Gustave Le Bon on The Nature of Crowds
«It is crowds rather than isolated individuals that may be induced to run the risk of death to secure the triumph of a creed or an idea, that may be fired with enthusiasm for glory and honour… Such heroism is without doubt somewhat unconscious, but it is of such heroism that history is made.» -Gustav Le Bon-
What is a crowd?
A group of individuals united by a common idea, belief, or ideology.
Unlike philosophers, crowds accept ideas superficially and utilize them as fuel for revolutionary action.
The Individual in the Crowd
«He is no longer himself, but has become an automaton who has ceased to be guided by his will.»
As a part of a crowd, an individual becomes a pawn who sacrifices his personal goals for those of the crowd.
«In a crowd every sentiment and act is contagious, and contagious to such a degree that an individual readily sacrifices his personal interest to the collective interest.»
A crowd forms when an influential idea unites a number of individuals and propels them to act toward a common goal.
«Ideas being only accessible to crowds after having assumed a very simple shape must often undergo the most thoroughgoing transformations to become popular. It is especially when we are dealing with somewhat lofty philosophical or scientific ideas that we see how far-reaching are the modifications they require in order to lower them to the level of the intelligence of crowds… However great or true an idea may have been to begin with, it is deprived of almost all that which constituted its elevation and its greatness by the mere fact that it has come within the intellectual range of crowds and exerts an influence upon them.» (Le Bon)
«How numerous are the crowds that have heroically faced death for beliefs, ideas, and phrases that they scarcely understood!» (Le Bon)
Mass Control and Simplified Ideas
«By many they are considered as natural forces, as supernatural powers. They evoke grandiose and vague images in men’s minds, but this very vagueness that wraps them in obscurity augments their mysterious power. They are the mysterious divinities hidden behind the tabernacle, which the devout only approach in fear and trembling.» (Le Bon)
The Religious Sentiment of Crowds
«A person is not religious solely when he worships a divinity, but when he puts all the resources of his mind, the complete submission of his will, and the whole-souled ardour of fanaticism at the service of a cause or an individual who becomes the goal and guide of his thoughts and actions.» (Le Bon)
Atheism
«Were it possible to induce the masses to adopt atheism, disbelief would exhibit all the intolerant ardour of a religious sentiment, and in its exterior forms would soon become a cult.» (Le Bon)
Why are crowds immoral?
«…our savage, destructive instincts are the inheritance left dormant in all of us from the primitive ages. In the life of the isolated individual it would be dangerous for him to gratify these instincts, while his absorption in an irresponsible crowd, in which consequence he is assured of imputiny, gives him liberty to follow them.» (Le Bon)
«…if people crowd together and form a mob, then the dynamisms of the collective man are let loose – beasts or demons that lie dormant in every person until he is part of a mob. Man in the mass sinks unconsciously to an inferior moral and intellectual level, to that level which is always there, below the threshold of consciousness, ready to break forth as soon as it is activated by the formation of a mass.» (Carl Gustav Jung)
«In crowds the foolish, ignorant, and envious persons are freed from the sense of their insignificance and powerlessness, and are possessed instead by the notion of brutal and temporary but immense strength.» (Le Bon)
The Genius Of The Crowd
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