The Behavior of Crowds: A Psychological StudyMartin, Everett Dean
Science
The Behavior of Crowds: A Psychological Study
Martin, Everett Dean
Crowds
It is possible to conceive of a society in which a high degree of social
democracy, even communism, might exist along with a maximum of freedom
and practical achievement. But we should first have to get over our
crowd-ways of thinking and acting. People would have to regard the state
as a purely administrative affair. They would have to organize for
definite practical ends, and select their leaders and administrators
very much as certain corporations now do, strictly on the basis of their
competency. Political institutions would have to be made such that they
could not be seized by special groups to enhance themselves at the
expense of the rest. Partisanship would have to cease. Every effort
would have to be made to loosen the social control over the individual's
personal habits. The kind of people who have an inner gnawing to
regulate their neighbors, the kind who cannot accept the fact of their
psychic inferiority and must consequently make crowds by way of
compensation, would have to be content to mind their own business.
Police power would have to be reduced to the minimum necessary to
protect life and keep the industries running. People would have to
become much more capable of self-direction as well as of voluntary
co-operation than they are now. They would have to be more resentful of
petty official tyranny, more independent in their judgments and at the
same time more willing to accept the advice and authority of experts.
They would have to place the control of affairs in the hands of the type
of man against whose dominance the weaker brethren have in all ages
waged war--that is, the free spirits and natural masters of men. All pet
dogmas and cult ideas that clashed with practical considerations would
have to be swept away.
Such a conception of society is, of course, wholly utopian. It could not
possibly be realized by people behaving and thinking as crowds. With our
present crowd-making habits, the process of greater socialization of
industry means only increased opportunities for crowd-tyranny. In the
hands of a dominant crowd an industrial state would be indeed what
Herbert Spencer called the "coming slavery."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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