The Behavior of Crowds: A Psychological StudyMartin, Everett Dean
Science
The Behavior of Crowds: A Psychological Study
Martin, Everett Dean
Crowds
Psychoanalysts make much of this latter situation. They term it the
"Oedipus complex." They assert that in its severer forms it is a common
feature of psychoneurosis, while in less marked form, according to Jung,
it underlies, and is the real explanation of the "birth of tragedy,"
being also the meaning of much religious symbolism, including the Divine
Drama of Christian tradition. It is not, therefore, only the
psychoneurotic whose unconscious takes the form of the "Oedipus
complex." Under certain conditions it is manifest in normal people. I
have already indicated that the crowd is one of those conditions, and
shall have something a little more specific to say about this later on.
Again the growing libido may become fixed in the "narcissus stage."
Between the period of love of parents and object love, the adolescent
youth passes through a period when he is "in love with himself." The
fact that many people remain in some measure fixed in this period of
their development is not surprising when we remember that self-feeling
occupies a central place in the unconscious at all times. Many of the
world's greatest men have doubtless been characters in which there was a
slightly more than average fixation at this point. Inordinate ambition
is, I should say, an evidence of such a fixation. If one possesses great
natural ability he may under such circumstances be able to forge ahead
to his goal, overcoming the conflicts which such a fixation always
raises, and show no greater evidence of pathology in his career than is
seen in the usual saying that "genius is always a little queer." The
typical crowd-leader would, on analysis, I think, show something of this
"narcissus complex," as would doubtless the great run of fanatics,
bigots, and doctrinaires, "hundred per cent" crowd-men all.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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