I'm not an expert on this topic, but this article seems to imply a very spefic sense of mob rule (cf.
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the Tianmen paragraph). I put a POV message on top, in the hope that someone with more knowledge wants to sort this article out a bit. -- till we *) 15:49, 17 Mar 2004 (UTC)
The Oxford English Dictionary has Ochlocracy not mob rule. This needs to be changed over to the classical term.WHEELER 16:22, 22 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Would not the term mobocracy be more pertinent?--Numerousfalx 22:20, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I have edited the article to make it more objective--Robert Claypool Review my changes, and if it is objective enough, remove the tag. Of course it can always be edited again to make it more objective.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.40.46.38 (talk) 06:48, 25 October 2004 (UTC)
Milnea Trudenau seems to think that censorship is his purview. The prestigious Oxford English Dictionary puts in occurences of the word in actual instances to prove the point of its defintion of the word. It is to make a reference to all instances in proving actual usage--historical usage. Milnea Trudenau is a democrat, he wants to cover over by censorship things that disagree with his orthodoxy.
That is why I am putting back the occurences, because the historical usage of the term refutes what is written in the article itself and points out the slant of Wikipedia and the way users are using it to slant information their way of course. WHEELER 16:50, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I'm not taking Wheeler's side, but I cursory glance at the article suggests a division of the topic into two articles:
Just my 2 cents. --Uncle Ed (El Dunce) 18:58, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Wow, we actually agree on something. (Does this mean we are budding ochlogarchs? ;-) --Uncle Ed (El Dunce) 20:32, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)
You are aware, of course, that Jefferson was closer to being a deist than a Christian. He wrote his own version of the New Testament removing all the "supernatural" elements. AndyL 23:52, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Just thought you might not know:) AndyL 03:29, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I find a lot of Americans are under the illusion that their country is founded on 'Christian principles" or that the Founding Fathers were Christian when neither is true. AndyL 04:38, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)
So how about splitting off this new page, now that we have consensus? Sam [Spade] 14:18, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)
How do you break wikipedia's association of the term "mob rule" with the article "Ochlocracy"? Hackwrench 19:04, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)
The technical term is "Ochlocracy" it is a slang term used for democracies because that is what they slide into. It is about pandering to the biggest block or biggest group in order to gain power and keep it. The OED uses the term in its dictionary. Really, I need to get Polybius and read him to find out what he really meant by it for he coined the term.WHEELER 18:21, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I changed Mob rule back into a redirect for now. The page there was extremely specious, and this article actually discusses it in some depth. Until someone's prepared to actually write a decent separate article about mob rule, I think it's best this page remain the one people see. Deco 01:42, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Or can we take off the neutrality? It seems fair to me.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.175.244.224 (talk) 06:13, 13 March 2005 (UTC)
There are some orthographical faults in the ancient Greek! - Be careful with it! [PeterSh]—Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.231.88.4 (talk) 17:37, 6 August 2005 (UTC)
Could somebody have the decency to put a pronunciation in IPA for the word ochlocracy so we know how to pronounce it. A sound file would be nice too but its up to you guys. TY Lincher 18:08, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
I don't know the IPA, but -ch- in Greek words borrowed into English is generally pronounced as /k/, as in monarchy, chronic, chrome, christ, chrysanthemum, and for that matter kilometer. So now, if you know the IPA, you can deploy your own decency and do it. Flounderer 09:46, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
Seriously. In a way, it sometimes seems that way, and I'm not a burned out "this place sucks, I quit" user. ;-) Bobak 02:33, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
Angry Mob The Angry Mob is a large group of people that are upset or angry with something. They can be Men, Women, children of any height, religeion, gender, culture and status. These people, frustrated and angry, by an event or person, find they have strenght in numbers and they therfore do things that as an idividual they could never do. A Mob mentality ensuses. Angry mobs are an extremly destrucive force.
Armament They can be armed with anything, from AK-47s to baseball bats, Molotov cocktails, rocks, torches, pitchforks and scythes. Mobs seek only to destroy and disrupt, and although they are comprised only of civilians, they can do a very large amount of damage in a very short time.
History Angy Mobs have been prevelent scince biblical times, and there are many references to them in hisorical manuscrips. Even today in places such as Iraq, Yemen and Togo there is continualy Mob Violence.
Weakness The Mob is almost impossible to tame, lead and co-ordinate. They are irrational and spontaious, often turning on one another. Because they are so undisiplined an small number of riot police, police or solders can easliy fight off and disperse a mob, due to their superior training,discipline and weapons.
Mob IQ To work out the IQ of a Mob, follow this simple rule: The IQ of the Smartest Member (SM) divided by Number of people (N) minus the amount of Weapons (W)
In popular culture Mobs are a strong symbol of uprising or revelution, so they can be seen widely in the Media, on the news, in movies, in books and in video games. Two such examples are:
I think we should split this article into Ochlocracy and Angry Mob.--Taida 02:53, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
It seems to me that there is a link or overlap between Ochlocracy and the "social web". I've just come across Doug's page and found "The Rule" of Wikipedia there and then http://davidgerard.co.uk/fsckhead.html. It prompted me to examine my own behaviour, and I began to redden. So I read on to find the error of my ways and absolution. Then the writings of Wittgenstein and Chomsky, who I had been reading here popped into my mind. It seemed to me that their "frank" mode of expression fitted firmly into the definition of "dickheads". I suggest that the "social" aspect of the web, even if still resonating with echoes of West Coast geniality, is actually simply an Ochlocracy. It shuns misfits of one type or another, and, from The Rule et seq seems proud of the fact. That is a short term view as the loss in the end is to the diversity and viablity of the Ochlocracy itself. Just a thought. The thought that follows that is then: Are the people who "invent" things that significantly impact upon the whole of society, and the people most "skilled" in their use, the people who should control the use made of those things? LookingGlass (talk) 19:59, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
The last events 07.04.09, occurred in Moldavian capital Chişinău, may be an example of installation of a interesting form of government which is much closer to ochlocracy than any other forms of government. who is interested could study this phenomena in detail. --Kalatorul (talk) 09:40, 19 April 2009 (UTC)
I went ahead and removed California from this article's See Also list. If you want to link to a specific historical entry about California where Ochlocracy is directly visible, please do so. However, I think linking directly to the California article with no insight as to why or what you're referencing is a little weasely. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rekutyn (talk • contribs) 17:20, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
I have added a section to this article to refer to a cliche that pervades literature and cinema; namely, that paranoid, ignorant, and irascible villagers- who often wield torches- assemble to confront someone whom they perceive as a monster.
While the term "Monster Mob" does not show up in dictionaries and encyclopedias, I think that this phenomenon occurs so often in world culture that it needs- and deserves- a term to describe it, even if a neologism needs to be coined; I think the only reason that such a term doesn't show up is because it has yet to be coined and introduced into popular lexicon.
I have cited at five noteworthy examples of and references to a Monster Mob, and I'm sure a survey of classic and contemporary horror films would produce many more.
While a Monster Mob is not technically an example of government, it is nonetheless one of the most prominent examples of an angry mob, and "angry mob" redirects to Ochlocracy. --MonkeyPundit (talk) 17:42, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
(1) The article states: 'In ancient Greek political thought ochlocracy was considered as one of the three "bad" forms of government...' However, in the preceding paragraph, the article states: 'The term appears to have been coined by Polybius in his Histories (6.4.6).' How could the term have been considered at all by ancient Greeks if they never had any such term, it being coined only later by Polybius?
(2) Returning to the entire sentence: 'In ancient Greek political thought ochlocracy was considered as one of the three "bad" forms of government tyranny, oligarchy and ochlocracy) as opposed to the three "good" forms of government (monarchy, aristocracy and democracy).' Wrong again. First, there was no agreed meaning of democracy in 'ancient Greek thought', but rather differing opinions. However, more importantly, if we mean the leading thinkers, such as Plato and Aristotle, NEITHER of them calls 'democracy' a 'good' form. Plato constantly condemns it as a degenerate form, and Aristotle sees it as fundamentally defective. The best that either of them say about democracy is that it is the 'least worst', which is something very different from 'good', a description they never use. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.198.166.20 (talk) 09:17, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
You're exactly right. But no one here will care. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.182.244.103 (talk) 04:21, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
The article avoid remarking the main differences between "democracy" and "ochlocracy", like the massive power of demagogues and the systemic exploitation of the general ignorance of the masses.
Perhaps the similitudes of "ochlocracy" with the "advanced capitalist democracies" of our times can be better evidenced, instead of focusing on "arabian spring and angry mobs elsewere" that it is my humble opinion will be in future revealed to what they really are: grand scale manipulations of entire populations. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.12.95.19 (talk) 16:15, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
I've tried to improve this section, to remove violations of WP:NPOV, and inaccuracies such as the statement that Anarchism is a Socialist movement aiming at the destruction of capitalist governments (it's actually many movements, which don't always see themselves as socialist, don't want rid of only capitalist governments, and would often prefer to 'replace' them, which sounds less violent than 'destruction', which matters if we wish to remain NPOV). I've also thrown in a few links to seemingly relevant Wiki articles.
But the section remains unsatisfactory in many ways, and I'm not sufficiently interested to fix it, so I'm just going to list some of the issues in case anybody else wants to tackle them:
1) No references: there is still no authority for the claim that Anarchists argue that Anarchism is not inherently Ochlocratic because it includes theories of structure and mutual support rooted in democracy and free association. Common sense tells us that they reject the accusation of being Ochlocratic, but not what arguments they deploy, if they even think it necessary to reply to the charge. The charge was originally described as a 'popular misconception' (or some similar expression), but that seems unlikely, partly because Ochlocratic (as distinct from 'mob rule') is not a word in most people's vocabulary, and Anarchism is not a subject that greatly occupies most people's minds, and partly because the term 'anarchy' conjures up in most people's minds many problems far worse than mere mob rule, such as tyranny by local bandits or warlords, economic collapse followed by starvation, and so on. So anarchists may not necessarily feel any great need to answer that particular charge. And if they do answer it, they would quite likely avoid incomprehensible waffle about 'theories of structure and mutual support rooted in democracy and free association' in favour of something much simpler such as 'we anarchists object to being ruled, so what makes you think we are trying to get ourselves ruled by mobs?'. And that is what I would probably say if I were an anarchist (I'm not), but I'm not supposed to put that in Wikipedia without a reference to back it up.
2) Incomprehensible waffle: 'autonomous self-realizing democratic structures' and 'theories of structure and mutual support rooted in democracy and free association' are two examples. I'd like to get rid of them, but I don't really know what to put in their place. Ironically that may well be why it is incomprehensible - anarchists want to get rid of governments but many probably don't really know what to put in their place, so perhaps they deal with this by trying to hide their uncertainty and the flaws in their thinking behind incomprehensible waffle.
3) The stuff about Anarchism not necessarily being Socialist properly belongs in the Anarchism article. I've only left it in here to try to reduce the risk of a row with the original author who asserted it was Socialist.
4) I've linked the words 'democracy' and 'democratic' to the Wiki 'direct democracy' article, because the Wiki 'democracy' article begins by describing democracy as a system of government, whiich is obviously not what anarchists mean by the term. But I'm not sure that the link to the 'direct democracy' article is all that much of an improvement, and ideally it should link to an articke on 'theories of democracy', or 'anarchist theories of democracy', but no such article currently exists. Perhaps I should have linked the two instances to either one or two such non-existant articles to indicate a possible need for such articles, but I'll leave that decision to somebody else. There may or may not be a similar need for linking 'self-realizing' to a currently non-existant article on 'theories of self-realization', or 'anarchist theories of self-realization', but I've put no link at present (the current 'self-realization' article is about spirituality and Eastern religion, not Anarchism).
5) WP:NPOV presumably requires giving various counter-arguments from 'reputable' sources. Presumably these would include people claiming that Anarchism always leads to Ochlocracy (or 'mob rule'); or always does except in irrelevant circumstances such as small scattered Inuit populations in the Arctic or isolated small islands in some ocean; or always does with true Anarchism as distinct from theories falsely claiming to be Anarchist through, for instance, actually having a government but claiming it isn't really a government for one reason or another; or that Anarchism always carries an uncertain but unacceptably high risk of Ochlocracy; and so on. Plus there would probably also have to be arguments from people accepting that Ochlocracy was not a significant risk of Anarchism but arguing that this was irrelevant because Anarchism carried other far greater risks. But finding 'reputable' sources for any of this may not be too easy, if only because 'reputable' sources may not feel much need to argue about Anarchism, any more than they feel much need to argue about belief in a Flat Earth, or Satanism, or belief in Santa Claus, regardless of how unfair such analogies may seem to Anarchists. And, incidentally, I certainly wouldn't expect any 'reputable' source to carry my own views on the subject (which presumably means those views can't appear in the article, no matter how sensible they seem to me). For what little it's worth, my views are roughly that the world has never had a World Government, and consequently we've always lived in a relatively sophisticated form of anarchy, with anarchy turning out in practce to mean not absence of goverment, but absence of central government, leaving government by the strongest local bandits or warlords, currently named Barack Obama, Vadimir Putin, etc... Consequently Ochlocracy is at worst a fairly minor consequence of anarchy, except perhaps in its earliest stages, and being for or against anarchy is as pointless as being for or against gravity, as we're currently stuck with both. Plus it's probably all just that old cliche - an argument about deckchairs on the Titanic; because either humankind or civilisation self-destructs in the near future, or else, for better or worse, we will probably all soon be governed by benevolent and/or tyrannical quasi-super-intelligent machines or persons, who will presumably see little or no reason to pay much attention to our barely intelligent thoughts on the subject. But, as already mentioned, it seems that none of this can legitimately be mentioned in the article.
That said, none of this means that I think the section should simply be deleted. It always has violated quite a few Wiki rules, and currently still does (though hopefully rather fewer than before), but, as made clear by WP:IAR (one of the five pillars of Wikipedia), that is not in itself a reason for deletion unless deletion would improve the article, and I don't think deletion would improve it. Tlhslobus (talk) 00:59, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
The ideas in second paragraph of the introductory text seems to be more or less straight out of Aristotle's Politics, and while they are more clearly referred to as such later in the article, it seems a bit weird to me to present them first without any sort of reference or citation, giving the impression that Aristotle's views qualify as neutral facts or the current consensus in political science or something like that. 88.235.150.215 (talk) 12:33, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
Just was looking at these two articles and trying to figure out the difference to help improve them. Trying to start a discussion over at the Tyranny of the Majority Talk page. This talk page doesn't seem particularly active recently but wanted to see if anyone here wanted to join there. XinJeisan (talk) 09:01, 25 June 2015 (UTC)
I returned to this article today and found it in a poor state of repair compared to what I recall from the past. Haven't reviewed the edit history but maybe there is material that one can go back to. The Spanish article is infinitely better. This article is very thin on the ancient Greek origins of the term but full of what appears to be original research that doesn't even belong in this article. 2601:583:8205:9C20:4549:C62A:D5BC:6F8A (talk) 18:54, 25 July 2016 (UTC)
I concur, there was a whole paragraph on Brexit that had no citations and tried to claim that thin majority wins in contested votes are an example of ochlocracy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 148.75.193.112 (talk) 18:47, 9 September 2016 (UTC)
See revision.
Ochlocracy ("rule of the general populace") is democracy ("rule of the people") spoiled by demagoguery, "tyranny of the majority", and the rule of passion over reason, just as oligarchy ("rule of a few") is aristocracy ("rule of the best") spoiled by corruption, and tyranny is monarchy spoiled by lack of virtue.
Although this was seen as "pure opinion" by the editor it does seem to be an interesting statement and sources could be found to support it. This could be moved to another page about governments in general. --JamesPoulson (talk) 00:08, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: moved with the disambiguation going to Mob Rule (disambiguation) per Zxcvbnm's observation that the ambiguous title is capped, but Mob Rule was not notified in this MR. No prejudice against a new bold move, technical request, or full discussion on that move. -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:41, 28 November 2020 (UTC)
– Patently obvious WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. The obtuse ivory-tower jargon "ochlocracy" is a word virtually no one has ever seen or will even be able to guess at the meaning of. The entry for Mob (crime) on the DAB page should be moved to the "See also" section on that page, since "mob rule" never refers to the mafia, the Irish mob, etc. (Even if it did, there is zero chance that is the primary topic). The handful of pop-culture entries are all derivative uses, of no lasting encyclopedic significance. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 17:11, 21 November 2020 (UTC)
There are citations and sections and paragraphs but any discussion of mob rule that thinks it started in the 17th century and solely focuses on recent English and American experiences is so incomplete and WP:BIASed that it is a stub discussion of the topic regardless. — LlywelynII 13:56, 16 January 2024 (UTC)
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