The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine, September, 1913: Vol. LXXXVI, No. 5Various
General
The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine, September, 1913: Vol. LXXXVI, No. 5
Various
Periodicals
But the critics say that it is not the lack of general or logical
training of the individual person which obstructs the path of justice.
The trouble lies rather in the mutual influence of the twelve men. The
more persons work together, the less, they say, every single man can
reach his highest level. They become a mass, with mass consciousness,
a kind of crowd in which each one becomes oversuggestible. Each one
thinks less reliably, less intelligently, and less impartially than
he would by himself alone. We know how men in a crowd do indeed lose
some of the best features of their individuality. A crowd may be thrown
into a panic, may rush into any foolish, violent action, may lynch
and plunder, or a crowd may be stirred to a pitch of enthusiasm, may
be roused to heroic deeds or to wonderful generosity; but whether
the outcome be wretched or splendid, in any case it is the product
of persons who have been entirely changed. In the midst of the panic
or in the midst of the heroic enthusiasm, no one has kept his own
characteristic mental features. The individual no longer judges
for himself; he is carried away, his own heart reverberates, with
the feelings of the whole crowd. The mass consciousness is not an
adding-up, a mere summation, of the individual minds, but the creation
of something entirely new. Such a crowd may be pushed into any roads;
chance leaders may use or misuse its increased suggestibility for any
ends. No one can foresee whether this heaping up of men will bring
good or bad results. Certainly the individual level of the crowd will
always be below the level of its best members. And is not a jury
necessarily such a group with a mass consciousness of its own? Every
individual member is melted into the total, has lost his independent
power of judging, and has become influenced through his heightened
suggestibility and social feeling by any chance pressure which may push
toward error as often as toward truth.
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