The Crowd by Gustave le Bon (libby ebook reader .TXT) đź“–
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spirit.
Parliamentary crowds are very open to suggestion; and, as in the
case of all crowds, the suggestion comes from leaders possessing
prestige; but the suggestibility of parliamentary assemblies has
very clearly defined limits, which it is important to point out.
On all questions of local or regional interest every member of an
assembly has fixed, unalterable opinions, which no amount of
argument can shake. The talent of a Demosthenes would be
powerless to change the vote of a Deputy on such questions as
protection or the privilege of distilling alcohol, questions in
which the interests of influential electors are involved. The
suggestion emanating from these electors and undergone before the
time to vote arrives, sufficiently outweighs suggestions from any
other source to annul them and to maintain an absolute fixity of
opinion.[27]
[27] The following reflection of an English parliamentarian of
long experience doubtless applies to these opinions, fixed
beforehand, and rendered unalterable by electioneering
necessities: “During the fifty years that I have sat at
Westminster, I have listened to thousands of speeches; but few of
them have changed my opinion, not one of them has changed my
vote.”
On general questions—the overthrow of a Cabinet, the imposition
of a tax, &c.—there is no longer any fixity of opinion, and the
suggestions of leaders can exert an influence, though not in
quite the same way as in an ordinary crowd. Every party has its
leaders, who possess occasionally an equal influence. The result
is that the Deputy finds himself placed between two contrary
suggestions, and is inevitably made to hesitate. This explains
how it is that he is often seen to vote in contrary fashion in an
interval of a quarter of an hour or to add to a law an article
which nullifies it; for instance, to withdraw from employers of
labour the right of choosing and dismissing their workmen, and
then to very nearly annul this measure by an amendment.
It is for the same reason that every Chamber that is returned has
some very stable opinions, and other opinions that are very
shifting. On the whole, the general questions being the more
numerous, indecision is predominant in the Chamber—the
indecision which results from the ever-present fear of the
elector, the suggestion received from whom is always latent, and
tends to counterbalance the influence of the leaders.
Still, it is the leaders who are definitely the masters in those
numerous discussions, with regard to the subject-matter of which
the members of an assembly are without strong preconceived
opinions.
The necessity for these leaders is evident, since, under the name
of heads of groups, they are met with in the assemblies of every
country. They are the real rulers of an assembly. Men forming a
crowd cannot do without a master, whence it results that the
votes of an assembly only represent, as a rule, the opinions of a
small minority.
The influence of the leaders is due in very small measure to the
arguments they employ, but in a large degree to their prestige.
The best proof of this is that, should they by any circumstance
lose their prestige, their influence disappears.
The prestige of these political leaders is individual, and
independent of name or celebrity: a fact of which M. Jules Simon
gives us some very curious examples in his remarks on the
prominent men of the Assembly of 1848, of which he was a
member:—
“Two months before he was all-powerful, Louis Napoleon was
entirely without the least importance.
“Victor Hugo mounted the tribune. He failed to achieve success.
He was listened to as Felix Pyat was listened to, but he did not
obtain as much applause. `I don’t like his ideas,’ Vaulabelle
said to me, speaking of Felix Pyat,’ but he is one of the
greatest writers and the greatest orator of France.’ Edgar
Quinet, in spite of his exceptional and powerful intelligence,
was held in no esteem whatever. He had been popular for awhile
before the opening of the Assembly; in the Assembly he had no
popularity.
“The splendour of genius makes itself less felt in political
assemblies than anywhere else. They only give heed to eloquence
appropriate to the time and place and to party services, not to
services rendered the country. For homage to be rendered
Lamartine in 1848 and Thiers in 1871, the stimulant was needed of
urgent, inexorable interest. As soon as the danger was passed
the parliamentary world forgot in the same instant its gratitude
and its fright.”
I have quoted the preceding passage for the sake of the facts it
contains, not of the explanations it offers, their psychology
being somewhat poor. A crowd would at once lose its character of
a crowd were it to credit its leaders with their services,
whether of a party nature or rendered their country. The crowd
that obeys a leader is under the influence of his prestige, and
its submission is not dictated by any sentiment of interest or
gratitude.
In consequence the leader endowed with sufficient prestige wields
almost absolute power. The immense influence exerted during a
long series of years, thanks to his prestige, by a celebrated
Deputy,[28] beaten at the last general election in consequence of
certain financial events, is well known. He had only to give the
signal and Cabinets were overthrown. A writer has clearly
indicated the scope of his action in the following lines:—
[28] M. Clemenceau.—Note of the Translator.
“It is due, in the main, to M. X–- that we paid three times as
dearly as we should have done for Tonkin, that we remained so
long on a precarious footing in Madagascar, that we were
defrauded of an empire in the region of the Lower Niger, and that
we have lost the preponderating situation we used to occupy in
Egypt. The theories of M. X–- have cost us more territories
than the disasters of Napoleon I.”
We must not harbour too bitter a grudge against the leader in
question. It is plain that he has cost us very dear; but a great
part of his influence was due to the fact that he followed public
opinion, which, in colonial matters, was far from being at the
time what it has since become. A leader is seldom in advance of
public opinion; almost always all he does is to follow it and to
espouse all its errors.
The means of persuasion of the leaders we are dealing with, apart
from their prestige, consist in the factors we have already
enumerated several times. To make a skilful use of these
resources a leader must have arrived at a comprehension, at least
in an unconscious manner, of the psychology of crowds, and must
know how to address them. He should be aware, in particular, of
the fascinating influence of words, phrases, and images. He
should possess a special description of eloquence, composed of
energetic affirmations—unburdened with proofs— and impressive
images, accompanied by very summary arguments. This is a kind of
eloquence that is met with in all assemblies, the English
Parliament included, the most serious though it is of all.
“Debates in the House of Commons,” says the English philosopher
Maine, “may be constantly read in which the entire discussion is
confined to an exchange of rather weak generalities and rather
violent personalities. General formulas of this description
exercise a prodigious influence on the imagination of a pure
democracy. It will always be easy to make a crowd accept general
assertions, presented in striking terms, although they have never
been verified, and are perhaps not susceptible of verification.”
Too much importance cannot be attached to the “striking terms”
alluded to in the above quotation. We have already insisted, on
several occasions, on the special power of words and formulas.
They must be chosen in such a way as to evoke very vivid images.
The following phrase, taken from a speech by one of the leaders
of our assemblies, affords an excellent example:—
“When the same vessel shall bear away to the fever-haunted lands
of our penitentiary settlements the politician of shady
reputation and the anarchist guilty of murder, the pair will be
able to converse together, and they will appear to each other as
the two complementary aspects of one and the same state of
society.”
The image thus evoked is very vivid, and all the adversaries of
the speaker felt themselves threatened by it. They conjured up a
double vision of the fever-haunted country and the vessel that
may carry them away; for is it not possible that they are
included in the somewhat ill-defined category of the politicians
menaced? They experienced the lurking fear that the men of the
Convention must have felt whom the vague speeches of Robespierre
threatened with the guillotine, and who, under the influence of
this fear, invariably yielded to him.
It is all to the interest of the leaders to indulge in the most
improbable exaggerations. The speaker of whom I have just cited
a sentence was able to affirm, without arousing violent
protestations, that bankers and priests had subsidised the
throwers of bombs, and that the directors of the great financial
companies deserve the same punishment as anarchists.
Affirmations of this kind are always effective with crowds. The
affirmation is never too violent, the declamation never too
threatening. Nothing intimidates the audience more than this
sort of eloquence. Those present are afraid that if they protest
they will be put down as traitors or accomplices.
As I have said, this peculiar style of eloquence has ever been of
sovereign effect in all assemblies. In times of crisis its power
is still further accentuated. The speeches of the great orators
of the assemblies of the French Revolution are very interesting
reading from this point of view. At every instant they thought
themselves obliged to pause in order to denounce crime and exalt
virtue, after which they would burst forth into imprecations
against tyrants, and swear to live free men or perish. Those
present rose to their feet, applauded furiously, and then,
calmed, took their seats again.
On occasion, the leader may be intelligent and highly educated,
but the possession of these qualities does him, as a rule, more
harm than good. By showing how complex things are, by allowing
of explanation and promoting comprehension, intelligence always
renders its owner indulgent, and blunts, in a large measure, that
intensity and violence of conviction needful for apostles. The
great leaders of crowds of all ages, and those of the Revolution
in particular, have been of lamentably narrow intellect; while it
is precisely those whose intelligence has been the most
restricted who have exercised the greatest influence.
The speeches of the most celebrated of them, of Robespierre,
frequently astound one by their incoherence: by merely reading
them no plausible explanation is to be found of the great part
played by the powerful dictator:—
“The commonplaces and redundancies of pedagogic eloquence and
Latin culture at the service of a mind childish rather than
undistinguished, and limited in its notions of attack and defence
to the defiant attitude of schoolboys. Not an idea, not a happy
turn of phrase, or a telling hit: a storm of declamation that
leaves us bored. After a dose of this unexhilarating reading one
is attempted to exclaim `Oh!’ with the amiable Camille
Desmoulins.”
It is terrible at times to think of the power that strong
conviction combined with extreme narrowness of mind gives a man
possessing prestige. It is none the less necessary that these
conditions should be satisfied for a man to ignore obstacles and
display strength of will in a high measure. Crowds instinctively
recognise in men of energy and conviction the masters they are
always in need of.
In a parliamentary assembly the success of a speech depends
almost solely
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