October 10, 2021

Dear Tom,

Klemens forwarded to me the URL of Robert D. Kaplan's opinion article in the WSJ, "The Tyranny of the 21st-Century Crowd", with the note that you had found it of particular interest, suggesting that perhaps I should send you an e-mail with my thoughts about the issues Kaplan raised.

I have always very much respected your independence of thought and feeling, if only because I myself need to be independent in a way which is perhaps analogous to yours. In my childhood and adolescence, I felt much need to be understood. Then I learned, long before my 91st birthday, that what must matter to me, rather than to be understood, is to understand. To be understood is facultative, but to understand is imperative and within ones power.  

I acknowledge that I may be betraying my obtuseness, when I write that I am not frightened by "The Tyranny of the 21st-Century Crowd".  Todays' crowd may be larger than the crowd which confronted Pontius Pilate 21 hundred years ago, and secured the crucifixion of Jesus, but today's crowds are nothing new. They seem to me no different than they were during the French Revolution's "reign of terror".  Crowds have always been "tyrannical".

The world population is estimated to have been 2.536 billion in 1950, by 2000 it is estimated to have grown to 6.143 billion, an increase of 3.607 billion or 142.27%. The estimate for 2050 is 9.375 billion an increase of 6.839 billion or 369.67%. I can't imagine either how such growth is ecologically or economically sustainable, or how it can or will be curtailed. 

Every group has the potential of functioning as a crowd.  and the crowd has always excercised tyranny over the individual.  With respect to animals, a crowd is referred to as a herd (as of cattle), a flock (of birds), a school (of fish). In religion the crowd has been denominated as minyan, a congregation and a denomination, in politics as blocks of voters, as representatives, as parliament, assembly or congress. 

Contemporary Internet "social media" may seem to make the tyranny of the crowd more impressive and more threatening, but I myself do not feel correspondingly more oppressed. In the contrary, rightly or wrongly, I believe that modern technology has enhanced rather than restricted my own, personal freedom.  

I send you my very best wishes for your health and happiness.

Jochen