Top Story: rioting is almost always fueled by alcoholism. The London riots were no exception.
The London Riots: Feral Humans,*
Resentment of Enablers and Alcoholism
Alcoholics experience distortions of perception and memory. One of these distortions, “euphoric recall,” causes practicing alcoholics to view everything they do or say through self-favoring lenses, which leads to a God-like sense of self. As explained in Drunks, Drugs & Debits: How to Spot Hidden Alcoholics, this is the root cause of alcoholic egomania, which manifests in a compulsion to wield power over others.
This key distortion also reveals itself in the act of blaming others for one’s problems. After all, if everything you do is good and right and nothing bad or wrong, how can you be to blame for anything that you perceive to be inequitable in your life? It’s certainly not your fault—it’s the fault of your spouse, or the kids, or your boss, or the other driver, or the dog, or even society. This explains much if not most of what journalist and commentator John Stossel has identified as “the blame game,” in which some segments of society—the supposedly downtrodden—blame others for their problems. Such blame can take form in racism or classism, in which other classes of people are viewed as the cause of your problems or those of your group or race. Other classes include the so-called “rich.” While this includes those who stole their wealth either directly or by corruption, in free societies this is rare. More often, they are extraordinary achievers and producers, producing more for others and, compared with that production, consuming less than the rest of us over the course of their lives (which those who inherit wealth must also do in order to maintain that wealth).
Euphoric recall makes logical analysis and weighing of equity and justice difficult if not impossible. Therefore, alcoholics may be incapable of distinguishing between those who earn their wealth honestly and are wonderfully productive (think: Bill Gates and Steve Jobs) vs. those who steal their wealth or way to the top (think: Muammar Gaddafi and other alcoholic despots at the opposite end of the spectrum). They end up feeling indignation toward others as a result of real or imagined grievances, including a perception of having been treated unfairly or denied something, including unearned wealth. This is called “resentment,” yet another negative end-result of euphoric recall. It’s especially negative when directed at productive members of society, which may be the reason recovering alcoholics tell us resentment destroys more alcoholics than anything else: subconsciously, at least, they know such resentment is incredibly wrong, especially when acted upon.
Resentment causes some alcoholics to attempt to destroy those against whom they hold grudges. This, combined with alcoholic egomania and the consequential compulsion to wield power over others, results in all manner of criminal behaviors, ranging from false accusations and murder to theft and the commission of mayhem, including the recent London riots.
Who other than an alcoholic or seriously sick codependent would demand that if you want to prevent social unrest the masses must be given more unearned benefits (i.e., property taken from someone who earned it and given to someone who didn’t)? The problem is that when dealing with alcoholics, who commit by far the vast majority of criminal acts, we deal with people who have the emotional mind of a child. What sort of a reaction do you think you’d get after giving an ice cream cone to a 5-year-old* and, after letting him take a few licks, you take it away? By giving adults unearned benefits we insure they remain immature, poor and unwilling to make attempts at reaching their full potential. We protect from consequences and the protected become dependent on us for continuing that protection. This is classic enabling, in which the enabler, perversely, controls the enabled—at least until they turn against their enablers because that feeling of resentment, whether conscious or subconscious, eventually deteriorates into unethical and criminal behaviors. This is where feral humans come from, especially when combined with alcoholism.
If you need some evidence for the idea that the riots were fueled by alcoholism, take a look at the 3rd “Quote of the month,” below and consider the fact that Boris Johnson, the current Mayor of London, reported that 75% of those arrested on charges relating to rioting have prior records (which means, for the uninitiated, at least 80% of that 75% had already provided us with proof of their alcoholism). Here’s a particularly illuminating example of one of (no doubt) thousands of conversations that took place during the riots that inextricably links alcoholism to the “blame”-filled mindset:
Reporter: So, you’re drinking a bottle of rose wine at half past nine in the morning?
Girls: Yeah, free alcohol (laughs).
Reporter: Have you been drinking all night?
Girls: Yeah (more laughs). Like…it’s the governments fault…yeah…I don’t know who it is. Conservatives…yeah conservatives…that’s the point of the riot is showing the police that we can do whatever we want. That’s right. And now we have.
Reporter: But these are local people. Why is it targeting local people and your own people?
Girls: It’s the rich people, the people that have got businesses and that’s why all of this has happened…because of the rich people. We’re just showing the rich people that we can do what we want.
British socialism has taught people they have a claim to the property of others, euphemistically referred to as “entitlements.” They’ve learned they can suck at the teat of those who produce, without returning anything of value. They have become parasites because their hosts have allowed it. And now they riot over the perceived injustice of having some of those unearned products of theft taken away. Even if some alcoholics may disagree, this set of beliefs is more consistent with alcoholism than the idea you have the right to the fruits of your labor, ideas and expertise.
In Drunks, Drugs & Debits I likened enablers and alcoholics to hosts and parasites, similar to the hero in Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, John Galt, who suggested to producers that they stop playing host to parasite (and whom after I named my publishing arm). It’s time we recognize the parasites for what they are: generally alcohol and other-drug addicts with the emotional capacity of five-year-olds. If we really want to help them grow up, we need to stop protecting them from the consequences of their own actions. This means we need to stop the enabling, both public and private.
* With thanks to Peter Pappas and his terrific blog for the wonderful term “feral humans” and the ice cream cone analogy.