Gustave Le Bon wrote a frank description of the problem with the crowd.
...Moreover, by the mere fact that he forms part of an organized crowd, a man descends several rungs in the ladder of civilization...
Impulsiveness, Mobility, and Morality of Crowds
The crowd is at the mercy of all exterior exciting causes and reflects their incessant variations. The impulses in which the crowd obeys are so imperious (over the self-will) as to annihilate the feeling of personal interest. Premeditation is absent from crowds. They are racially influenced.
Crowds are credulous and Readily Influenced by Suggestion.
The obedience of crowds to suggestions. The images evoked in the mind of crowds are accepted by them as realities. The images are identical for all the individuals composing a crowd. The equality of the educated and the ignorant man in a crowd is identical. A crowd perpetually hovering on the unconsciousness, readily yielding to all suggestions, all the violence of feeling peculiar to beings who cannot appeal to the influence of reason, deprived of a critical faculty.
Crowds do not admit doubt or uncertainty and always use extremes. Their sentiments are always excessive.
The reasons of these sentiments--The servility of crowds in the face of a strong authority--The momentary revolutionary instincts of crowds do not prevent them from being extremely conservative--Crowds instinctively hostile to changes and progress.
The morality of crowds, according to the suggestions under which they act, maybe much lower or much higher than that of the individuals composing them--Explanation and examples-- Crowds rarely guided by those considerations of interest which are most often the exclusive motives of the isolated individual--The moralizing role of crowds.
...Moreover, by the mere fact that he forms part of an organized crowd, a man descends several rungs in the ladder of civilization...
Impulsiveness, Mobility, and Morality of Crowds
The crowd is at the mercy of all exterior exciting causes and reflects their incessant variations. The impulses in which the crowd obeys are so imperious (over the self-will) as to annihilate the feeling of personal interest. Premeditation is absent from crowds. They are racially influenced.
Crowds are credulous and Readily Influenced by Suggestion.
The obedience of crowds to suggestions. The images evoked in the mind of crowds are accepted by them as realities. The images are identical for all the individuals composing a crowd. The equality of the educated and the ignorant man in a crowd is identical. A crowd perpetually hovering on the unconsciousness, readily yielding to all suggestions, all the violence of feeling peculiar to beings who cannot appeal to the influence of reason, deprived of a critical faculty.
Crowds do not admit doubt or uncertainty and always use extremes. Their sentiments are always excessive.
The reasons of these sentiments--The servility of crowds in the face of a strong authority--The momentary revolutionary instincts of crowds do not prevent them from being extremely conservative--Crowds instinctively hostile to changes and progress.
The morality of crowds, according to the suggestions under which they act, maybe much lower or much higher than that of the individuals composing them--Explanation and examples-- Crowds rarely guided by those considerations of interest which are most often the exclusive motives of the isolated individual--The moralizing role of crowds.
