From The Atlanta Post
When I was watching the London riots on the news, the song called ‘London Calling’ by the band The Clash started playing in my head. That tune and its associated music video had the same type of anger that the London rioters were displaying. What was happening in London was of course yet another global event that we can call a crisis and we get enough of those on TV on a regular basis.
However, despite the occurrence of these horrible events, there are some important lessons from them for us to learn. All we have to do is look at how some of the people from each of these events behaved.
The London Riots
For example, the riots in London and other UK cities were sparked by a shooting of a crime suspect by police. Rioters responded by turning over cars and setting them on fire. They also smashed windows and looted store merchandise. The offenders were obviously caught up in the emotions of the original police shooting plus the current local economic climate in general. They decided to take their anger and frustrations out on the city. Many were caught on camera and video with some even willingly showing how proud they were of their actions. They were obviously not thinking about the consequences of these actions as the police soon started multiple raids arresting suspects at their homes.
This is an example of very low emotional intelligence. The rioters were not able to manage their actions brought on by their emotions. As a result, many will be punished and tainted with criminal records.
The Japan Disaster In Contrast
Now let’s look at another terrible world event which brought on a totally different reaction from the people affected. The tsunami and nuclear disaster in Japan devastated that country. The damage to property and loss of life also created high emotions. However, in contrast to what happened in London, the Japanese remained orderly and calm. People, including those in the same age range as the London rioters, patiently waited in lines for food and supplies rations. There were no riots, no windows smashed, no cars set on fire and no businesses were looted despite such immense losses.
Here is an example of very high emotional intelligence. The Japanese managed their actions well despite the emotions from such a gigantic tragedy. Compare this to the London rioters who used a single police incident they don’t have any direct connection with, as an excuse to let loose and cause trouble.
What We Can Learn From Emotional Intelligence
The Japanese survivors will recover and move on with their lives faster while the hooligans in London will either be in jail or in trouble with the law again in the future. Here we have two world events that showed two opposite ends from the emotional intelligence spectrum. What can we learn from these?
I would suggest that we will be more successful in many areas of life if we develop higher levels of emotional intelligence. We will be able to interact better with others in both our careers and personal lives. We will also be able to handle the various peaks and valleys that come our way with far more effectiveness, because we can respond to our emotions better.
Emotional Intelligence Can Be Developed
It is estimated that only 15% of society is of high emotional intelligence (Nelson Mandela would be a clear example in this group). That means the majority of us can still improve in this area. For example, think of all the daily road rage out there. Think of all the fights among youths that end up with somebody getting knifed or shot. These are all results of low emotional intelligence.
Unlike standard intelligence which is thought to be genetic, emotional intelligence is something that can be developed with training. Many corporations have sent their executives to seminars on emotional intelligence. I was such an executive during my corporate years and made it a personal commitment to develop my own emotional intelligence ever since.
What about you? What are your thoughts on emotional intelligence? Feel free to share your experiences with this area.
Emotional intelligence is what needs to be thought to children (and this is learned through experience, instead of sitting in a classroom). It’s what we need, nowadays, to find solutions for the problems we’re facing. It’s what we need to work together and to by-pass little fights and stuff.
You are right Kevin, the earlier we teach emotional intelligence to your youth, the better our future world will be. It’s too bad there are so many adults that still need a lot more training in this.
If the point of the article is to say emotional intelligence is important I think you could have perhaps done so more succinctly and without a flawed (in my opinion) comparison. I agree with the first poster re the reasons for the differences in public reaction to very different events in two different cultures and as a base for your conclusion it is at best spurious. Are the people of Egypt, Syria, Lybia all emotionally unintelligent? That said, if you had simply said E.I. Is important and should be taught to children and explained the benefits I would have wholeheartedly agreed.
Thanks for your comment Andrew
I’m not in the 15% but perhaps not too far away and I know that I can work on improving my EQ. I’d like to hear how this message can be made meaningful in the context of this article.
No hooligans nor anyone else whose needs are not satisfied at lower levels of Maszlow’s hierarchy is going to have the slightest inclination to work on their EQ.
Using an incited disaster and a natural disaster (the earthquake part) also doesn’t leave us comparing apples to apples. Natural disasters often bring out the best in people while police shootings typically don’t.
I may agree with your point, but I feel in this case it could have been better expressed with different examples or at least some form of actionable advice.
Perhaps starting clubs to involve youth in civic service or campaigns to educate criminals on how to not provoke lethal action by police. Perhaps you can come up with better but it would help the message I think
Thanks for your feedback Dave. Maybe food for thought for a future article since this is such an important topic.
Hi Dave,
I agree with your sentiment, the events leading up to these two societal reactions will undoubtedly bring out different reactions.
For example, in the days after the riots had calmed down, swells of people from all backgrounds took to the streets and huge efforts were made toward claiming back the communities. Local businesses were donating water to volunteers, and people travelled from out of the city in order to help the clear up.
I appreciate Clint’s point, however Dave makes the valid argument that these two examples make ineffective comparators for the purpose of the article.
I personally think that too little, is being done to guide and teach young people what to do with their emotions and especially how to channel one’s anger. For instance if more could be done in a child’s young age at school, that child could learn how to channel anger into something positive, like use it for excelling in sports training or even art is great form to release those emotion. I wish I had learned this earlier in life, I’m 30 now and only recently taught myself how to control my emotions especially anger. I’m doing much better and i’m getting there one step one situation at a time. I guess it all starts with a decision as with everything else.
I lot of people feel the same way. It’s interesting that many big companies have been sending management to workshops on emotional intelligence now that they recognize this is important at the workplace as well.
I’m afraid, I disagree. These ‘riots’ do not highlight an emotional intelligence problem.
Perhaps you have a point on the first night. But thereafter it looks like is a plain old fashioned, regular, non-buzzword intelligence problem.Most of these hoodlums were not emotionally riled up. Reports are than that events were organised using Facebook and texts. Some didn’t even know why they were there. Many were very calm about what they were doing or seemed to be having a good time doing it.Perhaps people have become so used to not using their brains that they just didn’t switch on when things kicked off. A few involved were possibly incapable of reaching the logical conclusion of their actions. I submit that most of these individuals knew what they were doing and just didn’t care. There is the real problem.The key word for me here is “responsibility”. It is clear, that many of those involved did not expect that they would have to take any (probably based on their previous experience). And why should they care about damaging/destroying someones car, home or livelihood.It’s also easy enough after the fact to blame someone/something else – or, better yet, let well meaning liberals come up with your excuses for you. We seemed to have developed a culture where the individual is no longer responsible for their actions. This trait runs through other problems like obesity, abuse, alcohol and drug abuse, debt problems. I’m not saying there aren’t mitigating factors. Philosophers, psychologists, politicians, social architects are welcome to use words like emotional intelligence, societal conditioning, but I like to submit that words like maturity and responsibility are ultimately more practical.It’s just unfortunate that we live in a society were putting ones hand up, apologizing and accepting the consequences is no longer the norm and the opposite is actively encouraged.
Thanks for your comments Damian. To me, maturity and responsibility are connected with emotional intelligence. Whether the rioters were totally out of control due to anger or if they went on site with complete calmness, they still went there for an underlying reason. It could be economic or even social reasons like wanting to be with their buddies for some fun. Whatever the underlying emotions that were behind them, they responded incorrectly (or at least contrary to what society would like). Their actions were without thought to responsibility as you implied. This sounds like low emotional intelligence to me.
The riots in London were anger against a perceived injustice. The Japan disaster was not able to be directed at a governmental authority; it was not a man-made disaster. There is a HUGE difference which the author of this article fails to perceive. Any country/government who routinely tortures and slaughters whales and dolphins does not have high emotional intelligence; they fall more in the Neanderthal range.
Thanks for your comment. Are you suggesting that the majority of the Japanese victims of the disasters were slaughtering whales and dolphins — and therefore of low emotional intelligence? I’ll let the others chime in here.
No, he’s suggesting that your comparison between “national reaction to natural disaster” and “reaction of specific group of individuals to opportunity to vent massive anger / frustration” is invalid.
Which it is.
Thanks Matt. Even if you take each incident separately, I think most people will still consider the rioters displayed low emotional intelligence. Now if you take the Japanese disasters, without any comparisons to London, the way they conducted themselves as per the orderly lineups for supplies without any violence, would still be considered a show of high emotional intelligence.
Thought-provoking. I don’t believe that the British leadership such as the prime minister demonstrated high emotional intelligence when confronted with the rioting. This low emotional intelligence by our leadership on both sides of the Atlantic contribute to the troubled, troubling environment we’re in. We focus on the wrong people in my opinion.
It seems that it’s pretty hard to find a politician anywhere who demonstrates high emotional intelligence! Maybe with the exception of Nelson Mandela.
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