In this day and age, if you're real goal is to promote a liberal vs. conservative argument, then you should say so and not fecklessly obscure it under a seemingly neutral title as if readers can't read between the lines. This article is simply a statement of which mob, between two examples, was just. The just mob was behind a liberal cause, the unjust mob a conservative cause. The latter in fact was, in the author's view, a nefarious conspiracy. I wasn't involved in either and wouldn't defend either, but I would be very skeptical about anyone who has ever made 'jokes' about pedophilia. I know nothing about those jokes so I'm not passing judgement here, rather my point is that this author simply asserts that the conservative mob was unjust without considering whether there was any merit to it.
2
Great article about a relevant topic; however there is something missing. There is a large group on the internet known as 'stan Twitter' - mostly teenage, liberal to far-left fangirls who are well known for their odd slang. Yet what they are most famous for is 'cancelling' people - another way to describe the mobs shown in the article.
Stan Twitter has been extremely influential in these career- ruining mobs especially when issues like representation (e.g. Scarlett Johansson and offensive, ancient tweets (e.g. James Gunn) come to be known. A recent one, for example, has been the nixing of Ruby Rose as Batwoman.
Maybe I'm biased because I'm a teenage girl as well, but stan Twitter should have been addressed because as much as they seem to be a niche group, they happen to be leading many of these mobs.
Please, tell me this is a piece from the Onion.
If the mob is on the left, it's good; otherwise it's bad.
Easy, because "we are on the side of history"... unless it's not the case, of course. Democracy and free speech are secondary issues, first come your party beliefs. Okkey!
Also, if I may add, the reason why the "Gunn mob" is wrong results a little opaque to me: shouldn't they use "the most accepted norm they can find"? And what should they use in order to e heard? The least accepted? The most original? I guess Amanda Hess' answer would be: "they just have to shut up and be mobbed by the righteous ones without complaining".
1
Trial by twitter is just scary. Imagine if in a court of law your character was represented by short often out of context phrases, dredged up from ten years ago by your enemies. That's a terrible world. (I am doubly cringing knowing that our courts are also far from fair.)
2
The idea that one mob is more acceptable than another is dangerous. While one could make a well-reasoned philosophical argument about moral consequences, rational valuation of human worth, etc. that's not what this author is engaging in.
Rather what I just read was: James Gunn getting fired was bad because people on the far right mobbed him, but Scarlett Johanssen getting canned is fine because people on the left mobbed her.
Sorry, both are bad. To pretend they aren't is to engage in some shaky moral relativism. This much is obvious.
In fact, to further prove the point, if one were to consider the content itself that caused such outrage, the authors judgement still wouldn't make sense. Pedophilia is something we can all agree is bad, whereas transgenderism is a much, much, much less black and white issue than some would have you believe.
Regardless, this article enables mob mentality by giving internet actors a rationale that while some mobs are bad, what they are engaging in probably is righteous and just. In other words: BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
3
This column is mere sophistry and appears to be simply a lengthy restatement of the satirical aphorism sometimes heard from the right.
Anger from the right is labelled "hatred", while hatred from the left is labelled "anger."
The article provides supporting evidence to the complaint.
7
another breathy tempest in a teapot. ugh.
1
"The Gunn mob was led by a clutch of far-right men who only frame themselves as outsiders"
Admittedly,"far-right men" seem less like outsiders now in the age of Donald Trump, but I'm still inclined to say (hope?) they are indeed treated as outsiders still outside of their home territory be that online communities, or on Fox, or ...*sigh* the oval office. That last point may weaken my argument too much, perhaps, but I still think there's something to it. In any event, if the far-right is not consigned to "outsider" status that is not due to lack of trying on the part of the most broadly visible and I think influential (urban, mostly liberal) elements of US culture of which I regard the Times as a part.
Anyhow on a different point, I'm not sure that condemning "mobs" created by a few dedicated leaders relative to "mobs" created by spontaneous mass reaction is wise. Mass reaction requires mass visibility, and I doubt that every single deserving event receives such. It seems entirely plausible that in some deserving cases, dedicated, unusually well-informed, and moral people (...so no I'm not thinking Cernovich here...) may need to work to rouse mass attention to focus on a previously under the radar example of something that ought to be protested or otherwise worked against.
The appropriate tactics for such situations is a thorny issue I'm not competent to tackle.
1
As with Pinker's 'better angels', the world has become a much better place, even though it might seem to be falling apart.
Are mobs frequent, are they harmful, or are we only aware of them? Are we taking the exceptions as indicative of the rule, rather than realizing that the harm they cause is infrequent? Not to dismiss the misguided and harmful results - I am in no way condoning harassment - but is the proportion higher than there would be in a pre-internet society?
Looks like the comm nets focused on partisan attacks rather than on the fundamental issue which is simply that mobbing is dangerous to civil society whether you support the person or oppose the person who is using inflammatory rhetoric to engage the partsans.
6
The mobs of yore were space, time, and attention limited. No matter how irate the mobster, he still had to go home to eat and sleep ... and to cool off.
Not so the mobs on anti-social media. HateBook, Hater, InstaHate. and YouHate are in perpetual foment. The worst among us have been given the power to destroy us and they will only be forced to stop after they have Made America Gray Ash.
13
I wonder if in time this kind of mobbing will become unfashionable? Unfortunately in the past the endings were prompted by people getting killed, like Charlottesville , or the killing of a gay man in a homophobic mob assault.
Unfortunately too, excess violence leads to dictators
4
All mobs, online as well as living, are irrational. People of sound judgement should either stay away from them or unite to supress them. In particular, this goes for the politically correct mob, militant vegans, promoters of cannabis, and all others attached to the coattails of the loud-mouthed leftist radical Democrats.
7
@Tuvw Xyz If you "unite to suppress them" aren't you simply forming yet another mob?
You can't stop the internet mobs. It's too easy to make noise and create the appearance of a clamor and a crusade with these tools whether its a transgender e-mob with a ridiculous objective (hardly "perfectly rational") or a reactionary Cernovich e-mob with an ever more ridiculous objective.
The true people at fault are the ones who let these noisemakers influence their decisions when they should know that they represent a very small part of this country.
4
Trans actors and writers didn't *ask* for anything. They threatened, demanded it and killed the project. Now the story of a transgender man won't be told.
All online mobs are vicious.
25
It would be shorter and clearer to simply say, "Its Ok when lefties complain, its evil when anyone complains about lefties"
that's all anyone takes away from this.
32
So, to summarize: Left-wing mobs, good and rational. Other mobs, bad and irrational. Thank you. Ms. Hess, for your balanced and non-partisan words of wisdom.
45
So it's a good mob when it attacks someone you don't like or approve of, and a bad mob when it's the reverse?
Confirmation bias, motivated reasoning, and identity-protective cognition strike again...
33
"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts. "Bertrand Russell
25
The vicious, poorly educated, non intelligent people can talk among themselves, as they swim around on their own internet "level". The intelligent people will have their own internet. Intelligent people have jobs that will pay for their own internet... also, streets. Let the vicious people live among themselves too. The technology is here to section "them" off.... and get them out of the White House too!
4
If more people actually read the whole article, or, God forbid, a whole book once in a while, they'd soon fathom that there's more to a story than a headline.
Problem seems to be that no one has the time any longer; they're too busy reading a hundred headlines on Twitter, thinking that they're well-informed for reading the news. But their brains are now mush from trying to make sense of them all.
Nothing in life is what it seems. Life and the human stories within in are complex. Life is also not a movie. A movie is a pretty darn simple script, and often deliberately kept simple to placate simpletons.
Sad really. We live in a world with more knowledge literally at our fingertips than humans have ever had, and collectively we're getting dumber for it. Writing has to be dumbed down, coding is dumbed down (Click Here! for instance. Doh!). Teachers have to use rote repetition long after the age it was used in the '50s. Students show up for college completely unprepared and need extra math and English classes.
Oh, and when we get collectively dumber, we end up with an equally dumb president, because the dumb mob actually still think he's smart.
It's actually better to be a contrarian these days: The crowd goes one way, you go the other. Safer, too. It's impossible to whip a bunch (if you can find a bunch) of contrarians to a frenzy because they're natural thinkers, free-thinkers; often ostracized because the dumb mob doesn't understand them. But contrarians don't care.
19
@James Devlin I was fully expecting to scroll down and find someone had commented "TLDR" in response to your comment.
I'm pretty sure most people have the time to read a full article or book. It's the inclination to do so that's more likely to be missing.
It's hard to keep track of it all. Roseanne was mobbed, and the NYT endorsed it. But then the Times hired Sarah Jeong, and even after acknowledging her anti-white tweets (~300 of them), they continue to stick by her.
I've basically been using race and politics as a shorthand to know which mobs are good, and which ones are bad. Which is why I know that the mob who targeted Roseanne was good, while the mob that is targeting Sarah Jeong is bad.
But still, I wish the Times would do more to defend Sarah Jeong. In one sense, all she was really trying to do is fit in with white liberals who correctly lambaste white privilege. And when you're an East Asian bright and busy student, setting oneself apart from other East Asians is essential. I think when you frame Ms. Jeong's tweets against this backdrop, where she was likely just continuing to exhibit the kind of "strong personality" and "individualism" that got her into Harvard in the first place, it's easier to understand. Elite organizations make it hard for Asians to succeed, so expressing some harmless anti-white feelings just to fit in with the white people who do this shouldn't be held against her.
Context matters! When mobs attack, share the context!
10
I am a little struck by Ms. Hess's lack of empathy when she says, “They’re occasionally referred to as ‘lynch mobs,’ as though losing a career opportunity were a kind of modern extrajudicial killing. She is quite right and totally wrong. It is not just that the mechanism of murder might be indirect--suicides Benjamin and Zweig were, in effect, “lynched” by the Nazi mob, even though no Gestapo were at the Spanish border or anywhere in Brazil; Philip Loeb, the basis for Woody Allen's "The Front," was, in effect, lynched by the McCarthy mob. The willful and wanton destruction of someone's career at the core of their life is not a trivial matter, is not the joke that feasting internet trolls take it to be. For those of us for whom our careers is very much our lives, its destruction by a mob is close enough that the metaphor is not inflated. We have seen a spate of these in recent years, a professor forced out his career making an stupid remark about 9/11, another for refusing to participate in an event, another for foolish tweeting, etc. And “losing a career opportunity” often is just the loss of career. Even an inept but ferocious attempt can be horrific and debilitating. I have no idea how important Ms. Hess regards her career as a journalist, but she might ask herself whether she would view it as at least just short of a lynching were she driven away from her love and life by an accusation of insensitivity in a parenthesis.
20
@Henry
The Front was written by Walter Bernstein and directed by Martin Ritt. Woody Allen was an actor in the movie and nothing else.
At that rate, you might as well call it Woody Allen's and Zero Mostel's "The Front." At least Zero (aside from starring in it), was also a victim of the Hollywood Blacklist. The movie's closing credits listed those blacklisted movie participants which also included the screenwriter, the director, and several of the actors.
3
Digital tiki torches, if you will, are used by any one with access to them, and all across the political and ideological spectrum, as the Times well knows.
6
By definition, a mob is an unthinking herd of people. I don’t care if a mob forms for things I approve of or disapprove of, all mobs are bad.
9
Mobs are a terrible tool for enforcement of social values because they pose real dangers to all citizens and cannot be easily controlled once they are unleashed.
Ms. Hess suggests the mobs with politically acceptable goals should be welcomed (e.g., the Johansson mob). Such naked partisanship misses the dangers mobs pose to everyone and reflect a commitment to political victories no matter how terrible the method.
As history shows, the mob will turn in random directions, which is why the mob should never be invited to form. Ms. Hess will assuredly decry future mob violence without understanding her small part in the next mob's formation.
14
So in order to maintain ideological soundness, the author has to distinguish "good" mobs from "bad" mobs. The good ones consist of a spontaneous group of thoughtful critics while the bad ones are just an obnoxious rabble. She can tell one from the other by whether she agrees with what they are saying.
But I'm afraid most thoughtful people believe that a mob is just a mob and they are the enemy of rational discussion.
17
That Johansson/Gill film will not get made. Without a star involved the investors probably all backed out. So a very interesting story won't get told. All those jobs, cast crew and all the rest, won't happen. You and I won't get to see Johansson stretch her talents, step away from the type-casting, even if only for 90 minutes. And the audience, most of whom have never met a trans person, won't get the chance to expand their horizons a little.
So the trans community shot itself in the foot, and hit a few other people as well. What part of this is not a bad thing?
26
While there is an undeniable surface similarity, I don't believe the "mob" designation really describes the internet outrage.
A "mob", in the normal sense used through history, is a phenomenon of individuals losing their individuality, their distinctive minds, and their own sense of guilt to be part of something bigger. The mob eggs its members on, perhaps led by a demogogue, or perhaps with no more leadership than a murmuring of starlings.
I'd say the internet is different. Each "voice" expressing on-line outrage is a solitary, individual act - done alone in their own room. I don't believe they are doing it because other on-line postings are somehow making lose self control, and sweeping them up in the moment. Instead, its a seduction of being able to express raw outrage, hate or outrageousness. Unlike a physical mob reveling in the physicality of them moment, the solitary internet troll prizes safety. You can spew venom, you can lie, you can call for blood, and its perfectly antiseptic and safe and secure. It's the perfect place for cowards.
I think that's a different phenomenon than the crowd storming the Bastille.
3
@nub when each solitary, individual "voice" expressing on-line outrage incites all other solitary, individual voices to contact someone's employer in order to ask for that someone to be fired, thus collectively weaving the noose, can we or can we not call it a mob?
I am deeply leery of all mobs, left or right. A mob has no brain, no judgement. It's a crowd waving pitchforks of righteous justified anger. Ms. Hess's article seems to be arguing that mobs are good and rational when they do things she likes, not so much when they don't. I disagree. I don't like the way Ms. Johansson was forced to refuse the role OR the way Mr. Gunn was fired by Disney.
I agree that Gunn's case is dirtier: it was a mob led by some particularly slimy people, but it was still a mob, as was Johansson's.
I think very poorly of people who go out and shoot animals in Africa, but I don't think that dentist who killed Cecil the Lion deserved the mob hatred he got.
It's tricky, the line between people's reasonable anger and protest and an angry mindless mob. Protesting a wrongful shooting, marching for political change, these are good things. How are they not mobs? I'm not sure.
Still, I don't trust mobs, I don't like decisions made by mob rule. Even "good" decisions.
31
So mobs that disagree with the NYT are vicious, but those that agree are perfectly rational. Got it.
15
“If they get to take scalps for someone making racist jokes, we get to take scalps for them making pedophilia jokes.”
Yup. Turnabout is fair play (not that I condone what either side does in this case). Complaining that the right used your own PC playbook against you smacks of sour grapes.
12
With Charlottesville one year on, I'm a little more concerned with the real harm a mob can do and what our current political culture has done to encourage it.
2
I love how the author thinks mobs are just irrational for challenging the status quo and not because nearly every peasant revolt in history lead to horrendous atrocities and tens of thousands dead. But remember, history started 100 years ago. We can ignore all that inconvenience
16
This would seem to encourage a reading of Jon Ronson's book So You've Been Publicly Shamed, which was excerpted here some time ago. It covers many, many scenarios of public shaming of this kind, that doesn't conveniently eschew the sorta of incidents that very much encourage a reading of "mov mentalities", particularly a certain individual's joke before a flight took off that was responded to with endless glee regarding the idea of her landing without a job, blissfully ignorant of the response to her joke due to airplane mode and temporary disconnection from the internet.
Given the framework of this column, I'd be very interested in how it fits into it. Despite presumably sharing many of the underlying views as the author, I find myself pretty wholly opposed to online reactions like this.
It doesn't even touch on using this same approach toward previously non-famous individuals--but as in the example above, sincerity vs. trolling is a completely false dichotomy, in terms of things like seeking negative effects.
3
"None of us is as dumb as all of us" is a phrase you'll her in the military. It's a bon mot intended to underline why the military isn't a democracy when it defends democracy. But it's also a truism.
The problem with social media mobs is that even the ones that "succeed" actually end up failing. Rub n' Tug, far from starring a transgender man, will now simply not be made. James Gunn's firing from Marvel will, in all likelihood, derail Marvel's entire Phase 4 plan and result in fewer films for actual fans. The catch is many of Cernovitch's fans are also comic fans, something pop media companies have been discovering to their chagrin. Net loss for them, I suspect.
There's nothing fundamentally wrong with leveraging social media, except that human nature is to take everything too far. If that particular aspect of "mobs" could be controlled, I suspect we'd perceive it as wisdom of the crowd rather than rule of the mob.
3
Not sure what we are doing to actors when we demand their biographies match their roles. Should Othello only be played by a murderer? Does someone who strangled his wife get extra points? If anything, it might be more interesting to open things up -- see Hamlet played by a woman, see a trans man in a rom com that is not about a trans man, see actors in general allowed to challenge the status quo. I remember when I first saw Denzel Washington in Much Ado and thought, okay, maybe a black man would not have been a prince in Italy at the time -- but his acting so made it clear he was a prince that it triumphed over the historical record. I believed him. Great acting is magical. It concerns me when we try to fence it in.
24
@Doris
We're only venturing in the realm of the film industry. The argument seems to have been settled for literature already: The Guardianistas for one have decided that you can't write a book about being black if you are not, about being gay if you are not etc. It is seen as "a celebration of the unfettered exploitation of the experiences of others, under the guise of fiction".
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/sep/10/as-lionel-shriver-...
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/oct/01/novelists-cultural-appropr...
It is not so much that our era may not have had a Flaubert to write Madame Bovary. It is simply that he simply would not have been allowed to do so by social media lynch mobs.
2
Interesting swipe at Lenin to just casually lump him in with Hitler and Mussolini.
3
so... left wing mob good
right wing mob bad is what this entire article boils down too.
9
The distinction Ms. Hess tries to draw between is one of degree only. Scarlett Johansson was mobbed by people with an agenda, some of whom may felt that they were legitimately responding to an injustice. No such legitimacy can be ascribed to those who mobbed Greenbaum for defending the casting decision because either side of the issue can be supported with principled argument. They used public pressure in an unethical way to stifle an opposing idea. The mobbing of Gunn is the worst because of its cynicism and because it was intended to injure an individual and not just to shape public opinion. All 3 incidents are pernicious in that they are attempts to limit our ability to speak and act in ways that should be protected by law and ti intimidate the rest of us. In that way, twitter mobbing is akin to a nonviolent form of terrorism.
10
Too bad Dante Gill's story will now, most likely, remain untold; without a "bankable" star to sell the film. Is this the outcome that the purveyors of trans outrage (in this case) hoped for, or has the law of unintended consequences struck again?
Social media inquisitors thrive on trees...but aren't great at recognizing forests...
16
@Wild Ox I sincerely doubt that many real trans people were actually outraged. Real trans people have more on their minds that who plays them in movies. A few transvestite SJW LARPers on the other hand have much outrage. It is kind of like how when they polled real American Indians about the names of sports teams, most didn't care or were happy about it. The only ones who seemed to be outraged were the Fauxcaheaten tribe that Elizabeth Warren belongs to.
There are too many people who speak more than they think. And it's the ugliest part of sentiment which incites these mobs; when the speaker becomes more important than what is spoken; when stolen opinions are too self-affirming to let go. Art sharpens our perceptions and gives us dignity as individuals, which consequently, makes us less cynical with more faith in our independent strength. Our spiritually bankrupt society is feeding on itself constantly with one cosmic joke after another to show for it. The mendacious illusory nature of our society can't last. We're all becoming more isolated and we seem to be rebelling against the farce with the all the contempt of multiplying illusory unsatisfied desires.
4
I’ve read a lot of similar articles from progressives who complain that the social media shaming tactics used for “good” ends (Johansson withdrawing from playing a trans man) by progressives are now being used by the alt right in bad faith (the Gunn firing). The problem with this argument is that there are no referees on the internet who decide what actions are in “bad faith” and disallows them. Instead, progressives have to deal with the fact that an internet culture that enables social shaming can be used as easily against them as for them. I have yet to read any suggestions they have to address this, beyond just complaining that “It’s not fair.”
15
Predictably, the line between vicious and righteous happens to be strikingly similar to the line delineating the author's current political views. And therein lies the problem with the modern black-and-white take-no-prisoners shame culture. No room for moving our personal views, but harsh and unremitting punishment for those irredeemables who cross not just "the" few proverbial lines we used to all agree on, but any line separating our politics from those of others. I don't think we really are as polarized as much as we think we are, so much as we've convinced ourselves the gulf between our views and those of others is hopelessly uncrossable. It's self-flattery as much as anything, as I have rarely met a person possessing virtue befitting their condemnation of the less enlightened.
9
Since the name-brand star withdrew, will the movie even be made? Financing and the green-light to proceed with a movie is often explicitly contingent on a certain bankable star agreeing to participate.
The "mob" may have killed the chances of this film ever being made at all.
28
@Pat Good point but it's even worse. This is from Mike Fleming in a chat at Deadline:
"I believe those LGBTQ advocates who claimed victory after shaming Johansson into withdrawing from Rub & Tug don’t realize they have made it nearly impossible to get made films like Brokeback Mountain and Dallas Buyers Club – the kind that open hearts and minds. At least not with any kind of decent budget and P&A spend. Not when film companies know they might be shamed on social media by groups who now feel empowered to demand who plays the lead role, even if their candidates have no bankable value."
Well, yes - neither the studios nor the bankable stars need the adverse publicity. The likely upshot is that fewer films of this type will get made but the ones that do will be low-budget, niche market efforts starring people most of us have never heard of.
Fortunately, Netflix and Amazon have infinite budgets so this genre will probably be fine there.
7
I'm tempted to argue that no social media mobs are healthy or necessary. These platforms purport to unite us, and all too often drive us apart. Which is why I steer clear, and remain far from the madding crowd. The digital one, at least.
40
@Drew Johnson. I hope you will succumb to that temptation and oppose all mobs: who is to say which are good and which evil? If goodness is defined by success in achieving the particular mob’s ends, that implies ever more intense warfare and further erosion of civility and harmony. Let’s face it, the mobs want power for their own ends, which are probably not good for the commonweal.
7
So if you agree with the social media pile-on, it is called critical consensus challenging the status quo, but if you disagree it is just a plain old mob. Got it.
99
In all cases of public controversy, both sides are equally reasonable. There are never ever any disagreements where one side has a better point than the other. So, anybody who dares to claim otherwise is being a stubborn fool. Got it.
It's a shame nobody figured this out earlier. If they had, we could have prevented all of the pro-slavery and anti-women's rights folks from being unfairly ganged up on and silenced.
1
@Liz
Excellent example of the various references to the devolution of critical thinking...perhaps re-reading the article for content/comprehension will help you understand the author's thesis.
1
You nailed it.
3
One of the things social media has done is that it has taken away complexity and nuance. A case by case approach towards issues in my opinion is the best. Unfortunately with a few sentences, anyone can whip up a mob these days. As someone said we should encourage reading because books demand more from you than a 250 word tweet or a meme. A William Faulkner novel, Toni Morrison, Tim O'brien, Chinua Achebe essay etc can open up an entire world but will require more effort on the part of a reader. Social media rewards simplicity, logical fallacies and ad hominem attacks, tangential arguments and partisan bickering lacking policy substance. From Antarctica through the Americas to Africa, where do go from here?
55
No, not everybody can whip up this kind of mob.
In the 1950's it was McCarthy and the HUAC.
Today it is the far left wing such as the NYTimes.
The difference is, of course, that in the 1950s
the Russians really DID try to overthrow our government, and there really WERE actual
card carrying Communists all over Hollywood.
Today the people the leftist mobs attack are no threat to the country, just to their own version of Political Correctness.
7
@Sid Griffiths And read the Bible. Christians believe in sin and repentance, and in divine law and divine forgiveness. Not in confusing the prodigal son's pigpen with the father's house as many do these days, but in a warm welcome for prodigals who do repent and return.
So if Mr Gunn said sorry, he's sort of doing the right kind of thing, and why fire him from doing a good job? As for Ms Johansson, fine to ask Hollywood to consider trans people for acting jobs, but can they replace her with an equally attractive and equally capable actress/actor? Do they make sure every devout Christian role is played by a devout Christian?
And it's news to me that Mr Gunn's leading critics were 'right wing' (does the right wing have a monopoly in opposing paedophilia?). Be that as is may, are Ms Hess, the Times newsroom in general, and the commenters here open-minded enough to consider that, while "all have sinned and come short of the glory of God" (Bible), the right in some form might be right, that triune Jehovah and realism may prefer libertarian governments to proud paternalistic bureaucracies? Or are you stuck in your leftist doctrines? Think: The US won the Cold War; the far-left Russians lost. Our economy faces risk, but far-left Venezuela's has collapsed. Christendom is the part of the world people in the secular, Muslim, and pagan parts want to move to. Jesus gave his own life: extreme voluntary personal generosity. The takers, including a mob, claimed public good.