The author (center) at MOB #2, June 17, 2003. Photograph (detail) courtesy Mike Epstein/satanslaundromat.com.

[T]hey have a goal which is there before they can find words for it. This goal is the blackest spot where most people are gathered.
—Elias Canetti

introduction

Before we break down our present cultural situation, it will be worthwhile to revisit the concept of deindividuation, which psychologists put forward in the mid-twentieth century to address the question of evil more generally. As first defined by Festinger, Pepitone, and Newcomb (1952), deindividuation is “a state of affairs in a group where…