A week ago I offered Hybrid Vigilantism as a topic for a research call.
Within the scope of meta-crises / polycrisis and societal collapse what would be an external counterpart of inner resilience?
It’s inevitable that the process of descent into societal breakdown will be closely tracked by the inability of official institutions to uphold laws, security and order. Anti-social behaviour, crime and rise of informal institutions will create those conditions that necessitate the development of inner resiliance, but will that be enough?
Vigilantism is a type of collective action and informal institution that gives rise to premeditated acts of force—or threatened force—by autonomous citizens. It is a reaction to the transgression of institutionalised norms by individuals or groups and the inability or unwillingness of formal institutions to enforce them.
Is there an alternative to vigilantism in the toolbox of capacities needed to weather the collapse?
For the clarity:
If one only documents law-breaking, that wouldn’t be categorised as vigilantism but if someone deliberately inserts themselves into conflict (for instance, by physically blocking criminal / anti social behaviour to prevent, provoke a confrontation or frustrate, aggravate, punish), he shifts out of the citizen witness category and into the domain of vigilantism.
Militias in the US have never been especially well-regulated, IMO, so there may be room for innovation in the emergent, pro-social, vigilantism space. This already happens a lot with online hackivist crews.
Thanks Robert - I don’t think that vigilantism is just an option when it gets really dark - it will happen. There are various provisions in law to enable citizens to defend themselves or act in a limited way (for example citizens arrest). However, proactively trying to prevent crime/anti social behaviour is another matter altogether.
Right to carry firearms is a type of permission to “plan” for adverse situation, so that is relevant, thanks.
While, as humans , we’re generally encouraged to think ahead, prepare ourselves and prevent - as the preferable way of dealing with undesired and threatening life situations - in this sense, our actions are only limited to self-defence. This is despite the fact that we’re dealing with perpetrators that usually pre-planned the transgression.
This is where the relationship between formal and informal starts to matter.
Back to my initial question - does theory of vigilantism have a place in the papers on resilience or is that something we’d rather not talk about?
Honestly, the best answer to that is probably “both”. Yes, security at ground level needs to be considered and no, liminal, regenerative, and pro-social communities find such topics distasteful and would rather not discuss them.