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THE REASONING POWER OF CROWDS
Gustave Le Bon,
The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind
It cannot absolutely be said that
crowds do not reason and are not to be influenced by reasoning.
However,
the arguments they employ and
those which are capable of influencing them are, from a logical point of view,
of such an inferior kind that it is
only by way of
analogy that they can be described as reasoning.
The inferior
reasoning of crowds is based, just as is reasoning of a high order, on the
association of ideas, but between the ideas associated by crowds there are
only apparent bonds of analogy or
succession.
The mode
of reasoning of crowds resembles that of the Esquimaux who, knowing from
experience that ice, a transparent body, melts in the mouth, concludes that
glass, also a transparent body, should also melt in the mouth; or that of the
savage who imagines that by eating the heart of a courageous foe he acquires
his bravery; or of the workman who, having been exploited by one employer of
labour, immediately concludes that all employers exploit their men.
The
characteristics of the reasoning of crowds are the association of
dissimilar things possessing a merely apparent connection between each other,
and the immediate generalisation of particular cases.
It is arguments
of this kind that are always presented to crowds by those who know how to
manage them.
They are the only arguments by which crowds are to be
influenced.
A chain of logical argumentation is totally
incomprehensible to crowds, and for this reason it is permissible to say that
they do not reason or that they reason falsely and are not to be influenced by
reasoning.
Astonishment is felt at times on
reading certain speeches at
their weakness, and yet they had an enormous influence on the crowds which
listened to them, but it is forgotten that they were
intended to persuade
collectivities and not to be read by
philosophers.
An orator
in intimate communication with
a crowd can evoke images by
which the crowd will be
seduced.
If he is successful his object has been attained, and
twenty volumes of harangues -- always the outcome of reflection -- are not
worth the few phrases which appealed to the brains it was required to convince.
It would be superfluous to add that the powerlessness of crowds to
reason aright prevents them displaying any trace of the critical spirit,
prevents them, that is, from being capable of discerning truth from error, or
of forming a precise judgement on any matter.
Judgments accepted by
crowds are merely judgements forced upon them and never judgements adopted
after discussion.
In regard to this matter the individuals who do not
rise above the level of a crowd are numerous.
The ease with which
certain opinions obtain general acceptance results more especially from the
impossibility experienced by the majority of men of forming an opinion peculiar
to themselves and based on reasoning of their own. |
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