Our Flock Mentality

This will be no surprise to anyone who has attended a march where the SWP have been active and seen what they do in order to try to lead a crowd towards their preferred outcomes. The research is mentioned in this article: Sheep In Human Clothing: Scientists Reveal Our Flock Mentality: And "The findings show that in all cases, the ‘informed individuals’ were followed by others in the crowd, forming a self-organising, snake-like structure. “We’ve all been in situations where we get swept along by the crowd,” says Professor Krause. “But what’s interesting about this research is that our participants ended up making a consensus decision despite the fact that they weren’t allowed to talk or gesture to one another. In most cases the participants didn’t realise they were being led by others.”"
The SWP agitators clearly try to achieve a critical mass of people who lead chants and so infiltrate themselves, unobtrusively, as leaders and then up the stakes in terms of participation until they are able to lead off a significant crowd into more disruptive activities. This is, of course, significant for my writing on the Powers and emergence.