登陆注册
15421200000011

第11章

A crowd is not merely impulsive and mobile.Like a savage, it is not prepared to admit that anything can come between its desire and the realisation of its desire.It is the less capable of understanding such an intervention, in consequence of the feeling of irresistible power given it by its numerical strength.The notion of impossibility disappears for the individual in a crowd.

An isolated individual knows well enough that alone he cannot set fire to a palace or loot a shop, and should he be tempted to do so, he will easily resist the temptation.Making part of a crowd, he is conscious of the power given him by number, and it is sufficient to suggest to him ideas of murder or pillage for him to yield immediately to temptation.An unexpected obstacle will be destroyed with frenzied rage.Did the human organism allow of the perpetuity of furious passion, it might be said that the normal condition of a crowd baulked in its wishes is just such a state of furious passion.

The fundamental characteristics of the race, which constitute the unvarying source from which all our sentiments spring, always exert an influence on the irritability of crowds, their impulsiveness and their mobility, as on all the popular sentiments we shall have to study.All crowds are doubtless always irritable and impulsive, but with great variations of degree.For instance, the difference between a Latin and an Anglo-Saxon crowd is striking.The most recent facts in French history throw a vivid light on this point.The mere publication, twenty-five years ago, of a telegram, relating an insult supposed to have been offered an ambassador, was sufficient to determine an explosion of fury, whence followed immediately a terrible war.

Some years later the telegraphic announcement of an insignificant reverse at Langson provoked a fresh explosion which brought about the instantaneous overthrow of the government.At the same moment a much more serious reverse undergone by the English expedition to Khartoum produced only a slight emotion in England, and no ministry was overturned.Crowds are everywhere distinguished by feminine characteristics, but Latin crowds are the most feminine of all.Whoever trusts in them may rapidly attain a lofty destiny, but to do so is to be perpetually skirting the brink of a Tarpeian rock, with the certainty of one day being precipitated from it.

2.THE SUGGESTIBILITY AND CREDULITY OF CROWDS.

When defining crowds, we said that one of their general characteristics was an excessive suggestibility, and we have shown to what an extent suggestions are contagious in every human agglomeration; a fact which explains the rapid turning of the sentiments of a crowd in a definite direction.However indifferent it may be supposed, a crowd, as a rule, is in a state of expectant attention, which renders suggestion easy.The first suggestion formulated which arises implants itself immediately by a process of contagion in the brains of all assembled, and the identical bent of the sentiments of the crowd is immediately an accomplished fact.

As is the case with all persons under the influence of suggestion, the idea which has entered the brain tends to transform itself into an act.Whether the act is that of setting fire to a palace, or involves self-sacrifice, a crowd lends itself to it with equal facility.All will depend on the nature of the exciting cause, and no longer, as in the case of the isolated individual, on the relations existing between the act suggested and the sum total of the reasons which may be urged against its realisation.

In consequence, a crowd perpetually hovering on the borderland of unconsciousness, readily yielding to all suggestions, having all the violence of feeling peculiar to beings who cannot appeal to the influence of reason, deprived of all critical faculty, cannot be otherwise than excessively credulous.The improbable does not exist for a crowd, and it is necessary to bear this circumstance well in mind to understand the facility with which are created and propagated the most improbable legends and stories.[3]

[3] Persons who went through the siege of Paris saw numerous examples of this credulity of crowds.A candle alight in an upper story was immediately looked upon as a signal given the besiegers, although it was evident, after a moment of reflection, that it was utterly impossible to catch sight of the light of the candle at a distance of several miles.

The creation of the legends which so easily obtain circulation in crowds is not solely the consequence of their extreme credulity.

It is also the result of the prodigious perversions that events undergo in the imagination of a throng.The simplest event that comes under the observation of a crowd is soon totally transformed.A crowd thinks in images, and the image itself immediately calls up a series of other images, having no logical connection with the first.We can easily conceive this state by thinking of the fantastic succession of ideas to which we are sometimes led by calling up in our minds any fact.Our reason shows us the incoherence there is in these images, but a crowd is almost blind to this truth, and confuses with the real event what the deforming action of its imagination has superimposed thereon.

A crowd scarcely distinguishes between the subjective and the objective.It accepts as real the images evoked in its mind, though they most often have only a very distant relation with the observed fact.

The ways in which a crowd perverts any event of which it is a witness ought, it would seem, to be innumerable and unlike each other, since the individuals composing the gathering are of very different temperaments.But this is not the case.As the result of contagion the perversions are of the same kind, and take the same shape in the case of all the assembled individuals.

同类推荐
热门推荐
  • 高冷殿下的平凡邂逅

    高冷殿下的平凡邂逅

    一个平凡的女孩,样貌平凡,身世平凡,学习成绩却格外优秀,进入贵族学校之后,一个贵族少爷改变了她的命运主角自叙:我知道车祸因你而起,但我还是要谢谢你,谢谢你告诉我一切真相!
  • 美男多妖娆

    美男多妖娆

    她是改换姓氏的前朝公主,她是世人眼中的济世神医,有人说她冷漠无情,有人说她悲天悯人,有人说她干净温暖的如同阳光。公主的身份让她陷入无尽的利用与阴谋,空有一身医术,却救不了自己和最亲最爱的人。从金枝玉叶到亡命天涯,从一介平民到绝世医女,从挣扎与政治漩涡到权利巅峰,她,注定是是一场传奇。慕容玄之,风华绝代,理智而冷酷,善于掩藏自己,为了达到自己的目的不惜牺牲一切,没有什么能让他在意,他自信所有一切皆在自己的掌控中,当发现自己真的在乎某个人时,却发觉原来自己原来抓不住自己的幸福。季景严,温润忧伤,在尔虞我诈的朝堂,他看似最温和无害,但除了自己的亲人和自己所爱的人,其他人对他来说都如草芥。且看一众美男的运筹帷幄,且观似水红颜的华丽落幕。过程有些虐,但结局是happy的!除了以上的男一男二,还有很多的美男,各具特色,文章有点慢热,希望大家耐心看。
  • 魂力时代

    魂力时代

    名为神木的少年,他,无知,无畏。抱着复仇雪耻的信念,从那万千种族中的神木一族出发,他并不知晓,一个围绕着他的惊天阴谋,从他出生的一刻起,便已经是悄然运转......天级【异兽】,低级【魂兽】,人级【魔兽】,被困的东方神龙西方天使,他们为何屈居于魂力世界?精灵,妖精,神魔后裔,医祖传人,他们为何藏身异界?蛮荒之域,雷域火海,三重天界......如此纷杂的世界,那各自遵循的铁律,冥冥之中,又究竟是谁制定?!看似弱小的人类部族,却是掌控着这片世界最强大的主权!他们所以靠的,究竟什么力量?平静的魂力世界,千万年来却暗流涌动,
  • 郡主才是真绝色

    郡主才是真绝色

    现代佣兵霓三被搭档暗害,命陨。同时迎来新生,成为张扬跋扈的霓凰郡主,治理封地,训练私兵,发展产业,当她最灿烂夺目的样子彰显在众人面前,得到众位枭雄的爱,张扬明媚的她又当何去何从?女主张扬明媚一袭红衣,倾城倾国之容艳得四方豪杰拜倒在她的石榴裙子下。简介无能,请看正文。新人新文,请多包涵。
  • 火澜

    火澜

    当一个现代杀手之王穿越到这个世界。是隐匿,还是崛起。一场血雨腥风的传奇被她改写。一条无上的强者之路被她踏破。修斗气,炼元丹,收兽宠,化神器,大闹皇宫,炸毁学院,打死院长,秒杀狗男女,震惊大陆。无止尽的契约能力,上古神兽,千年魔兽,纷纷前来抱大腿,惊傻世人。她说:在我眼里没有好坏之分,只有强弱之分,只要你能打败我,这世间所有都是你的,打不败我,就从这世间永远消失。她狂,她傲,她的目标只有一个,就是凌驾这世间一切之上。三国皇帝,魔界妖王,冥界之主,仙界至尊。到底谁才是陪着她走到最后的那个?他说:上天入地,我会陪着你,你活着,有我,你死,也一定有我。本文一对一,男强女强,强强联手,不喜勿入。
  • 硝烟飘过青春的岁月

    硝烟飘过青春的岁月

    她不由自主的看了看那些鸟儿,脸上微微泛起了红润,手里拿着的一张信纸在微微的颤动。远处,一辆吉普车停在状元亭边上,里面坐着俩个身穿黑色便服,肩上都跨着盒子炮的年轻男子,眼睛不时的看着情人阁这边的一对年轻人。
  • 绿色未来与生活习惯(人与环境知识丛书)

    绿色未来与生活习惯(人与环境知识丛书)

    除了外出上班、上学、旅游、办事之外,我们大部分时间都是在家里度过的。家庭是消耗资源最多的场所之一,我们的吃喝拉撒睡,无一不在消耗着资源。就从电力资源来说,据国家的权威部门统计,家庭用电已经占全社会用电的12%左右。其中,我们家里的冰箱、空调、电视、电热水器就占了家庭用电总量的80%以上。家庭是社会的细胞,只有每个家庭都有节约意识和节约措施,才能使建设节约型社会落到实处。
  • 家族日记

    家族日记

    左心,左心,与心相左。这是被左安赐予的名字会给原本的自己带来怎样的不同。这里没有是与非对与错,没有人能够评判他们。在这个庞大家族里。‘情’这一字,似乎微不足道。
  • 遇见你再恋爱

    遇见你再恋爱

    站在机场的二楼,慕青看见楼下搂搂抱抱的两人,心里的那股火气再次腾腾的往上涌,恨意一直蔓延至口腔,如果不是这两个人,她不用背井离乡多年,也不会失去生命中最重要的那个人!......再次见过那个男人是在同梦琪尔岚聚会的时候,看见这个男人,慕青很不给面子的掉头就走,她早已不是两年前傻傻崇拜他的人,更何况他还带着那个女人,她没去给他一巴掌,泼他一头水就算是不错的了......这是闹哪样,慕青目瞪口呆的瞪着近在咫尺的面庞,还当她好欺负啊,老鼠不发威,当她是hellokitty啊!“唔!”俞皓然疼痛难当的弯下腰捂着下身,额头上冒出点点汗珠,看着眼前一脸得意的望着他的小女人。缓了缓,无奈的叹了口气,看来追妻之路,任重而道远啊!......
  • 露水淼淼

    露水淼淼

    每个人都有那么一段青春,或疼痛,或欢喜,而安露露的青春里,只有过苏淼这么一个男孩。暖了她整个青春,也伤了她整个青春。《山河故人》里说,每个人只能陪你走一段路,迟早是要分开的。安露露曾经不信,却也不得不信。而你们呢,有没有爱过一个人,爱的刻骨铭心,爱的卑微却又骄傲?