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1. Whether people have political intentions is not the sole criteria for determining whether a particular event is political in nature. Reading politics through individual beliefs rather than social conditions is a deeply conservative tendency.
2. Particular forms of "criminality" are produced in particular social formations under specific social and economic conditions. The idea that we default to some bellum omnium contra omnes when lacking social controls is another deeply conservative idea.
3. There are three dimensions to any riot: a) the intentions, beliefs, or desires of the participants; b) the social and economic conditions within which such intentions, beliefs, and desires can occur, c) the general transhistorical crowd dynamics that appear common to riots across geographical and historical contexts. To focus on any one of these factors may yield valuable insights about a riot event, but it will always be a partial insight when lacking the other dimensions.
4. One can analyze without celebrating.
5. Riots are dangerous and destructive, and much less "exciting" to onlookers when you are caught in one, rather than observing from a safe distance, or through a screen.
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"The destructiveness of the crowd is often mentioned as its most conspicuous quality, and there is no denying the fact that it can be observed everywhere, in the most diverse countries and civilizations. It is discussed and disapproved of, but never really explained.
The crowd particularly likes destroying houses and objects: breakable objects like window panes, mirrors, pictures and crockery; and people tend to think that it is the fragility of these objects which stiumlates the destructiveness of the crowd. It is true that the noise of destruction adds to its satisfaction; the banging of windows and the crashing of glass are the robust sounds of fresh life, the cries of something new-born. It is easy to evoke them and that increases their popularity. Everything shouts together; the din is the applause of objects. There seems to be a special need for this kind of noise at the beginning of events, when the crowd is still small and little or nothing has happened. The noise is a promise of the reinforcements the crowd hopes for, and a happy omen for deeds to come. But it would be wrong to suppose that the ease with which things can be broken is the decisive factor in the situation. Sculptures of solid stone have been mutilated beyond recognition; Christians have destroyed the heads and arms of Greek gods and reformers and revolutionaries have hauled down the statues of saints, sometimes from dangerous heights, though often the stone they wanted to destroy has been so hard that they have achieve only half their purpose.
"The destruction of representational images is the destruction of a hierarchy which is no longer recognized. It is the violation of generally established and universally visible and valid distances. The solidity of the images was the expression of their permanence. They seem to have existed for ever, upright and immovable; never before had it been possible to approach them with hostile intent. Now they are hauled down and broken to pieces. In this act the discharge accomplishes itself.
"But it does not always go as far as this. The more usual kind of destruction mentioned above is simly an attack on all boundaries. Windows and doors belong to houses; they are the most vulnerable part of their exterior and, once they are smashed, the house has lost its individuality; anyone may enter it and nothing and no-one is protected any more. In these houses live the supposed enemies of the crowd, those people who try to keep away from it. What separated them has now been destroyed and nothing stands between them and the crowd. They can come out and join it; or they can be fetched."
- Elias Canetti, Crowds and Power
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