Doug Henwood wrote:
> I think questions like that are very important for
> understanding politics, but some people don't. For those who don't,
> it's enough to label the phenomenon "mass hysteria,"
This is simply untrue. I'm sure that I'm not alone in (a) denying, as you do, that "it's enough to label the phenomenon "mass hysteria" but (b) denying a psychological explanation. It's never enough just to label something. Most of my really lengthy posts on these lists have taken off from the passage in *Poverty of Philosophy* of confusing labelling or summarizing a phenomenon with explaining.it. What I do deny is that it is, *in principle*, impossible to provide psychological explanations for mass phenonomena. All psychology can do, in fact, is provide equally empty and non- explanatory labels -- beyond assuring us that what happens can happen.
I think a social explanation is possible, but it may not be. In that case we will just have to do the best we can without an explanation. Human knowledge is not infinite.
Carrol