One of the best-known works in the field of mass psychology, The Crowd by Gustave Le Bon was first published in French as La Psychologie des foules in 1895 and is still widely studied. As a scientific treatise, it was a product of its time and not immune to imperfections, but it got many core claims right and has prompted further research into the topic to this day. As a philosophical treatise, it contains many significant insights into human nature and the unspoken laws that shape our civilisation. It is well-structured, easy to read, and a great starting point for discussing the masses.
The first four chapters focus on the crowd’s collective mind, unity, habits, and the ways it processes information. Le Bon observes that, when a crowd is formed, individual personalities are erased and replaced by common ideas and feelings; a man, therefore, acts in ways he would not on his own. Unlike the thoughts he may develop when isolated, the ideas of the collective have to be understood by all simultaneously and thus must be as simple as possible. They are vivid images guided at best by superficial logic and at worst by flawed intuition—powerful, contagious, and constantly fluctuating.
The passions of a crowd roar with a primordial strength, and its fears are diminished by the sense of invulnerability, making it capable of both heroic deeds and despicable crimes. However, it has its natural limitations. “Civilisations as yet have only been created and directed by a small intellectual aristocracy, never by crowds,” claims Le Bon. “Crowds are only powerful for destruction. Their rule is always tantamount to a barbarian phase. A civilisation involves fixed rules, discipline, a passing from the instinctive to the rational state, forethought for the future, an elevated degree of culture—all of them conditions that crowds, left to themselves, have invariably shown themselves incapable of realising.” He further states that their beliefs always assume a “religious” form, characterised by “blind submission, fierce intolerance, and the need of violent propaganda.”
The second part of the book is concerned with how the crowds’ opinions are formed: the mindset of a crowd itself and the influence of its leaders. The former is divided into the remote and the immediate factors. The remote ones include race (Le Bon mainly focuses on the differences between Anglo-Saxons and Latin nations, by which he understands Southwestern Europe), traditions, institutions, time, and education. (Readers need not agree with Le Bon’s views on race to find many aspects of this discussion insightful.) The first three factors—race, traditions, and institutions—are relatively stable, while the remaining two are the forces that gradually changes them. Of all these, education probably deserves the most attention, since it has a significant impact on the ideas and values of the population while also being the easiest of the five to control and adjust.
The immediate factors govern a particular crowd at a given moment. These include the tapestry of words that instigate and guide it, the illusions it chases. There is also an experience that encourages it or warns it of failure (though either is quickly forgotten and must be repeated for each new generation). Finally, there is a semblance of the reason that links image and action. The degree of a crowd’s practicality may vary, but its thinking is never deep.
Every crowd instinctively searches for leaders, active and determined individuals who know how to address it and push it forward. The knowledge possessed by these leaders is often instinctive; their inspiring fire arises from solid conviction, which they translate onto their flock. As long as they rule, be it one day or a decade, their authority is absolute and despotic—the collective mind would not accept anything else. They are always strong-willed, but only a few have a will that is also enduring. As Le Bon writes:
Whether they be intelligent or narrow-minded is of no importance: the world belongs to them. The persistent will-force they possess is an immensely rare and immensely powerful faculty to which everything yields. What a strong and continuous will is capable of is not always properly appreciated. Nothing resists it; neither nature, gods, nor man.
Although crowds tend to share specific characteristics, they come in different types, and Le Bon provides a classification in the third part of his book. There are two major groups: heterogeneous and homogeneous crowds. The former consists of individuals from various walks of life with little to nothing in common outside the crowd’s purpose. They can be anonymous, such as street crowds, or not, such as juries. The homogeneous group includes the types formed of individuals already united by some level of organisation; these are sects, castes, and classes. This section of the book pays special attention to electoral and parliamentary crowds, the principles of their decision making, and ways of exercising influence over them—vital knowledge in the age of celebrated democracy.
Le Bon concludes with a warning, speaking of the ideals each civilisation pursues in order to preserve its identity and escape disintegrating into a mere crowd. He warns that this could be the future of the West if its nations are not careful. In order to prevent this, Le Bon believes each nation should re embrace the best ideals that have animated them in the past. The ideals themselves may vary—just think of the cult of Rome, the might of Athens, or the triumph of Allah—but their formative effects are similar. Le Bon warns that when these ideals are erased, cohesion is lost, individual characters weaken and develop excessive egoism, and, as their capacity for self-sufficiency diminishes, they become increasingly reliant on the government to direct them. “With the definite loss of its old ideal the genius of the race entirely disappears,” he writes, “it is a mere swarm of isolated individuals and returns to its original state—that of a crowd.”
Le Bon’s words are as valid today as they were at the end of the 19th century. The only difference is that, with the arrival of the internet and the emergence of social media, the crowds’ goals and opinions began to change even faster. The book provides answers for those who wonder why it is impossible to reason with a Twitter mob, how the wildest ideas take hold in the popular mind, and what can be done to control the masses. We are stuck with the idolised image of democracy, the myth of collective wisdom, and the flawed education that pushes the Overton window towards socialism. We might as well learn how to push it back.
