The day Violent Thugs were driven out by Hippies with glowsticks
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
Oh no, you did not. You used the full power and latent savagery of a crowd. It might have turned out very differently (but made a better story to tell much later on).
And the girlfriend is not a peace seeker. She did not help defuse the situation at all.
She shouldn't get back to her friend/boyfriend asking him to `fix` things caveman style. That's a very bad line of thinking and will usually get anyone close to her into troubles. It's like dating a walking grenade. Try not to.
The incident was already over. The girlfriend was asking for revenge (not justice) and the guy described in the article how he had to react « as a man ». That's escalation.
Now if you are caught in the middle of such situations there a number of methods you can try to defuse the situation: http://lifehacker.com/ive-worked-bar-security-heres-how-to-t... (I know it's from lifehacker but the article has really good tips. Ignore the pictures).
"She didn't do anything to defuse the situation" implies that she could have handled the situation better. As per the story she was shocked, intimidated, and looking for somebody to help her. It's not her duty to "defuse the situation". She was not the one escalating it in the first place.
The 'not defusing the situation' is about how she came back to someone asking to 'fix it'. That's when escalation happened. That someone being under the influence of drugs at that moment made another bad move by 'trying something' which escalated the situation one more step.
Don't play stupid in that kind of situation: a knife can be pulled out really fast and the thugs could have left the place the same way but with one seriously wounded person. And for what ? For seeking revenge by shaming of fighting the guys (that was a possibility on the mind of the author, he states getting beaten happened once and he turned out okay, whatever) for damage already done.
I would certainly not try to get strangers into a bigger brawl.
I also object to the characterisation of the crowd as a mob. Democracy and mob rule are the same words (etymologically), we simply pick which one we use based on whether we like the application. This was unquestionably mob rule for ethical purposes, aka democracy. I don't think the tyranny of the majority can be applied to the defense of attendees asked to leave a party for assaulting a guest.
What about the characterisation of the other group as "violent thugs"?
That's precisely what he did. Challenging people publicly is a very aggressive move. He escalated the situation by using more intimidation and if the thugs had retaliated it would have been a very different story.
He got lucky, that's all. People pulling that kind of stunt under influence generally end up beaten down in a corner.
It may however have boosted the author's perception of unity with the crowd, as a mild empathogen.
But the author would have to be on godly doses to dissociate with reality entirely, and at that point their trip will not be anything as normal as a confrontation at an event.
For instance, one of the side effects of weed is paranoia, which can manifest as self doubt. It doesn't change your abilities, it just adds self doubt.