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...
General characteristics of electoral crowds--The manner of persuading them--The qualities that should be possessed by a candidate--Necessity of prestige--Why working men and peasan...
Above the substratum of fixed beliefs, whose power we have just demonstrated, is found an overlying growth of opinions, ideas, and thoughts which are incessantly springing up and d...
The origin of the beliefs of crowds is the consequence of a preliminary process of elaboration-- Study of the different factors of these beliefs. 1. RACE. The predominating influen...
WHEN studying in a preceding work the part played by ideas in the evolution of nations, we showed that every civilisation is the outcome of a small number of fundamental ideas that...
As soon as a certain number of living beings are gathered together, whether they be animals or men, they place themselves instinctively under the authority of a chief. In the case...
Foremost among the dominant ideas of the present epoch is to be found the notion that instruction is capable of considerably changing men, and has for its unfailing consequence to...
The idea that institutions can remedy the defects of societies, that national progress is the consequence of the improvement of institutions and governments, and that social change...
Just as is the case with respect to persons in whom the reasoning power is absent, the figurative imagination of crowds is very powerful, very active and very susceptible of being...
Parliamentary crowds present most of the characteristics common to heterogeneous crowds that are not anonymous--The simplicity of their opinions--Their suggestibility and its limit...
So much for the psychology of the revolutionary propaganda. Now let us look at what happens in the moment of revolutionary outbreak. We have dwelt at some length on the fact that a...
The crowd-mind is seen at its best and at its worst in revolution. To many minds, revolution is so essentially a crowd phenomenon that the terms revolution and crowd-rule are almos...
Probably the most telling point of likeness between the crowd-mind and the psychoneurosis--paranoia especially--is the "delusion of persecution." In cases of paranoia the notion th...
We have seen that Democracy in and of itself is no more sure a guarantee of liberty than other forms of government. This does not necessarily mean that we have been forced by our p...
The whole philosophy of politics comes down at last to a question of four words. Who is to govern? Compared with this question the problem of the form of government is relatively u...
In his well-known work on the psychology of the crowd Le Bon noted the fact that the unconscious plays a large part in determining the behavior of crowds. But he is not clear in hi...
The unconscious egoism of the individual in the crowd appears in all forms of crowd-behavior. As in dreams and in the neurosis this self feeling is frequently though thinly disguis...
Every one at times feels himself in the grip of social forces over which he has no control. The apparently impersonal nature of these forces has given rise to various mechanistic t...
Throughout the discussion thus far I have been making repeated reference to the psychology of the unconscious, without going into detail any more than was necessary. Let us now tak...
Wherever conscious thinking is determined by unconscious mechanisms, and all thinking is more or less so, it is dogmatic in character. Beliefs which serve an unconscious purpose do...
It is these collectivities whose characteristics have been studied in this volume. They are composed of individuals of any description, of any profession, and any degree of intelli...