This week, we kick off our new series, Emotions 2.0, with a special double episode about the emotions we experience with other people. We often think that emotions like happiness or sadness live inside our individual minds. But if you've ever gone to a music concert in a big stadium or attended a political rally with like-minded voters, you know that emotions can move through crowds in powerful ways. We begin with psychologist Amit Goldenberg, who studies how emotions spread and ratchet up in intensity as more people experience them. Then, we bring you a favorite 2022 conversation with anthropologist Dimitris Xygalatas, who takes us inside the world of fire walking to explore the emotional power of rituals.
This is Hidden Brain.
I'm shankar vedantam.
In 1965, Mark Rudd was an 18 year old freshman at Columbia University in New York.
America's military involvement in Vietnam was ramping up.
At first, Mark wasn't interested in much beyond his studies.
But before long, he was drawn in by the passion of his politically engaged peers.
He would later write, over beers or a joint, I'd listen to discussions about China's Cultural Revolution then just starting, and to Cuba's seven year old revolution.
It was thrilling to be with these people who are tapping into something so much bigger than ourselves, something so grand, so historic, remaking the world.
By the time he was 20, he had been elected chairman of the Columbia chapter of Students for a democratic society, or SDS.
In 1968, he led the student occupation of several university buildings.
He called his parents, exhilarated.
We took a building.
He exclaimed.
Well, give it back, his father told him.
But Mark was drawn deeper into radicalism.
Along with some friends, he formed a revolutionary band known as the Weather Underground.
The group sought to violently overthrow the government and instigated a string of bombings.
The violence gave Mark pause, but he felt compelled to continue.
I felt like a member of the crew on a speeding train, dimly aware of disaster ahead but unable to put on the brakes, he would later recall.
Decades later, Mark Rudd said he had feelings of guilt and shame about his actions.