The Danger of Crowds

The Hermit - Ancient Tarot of Lombardy 

“Madness is rare in individuals — but in groups, parties, nations, and ages, it is the rule.”

 ~

 Friedrich Nietzsche

INTRODUCTION 

This work will explore the danger of crowds primarily through the works of Gustave Le Bon (1841 – 1931) a French polymath, whose intellectual interests encompassed physics, medicine, psychology and sociology. He is best known as a pioneer of Crowd Psychology, which is delineated within his seminal work: The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind, 1895, in which he explores uncharted territory pertaining to the psyche of collective entities. Defining a crowd as not merely a random and arbitrary agglomeration of individuals but rather as a group of individuals united by a common idea, belief or ideology, Le Bon argued that crowd behaviour considerably differed from individual behaviour. Whilst the individual was seemingly characterised by moderation and ordinariness, the crowd was typified by extremism, capable of both the most benevolent and malevolent of acts, the greatest of virtues and the greatest of vices, both the heights of heroism and depths of demonism. Although, ultimately, Gustave Le Bon fundamentally agrees with the ‘few psychologists’ who ‘have studied crowds’, ‘that the moral standard of crowds [are] very low.’ In other words, that crowds are oft marked by evil, immorality and degeneracy. Fundamentally, crowds are frequently characterised by ignobility due to their unconscious nature. Savage, barbaric, and bestial instincts that lie latent or dormant within the individual’s unconscious are rendered manifest upon entering a group. In such collective environments, the sense of individual responsibility evaporates, leading individuals to act in ways they would typically repress in isolation.

This essay will echo Le Bon in arguing that crowds are perilous on the grounds that they are agents of destruction, death and decay. Moreover, this study will investigate the works of Le Bon in tandem with thinkers Simone Weil (909–1943) and Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) — both of whom were explicitly critical of the nation — to elaborate on how and why the nation, a particular type of crowd, is irrefutably formidable, by numbing, anaesthetising and desensitising the individual’s conscience. Such attitudes starkly contrast with the optimism of many 19th century liberals (such as Giuseppe Mazzini or Lajos Kossuth) who championed the nation as a beacon of hope, as a token of progress, for they viewed the nation as a step away from the particular toward the universal; away from the petty and fragmented, provinces and principalities towards something larger, more whole, holistic, orderly and harmonious. In their view, the nation expanded what social psychologists describe as the ingroup, encouraging individuals to act with greater solidarity and less hostility, now that they were part of a ‘greater tribe.’ Nonetheless, they foresaw not the World Wars of the 20th century which would generate mass  bloodshed on scales hitherto unseen, all in the name of the nation. Additionally, this study will draw upon both empirical or objective (historical and artistic) as well as theoretical or subjective (religious, mythological and philological) data to consolidate the conception of crowds as treacherous, concluding that such discoveries are especially crucial today for as Gustave Le Bon notes that ‘while all our ancient beliefs are tottering and disappearing’, while the ‘old pillars of society are giving way one by one’, with traditional sources of authority — monarchies, sovereigns, religious institutions, aristocracies — deteriorating and collapsing,  the power of the people is ‘continually on the increase.’ To put it simply, we live in ‘age of nations’; an era in which the crowd rules; an age in which ‘the divine right of the masses is about to replace the divine right of kings.’

I 

Gustave Le Bon noted that a crowd was a fundamentally distinct phenomenon to the individuals which composed it — ‘When … a certain number of … individuals are gathered together in a crowd for purposes of action, observation proves that, from the mere fact of their being assembled, there result certain new psychological characteristics.’ Le Bon draws upon biological and chemical examples to animate his description — ‘exactly as the cells which constitute a living body form by their reunion a new being which displays characteristics very different from those possessed by each of the cells singly’ or ‘just as in chemistry certain elements, when brought into contact — bases and acids, for example — combine to form a new body possessing properties quite different from those of the bodies that have served to form it.’ Whilst individuals are conscious, the crowd is unconscious; whilst the individual is rational, the crowd is irrational; whilst the individual is civilised, the crowd is barbaric. As Le Bon writes; ‘By the mere fact that he forms part of an organised crowd, a man descends several rungs in the ladder of civilisation. Isolated, he may be a cultivated individual; in a crowd, he is a barbarian — that is a creature acting by instinct’ or  the crowd’s ‘acts are far more under the influence of the spinal cord than of the brain. In this respect a crowd is closely akin to quite primitive beings.’ The crowd being impulsive, irrational and primal is in a word, Dionysian, to utilise Nietszchian terminology.

To illuminate the nature of Dionysus, Nietzsche juxtaposed him with Apollo, the sun god. Whilst Apollo symbolised rationality, logic, reason, order, peace, harmony, mind, intellect, yangness, masculinity; Dionysus epitomised emotions, instincts, intuitions, passions, chaos, war, suffering, soma, sensuality, yinness, femininity. As Nietzsche writes, ‘The conflict between Apollo and Dionysus is the conflict between two opposing forces: one that seeks to impose order, reason, and individuality and the other that seeks to break down boundaries, embrace chaos, and affirm the primal unity of life.’ Ultimately, Nietzsche lamented that modern Western culture had overemphasised the Apollonian at the expense of the Dionysian — ‘The modern individual, shaped by the Enlightenment and the rise of scientific reason, lives under the dominance of the Apollonian’ which had become ‘so predominant that it utterly eclipsed the Dionysian.’ This is in alignment with the observations of the father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, who proclaimed that modern Western society had strayed too far away from its nature, losing touch with its sexual creative powers. What one represses erupts as the flood  and according to both thinkers the Dionysian elements had been repressed at the expense of the Appollion, resulting in the eruption of Dionysian forces, in deeper more perilous ways through crowds — ‘When the Dionysian forces are repressed too long by the structures of reason and morality, they eventually find expression in mass movements, in collective hysteria, and in the most extreme forms of human behavior.’ It was to mitigate and remedy such a flood, that Freud helped to spark the sexual revolution that occurred in the 1960’s. 

The psychological explanation for the decadence, depravity, and danger of crowds is attributable to the ‘savage, destructive instincts..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 in consequence he is assured of impunity, gives him entire liberty to follow them.’  This is in alignment with the proclamations of Carl Gustav Jung, Swiss psychiatrist, psychotherapist, and psychologist who founded the school of analytical psychology:

‘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’…. ‘We are blissfully unconscious of these forces because they never, or almost never, appear in our personal relations or under ordinary circumstances.’

Such a proposition is consolidated by historical data typified by mob violence, such as the French Revolution (1789 – 1799), the Communist Revolutions, St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre (1572), Ruwandan genocide (1994), Holocaust (1941 – 1945) etc. As Le Bon writes: terrible and heinous acts are characteristic of crowds, never of individuals. Contrary to orthodox opinion. ‘The Reformation, the massacre of Saint Bartholomew, the French religious wars, the Inquisition, the Reign of Terror are phenomena of an identical kind, brought about by crowds ... At the bottom of such event is always to be found the working of the soul of the masses and never the power of potentates.’ Historians who claim otherwise are ‘ignorant’ for ‘manifestations of this order can only proceed for the soul of crowds.’  Although Le Bon draws upon empirical evidence to prove his point, it is important to recognise that his intellectual diagnoses were profoundly influenced by the turbulent sociopolitical context he witnessed firsthand — including the Revolutions of 1848 that swept across Europe (when he was 7), the Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871), the French revolution (1789 – 1799) — as well as the broader events which prevailed within his lifetime — socialism and nationalism. These events fueled Le Bon’s anxieties about the volatile tendencies of the masses. Thus, such conclusions can also be interpreted as deeply personal, undermining the validity or objectivity of the evidence, exaggerating the danger of crowds. For such evidence may be seen to be warped by his subjective emotions, anxieties and fears. However, the frequent accordance of other observers with his conclusions may, in the end, strengthen their reliability.

Additionally, Le Bon’s propositions pertaining to the danger of crowds are further reinforced by the performance art, Rhythm 0, conducted by Marina Abramović, a Serbian performance artist in 1974. For six hours she stood immobile, passive and motionless in a gallery in Naples. Besides her were 72 objects scattered across a table — ranging from innocuous  items like feathers, roses, and fragrances, to menacing ones like hammers, knives and even a loaded gun. The audience were summoned to utilse such objects on her as they wishes, with Abramović taking ownership for all the consequences, importantly absolving the people of responsibility (saliently mimicking the state of the individual in the crowd). At first, the participants were gentle, but as time progressed, they collectively became increasingly aggressive (with each person encouraging the next), slicing her skin, undressing her, groping her and even aiming the gun at her head. When the performance ended and Abramović moved once more, no longer a mere marionette or slave to the mob, many of the participants fled —  ashamed and embarrassed of their actions. It is said that Abramovic endured such distress during such a performance or even experiment, that upon arriving home, she witnessed the birth of a streak of white hair amidst her dark mane. Ultimately such a performance art exposes the latent beast within society; illusting how unconscious and inert instincts such as violence, lust, and cruelty manifest anarchically and boundlessly in crowds. In other words, Rhythm 0, demonstrates how the mob devours all conscience and morality, leading individuals to act in ways they would not dare to individually echoing the sentiments of Le Bon.

II

Simone Weil, a French philosopher and mystic, makes notable comments on the danger of crowds. Namely, on such an entitie’s birth of perversion, malevolence and chaos. Her contempt for collectivities is perhaps attributable to her asceticism, spirituality or mysticism, typically characterised by solitude or isolation from humanity — a lowly and crude entity. Her views pertaining to crowds are best delineated within her essay titled the ‘The Great Beast’, inspired directly by Plato, whom she regarded as the greatest of guides. Specifically, such a work was animated by his metaphor in The Republic in which Socrates criticises the sophists for shaping, moulding and manipulating themselves (their sentiments, expressions, beliefs etc.) according to the wants of the people in hopes to get their favour, affection, attention, approval, votes and praise, like a trickster endlessly changing masks, cloaks or its skin or like a chameleon taking the hues of its environment, becoming its environment or akin to trainers flattering a powerful beast. As Plato writes:

“Imagine that the keeper of a huge, strong beast notices what makes it angry, what it desires, how it has to be approached and handled, the circumstances and the conditions under which it becomes particularly fierce or calm, what provokes its typical cries, and what tones of voice make it gentle or wild. Once he's spent enough time in the creature's company to acquire all this information, he calls it knowledge, forms it into a systematic branch of expertise, and starts to teach it, despite total ignorance, in fact, about which of the creature's attitudes and desires is commendable or deplorable, good or bad, moral or immoral. His usage of all these terms simply conforms to the great beast's attitudes, and he describes things as good or bad according to its likes and dislikes, and can't justify his usage of the terms any further, but describes as right and good the things which are merely indispensable, since he hasn't realised and can't explain to anyone else how vast a gulf there is between necessity and goodness.”

Moreover, Weil contends that oft one chooses to join the mob, the great beast, out of necessity, due to innate biological or physical needs, for homo sapiens are social or tribal beings, unable to survive independently, with solitude through exile or excommunication meaning certain death. In turn, one is  psychologically primed or wired to desire or seek belonging. Consequently, the Mephsiophelian bargain prevails, in which the intangible spirit or soul is sold for material gains, for entering the great beast, causes the individual to surrender their intellect and virtue. This capitulation gives rise to chaos: war, injustice and destruction. Hence, society, in the thought of Simone Weil, is not merely a bundle of individuals; rather it is a metaphysical condition — one that corrupts, one that muddies, one that pollutes, one that adulterates. As Weil declares, ‘society is the cave. The way out is solitude,’ Here, she evokes the Platonic allegory of the cave, with the cave symbolising deceit, darkness, and inertia, emphasing the evil of society. Crucially, such an allegory is typified by a transcendence of the cave by one valiant individual, not only suggesting that enlightenment is rare, but more crucially, that it is inextricably tied to surpassing the social. Weil contends that this ‘is why I have been wrong to rub shoulders with politics for so long,’ a crude social plane, or why she was against the exoteric, dogmatised and commodified church ‘which claims to be divine’ but ‘is perhaps more dangerous on account of the ersatz good which it contains than on account of the evil which sullies it’ . Such a religious society was seemingly noble, though inwardly rotten, for it falsely claimed divinity, which was but a mere facade or masquerade, rendering it a ‘Devil disguised.’

Such a notion is the root of her fundamental critique of the nation, for the nation is the great beast. Formidably, ‘nothing seems evil to those who serve it except failure in its service’. For example many Nazi officials during the Nuremberg trials (1945– 1946) such as Adolf Eichmann or Hermann Göring argued they were serving the nation, by following orders. Similarly, Soviet officials, such as NKVD Officers carried out exiles, deporotations, tortures, rapes and executions of ‘state’ enemies, such as Vasily Blokhin, all in the name of the the nation. So too did the imperial soldiers of Japan during WWII within Nanking, who committed unspeakable atrocities towards the Chinese as documented by Iris Chang and the nuclear atomic bombs dropped by the United States on Japanese cities:Hiroshima and Nagasaki, in August 1945, leading to the incineration of all life in such realms. So too does the modern nation of Israel commit utter genocide in the name of national defence, ironically and tragically becoming the very thing which it fled from to refuge. One could go on and on listing endless massacres committed in the name of the specific crowd, the nation, the frequency acting as a testament to the treacherous nature of such an entity. Incidentally, for Weil specifically, the nations of Rome and Israel were great beasts: Both repulsive and monstrous. ‘Rome is the Great Beast of atheism and materialism, adoring nothing but itself. Israel is the Great Beast of religion.’ Both ‘heavy’ and ‘without mysticism’, realms in which ‘only gravity’ exists.

III

This leads us to the next thinker Rabindranath Tagore, Bengali polymath —  intellectual, poet, and painter — who ‘described the West as a fundamentally material, intellectual, and logical entity as opposed to the East, which was a spiritual, metaphysical and philosophical entity.’ He further differentiated between the ‘spirit of the West’ and the ‘nation of the West.’ The former, its essence or the individuals which constituted it, were characterised by scientific curiosities, whilst the latter was the Western people organised as an ‘economic and political entity,’ typified by avarice,’ conquest, colonisation, subjugation, exploitation and imperialism’. Tagore, then, made a clear statement on the ‘nation of the West’, specifically on how the Nation became an anaesthetic that allowed people to condone crimes being committed in their name collectively that they would not dare commit individually. In other words, the nation suppressed, numbed and paralysed one’s moral compass. Hence, ‘It is the Nation that has become the most powerful anaesthetic to human conscience’, or ‘Nationalism is a cruel epidemic of evil that is sweeping over the human world of the present age, eating into its moral vitality.’ This insight echoes the stoic philosopher, Seneca, who stresses in his letters to Lucilius, for one ‘to avoid’ and ‘be rescued’ from the crowd, for ‘the larger the size of the crowd we mingle with, the greater the danger.’

In contrast to Le Bon, who ascribed the evil of the crowd to Dionysian carnality, Tagore attributed the evil of the nation to its ‘intellectual’ nature, ‘which was by virtue of being intellectual, devoid of morals and ethics begetting great harm.’ 

‘We all know that intellect is impersonal.’ Our ‘heart’ is ‘one with us, but our mind can be detached from the personal man and then only can it freely move in its world of thoughts. Our intellect is an ascetic who wears no clothes, takes no food, knows no sleep, has no wishes, feels no love or hatred or pity for human limitations, who only reasons, unmoved through the vicissitudes of life.’

Such a ‘detached’ entity gains speed, ‘leaving the moral man’ ‘behind’, ‘because it has to deal with the whole reality, not merely with the law of things.’ Crucially, both Le Bon and Tagore agree, in that the nation is dangerous, though they differ as to what precisely renders such a crowd perilous. This is explainable by their differing ontological or metaphysical views pertaining to the nature of evil. For Tagore, an Easterner, the intellect or mind birthed all perversion, severing us from divine our flesh (this is why in Eastern religions such as Hinduism, the gods inhabit all things including physical forms such as animals and plants). For Le Bon, a Westerner, the lower primal self birthed all decadence (with Eve giving over to somatic temptation as opposed to being guided by her rational mind). 

Additionally, the depravity of crowds is in alignment with philosophical and mythological themes, for they illustrate metaphorically or symbolically that wisdom is found in solitude, far from the masses. 

In exoteric or religious texts prophets receive revelations when alone. For instance, in the Abrahamic religions, Mohammed encountered Gabriel, the messenger of God in the Cave of Hira, Moses (Musa) on Mount Sinai, and Jonah (Yunus) in the belly of the great fish. In Eastern tradition of Buddhism, Buddha attained enlightenment whilst meditating away from other yogis under the Bodhi tree. Moreover in esoteric or occult works the sage is epitomised by the Hermit archetype, who dwells in solitude. The isolated nature of the wise one is reinforced by the etymological roots of the word hermit, which is derived from the Greek word erēmos meaning ‘desert’ or ‘wilderness’, referring to uninhabited, barren and desolate realms. Universally, those in pursuit of the divine  — Buddhist and Christian monks, Hindu sadhus, Taoist ascetics, and Sufi mystics — consistently turn to remote terrains: mountains, caves, forests, deserts, islands etc. isolating themselves from the external or physical world in hopes to facilitate the journey inwards, to soul, to spirit, to God, in the name of liberation or moksha. This is also why Friedrich Nietzsche, a solitary thinker, who rejected herd morality, joked in one of his letters that he was the ‘hermit of Sils-Maria’, an icy province in Switzerland where he spent his summers. He also declared that, ‘I am solitude become man.’  In Daybreak, the dawn of what he would later call his ‘campaign against morality’, he writes, ‘When I am among the many I live as the many do, and I do not think as I really think; after a time it always seems as though they want to banish me from myself and rob me of my soul and I grow angry with everybody and fear everybody. I then require the desert, so as to grow good again.’ 

Furthermore, perhaps the immorality of crowds is elucidated and supported by the etymology of the word, crowd. Derived from the old English word Crūdan, meaning to press, push, hasten or drive forward, this can be understood overtly or prima facie to being a physiological pressing, trampling or compressing, though if and when one ponders more deeply, thinks more esoterically, in a more subtle, refined and sophisticated manner, one can understand this to mean a psychological or characterological oppression, an undermining of one’s soul. In a parallel manner, in the original text, French, Le Bon uses the word foule for crowd. Foule is derived from the verb fouler, again, meaning crush, press or trample, derived from the Latin, fullare. This is also the root of the English word, fuller (a person who treads on clothe to thicken it). Therefore, the etymology and the connottaions of crowd further reinforces the deeper psychological observation that the crowd crushes, not merely physiologically as is generally understood, but rather psychologically and spiritually —  the soul and heart of man, wringing from him his nobility, tainting, muddying, dirtying him. Pressingly, the Turkish word for crowd, kalabalik (compared to toplum —  an organised gathering), is derived from the Arabic word kalab meaning  ‘heart’ or ‘turning’, with turning being allied with disorder, the duty or dharma of the devil, whom scriptural texts note is here to invert divine order. Now, not that Gustave Le Bon was acquainted with such languages, but it is merely interesting to note how other language's etymology of the word crowd support the conclusion that Le Bon and other crowd psychologists came to regarding the morality of crowds, namely their depraved nature. Ultimately, then the etymology of the word crowd in multiple languages reinforces the peril of such an entity.

CONCLUSION 

In conclusion, in investigating the phenomenon of the crowd, this essay has traversed the psychological terrains of Gustave Le Bon, the philosophical insights of Simone Weil, and the moral warnings of Rabindranath Tagore. Such thinkers, albeit diverse, are united by their belief that the crowd constitutes a formidable and perilous force. Through Le Bon, the crowd was understood to be unconscious, irrational and chaotic — or Dionysian —  likely to erupt chaotically within the Apollonian West, severed from its sensual essence. Through Weil the crowd was characterised as a ‘Great Beast’, with which the individual merged, in hopes for social gains, essentially entering a mephistophelian bargain. One such mighty and heavy beast was the nation, abundant in gravity and scarce in mysticism or virtue. Tagore, in turn, conceptualised the nation as an anaesthetic — numbing the moral fibres of humanity — enabling acts an individual would not dare condone nor perpetrate. Historical, religious and etymological analyses were conducted to further consolidate such observations. In an era of vast collectivity, an era of nations,  Nietzsche’s declaration chimes ever more pressing — ‘Flee, my friend, into your solitude! I see you deafened by the uproar of the great men and pricked by the stings of the small ones…Where solitude ceases, there the market-place begins; and where the market-place begins, there begins the uproar of the great actors and the buzzing of the poisonous flies.’

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