Social Hysteria: When many people in a community behave or
react in such an extreme and uncontrollable way due to fear, anger, and/or
other emotional states.
Social hysteria, or otherwise commonly
known as mass hysteria, group
hysteria or collective obsessional behavior, has been around since the
beginning of human history. As long as
fear has been a part of our human nature, the spread of that fear has been
intentionally used for political and military advantage, or unintentionally has
wreaked havoc on whole communities and societies with breaking news, a simple
rumor, or coincidental happenstance that spirals out of control with dangerous,
devastating, and deadly results.
Adolescent girls have notably been the
main culprits of documented incidents of mass hysteria manifesting itself
physically in the form of strange unexplainable medical ailments. The most common manifestation of social
hysteria in young girls is when a group of pubescent girls, usually in a school
setting, all claim to be afflicted by a mysterious group illness. The latest major
documented incident of this type manifested itself in the town of LeRoy, New York in
2012. Twelve high school girls developed
Tourette’s like symptoms that were rumored to be transferred to other potential
victims simply by texting one another. The school was immediately tested for
toxins and none were found, the strange affliction was deemed to be the work of
conversion disorder, otherwise known as mass hysteria.
Early recorded incidences of mass
hysteria have affected whole towns in the past, along with people of all ages
and walks of life. Adolescent girls have
also and unfortunately in the past, brought upon far darker miseries on their
communities with their outbreaks of mass hysteria. The most famous American
incident of documented social hysteria is of course, The Salem Witch
Trials of Massachusetts.
In 1692 four adolescent girls began to have uncontrollable fits that
were blamed on witchcraft, and after the mass hysteria cleared finally, 25
citizens of Salem and its surrounding communities were put to death for being
witches or witch sympathizers.
Pubescent girls can’t be entirely blamed
for mass hysteria and conversion disorder though, one of the earliest and most
famous incidents of mass social hysteria happened in Strasbourg, Alsace
in 1588 while it was part of the Holy Roman Empire. A portion of the town’s residence decided to go
outside and dance in the streets for hours uncontrollably, then after days of no
rest the towns people literally started to fall dead where they danced due to heart attacks, fatigue, and exhaustion
after days of pure unstoppable human social hysteria.
Mass hysteria has been a driving force
in the old world’s public, political and societal history, and with today’s
lightning quick social media entity driving our future it will certainly continue to rear its dangerous
ugly head even in these modern
“enlightened” times. One may not be able to always control human nature nor
mass hysteria, but being aware of its impact on your community, country, or
world is a positive step towards finding immunity from catching the affliction
yourself.
