Do you have a subject for your next book? I am very intrigued by the 12 or so women who worked in the Harvard College Observatory at the turn of the 20th century. They were hired as human computers, but then went on to do extraordinary things. But first I have more work to do on the Copernicus play. I really want to see the play produced and I know it needs to get better for that to happen. I need to do that before I start anything new. Interview by Michael Bond
17 September 2011 | NewScientist | 31
Mia berg
about what had happened. For example, the investigators acknowledged that many people took advantage of the disturbances to pillage and settle scores, and that this increased with time. But they also discerned clear patterns in the events. They showed that the average rioter was not marginal or part of an underclass but was generally better educated and socially integrated and had less of a criminal record than the norm in their communities. Furthermore, the rioters did not act mindlessly and randomly, rather their targets reflected communal grievances. This reflects the finding from crowd psychology that crowd members do not lose identity or become “deindividuated”. They act meaningfully in terms of the collective identities, values and understandings shared by their communities. Finally, the commission found no indication that the riots were directed or planned by organised groups, despite Johnson’s conviction to the contrary. The UK government needs to instigate a Kerner Commission of its own – an independent, in-depth investigation of this summer’s riots that will tell us about the people and communities involved. So far it has resisted calls for anything beyond deputy prime minister Nick Clegg’s “victims’ panel”, which will take evidence from residents in affected areas. When it comes to root causes, all we have been offered is a choice between a lack of explanation, uninformed explanation and mis-explanation. This approach might serve the short-term interests of those in authority, but it is unlikely to generate solutions that work in the longer term. For that, we need solid evidence and sound science. n
Reading the riot actors We are still none the wiser about what happened during the English riots. Only an in-depth empirical study will tell us, says Stephen Reicher THROUGHOUT history, one of the first casualties of riots has always been scientific understanding. From the French Revolution to modern-day riots such as those that caused chaos in English cities last month, concerted attempts by authorities to limit the ways events are explained make empirically grounded understanding virtually impossible. One of the common methods that politicians use to strangle debate is to pass description off as explanation. Prime Minister David Cameron’s statements in the days following the English riots are a classic example of this. On 11 August, the day after order returned to the streets, he asserted to the House of Commons that the disturbances were “criminality pure and simple”. Later, at a youth centre in Witney, he stressed the events were not about race, social welfare cuts or poverty. “No, this was about behaviour.” Of course, he was right in characterising looting, arson and violence as criminal acts. Equally, the riots were self-evidently about behaviour. But what caused this behaviour? To insist that it is enough to apply the criminal label is to prevent us even asking these essential questions. Another way in which politicians have restricted explanation is by intimating that any reaction other than condemnation is tantamount to condoning violence. The UK’s education secretary Michael Gove reacted furiously to the suggestion by Harriet Harman, deputy leader of the Labour party, 30 | NewScientist | 17 September 2011
that government policies limiting give substance to the slogan youth opportunities might have “never again”. had some relevance, castigating Those politicians and pundits her for “making excuses for what who have tried to outlaw societal has gone on here”. In this context, explanations of the English riots whole academic disciplines have advanced alternative become suspect: in political theories, largely blaming the vocabulary, “sociologist” and violence on the pathology of the “jihadi” have acquired a kind rioters. Cameron’s declaration of moral equivalence. that they are inherently criminal It is worth noting that much and lack moral standards is one contemporary social science – variant of this. Another is the including my own discipline of common suggestion that the social psychology – arose out of rioters lost their moral standards an attempt to understand the in the crowd; that they were Holocaust. Many of the leading “In political vocabulary, post-war social psychologists ‘sociologist’ and ‘jihadi’ were Jewish scholars. Their aim have acquired a kind of was not to condone but to gain moral equivalence” practical insights that would
mindless, swept up by the contagion of the moment or perhaps preyed upon by unscrupulous agitators. These theories translate into convenient solutions. In the short term, don’t try to reason with rioters but use a big stick to repress them; in the longer term, look at the sickness within their communities that has turned them into amoral beasts. That only leaves the question of which communities are dysfunctional and in what ways. Thus Cameron locked horns with former prime minister Tony Blair over whether we should be talking about a broken society or a narrow but recalcitrant underclass. The first problem with all this is that we do not yet know exactly who participated in the riots, what sections of society they came from, why they participated and what they did. How can we explain an event when we do not know the true nature of it? The second problem is that explaining the disorder in terms of the pathologies of those who took part – they must be either mad or bad – flies in the face of all we know about crowds and riots. Perhaps the greatest investigation into the nature of riots was the Kerner Commission, established by US President Lyndon Johnson to find out the causes of the civil unrest that erupted in Detroit and other US cities between 1965 and 1967. The commission sent teams of investigators into the affected communities to study those who had taken part. What they found challenged many preconceptions
Comment on these stories at newscientist.com/opinion
Stephen Reicher is a professor of psychology at the University of St Andrews. He has advised the UK police and government on crowd psychology
One minute with...
Dava Sobel The best-selling author explains why she fell for the man who turned the universe inside out Your new book is about Copernicus. What sparked your interest in him? I’ve been interested in him forever. He’s the person who turned the universe inside out. My interest in writing about him came in 1973, the 500th anniversary of his birth. The magazine Sky and Telescope had a cover story about him. As soon as I heard how he had been afraid to publish his On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres for decades until a man called Georg Rheticus visited him and convinced him, I remember thinking that must have been an extraordinary conversation. Why did you decide to turn his relationship with Rheticus into a play within the book? I had always imagined it as a play – I have a theatre background. Of course, no one knows what they actually said to each other, though there are some interesting hints. For one thing Rheticus was Lutheran. Copernicus worked for the Catholic church and the bishop of his diocese had banished all Lutherans, so it isn’t clear how Rheticus entered the city and how Copernicus was able to keep him there for roughly two years. For the purposes of the play I imagined Copernicus had to strike some bargain with the bishop. What was it like to switch to writing fiction? It was very different and difficult. I’m a reporter and I don’t like to make things up. The first few drafts were staid and boring. It was only after I wrote the book around the play and told the real story that I felt able to let the characters have some dramatic freedom. I am aware that it is a major risk to blend fact and fiction this way. But I don’t like to write about someone unless I feel I can add something to help make the character more understandable. I think the play does that. You’ve admitted to having a “long-term crush” on Galileo. Do you always fall for the scientists you write about? Yes, I think it’s important to feel something like a love for the person, because it’s a long time to sit alone in a room. It’s not like journalism when you’re moving from topic to topic. That sense of some kind of bond with the person makes it easier.
Profile Dava Sobel is the author of Longitude, Galileo’s Daughter and The Planets. Her latest book, A More Perfect Heaven: How Copernicus revolutionised the cosmos, will be reviewed in New Scientist next week
Your books all have astronomical themes. Will you stick with this? Yes. It’s what interests me most. Tell me about your fondness for eclipses. An eclipse is one of the most beautiful sights imaginable. It is emphasised by physical effects such as the way the temperature suddenly drops and the way the animals respond, including the human animals. It’s emotionally stirring, a feeling of seeing the universe in operation. Do you have a subject for your next book? I am very intrigued by the 12 or so women who worked in the Harvard College Observatory at the turn of the 20th century. They were hired as human computers, but then went on to do extraordinary things. But first I have more work to do on the Copernicus play. I really want to see the play produced and I know it needs to get better for that to happen. I need to do that before I start anything new. Interview by Michael Bond
17 September 2011 | NewScientist | 31
Mia berg
about what had happened. For example, the investigators acknowledged that many people took advantage of the disturbances to pillage and settle scores, and that this increased with time. But they also discerned clear patterns in the events. They showed that the average rioter was not marginal or part of an underclass but was generally better educated and socially integrated and had less of a criminal record than the norm in their communities. Furthermore, the rioters did not act mindlessly and randomly, rather their targets reflected communal grievances. This reflects the finding from crowd psychology that crowd members do not lose identity or become “deindividuated”. They act meaningfully in terms of the collective identities, values and understandings shared by their communities. Finally, the commission found no indication that the riots were directed or planned by organised groups, despite Johnson’s conviction to the contrary. The UK government needs to instigate a Kerner Commission of its own – an independent, in-depth investigation of this summer’s riots that will tell us about the people and communities involved. So far it has resisted calls for anything beyond deputy prime minister Nick Clegg’s “victims’ panel”, which will take evidence from residents in affected areas. When it comes to root causes, all we have been offered is a choice between a lack of explanation, uninformed explanation and mis-explanation. This approach might serve the short-term interests of those in authority, but it is unlikely to generate solutions that work in the longer term. For that, we need solid evidence and sound science. n