The crowd : $b A study of the popular mindLe Bon, Gustave
Science
The crowd : $b A study of the popular mind
Le Bon, Gustave
Crowds
The wide divergencies which their inherited mental constitution
creates in men's modes of feeling and thinking at once come into
prominence when, which rarely happens, circumstances gather
together in the same crowd and in fairly equal proportions
individuals of different nationality, and this occurs, however
identical in appearance be the interests which provoked the
gathering. The efforts made by the socialists to assemble in
great congresses the representatives of the working-class
populations of different countries, have always ended in the most
pronounced discord. A Latin crowd, however revolutionary or
however conservative it be supposed, will invariably appeal to
the intervention of the State to realise its demands. It is
always distinguished by a marked tendency towards centralisation
and by a leaning, more or less pronounced, in favour of a
dictatorship. An English or an American crowd, on the contrary,
sets no store on the State, and only appeals to private
initiative. A French crowd lays particular weight on equality
and an English crowd on liberty. These differences of race
explain how it is that there are almost as many different forms
of socialism and democracy as there are nations.
The genius of the race, then, exerts a paramount influence upon
the dispositions of a crowd. It is the powerful underlying force
that limits its changes of humour. It should be considered as an
essential law that THE INFERIOR CHARACTERISTICS OF CROWDS ARE THE
LESS ACCENTUATED IN PROPORTION AS THE SPIRIT OF THE RACE IS
STRONG. The crowd state and the domination of crowds is
equivalent to the barbarian state, or to a return to it. It is
by the acquisition of a solidly constituted collective spirit
that the race frees itself to a greater and greater extent from
the unreflecting power of crowds, and emerges from the barbarian
state. The only important classification to be made of
heterogeneous crowds, apart from that based on racial
considerations, is to separate them into anonymous crowds, such
as street crowds, and crowds not anonymous--deliberative
assemblies and juries, for example. The sentiment of
responsibility absent from crowds of the first description and
developed in those of the second often gives a very different
tendency to their respective acts.
2. HOMOGENEOUS CROWDS
Homogeneous crowds include: 1. Sects; 2. Castes; 3. Classes.
The SECT represents the first step in the process of organisation
of homogeneous crowds. A sect includes individuals differing
greatly as to their education, their professions, and the class
of society to which they belong, and with their common beliefs as
the connecting link. Examples in point are religious and
political sects.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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