19/12/2016

Crowd Psychology of the late Nineteenth-Century

Peter Zelaskowski

First posted 19/12/2016

The idea of individual spreads throughout the social body of Modernity and is intermingled with its history and ideology. However, as Elias (1987) pointed out, the concept of individual was built during Modernity, being its innermost ‘creation’ (Moscovici, 1985:25). The individualistic paradigm pursued the main socio-political and ideological shifts during the last centuries. Meanwhile if on the one hand the idea of individual sustained Modernity, on the other hand the shifts that the Western World underwent – mainly after the 1848 uprising as well after the Franco-Prussian (1870) war and the Commune revolt (1871) – put the crowd phenomena as central to social and political theorizing (McClelland,1989).

The unconventional behavior and the potential threat of mobs and crowds had been recorded since ancient times. However, only after the French Revolution it was possible to observe crowds as an isolated phenomenon. In this regard, the pioneering historiography of Hyppolyte Taine (1828-1893), which was highlighted in his multivolume work, Les Origines de la France Contemporaine (1876-1893), the influence of context, moment and race (not in the specific sense now common, but rather as the collective cultural dispositions that govern everyone without their knowledge or consent), investigated the behavior of mobs, Girondins and Jacobins, driving the attention to the crowds (Van Ginneken, 1992).

The nineteenth century was impacted by the changes brought by the Industrial Revolution and by the American and French Revolutions. Economic modernization, capitalism and bourgeoisie as well the appreciation of the illuminist egalitarian and democratic values dramatically shifted the economic, social and political tenets of the Western world. Moreover, the nineteenth century faced a huge progress in terms of medical, technical and scientific research that improved the quality and longevity of life of the population.

However, the achievements of the century had its obscure façade because the consolidation of capitalism triggered terrible social conditions in cities, giving birth to the working class, which from that moment on put up opposition ‘threatening’ the bourgeoisie’s status quo. The working class represented not only a social problem, but its existence brought to population feelings of insecurity and fear due to possibility of insurgency. The nineteenth century was characterized by the effervescence of crowds and the threats of popular insurrection found their ways of expression in mini-revolutions, demonstrations, union struggles, riots and strikes (Schnerb, 1996). These episodes had a deep influence on the century’s thinking, fascinated but also terrified by crowds, as we can observe through Zola’s, Hugo’s, Manzoni’s and Dickens’ poignant literature.

So, in the nineteenth century ‘the enemy’ was represented by the ‘revolutionary hydra’ (Schnerb, 1996:89) of the proletariat. In this context, the emergence of Marxist ideals became fundamental by proposing a new and transformative social order. The socialism was born in an epoch in which romanticism and the anarchist movements represented some of the Zeitgeist of the century. However, even in opposition to these movements, it was in this context that Marxism and the radical ideas of socialism spread in the Western thinking.

In addition, from 1880 on, the anarchist movement and the terror inflicted by its murderous attempts across the European Nation States, especially in Italy, France and Spain, brought intense fear to population. The most radical anarchists were by that time named ‘terrorists’ and the threat of their actions drove French and Italian scholars to research the phenomena. Some of them were the same authors – of the rising sociology, criminology and psychology disciplines – that began to investigate the psychology of crowds (Van Ginneken, 1992).

In 1891, in Italy of the postrisorgimiento, Scipio Sighele (1868-1913) – disciple of Ferri (1856-1929) and under the influence of Lombroso’s (1835-1909) positivist criminology – investigated the criminal crowds inaugurating the study of crowd psychology. In Italy, the concern with crowd behavior was connected to criminal justice and prison systems, but although it was influenced by social Darwinism and positivist outlooks, which aimed to bring social laws into harmony with biological laws, its main researchers were politically aligned with left wing pleas. Independently but almost at the same time and under more conservative lens, which criticized the tenets of the Enlightenment and of the classical liberalism, French researchers as Henry Fournial (1866-1932), Gabriel Tarde (1843-1904) and Gustave Le Bon (1841-1931) delved into the study of crowd psychology (Van Ginneken,1992).

So, it was by the end of the nineteenth century, through the clashes between conservative and liberal forces that popular movements found their strength. The interest triggered by collective demonstrations, the panic and the fear of crowd insurrections paved the way for the birth of study of the crowd psychology. Under this perspective, it is possible to affirm that the specific figurations – the co-created socio-economic political and cultural restrains and constraints of the social unconscious of persons, groups and Western societies (Hopper & Weinberg, 2011) – of the end of the ninetieth century brought about the emergence of the study of crowds as a psychological phenomenon (Penna, 2014). In this sense, a new discipline gave meaning of ideas and fears that were haunting liberal democracy and bourgeoisie matrices since the French Revolution, and it had been captured by history and literature almost a hundred years before. The importance and the seduction of the crowd psychology was revealing the innermost feelings, especially the fear of annihilation (Hopper, 2003) of a changing world which attributed to the crowd not only crime and frightening features, but also unexpected and incomprehensible psychological behavior.

In search of a definition

According to the Webster’s dictionary “Crowd is a large number of persons, especially when collected into a somewhat compact body without order” or even “the great body of people” (Webster’s, 1971: 544). However, it is not simple to define what a crowd is, especially because it is possible to find various conceptualizations of crowds, mobs and masses among scholars. Only in Canetti’s seminal work Crowds and Power (1960) countless types and styles of crowds and its interconnections with history, religion and power were displayed.

Pick (1989) presented the subtle connotations that the French word foule, translated as ‘crowd’ or ‘mob’ in English, reveals. The shift moved the noun from feminine to neuter, losing in the process one significant element of the loathing that the idea of foule used to convey under Taine’s conservative lens. In this regard, the conventional distinction in English between the words ‘crowd’ and ‘mob’ needs to be explored because it turns on the apparent neutrality of the former as against the pejorative meaning of the latter. That is “mob, from mobile vulgus, evokes an immense demonology not obviously associated with crowd” (Pick, 1989:20). Thus, based on the Oxford English Dictionary’s definition, “the crowd is only a throng or dense multitude, while the mob may mean the lower orders, rabble, tumultuous crowd or a promiscuous assemblage of persons” (Pick, 1989:20).

Moscovici (1985) does not differentiate crowds from masses, however he made three different attempts to define what meant a crowd for the nineteenth century. The first one affirmed that “a crowd is a gathering of individuals joint in the margins of institutions or against the institutions (..) they are asocial and formed by asocials” (Moscovici, 1985:98). In this sense, crowds were the result of the decomposition of groups and social classes, revealing the plebs, the mobs, and the lumenproletariat. They represented cracks in the societal functioning, social disorders which could not be subject of scientific study, being simply an epiphenomena. The second attempt of definition pointed to the fact that “crowds were insane and cherished obscure dreams, joining crazy fans or delirious people around a leader” (Moscovici, 1985:99). They could reveal amazing prowess or criminal acts and its delirious and pathological nature enchanted society, however their interest remained restricted. The third definition, which transformed the crowd psychology into the new science, asserted that crowds were criminal, being capable to destroy and to commit terrible crimes, resisting to the claims of the law. This last description fulfilled the individual and collective myths and fears present in the social unconscious of persons, groups and European societies of the nineteenth century, inspiring the scholars on the study of crowd psychology (Penna, 2014).

The characterization of crowds as irrational and savage has long dominated the nineteenth century, prompting scholars to build a sense of the crowd-centered interpretation of the collective behaviour as a pathological phenomenon. Rational or irrational, anomic or motivated, urban or working, crowds were psychiatrized and criminalized at one stroke and until today, even inadvertently, polarized and biased perspectives assaulted the visions of the crowds (Nye, 1985). Therefore, only in the twentieth century and through the influence of the public opinion and propaganda, the fear associated to crowds was substituted by the political exploitation of “mass-men” (Ortega Y Gasset,1930) – as well as by the control performed by charismatic leadership. In this sense, what was feared in the crowds of the nineteenth century became manipulated, controlled and tamed in the masses of the twentieth century (Penna, 2014).

 

Crowd Psychology

 Scipio Sighele, Henry Fournial, Gabriel Tarde and Gustave Le Bon are considered the founding figures of crowd psychology. The first monograph on the subject – La Folla Delinquente (1891) was written by Scipio Sighele, being followed by the Essai Sur la Psychologie of Foules (1892), prepared by the almost unknown Henry Fournial [1]. Formulation of crowd psychology developed by Tarde and Le Bon emerged just after initial considerations on the topic by Sighele and Fournial. Controversies and discussion on authorship of these first conceptualizations were present in the European fin du siècle, however more than a hundred years later Le Bon’s The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind (1895) became the most famous book written on the subject. His work has been translated into more than sixteen languages and his considerations and clichés influenced not only entire generations, but also inspired totalitarian leaders as Hitler and Mussolini (Moscovici, 1985).

Although Le Bon is considered to be the prominent figure of crowd psychology, under more careful lens it is impossible to deny the importance of Sighele and Fournial and mostly the role played by one of the founding fathers of the French Sociology –  Gabriel Tarde. His investigations into the laws of imitation, public opinion and crowds and his newborn sociology were overshadowed during the twentieth century by the prevalence of Durkheimian school. However, after the 60s, his findings have been rediscovered and revalued in sociology by Bruno Latour (Penna, 2014).

Tarde (1892) opposed to the criminal anthropological views of crowds to highlight the importance of the ‘social milieu’ on shaping the behavior of crowds, mainly because for him, human diversity was the basic element of collective aggregations (Tarde,1892:65). Thus, the social reality was not a homogeneous construct imposed by society to people, but it was the outcome of established social bonds, as creation, imitation, resistance and adaptation. In sum, it was the result of interaction between persons. To establish these interconnections the concept of “imitation as the social bond” (Tarde, 1890) was coined. So, crowd psychology features, such as imitation, suggestion, suggestibility and hypnosis, were used not only to explain the public behavior but also to explore the mutual influences that are at stake in shaping the public opinion. In this regard, Tarde’s early conceptualizations of imitation and crowds can bring new insights not only to contemporary discussions on the concept of identification in Freudian’s mass psychology (Pines, 2009), but also to group analytic discussions on the psychodynamic of large groups and to Elias figurations (Penna, 2014).

Le Bon had a professional career that evolved against the tendencies of the French academic world. He was considered by some to be a scientific vulgarizer, however his ambition and prestige made him famous. In addition, it seems that he had the ability to intuit and capture the yearnings of his time. Le Bon’s book appeared circumscribed into conservative tenets and was influenced by Spencer’s evolutionism as well as by Bernhein’s psychiatry and Ribot’s experimental psychology (Moscovici, 1985). Theses on the social hierarchies, the heredity of races and collective beliefs shaped his postulates on crowd psychology. Le Bon was an evolutionist and attributed to heredity the main role in individual and collective psychology. Moreover, he was tuned with the scientific development of his epoch and imported from the medicine of Salpêtrière and Nancy, concepts such as imitation, suggestion, hypnosis and contagion to discuss crowd psychology (Nye, 1995).

For Le Bon (1895), the crowds had a ‘soul’ and were formed by elemental drives and organized around strong beliefs, not sensible to reason. So, to understand crowds it was necessary to study its state of mind, their ways of feeling, thinking and acting, and their psychology. The ‘soul of the crowds’ obeyed their leaders and as in a state of trance they were prone to execute orders that would never be obeyed by isolated persons. The crowds could prove violent or anarchic being able of committing acts of ferocity and barbarism, but they were also capable of displaying a high morality, being altruistic or heroic.

The collective ‘soul of the crowds’, transformed the intellectual skills of persons. Their individuality used to disappear, giving room to ordinary qualities and a sense of invincibility, related to mental contagion – considered to be the central feature of crowd formation. The contagion was associated with hypnosis and suggestibility and both were referred to the fascination exerted by the hypnotizer/leader (Le Bon, 1895). In this sense, hypnotic states and hypnotic suggestions were paramount for shaping the ‘collective state’ of crowds.

To Le Bon there was nothing demented or pathological about the crowds. They were constituted by normal individuals who, when reunited, presented a “characteristic mental life, becoming an autonomous reality collectively organized, as a collective form of life” (Le Bon, 1895:25). Crowds represented to Le Bon, the fabric of political institutions, the virtual energy of social movements, but also the primitive state of civilization (Moscovici, 1981). Perhaps in this regard it is possible to understand why Le Bon’s conservative work on crowds have been constantly mentioned and criticized by the main authors – such as Freud, Robert Parker, Adorno, Canetti, Reicher – of the twentieth century debate on collective behavior (Nye, 1995). In fact, when Le Bon associated suggestion to politics, moving beyond the strict criminal perspective of crowds to focus on its psychology, he was able to present the crowds as social phenomena (Moscovici, 1985). Although he cherished a pessimistic vision about the crowds, he left behind its pathological visions to value foremost the importance of psychological and unconscious[2] aspects of the social and collective manifestations (Penna, 2014).

The main features of crowds, their psychology was akin to the mentality of the epoch which attributed to crowds the same behaviour of the “lower forms of evolution” (Le Bon, 1895:39) presented by the primitive savages, children as well as female ‘mysteriousness and unpredictability’. The psychology of crowds performed transformations in persons, leading to the disappearance of consciousness and individuality, to the prevalence of unconscious mechanisms and to orientation through suggestion and contagion of thoughts and ideas (Le Bon, 1895). The ‘collective behaviour’ of crowds conducted to credulity, the inability to reason, lack of criticism and automatic thinking, characteristics that nowadays could be attributed to some features of regression in groups. Beliefs, illusions and ideals, mainly the ones conveyed by leaders, played an important role of a crowd’s behavior. The hypnotic character of leadership and its influence in the guidance of political and religious crowds were discussed as well by Le Bon (Penna, 2014).

 

Crowd Psychology Legacy

As the twentieth century approached, the analysis of crowds evolved by transferring the major concerns to the political sphere. The idea that crowds could be controlled by a charismatic leadership gained strength and led to the idea that while scrutinized, crowds could be transformed into object of study and governance. This seemed to be the main goal of Le Bon (Moscovici, 1985) and this gradual transformation allowed a shift from crowd psychology – here identified with deterministic, pejorative and biological perspectives conveyed by the conservative lens of the nineteenth century – to mass psychology characteristic of the twentieth century. In the last decade of the nineteenth century the word mass had become in France the appanage of the left, being totally excluded from the Republican analysis of the crowd made by Tarde and Le Bon. However, it was only through the investigation of the uncontrolled and frightening crowds of the nineteenth century that the mass psychology – organized around an ideal and controlled by a charismatic leader of the twentieth century – could be researched (Penna, 2014). The latter’s framework became the ‘paradigm’ of the mass psychology investigations during the twentieth century. It was explored by McDougall and Freud, as well as by left-wing oriented scholars, such as the intellectuals of the Frankfurt School.

Further developments regarding crowds and masses became noteworthy during the twenty century (*see mass psychology). However, for now, it is important to notice how some of the investigations conducted by early crowd psychology research contributed, in the 70s, to the development of group analytic insights on the psychodynamic of large groups. In this sense, explorations on the matrix of group analysis – that is on its historical routes and the main influences that might have shaped Foulkes’ thinking (Pines, 2009) and his followers – can gain new meanings. The examination of continuities and discontinuities presented by crowds, masses and large groups are relevant for group analytic continuous research, though the examination of their riddles should be fostered, as Le Bon once affirmed:

The crowd is like the Sphinx: it is necessary to know how to solve the problems that their psychology presents or resign ourselves to being devoured by them (Le Bon, 1895:97).

 

References:

Canetti, E. (1960). Crowds and Power. London: Penguim Books, 1984.

Elias, N. (1987). The Society of Individuals. London: Continuum,1991.

Hopper. E. (2003). Traumatic Experience in The Unconscious Life of Groups. London: J. Kingsley.

Hopper, E.; Weinberg, H. (2011). The Social Unconscious in persons, groups and societies. v.1 Mainly Theory. London: Karnac.

Le Bon, G. (1895). The Crowd: A Study of The Popular Mind. New Jersey: Transaction Publishers,1995.

McClelland, J.S. (1989). The Crowd and the Mob: from Plato to Canetti. London: Unwin Hyman Ltd.

Moscovici, S. (1985). The Age of the Crowd: A Historical Treatise on Mass Psychology. London: Cambridge University Press.

Nye, R. (1995). ‘Introduction’ in: Le Bon, G. (1895). The Crowd: A Study of The Popular Mind. New Jersey: Transaction Publishers, p.1-25,1995.

Ortega Y Gasset (1930). The Revolt of the Masses. New York: WW. Norton & Company, 1993.

Penna, C. ( 2014). Inconsciente Social. [ Social Unconscious]. São Paulo: Pearson/Casa do Psicólogo.

Pick, D. (1989). ‘Thousands of Little White Blobs’. In: London Review of Books (McClelland,J.S. The Crowd and the Mob: from Plato to Canetti. London: Unwin Hyman Ltd.) v.11 (22): 20-22, 1989.

Pines, M. (2009). ‘The Matrix of Group Analysis: An Historical Perspective’. Group Analysis 42 (1): 5-15.

Schnerb, R. (1996). O Século XIX: o Apogeu da Civilização Européia [The 19th Century: The Apogee of the European Civilization]. Rio de Janeiro: Bertrand Brasil, v.14.

Tarde, G. (1890). The Laws of Imitation. London: General Books LLC,2009.

Tarde, G. (1892). ‘Opinions and Masses’. in: Gabriel Tarde On Communication and Social Influence: Selected Papers (Heritage of Sociology Series). Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969/2010.

Van Ginneken, J. (1992). Crowds, Psychology & Politics, 1871-1899.  London: Cambridge University Press, 2006.

Carla Penna, PhD, psychoanalyst in private practice in Brazil. Full member of the Group Analytic Society International. She is former president of the Brazilian Association of Group Psychotherapy, and Group Analytic Psychotherapy Society of the State of Rio de Janeiro.

Email drcarlapenna@gmail.com

[1] Fournial was considered by Van Ginneken (1992) as the missing link of the nineteenth century anthropological views of crowds and after writing his pioneering monograph on crowds joined army living overseas in the colonies for years.

[2]   Le Bon’s unconscious was different from Freud’s unconscious and was based mainly on biology: ‘the unconscious substrate was formed by hereditary influences containing ancestral residues that constitute the soul of a race” (Le Bon,1895/1995, p33). In this sense, race and tradition played an important role on shaping crowd behavior and its ‘civilization elements’ expressed the crowd’s soul’ (Le Bon,1895/1995, p.34).