It is, perhaps, the strangest thing in that profoundly strange book, 1984. Orwell’s world is haunted by Big Brother, by spies on every corner and by memory holes through which the past disappears. It is, however, the “Two Minutes Hate” that captured my attention. The citizens of 1984, every day, join together for a two minute period where they are to direct their hatred toward the enemies of the state. They are shown images on a television screen of Emmanuel Goldstein, a mythical opposition leader and whatever supposed foreign enemy they are currently at war with. The state’s goal, however, is less to create a frenzy against these enemies, more to provide an outlet of the people’s sublimated hatred of their own leaders.
What may be stranger still is that this exercise in mass psychological warfare worked. The citizens didn’t go through the motions simply to avoid getting into trouble with the law. Winston Smith, the story’s protagonist described it this way:
The horrible thing about the Two Minutes Hate was not that one was obliged to act a part, but that it was impossible to avoid joining in. Within thirty seconds any pretence was always unnecessary. A hideous ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness, a desire to kill, to torture, to smash faces in with a sledge hammer, seemed to flow through the whole group of people like an electric current, turning one even against one’s will into a grimacing, screaming lunatic. And yet the rage that one felt was an abstract, undirected emotion which could be switched from one object to another like the flame of a blowlamp.
There is something profoundly contagious about group emotional experiences. It need not be centered around hatred. Today it is another experience of mourning. When a celebrity, if big enough, dies tragically and young we seem to have a national experience of catharsis. When John F. Kennedy Jr.’s plane went down the nation wept for days. This, despite the fact that his most remembered life moment was his salute to his fallen father. When Princess Diana’s car crashed not just the nation but most of the world put on figurative sackcloth. This, despite the fact that she was no longer part of the royal family. And now it is Kobe Bryant.
Please do not misunderstand me. In noting the cultural phenomena, and exploring it, I am not seeking to diminish the tragedy for those involved. His wife has lost a husband and a daughter. His surviving children have lost a sister and a father. It is heartbreaking. But it is not our heartbreak. Neither his fame, nor his talent, nor the championship banners he brought to Los Angeles make him ours. Oddly, pretending these things make him ours does not only doesn’t honor him, but dishonors him. Kobe Bryant was good at playing basketball. Beyond that I know nothing of the man. I have no closer a connection to him than I do to Michael Jordan or Lebron James or Zion Williamson.
But he was, just like everyone else on that helicopter, a real person, with real family and real friends. His tragedy shouldn’t be used for national catharsis. It belongs to them. We shouldn’t be trying to break into that inner circle. Crashing weddings is rude. Crashing funerals is disgraceful. Let us walk away from the Two Minutes Mourn, and leave the real mourners in peace.