Gladwell quotes the work of a Canadian psychiatrist, J. T. MacCurdy, who seems to have been the only one to figure out why Londoners living under the continuous air raids of the German Blitz during the Second World War did not freak out en masse. MacCurdy explained that when a bomb falls, it divides the population into three groups: Those killed — they were affected the worst by the bombings, but they also can’t freak out. Because they’re dead. Near misses — those who were in close proximity to the destruction caused by a bombing and witnessed the carnage first-hand. Remote misses — people who “listen to the sirens, watch the enemy bombers overhead, and hear the thunder of the exploding bomb. But the bomb hits down the street…And for them, the consequences of a bombing attack are exactly the opposite of the near-miss group. They survived, and the second or third time that happens, the emotion associated with the attack… ‘is a feeling of excitement with a flavour of invulnerability.’” Gladwell goes on to describe how Londoners who survived remote misses felt — they were exhilarated by the sense of having conquered the fear of fear itself.
Posted on: Fri, 23 Jan 2015 23:50:38 +0000