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diff --git a/40914-8.txt b/40914-8.txt deleted file mode 100644 index a5b2bf0..0000000 --- a/40914-8.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,9035 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Behavior of Crowds, by Everett Dean Martin - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license - - -Title: The Behavior of Crowds - A Psychological Study - -Author: Everett Dean Martin - -Release Date: October 2, 2012 [EBook #40914] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BEHAVIOR OF CROWDS *** - - - - -Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Charlie Howard and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) - - - - - - - - - - _The_ - BEHAVIOR OF CROWDS - _A Psychological Study_ - - _by_ - Everett Dean Martin - - _Lecturer in Social Philosophy and Director of the Cooper - Union Forum of the People's Institute of New York_ - - [Illustration] - - HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS - NEW YORK AND LONDON - - - - - - THE BEHAVIOR OF CROWDS - - Copyright, 1920, by Harper & Brothers - Printed in the United States of America - - H--W - - - - - CONTENTS - - - CHAPTER PAGE - - FOREWORD vii - - I. THE CROWD AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM OF TO-DAY 1 - - II. HOW CROWDS ARE FORMED 11 - - III. THE CROWD AND THE UNCONSCIOUS 51 - - IV. THE EGOISM OF THE CROWD-MIND 73 - - V. THE CROWD A CREATURE OF HATE 92 - - VI. THE ABSOLUTISM OF THE CROWD-MIND 133 - - VII. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF REVOLUTIONARY CROWDS 166 - - VIII. THE FRUITS OF REVOLUTION--NEW CROWD-TYRANNIES - FOR OLD 219 - - IX. FREEDOM AND GOVERNMENT BY CROWDS 233 - - X. EDUCATION AS A POSSIBLE CURE FOR CROWD-THINKING 281 - - INDEX 305 - - - - -FOREWORD - - -Since the publication of Le Bon's book, _The Crowd_, little has been -added to our knowledge of the mechanisms of crowd-behavior. As a -practical problem, the habit of crowd-making is daily becoming a more -serious menace to civilization. Events are making it more and more clear -that, pressing as are certain economic questions, the forces which -threaten society are really psychological. - -Interest in the economic struggle has to a large extent diverted -attention from the significance of the problems of social psychology. -Social psychology is still a rather embryonic science, and this -notwithstanding the fact that psychiatry has recently provided us with a -method with which we may penetrate more deeply than ever before into the -inner sources of motive and conduct. - -The remedy which I have suggested in Chapter X deserves a much more -extended treatment than I have given it. It involves one of the great -mooted questions of modern philosophical discussion. It is, however, not -within the province of this book to enter upon a discussion of the -philosophy of Humanism. The subject has been thoroughly thrashed over in -philosophical journals and in the writings of James, Schiller, Dewey, -and others. It is sufficient for my purpose merely to point out the fact -that the humanist way of thinking may provide us with just that -educational method which will break up the logical forms in which the -crowd-mind intrenches itself. - -Those who expect to find a prescribed formula or ideal scheme of -organization as a remedy for our social ills may feel that the solution -to which I have come--namely, a new educational method--is too vague. -But the problem of the crowd is really concerned with the things of the -mind. And if I am correct in my thesis that there is a necessary -connection between crowd-thinking and the various traditional systems of -intellectualist, absolutist, and rationalist philosophy, the way out -must be through the formation of some such habits of thinking as I have -suggested. - - E. D. M. - -NEW YORK, _October 10, 1919_. - - - - -THE BEHAVIOR OF CROWDS - - - - -I - -THE CROWD AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM OF TO-DAY - - -Every one at times feels himself in the grip of social forces over which -he has no control. The apparently impersonal nature of these forces has -given rise to various mechanistic theories of social behavior. There are -those who interpret the events of history as by-products of economic -evolution. Others, more idealistic but determinists, nevertheless, see -in the record of human events the working out of a preordained plan. - -There is a popular notion, often shared by scholars, that the individual -and society are essentially irreconcilable principles. The individual is -assumed to be by nature an antisocial being. Society, on the other hand, -is opposed in principle to all that is personal and private. The demands -of society, its welfare and aims, are treated as if they were a tax -imposed upon each and every one by something foreign to the natural will -or even the happiness of all. It is as if society as "thing-in-itself" -could prosper in opposition to the individuals who collectively -constitute it. - -It is needless to say that both the individual and the social, according -to such a view, are empty abstractions. The individual is, in fact, a -social entity. Strip him of his social interests, endowments, and -habits, and the very feeling of self, or "social me" as William James -called it, vanishes and nothing is left but a Platonic idea and a reflex -arc. The social also is nothing else than the manner in which -individuals habitually react to one another. Society in the abstract, as -a principle opposed to individual existence, has no more reality than -that of the grin which Alice in Wonderland sees after the famous -Cheshire cat has vanished. It is the mere logical concept of others in -general, left leering at us after all the concrete others have been -thought away. - -Much social thinking is of this cat-grin sort. Having abstracted from -the thought of self everything that is social, and from the idea of the -social all that has to do with concrete persons, the task remains to get -pure grin and pure cat together again in such a way that neither shall -lose its identity in the other. It is, of course, impossible to -reconcile these mutually exclusive abstractions either in theory or in -practice. It is often difficult enough, even with the aid of empirical -thinking, to adjust our relations with the other people about us. But on -the Cheshire-cat hypothesis, the social problem can never be solved, -because it is not a real problem at all. - -Since the individual is therefore a social being as such, and the social -is just a way of acting together, the social problem does not grow out -of a conflict between the self and an impersonal social principle. The -conflicts are, in fact, clashes among certain individuals and groups of -them, or else--and this is a subject to which social psychology has paid -insufficient attention--the social struggle is in certain of its phases -a conflict within the personal psyche itself. Suppose that the -apparently impersonal element in social behavior is not impersonal in -fact, but is, for the most part, the result of an impersonal manner of -thinking about ourselves. Every psychic fact must really be an act of -somebody. There are no ideas without thinkers to think them, no -impersonal thoughts or disembodied impulses, no "independent" truths, no -transcendental principles existing in themselves and outside of human -heads. Life is everywhere reaction; it is nowhere a mere product or a -passive registering of impersonal forces. It is the organism's behavior -in the presence of what we call environment. - -Individual opinions cannot be tossed into a common hat, like small -coins. Though we may each learn from the others, there is no magic by -which our several thoughts can sum themselves up into a common fund of -public opinion or super-personal whole which thinks itself, there being -no collective head to think it. No matter how many people think and -behave as I do, each of us knows only his own thought and behavior. My -thought may be about you and what I judge you are thinking, but it is -not the same as your thought. To each the social is _nil_ except in so -far as he experiences it himself, and to each it is something unique -when viewed from within. The uniformity and illusion of identity--in -short, the impersonal aspect of social thinking and activity appears -only when we try to view social behavior from without--that is, as -objectively manifest in the behavior of others. - -What then is the secret of this impersonal view of the social? Why do we -think of ourselves socially in the same impersonal or external way that -we think of others? There is an interesting parallel here in the -behavior of certain types of mental pathology. There are neurotics who -commonly feel that certain aspects of their behavior are really not of -their own authorship, but come to them as the result of influences -acting from without. It was such phenomena in part that led -psychologists of a generation ago to construct the theory of "multiple -personality." It is known now that the psychic material which in these -cases appears to be automatic, and impersonal, in the sense that it is -not consciously willed, is really motivated by unconscious mechanisms. -The apparently "impersonal" behavior of the neurotic is psychologically -determined, though unconsciously. - -May there not be a like unconscious psychic determination of much that -is called social behavior? It is my thesis that this is so, and that -there are certain types of social behavior which are characterized by -unconscious motivation to such a degree that they may be placed in a -definite class of psychological phenomena. This group of phenomena I -have, following to some extent the terminology of Le Bon, called "The -Crowd." I wish there were a more exact word, for it is very difficult to -use the word crowd in its psychological sense without causing some -confusion in the mind of the reader. In ordinary speech "a crowd" is any -gathering of people. In the writings of Le Bon, as we shall see, the -word has a special meaning, denoting not a gathering of people as such, -but a gathering which behaves in a certain way which may be classified -and described psychologically as "crowd mentality." Not every gathering -of people shows this crowd-mentality. It is a characteristic which -appears under certain circumstances. In this discussion the word "crowd" -must be understood to mean the peculiar mental condition which sometimes -occurs when people think and act together, either immediately where the -members of the group are present and in close contact, or remotely, as -when they affect one another in a certain way through the medium of an -organization, a party or sect, the press, etc. - -The crowd while it is a social phenomenon differs greatly from the -social as such. People may be social--the family is an example of -this--without being a crowd either in thought or action. Again a -crowd--a mob is an example of this--may be distinctly antisocial, if we -attach any ethical meaning to the term. Both the individual and society -suffer, as we shall see, from crowd-behavior. I know of nothing which -to-day so menaces not only the values of civilization, but also--it is -the same thing in other words, perhaps--the achievement of personality -and true knowledge of self, as the growing habit of behaving as crowds. - -Our society is becoming a veritable babel of gibbering crowds. Not only -are mob outbreaks and riots increasing in number, but every interest, -patriotic, religious, ethical, political, economic, easily degenerates -into a confusion of propagandist tongues, into extravagant partisanship, -and intemperance. Whatever be the ideal to which we would attain, we -find the path of self-culture too slow; we must become army worms, -eating our way to the goal by sheer force of numbers. The councils of -democracy are conducted on about the psychological level of commercial -advertising and with about the same degree of sincerity. While it cannot -be said that the habit of crowd-making is peculiar to our times--other -ages, too, have indulged in it--it does seem that the tendency to -crowd-mindedness has greatly increased in recent years. - -Whether it is temperance, or justice, or greater freedom, moral -excellence or national glory, that we desire--whether we happen to be -conservatives or radicals, reformers or liberals, we must become a cult, -write our philosophy of life in flaming headlines, and sell our cause in -the market. No matter if we meanwhile surrender every value for which we -stand, we must strive to cajole the majority into imagining itself on -our side. For only with the majority with us, whoever we are, can we -live. It is numbers, not values, that count--quantity not quality. -Everybody must "moral-crusade," "agitate," "press-agent," play politics. -Everyone is forced to speak as the crowd, think as the crowd, -understand as the crowd. The tendency is to smother all that is unique, -rare, delicate, secret. If you are to get anywhere in this progressive -age you must be vulgar, you must add to your vulgarity unction. You must -take sides upon dilemmas which are but half true, change the tempo of -your music to ragtime, eat your spiritual food with a knife, drape -yourself in the flag of the dominant party. In other words, you must be -"one hundred per cent" crowd man. - -The effect of all this upon the individual is that he is permitted -neither to know nor to belong to himself. He becomes a mere banner -toter. He must hold himself ever in readiness to wiggle-waggle in the -perpetual Simon-says-thumbs-up game which his crowd is playing. He -spends his days playing a part which others have written for him; loses -much of his genuineness and courage, and pampers himself with imitation -virtues and second-hand truths. - -Upon the social peace the effect is equally bad. Unnecessary and -meaningless strife is engendered. An idolatry of phrases is enthroned. A -silly game of bullying and deception is carried on among contending -crowds, national, religious, moral, social. The great truths of -patriotism, morality, and religion become hardly more than -caricatures--mere instruments of crowds for putting their rivals on the -defensive, and securing obeisance from the members of the crowd itself, -easily repudiated in the hour of the crowd's victory. The social harmony -is menaced by numerous cliques and parties, ranging in size all the way -from the nation-crowd down to the smallest sect, each setting out like a -band of buccaneers bent upon nothing but its own dominance, and seeking -to justify its piratical conduct by time-worn platitudes. - -That which is meant by the cry of the Russian Revolution, "All power to -the soviets," is peculiar neither to Russia nor to the working class. -Such in spirit is the cry of every crowd, for every crowd is, -psychologically considered, a soviet. The industrial and political -danger of the soviet would amount to little or nothing, were it not for -the fact that the modern world is already _spiritually sovietized_. The -threatened soviet republic is hardly more than the practical result of a -hundred years of crowd-thinking on almost every subject. Whether -capitalist or proletarian, reformer or liberal, we have all along been -behaving and thinking in soviet fashion. In almost every important -matter in life we have ignored Emerson's warning that we must rely upon -ourselves, and have permitted ourselves to behave and think as crowds, -fastening their labels and dogmas upon our spirits and taking their -shibboleths upon our tongues, thinking more of the temporary triumph of -our particular sect or party than of the effect of our behavior upon -ourselves and others. - -There is certainly nothing new in the discovery that our social behavior -is not what it ought to be. Mediæval thinkers were as much aware of the -fact as we are, but they dismissed the social problem with the simple -declaration of the "sinfulness of human nature." Nineteenth-century -utilitarians felt that the social problem could be solved by more -enlightened and more reasonable behavior on the part of individuals. -Recent social psychology--of which the writings of Prof. William -McDougall are probably the best example, has abandoned the theory that -social behavior is primarily governed by reason or by considerations of -utility. A better explanation of social phenomena is found in instinct. -It is held that the true motives of social behavior are pugnacity, the -instinct of self-appreciation or self-debasement, of sex, -gregariousness, and the like. Each instinct with its "affective emotion" -becomes organized through various complex reactions to the social -environment, into fairly well established "sentiments." These sentiments -are held to be the controlling social forces. As McDougall says: - - We may say then that directly or indirectly the instincts are - the prime movers of all human activity; by the conative or - impulsive force of some instinct (or of some habit derived from - an instinct), every train of thought, however cold and - passionless it may seem, is borne along toward its end, and - every bodily activity is initiated and sustained. The - instinctive impulses determine the ends of all activities and - supply the driving-power by which all mental activities are - sustained; and all the complex intellectual apparatus of the - most highly developed mind is but a means toward those ends, is - but the instrument by which these impulses seek their - satisfactions.... These impulses are the mental forces that - maintain and shape all the life of individuals and societies, - and in them we are confronted with the central mystery of life - and mind and will. - -This is all very good so far as it goes. But I confess that I am -somewhat at loss to know just what it explains so far as crowd-behavior -is concerned. Do these instincts and sentiments operate the same under -all social conditions? Are some of them suppressed by society and forced -to seek their satisfaction in roundabout ways? If so, how? Moreover, I -fail to find in present-day social psychology, any more than in the -writings of Herbert Spencer, Sumner, Ward, and others, any clear -distinction between the characteristic behavior of crowds and other -forms of social activity. Only the school of Le Bon has shown any -definite appreciation of these facts. It is to Le Bon, therefore, in -spite of the many and just criticisms of his work, that we must turn -for a discussion of the crowd as a problem apart from social psychology -in general. Le Bon saw that the mind of the crowd demanded special -psychological study, but many of the psychological principles which he -used in solving the problem were inadequate to the task. Certain of his -conclusions were, therefore, erroneous. Since the close of the -nineteenth century, however, psychology has gained much insight into the -secret springs of human activity. Possibly the most significant -achievement in the history of this science is Freud's work in analytical -psychology. - -So much light has been thrown upon the unconscious by Freud and other -analytical psychologists, that psychology in all its branches is -beginning to take some of Freud's discoveries into account. Strictly -speaking, psychoanalysis is a therapeutic method. It has, however, -greatly enriched our knowledge of mental pathology, and thus much of its -data has become indispensable to general psychology and to social -psychology in particular. - -In his book the _Interpretation of Dreams_, Freud has shown that there -exist in the wish-fulfilling mechanisms of dream formation certain -definite laws. These laws undoubtedly underlie and determine also many -of our crowd-ideas, creeds, conventions, and social ideals. In his book, -_Totem and Taboo_, Freud has himself led the way to the application of -the analytical psychology to the customs and ideas of primitive groups. -I am sure that we shall find, as we proceed, that with the analytical -method we shall gain an entirely new insight into the causes and meaning -of the behavior of crowds. - - - - -II - -HOW CROWDS ARE FORMED - - -In his well-known work on the psychology of the crowd Le Bon noted the -fact that the unconscious plays a large part in determining the behavior -of crowds. But he is not clear in his use of the term "unconscious." In -fact, as Graham Wallas justly points out, his terminology is very loose -indeed. Le Bon seems to have made little or no attempt to discover in -detail the processes of this unconscious. In company with most -psychologists of his time, he based his explanation upon the theory of -"suggestion and imitation." He saw in the unconscious merely a sort of -mystical "common humanity," from which he derived his--also -mystical--idea of a common crowd-mind which each individual in the crowd -in some unexplained manner shared. He says: - - The most striking peculiarity presented by a psychological crowd - is the following: Whoever be the individuals that compose it, - however like or unlike be their mode of life, their occupations, - their character or their intelligence, the fact that they have - been transformed into a crowd puts them in possession of a sort - of collective mind which makes them feel, think, and act in a - manner quite different from that in which each individual of - them would feel, think, and act were he in a state of - isolation.... - - It is easy to prove how much the individual forming part of a - crowd differs from the isolated individual, but it is less easy - to discover the causes of this difference. - - To obtain, at any rate, a glimpse of them it is necessary in the - first place to call to mind the truth established by modern - psychology, that unconscious phenomena play an altogether - preponderating part, not only in organic life, but also in the - operations of intelligence.... Our conscious acts are the - outcome of an unconscious substratum created in the mind in the - main by heredity. This substratum consists of innumerable - characteristics handed down from generation to generation which - constitute the genius of the race.... - - It is more especially with respect to those unconscious elements - which constitute the genius of a race that all the individuals - belonging to it resemble each other.... It is precisely these - general qualities of character, governed by forces of which we - are unconscious and possessed by the majority of normal - individuals of a race in much the same degree--it is precisely - these qualities, I say, that in crowds become common property. - In the collective mind the intellectual aptitudes of the - individuals, and in consequence their individuality, are - weakened. The heterogeneous is swamped in the homogeneous and - the unconscious qualities obtain the upper hand. - -It may safely be said, I think, that this assumed impersonal collective -mind of the crowd has no existence in a sound psychology. People's -minds show, of course, innumerable mutual influences, but they do not -fuse and run together. They are in many respects very similar, but -similarity is not identity, even when people are crowded together. Our -author has doubtless borrowed here rather uncritically from Herbert -Spencer's organic conception of society--his later statement, not quoted -here, that the alleged merging of the heterogeneous in the homogeneous -would logically imply a regression to a lower stage in evolution, is -another bit of Spencerian jargon commonly accepted in Le Bon's day. - -When, however, Graham Wallas, in _The Great Society_, states that Le Bon -is not "himself clear whether he means that crowds have no collective -consciousness, or that every individual in a crowd is completely -unconscious," it seems to me that Wallas is a little unfair. Neither Le -Bon nor the relation of the unconscious to the crowd-mind may be -dismissed in Wallas's apparently easy manner. Le Bon has established two -points which I think cannot be successfully denied: first, that the -crowd is essentially a psychological phenomenon, people behaving -differently in a crowd from the way they behave when isolated; and -second, that the unconscious has something to do with crowd-thinking and -acting. - -Wallas says of Le Bon: - - Tarde and Le Bon were Frenchmen brought up on vivid descriptions - of the Revolution and themselves apprehensive of the spread of - socialism. Political movements which were in large part carried - out by men conscious and thoughtful, though necessarily ill - informed, seemed therefore to them as they watched them from the - outside to be due to the blind and unconscious impulses of - masses "incapable both of reflection and of reasoning." - -There is some truth in this criticism. In spite of the attempt of the -famous author of crowd-psychology to give us a really scientific -explanation of crowd-phenomena, his obviously conservative bias robs his -work of much of its power to convince. We find here, just as in the case -of Gobineau, Nietzsche, Faguet, Conway, and other supporters of the -aristocratic idea, an a priori principle of distrust of the common -people as such. In many passages Le Bon does not sufficiently -distinguish between the crowd and the masses. Class and mass are opposed -to each other as though, due to their superior reasoning powers, the -classes were somehow free from the danger of behaving as crowd. This is -of course not true. Any class may behave and think as a crowd--in fact -it usually does so in so far as its class interests are concerned. -Anyone who makes a study of the public mind in America to-day will find -that the phenomena of the crowd-mind are not at all confined to -movements within the working class or so-called common people. - -It has long been the habit of conservative writers to identify the crowd -with the proletariat and then to feel that the psychology of the -situation could be summed up in the statement that the crowd was simply -the creature of passion and blind emotion. The psychology which lies -back of such a view--if it is psychology rather than class prejudice--is -the old intellectualism which sought to isolate the intellect from the -emotional nature and make the true mental life primarily a knowledge -affair. The crowd, therefore, since it was regarded as an affair of the -emotions, was held to be one among many instances of the natural mental -inferiority of the common people, and a proof of their general unfitness -for self-government. - -I do not believe that this emotional theory is the true explanation of -crowd-behavior. It cannot be denied that people in a crowd become -strangely excited. But it is not only in crowds that people show -emotion. Feeling, instinct, impulse, are the dynamic of all mental life. -The crowd doubtless inhibits as many emotions as it releases. Fear is -conspicuously absent in battle, pity in a lynching mob. Crowds are -notoriously anæsthetic toward the finer values of art, music, and -poetry. It may even be argued that the feelings of the crowd are -dulled, since it is only the exaggerated, the obvious, the cheaply -sentimental, which easily moves it. - -There was a time when insanity was also regarded as excessive emotion. -The insane man was one who raved, he was mad. The word "crazy" still -suggests the condition of being "out of one's mind"--that is, driven by -irrational emotion. Psychiatry would accept no such explanation to-day. -Types of insanity are distinguished, not with respect to the mere amount -of emotional excitement they display, but in accordance with the -patient's whole psychic functioning. The analyst looks for some -mechanism of controlling ideas and their relation to impulses which are -operating in the unconscious. So with our understanding of the -crowd-mind. Le Bon is correct in maintaining that the crowd is not a -mere aggregation of people. _It is a state of mind._ A peculiar psychic -change must happen to a group of people before they become a crowd. And -as this change is not merely a release of emotion, neither is it the -creation of a collective mind by means of imitation and suggestion. My -thesis is that _the crowd-mind is a phenomenon which should best be -classed with dreams, delusions, and the various forms of automatic -behavior_. The controlling ideas of the crowd are the result neither of -reflection nor of "suggestion," but are akin to what, as we shall see -later, the psychoanalysts term "complexes." The crowd-self--if I may -speak of it in this way--is analogous in many respects to "compulsion -neurosis," "somnambulism," or "paranoiac episode." Crowd ideas are -"fixations"; they are always symbolic; they are always related to -something repressed in the unconscious. They are what Doctor Adler would -call "fictitious guiding lines." - -There is a sense in which all our thinking consists of symbol and -fiction. The laws, measurements, and formulas of science are all as it -were "shorthand devices"--instruments for relating ourselves to reality, -rather than copies of the real. The "truth" of these working ideas is -demonstrated in the satisfactoriness of the results to which they lead -us. If by means of them we arrive at desired and desirable adaptations -to and within our environment, we say they are verified. If, however, no -such verification is reached, or the result reached flatly contradicts -our hypothesis, the sane thinker holds his conclusions in abeyance, -revises his theories, or candidly gives them up and clings to the real -as empirically known. - -Suppose now that a certain hypothesis, or "fiction," instead of being an -instrument for dealing with external reality, is unconsciously designed -as a refuge from the real. Suppose it is a symbolic compromise among -conflicting desires in the individual's unconscious of which he cannot -rid himself. Suppose it is a disguised expression of motives which the -individual as a civilized being cannot admit to his own consciousness. -Suppose it is a fiction necessary to keep up one's ego consciousness or -self-appreciative feeling without which either he or his world would -instantly become valueless. In these latter cases the fiction is not and -cannot be, without outside help, modified by the reality of experience. -The complex of ideas becomes a closed system, a world in and of itself. -Conflicting facts of experience are discounted and denied by all the -cunning of an insatiable, unconscious will. The fiction then gets itself -substituted for the true facts of experience; the individual has "lost -the function of the real." He no longer admits its disturbing elements -as correctives. He has become mentally unadjusted--pathological. - -Most healthy people doubtless would on analysis reveal themselves as -nourishing fictions of this sort, more or less innocent in their -effects. It is possible that it is by means of such things that the -values of living are maintained for us all. But with the healthy these -fictions either hover about the periphery of our known world as shadowy -and elusive inhabitants of the inaccessible, or else they are socially -acceptable as religious convention, race pride, ethical values, personal -ambition, class honor, etc. The fact that so much of the ground of our -valuations, at least so far as these affect our self-appreciation, is -explicable by psychologists as "pathological" in origin need not startle -us. William James in his _Varieties of Religious Experience_, you will -remember, took the ground that in judging of matters of this kind, it is -not so much by their origins--even admitting the pathological as a -cause--but by their fruits that we shall know them. There are "fictions" -which are neither innocent nor socially acceptable in their effects on -life and character. Many of our crowd-phenomena belong, like paranoia, -to this last class. - -As I shall try to show later, the common confusion of the crowd with -"society" is an error. The crowd is a social phenomenon only in the -sense that it affects a number of persons at the same time. As I have -indicated, people may be highly social without becoming a crowd. They -may meet, mingle, associate in all sorts of ways, and organize and -co-operate for the sake of common ends--in fact, the greater part of our -social life might normally have nothing in common with crowd-behavior. -Crowd-behavior is pseudo-social--if social organizations be regarded as -a means to the achievement of realizable goods. The phenomena which we -call the crowd-mind, instead of being the outgrowth of the directly -social, are social only in the sense that all mental life has social -significance; they are rather the result of forces hidden in the -personal and unconscious psyche of the members of the crowd, forces -which are merely _released_ by social gatherings of a certain sort. - -Let us notice what happens in a public meeting as it develops into a -crowd, and see if we can trace some of the steps of the process. Picture -a large meeting-hall, fairly well filled with people. Notice first of -all what sort of interest it is which as a rule will most easily bring -an assemblage of people together. It need not necessarily be a matter of -great importance, but it must be something which catches and challenges -attention without great effort. It is most commonly, therefore, an -_issue_ of some sort. I have seen efforts made in New York to hold mass -meetings to discuss affairs of the very greatest importance, and I have -noted the fact that such efforts usually fail to get out more than a -handful of specially interested persons, no matter how well advertised, -if the subject to be considered happens not to be of a controversial -nature. I call especial attention to this fact because later we shall -see that it is this element of conflict, directly or indirectly, which -plays an overwhelming part in the psychology of every crowd. - -It is the element of contest which makes baseball so popular. A debate -will draw a larger crowd than a lecture. One of the secrets of the large -attendance of the forum is the fact that discussion--"talking back"--is -permitted and encouraged. The evangelist Sunday undoubtedly owes the -great attendance at his meetings in no small degree to the fact that he -is regularly expected to abuse some one. - -If the matter to be considered is one about which there is keen partisan -feeling and popular resentment--if it lends itself to the spectacular -personal achievement of one whose name is known, especially in the face -of opposition or difficulties--or if the occasion permits of resolutions -of protest, of the airing of wrongs, of denouncing abuse of some kind, -or of casting statements of external principles in the teeth of "enemies -of humanity," then, however trivial the occasion, we may count on it -that our assembly will be well attended. Now let us watch the -proceedings. - -The next thing in importance is the speaker. Preferably he should be an -"old war horse," a victor in many battles, and this for a psychological -reason which we shall soon examine. Whoever he is, every speaker with -any skill knows just when this state of mind which we call "crowd" -begins to appear. My work has provided me with rather unusual -opportunities for observing this sort of thing. As a regular lecturer -and also as director of the forum which meets three nights a week in the -great hall of Cooper Union, I have found that the intellectual interest, -however intense, and the development of the crowd-spirit are accompanied -by wholly different mental processes. Let me add in passing that the -audiences which gather at Cooper Union are, on the whole, the most -alert, sophisticated, and reflective that I have ever known. I doubt if -in any large popular assembly in America general discussion is carried -on with such habitual seriousness. When on rare occasions the spirit of -the crowd begins to manifest itself--and one can always detect its -beginnings before the audience is consciously aware of it--I have -noticed that discussion instantly ceases and people begin merely to -repeat their creeds and hurl cant phrases at one another. All then is -changed, though subtly. There may be laughter as at first; but it is -different. Before, it was humorous and playful, now there is a note of -hostility in it. It is laughter _at_ some one or something. Even the -applause is changed. It is more frequent. It is more vigorous, and -instead of showing mere approval of some sentiment, it becomes a means -of showing the numerical strength of a group of believers of some sort. -It is as if those who applaud were unconsciously seeking to reveal to -themselves and others that there is a multitude on their side. - -I have heard the most exciting and controversial subjects discussed, and -seen the discussion listened to with the intensest difference of -opinion, and all without the least crowd-phenomena--so long as the -speaker refrained from indulging in generalities or time-worn forms of -expression. So long as the matter discussed requires close and sustained -effort of attention, and the method of treatment is kept free from -anything which savors of ritual, even the favorite dogmas of popular -belief may be discussed, and though the interest be intense, it will -remain critical and the audience does not become a crowd. But let the -most trivial bit of bathos be expressed in rhythmical cadences and in -platitudinous terms, and the most intelligent audience will react as a -crowd. Crowd-making oratory is almost invariably platitudinous. In fact, -we think as a crowd only in platitudes, propaganda, ritual, dogma, and -symbol. Crowd-ideas are ready-made, they possess finality and -universality. They are fixed. They do not develop. They are ends in -themselves. Like the obsessions of the insane, there is a deadly -inevitability in the logic of them. They are "compulsions." - -During the time of my connection with the Cooper Union Forum, we have -not had a crowd-demonstration in anything more than an incipient form. -The best laboratory for the study of such a phenomenon is the political -party convention, the mass meeting, or the religious revival. The -orators who commonly hold forth at such gatherings know intuitively the -functional value of bathos, ridicule, and platitude, and it is upon such -knowledge that they base the success of their careers in "getting the -crowd." The noisy "demonstrations" which it has of late become the -custom to stage as part of the rigmarole of a national party convention -have been cited as crowning examples of the stupidity and excess of -crowd enthusiasm. But this is a mistake. Anyone who has from the gallery -witnessed one or more of these mock "stampedes" will agree that they are -exhibitions of endurance rather than of genuine enthusiasm or of true -crowd-mindedness. They are so obviously manipulated and so deliberately -timed that they can hardly be regarded as true crowd-movements at all. -They are chiefly interesting as revelations of the general insincerity -of the political life of this republic. - -True crowd-behavior requires an element of spontaneity--at least on the -part of the crowd. And we have abundant examples of this in public -meetings of all sorts. As the audience becomes crowd, the speaker's -cadence becomes more marked, his voice more oracular, his gestures more -emphatic. His message becomes a recital of great abstract "principles." -The purely obvious is held up as transcendental. Interest is kept upon -just those aspects of things which can be grasped with least effort by -all. Emphasis is laid upon those thought processes in which there is -greatest natural uniformity. The general, abstract, and superficial come -to be exalted at the expense of that which is unique and personal. Forms -of thought are made to stand as objects of thinking. - -It is clear that such meaning as there is in those abstract names, -"Justice," "Right," "Liberty," "Peace," "Glory," "Destiny," etc., or in -such general phrases as "Brotherly Love," "Grand and Glorious," "Public -Weal," "Common Humanity," and many others, must vary with each one's -personal associations. Popular orators deal only with the greatest -common denominator of the meaning of these terms--that is, only those -elements which are common to the associations of all. Now the common -associations of words and phrases of this general nature are very -few--hardly more than the bare sound of the words, plus a vague mental -attitude or feeling of expectancy, a mere turning of the eyes of the -mind, as it were, in a certain direction into empty space. When, for -instance, I try now to leave out of the content of "justice" all my -personal associations and concrete experiences, I can discover no -remaining content beyond a sort of grand emptiness, with the intonations -of the word booming in my auditory centers like the ringing of a distant -bell. As "public property," the words are only a sort of worn banknote, -symbols of many meanings and intentions like my own, deposited in -individual minds. Interesting as these personal deposits are, and much -as we are mutually interested by them and moved to harmonious acting and -speaking, it is doubtful if more than the tiniest fragment of what we -each mean by "justice" can ever be communicated. The word is a -convenient instrument in adjusting our conduct to that of others, and -when such adjustment seems to meet with mutual satisfaction we say, -"That is just." But the just thing is always a concrete situation. And -the general term "justice" is simply a combination of sounds used to -indicate the class of things we call just. In itself it is but a form -with the content left out. And so with all other such abstractions. - -Now if attention can be directed to this imaginary and vague "meaning -for everybody"--which is really the meaning for nobody--and so directed -that the associations with the unique in personal experience are -blocked, these abstractions will occupy the whole field of -consciousness. The mind will yield to any connection which is made among -them almost automatically. As conscious attention is cut away from the -psyche as a whole, the objects upon which it is centered will appear to -have a reality of their own. They become a closed system, perfectly -logical it may be in itself, but with the fatal logic commonly found in -paranoia--the fiction may become more real than life itself. It may be -substituted, while the spell is on, for the world of actual experience. -And just as the manifest content of a dream is, according to Freud, the -condensed and distorted symbol of latent dream-thoughts and desires in -the unconscious, so, in the case we are discussing, the unconscious -invests these abstract terms with its own peculiar meanings. They gain a -tremendous, though undefined, importance and an irresistible compelling -power. - -Something like the process I have described occurs when the crowd -appears. People are translated to a different world--that is, a -different sense of the real. The speaker is transfigured to their -vision. His words take on a mysterious importance; something tremendous, -eternal, superhuman is at stake. Commonplace jokes become irresistibly -amusing. Ordinary truths are wildly applauded. Dilemmas stand clear with -all middle ground brushed away. No statement now needs qualification. -All thought of compromise is abhorrent. Nothing now must intervene to -rob these moments of their splendid intensity. As James once said of -drunkenness, "Everything is just utterly utter." They who are not for us -are against us. - -The crowd-mind consists, therefore, first of all, of a disturbance of -the function of the real. _The crowd is the creature of Belief._ Every -crowd has its peculiar "illusions," ideals, dreams. It maintains its -existence as a crowd just so long as these crowd-ideas continue to be -held by practically all the members of the group--so long, in fact, as -such ideas continue to hold attention and assent to the exclusion of -ideas and facts which contradict them. - -I am aware of the fact that we could easily be led aside at this point -into endless metaphysical problems. It is not our purpose to enter upon -a discussion of the question, what is the real world? The problem of the -real is by no means so simple as it appears "to common sense." Common -sense has, however, in practical affairs, its own criteria, and beyond -these it is not necessary for us now to stray. The "illusions" of the -crowd are almost never illusions in the psychological sense. They are -not false perceptions of the objects of sense. They are rather akin to -the delusions and fixed ideas commonly found in paranoia. The man in -the street does not ordinarily require the technique either of -metaphysics or of psychiatry in order to characterize certain -individuals as "crazy." The "crazy" man is simply unadjustable in his -speech and conduct. His ideas may be real to him, just as the -color-blind man's sensations of color may be as real as those of normal -people, but they won't work, and that is sufficient. - -It is not so easy to apply this criterion of the real to our -crowd-ideas. Social realities are not so well ordered as the behavior of -the forces of nature. Things moral, religious, and political are -constantly in the making. The creative role which we all play here is -greater than elsewhere in our making of reality. When most of our -neighbors are motivated by certain ideas, those ideas become part of the -social environment to which we must adjust ourselves. In this sense they -are "real," however "crazy." Every struggle-group and faction in society -is constantly striving to establish its ideas as controlling forces in -the social reality. The conflicts among ideals are therefore in a sense -conflicts within the real. Ideas and beliefs which seek their -verification in the character of the results to which they lead, may -point to very great changes in experience, and so long as the believer -takes into account the various elements with which he has to deal, he -has not lost his hold upon reality. But when one's beliefs or principles -become ends in themselves, when by themselves they seem to constitute an -order of being which is more interesting than fact, when the believer -saves his faith only by denying or ignoring the things which contradict -him, when he strives not to verify his ideas but to "vindicate" them, -the ideas so held are pathological. The obsessions of the paranoiac are -of this sort. We shall see later that these ideas have a meaning, though -the conscious attention of the patient is systematically diverted from -that meaning. Crowd-ideas are similar. The reason why their pathology is -not more evident is the fact that they are simultaneously entertained by -so great a number of people. - -There are many ideas in which our faith is sustained chiefly by the -knowledge that everyone about us also believes them. Belief on such -ground has commonly been said to be due to imitation or suggestion. -These do play a large part in determining all our thinking, but I can -see no reason why they should be more operative in causing the -crowd-mind than in other social situations. In fact, the distinctive -phenomena which I have called crowd-ideas clearly show that other causes -are at work. - -Among civilized people, social relationships make severe demands upon -the individual. Primitive impulses, unchecked eroticism, tendencies to -perversions, and antisocial demands of the ego which are in us all, are -constantly inhibited, resisted, controlled and diverted to socially -acceptable ends. The savage in us is "repressed," his demands are so -habitually denied that we learn to keep him down, for the most part, -without conscious effort. We simply cease to pay attention to his -gnawing desires. We become decently respectable members of society -largely at the expense of our aboriginal nature. But the primitive in us -does not really die. It asserts itself harmlessly in dreams. -Psychoanalysis has revealed the fact that every dream is the realization -of some desire, usually hidden from our conscious thought by our -habitual repression. For this reason the dream work consists of symbols. -The great achievement of Freud is the technique which enables the -analyst to interpret this symbolism so that his own unconscious thought -and desire are made known to the subject. The dream is harmless and is -normally utilized by the unconscious ego because during sleep we cannot -move. If one actually did the things he dreamed, a thing which happens -in various somnambulisms, the dream would become anything but harmless. -Every psychosis is really a dramatized dream of this sort. - -Now as it is the social which demands the repression of our primitive -impulses, it is to be expected that the unconscious would on certain -occasions make use of this same social in order to realize its primitive -desires. There are certain mental abnormalities, such as dementia -præcox, in which the individual behaves in a wholly antisocial manner, -simply withdrawing into himself. _In the crowd the primitive ego -achieves its wish by actually gaining the assent and support of a -section of society. The immediate social environment is all pulled in -the same direction as the unconscious desire._ A similar unconscious -impulse motivates each member of the crowd. It is as if all at once an -unspoken agreement were entered into whereby each member might let -himself go, on condition that he approved the same thing in all the -rest. Of course such a thing cannot happen consciously. Our normal -social consciousness would cause us each to resist, let us say, an -exhibition of cruelty--in our neighbors, and also in ourselves. The -impulse must therefore be disguised. - -The term "unconscious" in the psychology of the crowd does not, of -course, imply that the people in the crowd are not aware of the fact -that they are lynching a negro or demanding the humiliation or -extermination of certain of their fellows. Everybody is perfectly aware -of what is being said and done; only _the moral significance_ of the -thing is changed. The deed or sentiment, instead of being disapproved, -appears to be demanded, by moral principle, by the social welfare, by -the glory of the state, etc. What is unconscious is the fact that the -social is actually being twisted around into giving approval of the -things which it normally forbids. Every crowd considers that it is -vindicating some sacred principle. The more bloody and destructive the -acts to which it is impelled, the more moral are its professions. Under -the spell of the crowd's logic certain abstract principles lead -inevitably to the characteristic forms of crowd-behavior. They seem to -glorify such acts, to make heroes and martyrs of those who lead in their -performance. - -The attention of everyone is first centered on the abstract and -universal, as I have indicated. The repressed wish then unconsciously -gives to the formulas which the crowd professes a meaning different from -that which appears, yet unconsciously associated with it. This -unconscious meaning is of course an impulse to act. But the motive -professed is not the real motive. - -Normally our acts and ideas are corrected by our social environment. But -in a crowd our test of the real fails us, because, since the attention -of all near us is directed in the same way as our own, the social -environment for the time fails to check us. As William James said: - - The sense that anything we think is unreal can only come when - that thing is contradicted by some other thing of which we - think. Any object which remains uncontradicted is _ipso facto_ - believed and posited as "absolute reality." - -Our immediate social environment is all slipping along with us. It no -longer contradicts the thing we want to believe, and, unconsciously, -want to do. As the uncontradicted idea is, for the time, reality, so is -it a motor impulse. The only normal reason why we do not act immediately -upon any one of our ideas is that action is inhibited by ideas of a -contradictory nature. As crowd, therefore, we find ourselves moving in a -fictitious system of ideas uncritically accepted as real--not as in -dreams realizing our hidden wishes, merely in imagination, but also -impelled to act them out in much the way that the psychoeurotic is -impelled to act out the fixed ideas which are really the symbols of his -suppressed wish. In other words, _a crowd is a device for indulging -ourselves in a kind of temporary insanity by all going crazy together_. - -Of the several kinds of crowds, I have selected for our discussion the -mass meeting, because we are primarily interested in the _ideas_ which -dominate the crowd. The same essential psychological elements are also -found in the street crowd or mob. Serious mob outbreaks seldom occur -without mass meetings, oratory, and propaganda. Sometimes, as in the -case of the French Revolution and of the rise of the Soviets in Russia, -the mass meetings are held in streets and public places. Sometimes, as, -for instance, the crowds in Berlin when Germany precipitated the World -War, a long period of deliberate cultivation of such crowd-ideas as -happen to be advantageous to the state precedes. There are instances, -such as the Frank case, which brought unenviable fame to Georgia, when -no mass meeting seems to have been held. It is possible that in this -instance, however, certain newspapers, and also the trial--which, as I -remember, was held in a theater and gave an ambitious prosecuting -attorney opportunity to play the role of mob leader--served the purpose -of the mass meeting. - -The series of outbreaks in New York and other cities, shortly after the -War, between the socialists and certain returned soldiers, seem to have -first occurred quite unexpectedly, as do the customary negro lynchings -in the South. In each case I think it will be found that the complex of -crowd-ideas had been previously built up in the unconscious. A -deep-seated antagonism had been unconsciously associated with the -self-appreciative feelings of a number of individuals, all of which -found justification in the consciousness of these persons in the form -of devotion to principle, loyalty, moral enthusiasm, etc. I suspect that -under many of our professed principles there lurk elements of -unconscious sadism and masochism. All that is then required is an -occasion, some casual incident which will so direct the attention of a -number of these persons that they provide one another temporarily with a -congenial social environment. In the South this mob complex is doubtless -formed out of race pride, a certain unconscious eroticism, and will to -power, which unfortunately has too abundant opportunity to justify -itself as moral indignation. With the returned soldiers the unconscious -desires were often rather thinly disguised--primitive impulses to -violence which had been aroused and hardly satisfied by the war, a wish -to exhibit themselves which found its opportunity in the knowledge that -their lawlessness would be applauded in certain influential quarters, a -dislike of the nonconformist, the foreign, and the unknown, which took -the outward form of a not wholly unjustifiable resentment toward the -party which had to all appearances unpatriotically opposed our entrance -into the war. - -Given a psychic situation of this nature, the steps by which it leads to -mob violence are much alike in all cases. All together they simply -amount to a process of like direction of the attention of a sufficient -number of persons so affected as to produce a temporary social -environment in which the unconscious impulses may be released with -mutual approval. The presence of the disliked object or person gains -general attention. At first there is only curiosity; then amusement; -there is a bantering of crude witticisms; then ridicule. Soon the joking -turns to insults. There are angry exclamations. A blow is struck. There -is a sudden rush. The blow, being the act which the members of the crowd -each unconsciously wished to do, gains general approval, "it is a blow -for righteousness"; a "cause" appears. Casually associated persons at -once become a group, brought together, of course, by their interest in -vindicating the principles at stake. The mob finds itself suddenly doing -things which its members did not know they had ever dreamed of. - -Different as this process apparently is from that by which a meeting is -turned into a crowd by an orator, I think it will be seen that the two -are essentially alike. - -Thus far we have been considering crowd-movements which are local and -temporary--casual gatherings, which, having no abiding reason for -continued association, soon dissolve into their individual elements. -Frequently, after participating in such a movement, the individual, on -returning to his habitual relations, "comes to." He wonders what the -affair was all about. In the light of his re-established control -ideas--he will call it "reason"--the unconscious impulses are again -repressed; he may look with shame and loathing upon yesterday's orgy. -Acts which he would ordinarily disapprove in his neighbors, he now -disapproves in himself. If the behavior of the crowd has not been -particularly atrocious and inexcusable to ordinary consciousness, the -reaction is less strong. The voter after the political campaign merely -"loses interest." The convert in the revival "backslides." The striker -returns to work and is soon absorbed by the daily routine of his task. -The fiery patriot, after the war, is surprised to find that his hatred -of the enemy is gradually waning. Electors who have been swept by a wave -of enthusiasm for "reform" and have voted for a piece of ill-considered -restrictive legislation easily lapse into indifference, and soon look -with unconcern or amusement upon open violations of their own -enactments. There is a common saying that the public has a short memory. -Pick up an old newspaper and read about the great movements and causes -which were only a short time ago stirring the public mind, many of them -are now dead issues. But they were not answered by argument; we simply -"got over" them. - -Not all crowd-movements, however, are local and temporary. There are -passing moments of crowd-experience which are often too sweet to lose. -The lapse into everyday realism is like "falling from grace." The crowd -state of mind strives often to keep itself in countenance by -perpetuating the peculiar social-psychic conditions in which it can -operate. There are certain forms of the ego consciousness which are best -served by the fictions of the crowd. An analogy here is found in -paranoia, where the individual's morbid fixed ideas are really devices -for the protection of his self-esteem. The repressed infantile psyche -which exists in us all, and in certain neurotics turns back and attaches -itself to the image of the parent, finds also in the crowd a path for -expression. It provides a perpetual interest in keeping the crowd-state -alive. Notice how invariably former students form alumni associations, -and returned soldiers at once effect permanent organizations; persons -who have been converted in one of Mr. Sunday's religious campaigns do -the same thing--indeed there are associations of all sorts growing out -of these exciting moments in people's common past experience, the -purpose of which is mutually to recall the old days and aid one another -in keeping alive the enlarged self-feeling. - -In addition to this, society is filled with what might be called -"struggle groups" organized for the survival and dominance of similarly -constituted or situated people. Each group has its peculiar interests, -economic, spiritual, racial, etc., and each such interest is a mixture -of conscious and unconscious purposes. These groups become sects, cults, -partisan movements, class struggles. They develop propaganda, ritual, -orthodoxies, dogma, all of which are hardly anything more than -stereotyped systems of crowd-ideas. These systems differ from those of -the neurosis in that the former are less idiosyncratic, but they -undoubtedly perform much the same function. The primary aim of every -such crowd is to keep itself together as a crowd. Hardly less important -is the desire of its members to dominate over all outsiders. The -professed purpose is to serve some cause or principle of universal -import. Thus the crowd idealizes itself as an end, makes sanctities of -its own survival values, and holds up its ideals to all men, demanding -that every knee shall bow and every tongue confess--which is to say, -that the crowd believes in its own future supremacy, the members of the -group knowing that such a belief has survival value. This principle is -used by every politician in predicting that his party is bound to win at -the next election. - -Hence the crowd is a device by which the individual's "right" may be -baptized "righteousness" in general, and this personality by putting on -impersonality may rise again to new levels of self-appreciation. He -"belongs to something," something "glorious" and deathless. He himself -may be but a miserable clod, but the glory of his crowd reflects upon -him. Its expected triumph he already shares. It gives him back his lost -sense of security. As a good crowd man, true believer, loyal citizen, -devoted member, he has regained something of his early innocence. In -other members he has new brothers and sisters. In the finality of his -crowd-faith there is escape from responsibility and further search. He -is willing to be commanded. He is a child again. He has transferred his -repressed infantilism from the lost family circle to the crowd. There is -a very real sense in which the crowd stands to his emotional life _in -loco parentis_. - -It is to be expected, therefore, that wherever possible the crowd-state -of mind will be perpetuated. Every sort of device will be used to keep -the members of the crowd from coming to. In almost every organization -and social relationship there will be a tendency on part of the -unconscious to behave as crowd. Thus permanent crowds exist on every -hand--especially wherever political, moral, or religious ideas are -concerned. The general and abstract character of these ideas makes them -easily accessible instruments for justifying and screening the -unconscious purpose. Moreover it is in just those aspects of our social -life where repression is greatest that crowd-thinking is most common, -for it is by means of such thinking and behavior that the unconscious -seeks evasions and finds its necessary compensations. - -The modern man has in the printing press a wonderfully effective means -for perpetuating crowd-movements and keeping great masses of people -constantly under the sway of certain crowd-ideas. Every crowd-group has -its magazines, press agents, and special "literature" with which it -continually harangues its members and possible converts. Many books, and -especially certain works of fiction of the "best-seller" type, are -clearly reading-mob phenomena. - -But the leader in crowd-thinking _par excellence_ is the daily -newspaper. With few exceptions our journals emit hardly anything but -crowd-ideas. These great "molders of public opinion," reveal every -characteristic of the vulgar mob orator. The character of the writing -commonly has the standards and prejudices of the "man in the street." -And lest this man's ego consciousness be offended by the sight -of anything "highbrow"--that is, anything indicating that there -may be a superior intelligence or finer appreciation than his -own--newspaper-democracy demands that everything more exalted than the -level of the lowest cranial altitude be left out. The average result is -a deluge of sensational scandal, class prejudice, and special pleading -clumsily disguised with a saccharine smear of the cheapest moral -platitude. Consequently, the thinking of most of us is carried on -chiefly in the form of crowd-ideas. A sort of public-meeting self is -developed in the consciousness of the individual which dominates the -personality of all but the reflective few. We editorialize and -press-agent ourselves in our inmost musings. Public opinion is -manufactured just as brick are made. Possibly a slightly better -knowledge of mechanical engineering is required for making public -opinion, but the process is the same. Both can be stamped out in the -quantity required, and delivered anywhere to order. Our thinking on most -important subjects to-day is as little original as the mental processes -of the men who write and the machines which print the pages we read and -repeat as our own opinions. - -Thomas Carlyle was never more sound than when railing at this "paper -age." And paper, he wisely asked us to remember, "is made of old rags." -Older writers who saw the ragged throngs in the streets were led to -identify the mob or crowd with the tattered, illiterate populace. Our -mob to-day is no longer merely tramping the streets. We have it at the -breakfast table, in the subway, alike in shop and boudoir, and -office--wherever, in fact, the newspaper goes. And the raggedness is not -exterior, nor is the mob confined to the class of the ill-clad and the -poor. The raggedness, and tawdriness have now become spiritual, a -universal presence entering into the fabric of nearly all our mental -processes. - -We have now reached a point from which we can look back over the ground -we have traversed and note the points of difference between our view and -the well-known theory of Le Bon. The argument of the latter is as -follows: (1) From the standpoint of psychology, the crowd, as the term -is here defined, is not merely a group of people, it is the appearance -within such a group of a special mental condition, or crowd-mind. (2) -The sentiments and ideas of all the persons in the gathering take one -and the same direction. (3) Conscious personality vanishes. (4) A -collective mind is formed: This is Le Bon's "Law of the mental unity of -crowds." (5) This collective mind consists in the main of "general -qualities of character" which are our common racial inheritance. It is -an "unconscious substratum" which in the crowd becomes uppermost, -dominating over the unique personal consciousness. (6) Three causes -determine the characteristics of the crowd-mind, (a) From purely -numerical considerations, the individual acquires a sentiment of -invincible power which encourages him in an unrestrained yielding to his -instincts, (b) Contagion, or imitation, and (c) hypnotic suggestion -cause the individuals in the crowd to become "slaves of all the -unconscious activities of the spinal cord." (7) The resulting -characteristics of the crowd are (a) a descent of several rungs in the -ladder of civilization, (b) a general intellectual inferiority as -compared with the isolated individual, (c) loss of moral responsibility, -(d) impulsiveness, (e) credulity, (f) exaggeration, (g) intolerance, (h) -blind obedience to the leader of the crowd, (i) a mystical emotionalism. -(8) The crowd is finally and somewhat inconsistently treated by Le Bon -as being identical with the masses, the common people, the herd. - -Without pausing to review the criticisms of this argument which were -made at the beginning of our discussion, our own view may be summarized -as follows: (1) The crowd is not the same as the masses, or any class or -gathering of people as such, but is a certain mental condition which may -occur simultaneously to people in any gathering or association. (2) This -condition is not a "collective mind." It is a release of repressed -impulses which is made possible because certain controlling ideas have -ceased to function in the immediate social environment. (3) This -modification in the immediate social environment is the result of mutual -concessions on the part of persons whose unconscious impulses to do a -certain forbidden thing are similarly disguised as sentiments which meet -with conscious moral approval. (4) Such a general disguising of the real -motive is a characteristic phenomenon of dreams and of mental pathology, -and occurs in the crowd by fixing the attention of all present upon the -abstract and general. Attention is thus held diverted from the -individual's personal associations, permitting these associations and -their accompanying impulses to function unconsciously. (5) The abstract -ideas so entertained become symbols of meanings which are unrecognized; -they form a closed system, like the obsessions of the paranoiac, and as -the whole group are thus moved in the same direction, the "compulsory" -logic of these ideas moves forward without those social checks which -normally keep us within bounds of the real. Hence, acting and thinking -in the crowd become stereotyped and "ceremonial." Individuals move -together like automatons. (6) As the unconscious chiefly consists of -that part of our nature which is habitually repressed by the social, and -as there is always, therefore, an unconscious resistance to this -repressive force, it follows that the crowd state, like the neurosis, -is a mechanism of escape and of compensation. It also follows that the -crowd-spirit will occur most commonly in reference to just those social -forms where repression is greatest--in matters political, religious, and -moral. (7) The crowd-mind is then not a mere excess of emotion on the -part of people who have abandoned "reason"; crowd-behavior is in a sense -psychopathic and has many elements in common with somnambulism, the -compulsion neurosis, and even paranoia. (8) Crowds may be either -temporary or permanent in their existence. Permanent crowds, with the -aid of the press, determine in greater or less degree the mental habits -of nearly everyone. The individual moves through his social world like a -popular freshman on a college campus, who is to be "spiked" by one or -another fraternity competing for his membership. A host of crowds -standing for every conceivable "cause" and "ideal" hover constantly -about him, ceaselessly screaming their propaganda into his ears, -bullying and cajoling him, pushing and crowding and denouncing one -another, and forcing all willy-nilly to line up and take sides with them -upon issues and dilemmas which represent the real convictions of -nobody. - - - - -III - -THE CROWD AND THE UNCONSCIOUS - - -Throughout the discussion thus far I have been making repeated reference -to the psychology of the unconscious, without going into detail any more -than was necessary. Let us now take a closer look at some of Freud's -discoveries. In this way, what Brill would call the "psychogenesis" of -certain characteristic ideas and practices of crowds will be, I think, -made clear. Up to this point we have dealt generally with those mental -processes by which the crowd is formed. There are certain traits, -tendencies, ways of thinking which crowds so uniformly display that one -is justified, in want of other explanation, in assuming them to be -unconsciously determined. The remarkable blindness of organized crowds -to the most obvious of their own performances is so common as to be the -regularly expected thing--that is, of crowds other than our own. Long -and extensive operations may be carried on for years by crowds whose -members repeatedly declare that such things are not being done. The way -in which a nation will carefully prepare for war, gradually organizing -its whole life on a military basis with tremendous cost and effort, all -the while declaring that it is interested only in peace, denying its -warlike intentions, and even in the moment of picking a quarrel with its -neighbors declare to all the world that it had been wantonly and -unexpectedly attacked, is all a matter of general comment. The American -colonists, during the decade before the signing of the Declaration of -Independence, of course had no conscious thought of separating from -Great Britain. Almost to the very last they professed their loyalty to -the King; but looking back now it is clear that Independence was the -motive all along, and doubtless could not have been achieved more -opportunely or with greater finesse if it had been deliberately planned -from the start. The Hebrew Scriptures contain a story which illustrates -this aspect of crowd-behavior everywhere. The Children of Israel in -bondage in Egypt merely wished to go out in the wilderness for a day or -so to worship their God. All they asked was religious liberty. How -unjust of the authorities to assume they were planning to run away -from their masters! You will remember that at the last moment they -incidentally borrow some jewelry from their Egyptian neighbors. Of -course they will pay it back after their little religious holiday, -but ... later a most unforeseen thing happens to that jewelry, a -scandalous thing--it is made into an idol. Does it require that one be a -psychologist to infer that it was the unconscious intention all along to -use this metal for just that, the first good chance they had--and that, -too, notwithstanding repeated prohibitions of idolatry? The motive for -borrowing the jewelry is evident. - -Certain crowd-movements in America to-day give marked evidence of this -unconscious motivation. Notice how both the radical and reactionary -elements behave when, as is frequently the case with both, the -crowd-spirit comes over them. Certain radicals, who are fascinated with -the idea of the Russian Revolution, are still proclaiming sentiments of -human brotherhood, peace, and freedom, while unconsciously they are -doing just what their enemies accuse them of--playing with the welcome -ideas of violence, class war, and proletarian dictatorship. And -conservative crowds, while ostensibly defending American traditions and -ideals against destructive foreign influence, are with their own hands -daily desecrating many of the finest things which America has given to -the world in its struggle of more than a century for freedom and -justice. Members of each crowd, while blissfully unaware of the -incompatibility of their own motives and professions, have no illusions -about those of the counter-crowd. Each crowd sees in the professions of -its antagonist convincing proof of the insincerity and hypocrisy of the -other side. To the student of social philosophy both are right and both -wrong. All propaganda is lies, and every crowd is a deceiver, but its -first and worst deception is that of itself. This self-deception is a -necessary step in crowd-formation and is a _sine qua non_ of becoming a -crowd. It is only necessary for members of a crowd to deceive themselves -and one another for the crowd-mind to function perfectly; I doubt if -they are often successful in deceiving anybody else. It was this common -crowd-phenomenon of self-deception which led Gobineau and Nietzsche to -the conclusion that the common people are liars. But as has been said, -the crowd is by no means peculiar to the working class; some of its -worst features are exhibited these days among employers, law-makers, and -the well-to-do classes. This deception is moreover not really conscious -and deliberate. If men deliberately set about to invent lies to justify -their behavior I have little doubt that most of them would be clever -enough to conjure up something a little more plausible. These naïve and -threadbare "hypocrisies" of crowds are a commonplace mechanism of the -unconscious. It is interesting to note that the delusions of the -paranoiac likewise deceive no one but himself, yet within themselves -form a perfectly logical _a priori_ system. They also serve the -well-understood purpose, like that of crowd-ideas, of keeping their -possessor in a certain fixed relation toward portions of his own psychic -material. As Brill says, they are "compromise formations." - -Those who have read Freud's little book, _Delusion and Dream_, an -analysis of a psychological romance written by Wilhelm Jensen, will -recall how extensive a fabric of plausibilities a delusion may build up -in its defense in order at the same time to satisfy a repressed wish, -and keep the true meaning of the subject's acts and thoughts from -conscious attention. In the story which Freud has here taken as his -subject for study, a young student of archæology has apparently -conquered all adolescent erotic interest and has devoted himself -whole-heartedly to his science. While at the ruins of ancient Pompeii, -he finds a bas-relief containing the figure of a young woman represented -in the act of walking with peculiar grace. A cast of this figure he -brings home. His interest is curiously aroused. At first this interest -appears to be scientific only, then æsthetic, and historical. Finally he -builds up about it a complete romance. He becomes restless and very much -of a misogynist, and is driven, he knows not why, again to the ruins. -Here he actually meets the object of his dreams in the solitude of the -excavated city. He allows himself to believe that the once living model -of his treasured bas-relief has again come to life. For days he meets -and talks with the girl, living all the while in a world of complete -unreality, until she finally succeeds in revealing herself as the young -woman who lives next door to him. It also appears that in their -childhood he and this girl had been playmates, and that in spite of all -his conscious indifference to her his unconscious interest was the -source of his interest in the bas-relief and the motive which led him to -return to Pompeii, where he unconsciously expected to find her. The -interesting thing about all this for our present study is the series of -devices, fictions, and compromises with reality which this repressed -interest made use of while having its way with him, and at the same time -resisting whatever might force it upon his conscious attention, where a -recognition of its significance might result in a deliberate rejection. - -We shall not go into Freud's ingenious analysis of the mental processes -at work here. The following passage is sufficient for our purpose: - - There is a kind of forgetting which distinguishes itself by the - difficulty with which memory is awakened, even by strong - appeals, as if a subjective resistance struggled against the - revival. Such forgetting has received the name of "repression" - in psychopathology ... about repression we can assert that - certainly it does not coincide with the destruction, the - obliteration of memory. The repressed material can not of itself - break through as memory, but remains potent and effective. - -From this, and from what was said in our previous chapter, it is plain -that the term "unconscious" as used in psychology does not mean total -absence of psychic activity. It refers to thoughts and feelings which -have _purposefully_ been forgotten--to experiences or impulses to which -we do not pay attention nor wish to attend to, but which influence us -nevertheless. Everyone of us, when he dreams, has immediate knowledge of -the unconscious as here defined. Certainly we pass into unconsciousness -when we sleep. Yet something is unquestionably going on inside our -heads. One wakens and says, "What strange, or exciting, or delightful -dreams I have had!" Bergson says that sleep is due to the relaxing of -attention to our environment. Yet in dreams attention is never turned -away from ourselves. Possibly instead of the word "unconscious" the term -"unattended" might be used with less danger of confusion. - -Consciousness is, therefore, not the whole of our psychic activity. Much -of our behavior is reflex and automatic. James used to be fond of -showing how much even of our higher psychic activity was reflex in its -nature. We may be conscious of various portions of our psychic material, -but never of all of it at once. Attention is like a spotlight thrown on -a semi-darkened stage, moving here and there, revealing the figures upon -which it is directed in vivid contrast with the darkly moving objects -which animate the regions outside its circle. A speaker during his -discourse will straighten his tie, make various gestures, and toy with -any object which happens to be lying on the desk, all without being -aware of his movements, until his attention is called to the fact. -Absent-minded persons habitually amuse us by frequently performing -complete and rather complex series of actions while wholly oblivious to -what they are doing. Everyone can recall numerous instances of -absent-mindedness in his own experience. - -Now all pathological types of mental life have in common this quality of -absent-mindedness, and it is held that the thing said or done -absent-mindedly has in every instance, even when normal, a meaning which -is unconscious. But the unconscious or unattended is by no means -confined to the infrequent and the trivial. As temperament, or -character, its activity is a determining factor in all our thought and -conduct. Dream fancies do not really cease when we awake; the dream -activity goes on all about our conscious thoughts, our associations now -hovering near long-forgotten memories, now pulled in the direction of -some unrecognized bit of personal conceit, now skipping on tiptoe over -something forbidden and wicked and passing across without looking in; -only a part of our mental processes ever directly finding expression in -our conscious acts and words. The unchosen and the illogical run along -with the desired and the logical material, only we have learned not to -pay attention to such things. Under all our logical structures there -flows a ceaseless stream of dream stuff. Our conscious thought is like -little planks of attention laid end to end on the stones which here and -there rise above the surface of our thinking. The mind skips across to a -desired conclusion, not infrequently getting its feet wet, and, on -occasion, upsetting a plank or slipping off and falling in altogether. - -We have only to relax our attention a little to enter the world of day -dreams, of art, and religion; we can never hold it so rigid as to be -wholly rational for long. - -Those interested in the general psychology of the unconscious are -referred to the writings of such authorities in this field as Freud, -Jung, Adler, Dr. A. A. Brill, and Dr. William White. In fact, the -literature dealing with psychoanalysis is now so widely read that, -unless the reader has received his information about this branch of -science from hostile sources alone, it is to be assumed that he has a -fairly accurate acquaintance with its general history and theory. We -must confine our discussions to those aspects of unconscious behavior -which can be shown by analogy with the psychoneurosis to be determinants -of crowd-thinking. As the details and technical discussions of -psychoanalytical material belong strictly to the psychiatric clinic, any -attempt at criticism by the medical layman of the scientific processes -by which they are established is of course impossible. Consequently, I -have sought to make use of only those principles which are now so well -established as to become rather generally accepted commonplaces of -psychopathology. - -All analysis reveals the fact that the unconscious of the individual is -concerned primarily with himself. This is true in the psychosis, and -always in dreams. Freud says: - - Every dream is absolutely egotistical; in every dream the - beloved ego appears, even though it be in a disguised form. The - wishes that are realized in dreams are regularly the wishes of - this ego; it is only a deceptive appearance if interest in - another person is thought to have caused the dream. - -Freud then proceeds to give analyses of several dreams in which the -naïve egoism of childhood which lies at the core of the unconscious -psyche is apparently absent, and shows that in each and every case it is -there. The hero of our dreams, notwithstanding all appearances to the -contrary, is always ourself. - -Brill, in his book, _Psychoanalysis_, says of the neurosis: - - Both hysteria and compulsion neurosis belong to the defense - neuropsychoses; their symptoms originate through the psychic - mechanism of defense, that is, through the attempt to repress a - painful idea which was incompatible with the ego of the patient. - There is still another more forceful and more successful form of - defense wherein the ego misplaces the incompatible idea with its - emotions and acts as though the painful idea had never come to - pass. When this occurs the person merges into a psychosis which - may be called "hallucinatory confusion." - -Thus the psychoneurosis is in all its forms, I believe, regarded as a -drama of the ego and its inner conflicts. The egoism of the unconscious -belongs alike to the normal and the unadjusted. The mental abnormalities -appear when the ego seeks to escape some such conflict by means of a -closed system of ideas or symbolic acts which will divert attention from -the unwelcome psychic material. Adler, in _The Neurotic Constitution_, -is even, if possible, more emphatic in affirming the egoism of the -unconscious as revealed in neurotics. His thesis is that the mainspring -of all the efforts of achievement and the source of all the -vicissitudes of the psyche is a desire to be important, or will to "be -above," not wholly unlike Nietzsche's theory of the "will to power." The -neurosis goes back to some organic defect or other cause of childish -humiliation. As a result, the cause of such humiliation, a defective -bodily organ, or whatever it may be, gains special attention. The whole -psyche is modified in the process of adjustment. In cases where the -psyche remains normal, adjustment is achieved through stimulation to -extra effort to overcome the disadvantage, as in the triumph of -Demosthenes, Byron, Pope. - -On the contrary, this disadvantage may result in a fixed feeling of -inferiority. Such a feeling may be brought about in the sensitive child -by a variety of circumstances, physical facts such as smallness of -stature, adenoids, derangements of the alimentary organs, undersized -genitals, homeliness of feature, or any physical deformity or weakness; -again by such circumstances as domineering parents or older brothers and -sisters. The child then thinks always of himself. He forms the habit of -comparing himself with others. He creates, as a protection against the -recognition of this feeling of inferiority, what Adler calls the -"masculine protest." - - The feeling which the individual has of his own inferiority, - incompetency, the realization of his smallness, of his weakness, - of his uncertainty, thus becomes the appropriate working basis - which, because of the intrinsically associated feelings of - pleasure and pain, furnishes the inner impulse to advance toward - an imaginary goal.... - - In all similar attempts (and the human psyche is full of them), - it is the question of the introduction of an unreal and abstract - scheme into actual life.... No matter from what angle we observe - the psychic development of a normal or neurotic person, he is - always found ensnared in the meshes of his particular fiction--a - fiction from which the neurotic is unable to find his way back - to reality and in which he believes, while the sound and normal - person utilizes it for the purpose of reaching a definite goal - ... the thing which impels us all, and especially the neurotic - and the child, to abandon the direct path of induction and - deduction and use such devices as the schematic fiction, - originates in the feeling of uncertainty, and is the craving for - security, the final purpose of which is to escape from the - feeling of inferiority in order to ascend to the full height of - the ego consciousness, to complete manliness, to attain the - ideal of being "above."... - - Even our judgments concerning the value of things are determined - according to the standard of the imaginary goal, not according - to "real" feelings or pleasurable sensations. - -That repressed sexuality plays an important part in the conflicts of the -ego is well known to all who are acquainted with analytical psychology. -According to Freud, the sexual impulse dates from earliest childhood and -is an essential element in every stage of self-appreciation. A summary -of the process by which the infantile ego develops to maturity is as -follows: The child is by nature "polymorphous perverse"--that is, both -physically and psychically he possesses elements which in the mature -individual would be considered perversions. Physiologically, what are -known as "erogenous zones"--tissue which is capable of what in mature -life is sexual excitation--are diffused through the organism. As the -child passes through the "latent period" of later childhood and -adolescence, these "erogenous zones" are concentrated as it were in the -organs which are to serve the purpose of reproduction. If for any reason -this process of concentration is checked, and remains in later life -incomplete, the mature individual will be afflicted with certain -tendencies to sex perversion. - -Similarly the psychosexual passes through a metamorphosis in normal -development. The erotic interest of the child, at first quite without -any object at all, is soon attached to one or the other of the parents, -then, in the "narcissus period" is centered upon the individual himself, -after which, normally, but not without some storm and stress, it becomes -detached and capable of "object love"--that is, love of a person of the -opposite sex. This psychic process is by no means a smooth and easy -matter. It is attended at every stage with such dangers that a very -large number of people never achieve it entire. Various kinds of "shock" -and wrong educational influence, or overindulgence on the part of the -parents, may cause the psychosexual interest of the ego--or "libido"--to -remain "fixed" at some point in its course. It may retain vestiges of -its early undifferentiated stage, appearing then in the perverted forms -of "masochism"--sexual enjoyment of self-torture--or "sadism"--sexual -pleasure in torturing others. Or the libido may remain fixed upon the -parent, rendering the individual in some degree incapable of a normal -mature love life. He has never quite succeeded in severing his infantile -attachment to his mother and transferring his interest to the world of -social relations and mature experiences. If he meets with a piece of -misfortune, he is likely to seek imaginary security and compensation by -a "regression" of the libido and a revival of childlike affection for -the mother image. As this return is, in maturity, unconsciously resisted -by the horror of incest, a conflict results. The individual then -develops certain mechanisms or "complex formations" in defense of his -ego against this painful situation. The withdrawal of the libido from -the ordinary affairs of life renders the latter valueless. Thoughts of -death and like compulsory mechanisms ensue. The patient has become a -neurotic. - -Psychoanalysts make much of this latter situation. They term it the -"Oedipus complex." They assert that in its severer forms it is a common -feature of psychoneurosis, while in less marked form, according to Jung, -it underlies, and is the real explanation of the "birth of tragedy," -being also the meaning of much religious symbolism, including the Divine -Drama of Christian tradition. It is not, therefore, only the -psychoneurotic whose unconscious takes the form of the "Oedipus -complex." Under certain conditions it is manifest in normal people. I -have already indicated that the crowd is one of those conditions, and -shall have something a little more specific to say about this later on. - -Again the growing libido may become fixed in the "narcissus stage." -Between the period of love of parents and object love, the adolescent -youth passes through a period when he is "in love with himself." The -fact that many people remain in some measure fixed in this period of -their development is not surprising when we remember that self-feeling -occupies a central place in the unconscious at all times. Many of the -world's greatest men have doubtless been characters in which there was a -slightly more than average fixation at this point. Inordinate ambition -is, I should say, an evidence of such a fixation. If one possesses great -natural ability he may under such circumstances be able to forge ahead -to his goal, overcoming the conflicts which such a fixation always -raises, and show no greater evidence of pathology in his career than is -seen in the usual saying that "genius is always a little queer." The -typical crowd-leader would, on analysis, I think, show something of this -"narcissus complex," as would doubtless the great run of fanatics, -bigots, and doctrinaires, "hundred per cent" crowd-men all. - -According to Brill, these "auto erotic" persons are always homosexual, -their homosexuality manifesting itself in various ways. The overt -manifestations of this tendency are known as perversions. Certain -persons who have suppressed or sublimated these tendencies, by means of -certain defense mechanisms, or "fictions," as Adler would call them, get -along very well so long as the defense mechanism functions. There are -cases when this unconsciously constructed defense breaks down. An inner -conflict is then precipitated, a marked form of which is the common type -of insanity, "paranoia." Persons suffering with paranoia are -characterized by an insatiable demand for love along with a psychic -incapacity to give love. They have an exaggerated sense of their own -importance which is sustained by a wholly unreal but deadly logical -system of _a priori_ ideas, which constitute the "obsessions" common to -this type of mentality. The inner conflict becomes external--that is, it -is "projected." The paranoiac projects his own inner hostility and lack -of adjustment upon others--that is, he attributes his own feeling of -hostility to some one else, as if he were the object, not the author, of -his hatred. He imagines that he is persecuted, as the following example -will show. The passage here quoted is taken from a pamphlet which was -several years ago given to me by the author. He ostensibly wished to -enlist my efforts in a campaign he believed himself to be conducting to -"expose" the atrocious treatment of persons, like himself, who were -imprisoned in asylums as the innocent victims of domestic conspiracy. By -way of introducing himself the author makes it known that he has several -times been confined in various hospitals, each time by the design and -instigation of his wife, and after stating that on the occasion -described he was very "nervous and physically exhausted" and -incidentally confessing that he was arrested while attempting homicide -"purely in self-defense," he gives this account of his incarceration: - - I was locked in a cold cell, and being in poor health, my - circulation was poor, and the officer ordered me to go to bed - and I obeyed his orders, but I began to get cold, and believing - then, as I still believe, that the coffee I got out of the - coffee tank for my midnight lunch had been "doped," and fearful - that the blood in my veins which began to coagulate would stop - circulating altogether, I got out of bed and walked the floor to - and fro all the remainder of the night and by so doing I saved - my life. For had I remained in bed two hours I would have been a - dead man before sunrise next morning. I realized my condition - and had the presence of mind to do everything in my power to - save my life and put my trust in God, and asked his aid in my - extremity. But for divine aid, I would not now have the - privilege of writing my awful experiences in that hell-hole of a - jail. - - The officer who arrested me without any warrant of law, and - without any unlawful act on my part was the tool of some person - or persons who were either paid for their heinous crime, or of - the landlady of the ---- hotel (he had been a clerk there) who - allowed gambling to go on nearly every night, and thought I was - a detective or spy, and so was instrumental in having me thrown - into jail. - - I begged so hard not to be locked in the cell that I was allowed - to stay in the corridor in front of the cells. I observed - chloral dripping through the roof of the cell-house in different - places, and as I had had some experience with different drugs, I - detected the smell of chloral as soon as I entered the - cell-house. - - Sometime after midnight some one stopped up the stovepipe and - the door of the coal stove was left open so that the coal gas - issued from the stove, so that breathing was difficult in the - jail. The gases from the stove and other gases poisoned the air - ... and your humble servant had the presence of mind to tear up - a hair mattress and kept my nostrils continually filled with - padding out of the mattress. I would often and instantly change - the filling in one nostril, and not during the long hours of - that awful night did I once open my mouth. In that manner I - inhaled very little gases. Why in my weakened condition and my - poor health anyone wanted to deprive me of my life I am at a - loss to know, but failing to kill me, I was taken after nearly - three days of sojourn in that hell-hole to the courthouse in - ----. But such thoughts as an innocent man in my condition would - think, in among criminals of all sorts, can better be imagined - than described.... I thought of Christ's persecutors and I - thought how the innocent suffer because of the wicked. - -In general we may say that the various forms of psychoneurosis are -characterized by a conflict of the ego with primitive impulses -inadequately repressed. In defense against these impulses, which though -active remain unconsciously so, the individual constructs a fictitious -system of ideas, of symbolic acts, or bodily symptoms. These systems are -attempts to compromise the conflict in the unconscious, and in just the -degree that they are demanded for this function, they fail of their -function of adjusting the individual to his external world. Thought and -behavior thus serve the purpose of compensating for some psychic loss, -and of keeping up the individual's self feeling. Though the unconscious -purpose is to enhance the ego consciousness, the mechanisms through -which this end is achieved produce through their automatic and -stereotyped form a shrinking of personality and a serious lack of -adjustment to environment. - -Now it is not at all the aim of this argument to try to prove that -crowds are really insane. Psychoanalysts commonly assert that the -difference between the normal and the abnormal is largely one of degree -and of success in adjustment. We are told that the conflict exists also -in normal people, with whom, however, it is adequately repressed and -"sublimated"--that is, normal people pass on out of the stages in which -the libido of the neurotic becomes fixed, not by leaving them behind, -but by attaching the interests which emerge in such stages to ends which -are useful in future experience. The neurotic takes the solitary path of -resolving the conflict between his ego and the impulses which society -demands shall be repressed. - -It is altogether conceivable that _another path lies open--that of -occasional compromise in our mutual demands on one another_. The force -of repression is then relaxed by an unconscious change in the -significance of social ideas. Such a change must of course be mutual and -unconscious. Compromise mechanisms will again be formed serving a -purpose similar to the neurosis. As in the neurosis, thought and action -will be compulsory, symbolic, stereotyped, and more or less in conflict -with the demands of society as a whole, though functioning in a part of -it for certain purposes. Many of the characteristics of the unconscious -will then appear and will be similar in some respects to those of -neurosis. It is my contention that this is what happens in the crowd, -and I will now point out certain phases of crowd-behavior which are -strikingly analogous to some of the phenomena which have been described -above. - - - - -IV - -THE EGOISM OF THE CROWD-MIND - - -The unconscious egoism of the individual in the crowd appears in all -forms of crowd-behavior. As in dreams and in the neurosis this self -feeling is frequently though thinly disguised, and I am of the opinion -that with the crowd the mechanisms of this disguise are less subtle. To -use a term which Freud employs in this connection to describe the -process of distortion in dreams, the "censor" is less active in the -crowd than in most phases of mental life. Though the conscious thinking -is carried on in abstract and impersonal formula, and though, as in the -neurosis, the "compulsive" character of the mechanisms developed -frequently--especially in permanent crowds--well nigh reduces the -individual to an automaton, the crowd is one of the most naïve devices -that can be employed for enhancing one's ego consciousness. The -individual has only to transfer his repressed self feeling to the idea -of the crowd or group of which he is a member; he can then exalt and -exhibit himself to almost any extent without shame, oblivious of the -fact that the supremacy, power, praise, and glory which he claims for -his crowd are really claimed for himself. - -That the crowd always insists on being flattered is a fact known -intuitively by every orator and editor. As a member of a crowd the -individual becomes part of a public. The worship with which men regard -"The Public," simply means that the personal self falls at the feet of -the same self regarded as public, and likewise demands that obeisance -from all. _Vox populi est vox Dei_ is obviously the apotheosis of one's -own voice while speaking as crowd-man. When this "god-almightiness" -manifests itself along the solitary path of the psychoneurosis it -becomes one of the common symptoms of paranoia. The crowd, in common -with paranoia, uniformly shows this quality of "megalomania." Every -crowd "boosts for" itself, lauds itself, gives itself airs, speaks with -oracular finality, regards itself as morally superior, and will, so far -as it has the power, lord it over everyone. Notice how each group and -section in society, so far as it permits itself to think as crowd, -claims to be "the people." To the working-class agitator, "the cause of -labor is the cause of humanity," workers are always, "innocent exploited -victims, kept down by the master class whose lust for gain has made -them enemies of Humanity and Justice." "Workers should rule because they -are the only useful people; the sole creators of wealth; their dominance -would mean the end of social wrong, and the coming of the millennium of -peace and brotherhood, the Kingdom of Heaven on the Earth, the final -triumph of Humanity!" - -On the other hand, the wealthy and educated classes speak of themselves -as "the best people"; they _are_ "society." It is they who "bear the -burdens of civilization, and maintain Law and Order and Decency." Racial -and national crowds show the same megalomania. Hebrews are "God's -chosen." "The Dutch Company is the best Company that ever came over from -the Old Country." "The Irish may be ornery, and they ain't worth much, -but they are a whole lot better than the ---- ---- Dutch." "Little -Nigger baby, black face, and shiny eye, you're just as good as the poor -white trash, an' you'll git thar by and by." "He might have been a -Russian or a Prussian, ... but it's greatly to his credit that he is an -Englishman." The German is the happy bearer of _Kultur_ to a barbarian -world. America is "The land of the free and the home of the brave," and -so on, wherever a group has become sufficiently a crowd to have a -propaganda of its own. Presbyterians are "the Elect," the Catholics -have the "true church of God," the Christian Scientists have alone -attained "Absolute Truth." - -A number of years ago, when the interest in the psychology of the crowd -led me to attempt a study of Mr. Sunday's revival meetings, then in -their earlier stages, certain facts struck me with great force. Whatever -else the revival may be, it provides the student of psychology with a -delightful specimen for analysis. Every element of the mob or crowd-mind -is present and the unconscious manifests itself with an easy naïveté -which is probably found nowhere else, not even in the psychiatric -clinic. One striking fact, which has since provided me with food for a -good deal of reflection, was the place which the revival holds in what I -should like to call the spiritual economy of modern democracy. - -It is an interesting historical fact that each great religious revival, -from Savonarola down, has immediately followed--and has been the -resistance of the man in the street to--a period of intellectual -awakening. Mr. Sunday's meetings undeniably provided a device whereby a -certain psychic type, an element which had hitherto received scant -recognition in the community, could enormously enhance his ego -consciousness. It would be manifestly unfair to say that this is the -sole motive of the religious revival, or that only this type of mind is -active in it. But it is interesting to see whose social survival values -stand out most prominently in these religious crowd-phenomena. The -gambler, the drunkard, the loafer, the weak, ignorant, and unsuccessful, -whose self-esteem it may be assumed had always been made to suffer in -small communities, where everyone knew everyone else, had only to yield -himself to the pull of the obviously worked-up mechanism of the -religious crowd, and lo! all was changed. He was now the repentant -sinner, the new convert, over whom there was more rejoicing in heaven, -and, what was more visible, also for a brief time, in the Church, than -over the ninety and nine just persons. He was "redeemed," an object now -of divine love, a fact which anyone who has studied the effects of these -crowd-movements scientifically will agree was at once seized upon by -these converts to make their own moral dilemmas the standards of -righteousness in the community, and hence secure some measure of -dominance. - -This self-adulation of crowds, with its accompanying will to be -important, to dominate, is so constant and characteristic a feature of -the crowd-mind that I doubt if any crowd can long survive which fails to -perform this function for its members. Self-flattery is evident in the -pride with which many people wear badges and other insignia of groups -and organizations to which they belong, and in the pompous names by -which fraternal orders are commonly designated. In its more -"exhibitionist" types it appears in parades and in the favorite ways in -which students display their "college spirit." How many school and -college "yells" begin with the formula, "Who are We?" obviously designed -to call general attention to the group and impress upon people its -importance. - -In this connection I recall my own student days, which are doubtless -typical--the pranks which served the purpose of bringing certain groups -of students into temporary prominence and permitted them for a brief -period to regard themselves as comic heroes, the practices by which the -different classes and societies sought to get the better of one another, -the "love feasts" of my society which were hardly more than mutual -admiration gatherings, the "pajama" parades in which the entire student -body would march in costume (the wearing of which by an isolated -individual would probably have brought him before a lunacy commission) -all through the town and round and round the dormitories of the women's -college a mile or so away, in order to announce a victory in some -intercollegiate contest or other. There was the brazenness--it seems -hardly credible now--with which the victors on such occasions would -permit themselves to be carried on their comrades' shoulders through -the public square, also the deportment with which a delegation of -students would announce their arrival in a neighboring college town and -the grinning self-congratulation with which we would sit in chapel and -hear a wrathful president denounce our group behavior as "boorishness -and hoodlumism." There was the unanimous conviction of us all, for no -other reason I imagine than that it was graced with our particular -presence, that our own institution was the most superior college in -existence, and I well remember the priggishness with which at student -banquets we applauded the sentiment repeated _ad nauseam_, that the -great aim of education and the highest mark of excellence in our college -was the development of character. What is it all but a slightly -exaggerated account of the egoism of all organized crowds? Persons of -student age are for the most part still in the normal "narcissus" -period, and their ego-mania is naturally less disguised than that of -older groups. But even then we could never have given such open -manifestation to it as isolated individuals; it required the -crowd-spirit. - -The egoism of the crowd commonly takes the form of the will to social -dominance and it is in crowd behavior that we learn how insatiable the -repressed egoism of mankind really is. Members of the crowd are always -promising one another a splendid future triumph of some sort. This -promise of victory, which is nearly always to be enjoyed at the expense, -discomfiture, and humiliation of somebody else, is of great advantage in -the work of propaganda. People have only to be persuaded that -prohibition, or equal suffrage, or the single tax "is coming," and -thousands whose reason could not be moved by argument, however logical -it might be, will begin to look upon it with favor. The crowd is never -so much at home as "on the band wagon." Each of the old political -parties gains strength through the repeated prediction of victory in the -presidential campaign of 1920. The Socialist finds warmth in the -contemplation of the "coming dictatorship of the proletariat." The -Prohibitionist intoxicates himself by looking forward to a "dry world." -So long as the German crowds expected a victorious end of the war, their -morale remained unbroken, the Kaiser was popular. - -When a crowd is defeated and its hope of victory fades, the individual -soon abandons the unsuccessful group. The great cause, being now a -forlorn hope, is seen in a different light, and the crowd character of -the group vanishes. When, however, certain forces still operate to keep -the crowd state of mind alive--forces such as race feeling, patriotism, -religious belief, or class consciousness--the ego consciousness of the -individuals so grouped finds escape in the promise of heaven, the -Judgment Day, and that "far off divine event toward which the whole -creation moves." Meanwhile the hope of victory is changed into that -"impotent resentment" so graphically described by Nietzsche. - -Another way in which the self feeling of the crowd functions is in -idealizing those who succeed in gaining its recognition. The crowd -always makes a hero of the public person, living or dead. Regardless of -what he really did or was, he is transformed into a symbol of what the -crowd wishes to believe him to be. Certain aspects of his teaching and -various incidents which would appear in his biography are glossed over, -and made into supports for existing crowd-ideas and prejudices. Most of -the great characters in history have suffered in this way at the hands -of tradition. The secret of their greatness, their uniqueness and -spiritual isolation, is in great part ignored. The crowd's own secret is -substituted. The great man now appears great because he possessed the -qualities of little men. He is representative man, crowd man. Every -crowd has a list of heroic names which it uses in its propaganda and in -its self-laudation. The greatness which each crowd reveres and demands -that all men honor is just that greatness which the crowd treasures as -a symbol of itself, the sort of superiority which the members of the -crowd may suck up to swell their own ego consciousness. - -Thus, hero worship is unconsciously worship of the crowd itself, and the -constituents thereof. The self-feeling of a crowd is always enhanced by -the triumph of its leader or representative. Who, at a ball game or -athletic event, has not experienced elation and added self-complacency -in seeing the home team win? What other meaning has the excited -cheering? Even a horse on a race track may become the representative of -a crowd and lift five thousand people into the wildest joy and ecstasy -by passing under a wire a few inches ahead of a rival. We have here one -of the secrets of the appeal which all such exhibitions make to people. -Nothing so easily catches general attention and creates a crowd as a -contest of any kind. The crowd unconsciously identifies its members with -one or the other competitor. Success enables the winning crowd to "crow -over" the losers. Such an occasion becomes symbolic and is utilized by -the ego to enhance its feeling of importance. - -A similar psychological fact may be observed in the "jollifications" of -political parties after the election of their candidates for high -office. This phenomenon is also seen, if I may say so without being -misunderstood, in the new spirit which characterizes a people victorious -in war, and is to no small degree the basis of the honor of successful -nations. It is seen again in the pride which the citizens of a small -town show in the fact that the governor of the state is a native of the -place. This same principle finds place in such teachings of the Church -as the doctrine of the "communion of the saints," according to which the -spiritual grace and superiority of the great and pure become the common -property of the Church, and may be shared by all believers as a saving -grace. - -Every organized crowd is jealous of its dignity and honor and is bent -upon keeping up appearances. Nothing is more fatal to it than a -successful assault upon its prestige. Every crowd, even the casual -street mob, clothes the egoistic desires of its members or participants -in terms of the loftiest moral motive. No crowd can afford to be laughed -at. Crowd men have little sense of humor, certainly none concerning -themselves and their crowd-ideas. Any laughter they indulge in is more -likely to be directed at those who do not believe with them. The -crowd-man resents any suspicion of irreverence or criticism of his -professions, because to question them is to weaken the claim of his -crowd upon the people, and to destroy in those professed ideals their -function of directing his own attention away from the successful -compromise of his unconscious conflicts which the crowd had enabled him -to make. The crowd would perish if it lost its "ideals." It clings to -its fixed ideas with the same tenacity as does the paranoiac. You can no -more reason with the former than you can with the latter, and for much -the same cause; the beliefs of both are not the fruit of inquiry, -neither do they perform the normal intellectual function of adjustment -to environment; they are mechanisms of the ego by which it keeps itself -in countenance. - -Much of the activity of the unconscious ego is viewed by psychologists -as "compensation." Devices which serve the purpose of compensating the -ego for some loss, act of self-sacrifice, or failure, are commonly -revealed by both the normal and the unadjusted. The popular notion that -unsatisfied desires sooner or later perish of starvation is at best but -a half truth. These desires after we have ceased to attend them become -transformed. They frequently find satiety in some substitute which the -unconscious accepts as a symbol of its real object. Dreams of normal -people contain a great deal of material of this sort. So do day-dreams, -and art. Many religious beliefs also serve this purpose of compensation. -Jung follows Freud in pointing out as a classic example of the -compensation in dreams, that of Nebuchadnezzar, in the Bible. - - Nebuchadnezzar at the height of his power had a dream which - foretold his downfall. He dreamed of a tree which had raised its - head even up to Heaven and now must be hewn down. This was a - dream which is obviously a counterpoise to the exaggerated - feeling of royal power. - -According to Jung, we may expect to find only those things contained in -the unconscious which we have not found in the conscious mind. Many -conscious virtues and traits of character are thus compensations for -their opposite in the unconscious. - - In the case of abnormal people, the individual entirely fails to - recognize the compensating influences which arise in the - unconscious. He even continues to accentuate his onesidedness; - this is in accord with the well-known psychological fact that - the worst enemy of the wolf is the wolfhound, the greatest - despiser of the negro is the mulatto, and that the biggest - fanatic is the convert; for I should be a fanatic were I to - attack a thing outwardly which inwardly I am obliged to concede - is right. - - The mentally unbalanced man tries to defend himself against his - own unconscious--that is to say, he battles against his own - compensating influences. In normal minds opposites of feeling - and valuations lie closely associated; the law of this - association is called "ambivalence," about which we shall see - more later. In the abnormal, the pairs are torn asunder, the - resulting division, or strife, leads to disaster, for the - unconscious soon begins to intrude itself violently upon the - conscious processes. - - An especially typical form of unconscious compensation ... is - the paranoia of the alcoholic. The alcoholic loses his love for - his wife; the unconscious compensation tries to lead him back - again to his duty, but only partially succeeds, for it causes - him to become jealous of his wife as if he still loved her. As - we know, he may go so far as to kill both his wife and himself, - merely out of jealousy. In other words, his love for his wife - has not been entirely lost. It has simply become subliminal; but - from the realm of consciousness it can now only reappear in the - form of jealousy.... We see something of a similar nature in the - case of the religious convert.... The new convert feels himself - constrained to defend the faith he has adopted (since much of - the old faith still survives in the unconscious associations) in - a more or less fanatical way. It is exactly the same in the - paranoiac who feels himself constantly constrained to defend - himself against all external criticism, because his delusional - system is too much threatened from within. - -It is not necessary for us to enter here upon a discussion of the -processes by which these compensating devices are wrought out in the -psychoneurosis. It is significant, though, that Jung calls attention to -the likeness between religious fanaticism and paranoia. Now it is -obvious that the fanaticism of the religious convert differs -psychologically not at all from that of any other convert. We have -already noted the fact that most religious conversions are accomplished -by the crowd. Moreover the crowd everywhere tends to fanaticism. The -fanatic is the crowd-man pure and simple. He is the type which it ever -strives to produce. His excess of devotion, and willingness to sacrifice -both himself and everyone else for the crowd's cause, always wins the -admiration of his fellow crowd-members. He has given all for the crowd, -is wholly swallowed by it, is "determined not to know anything save" his -crowd and its propaganda. He is the martyr, the true believer, "the -red-blooded loyal American" with "my country right or wrong." He is the -uncompromising radical whose prison record puts to shame the less -enthusiastic members of his group. He is the militant pacifist, the -ever-watchful prohibitionist, and keeper of his neighbors' consciences, -the belligerent moral purist, who is scandalized even at the display of -lingerie in the store windows, the professional reformer who in every -community succeeds in making his goodness both indispensable and -unendurable. - -One need not be a psychologist to suspect that the evil against which -the fanatic struggles is really in large measure in himself. He has -simply externalized, or "projected" the conflict in his own unconscious. -Persons who cry aloud with horror at every change in the style of -women's clothing are in most cases persons whose ego is gnawed by a -secret promiscuous eroticism. The scandalmonger, inhibited from doing -the forbidden thing, enjoys himself by a vicarious indulgence in -rottenness. The prohibition agitator, if not himself an alcoholic barely -snatched from the burning, is likely to be one who at least feels safer -in a democracy where it is not necessary to resist temptation while -passing a saloon door. Notice that the fanatic or crowd-man always -strives to universalize his own moral dilemmas. This is the device by -which every crowd seeks dominance in the earth. A crowd's virtues and -its vices are really made out of the same stuff. Each is simply the -other turned upside down, the compensation for the other. They are alike -and must be understood together as the expression of the type of person -who constitutes the membership of some particular group or crowd. - - I'll never use tobacco, it is a filthy weed - I'll never put it in my mouth, said little Robert Reed. - -But obviously, little Robert is already obsessed with a curious interest -in tobacco. His first word shows that he has already begun to think of -this weed in connection with himself. Should a crowd of persons -struggling with Robert's temptation succeed in dominating society, -tobacco would become taboo and thus would acquire a moral significance -which it does not have at present. So with all our crowd-ethics. The -forbidden thing protrudes itself upon consciousness as a negation. The -negation reveals what it is that is occupying the inner psyche, and is -its compensation. There are certain psychoneuroses in which this -negative form of compensation is very marked. Now it is a noteworthy -fact that with the crowd the ethical interest always takes this negative -form. - -The healthy moral will is characterized by a constant restating of the -problem of living in terms of richer and higher and more significant -dilemmas as new possibilities of personal worth are revealed by -experience. New and more daring valuations are constantly made. The -whole psychic functioning is enriched. Goodness means an increase of -satisfactions through a more adequate adjustment to the real--richer -experience, more subtle power of appreciation and command, a -self-mastery, sureness, and general personal excellence--which on -occasions great and small mark the good will as a reality which counts -in the sum total of things. Something is achieved because it is really -desired; existence is in so far humanized, a self has been realized. As -Professor Dewey says: - - If our study has shown anything it is that the moral _is_ a - life, not something ready-made and complete once for all. It is - instinct with movement and struggle, and it is precisely the - new and serious situations which call out new vigor and lift it - to higher levels. - -It is not so with the crowd-ethic. It is interesting to note that from -the "Decalogue" to Kant's "Categorical Imperative," crowd-morals always -and everywhere take the form of prohibitions, taboos, and ready-made -standards, chiefly negative. Freud has made an analytical study of the -Taboo as found in primitive society and has shown that it has a -compensatory value similar to that of the taboos and compulsions of -certain neurotics. - -The crowd admits of no personal superiority other than that which -consists in absolute conformity to its own negative standards. Except -for the valuations expressed by its own dilemmas, "one man is as good as -another"--an idea which it can be easily seen serves the purpose of -compensation. The goodness which consists of unique personal superiority -is very distasteful to the crowd. There must be only one standard of -behavior, alike for all. A categorical imperative. The standard as set -up is of the sort which is most congenial, possible of attainment, and -even necessary for the survival of the members of some particular crowd. -It is _their_ good, the converse and compensation of their own vices, -temptations, and failures. The crowd then demands that this good shall -be THE GOOD, that it become the universal standard. By such means even -the most incompetent and unadventurous and timid spirits may pass -judgment upon all men. They may cry to the great of the earth, "We have -piped unto you and you have not danced." Judged by the measure of their -conformity to the standards of the small, the great may be considered no -better, possibly not so good as the little spirits. The well are forced -to behave like the spiritually sick. The crowd is a dog in the manger. -If eating meat maketh my brother to be scandalized, or giveth him the -cramps, I shall remain a vegetarian so long as the world standeth. -Nietzsche was correct on this point. The crowd--he called it the -herd--is a weapon of revenge in the hands of the weaker brother. It is a -Procrustean bed on which every spiritual superiority may be lopped off -to the common measure, and every little ego consciousness may be -stretched to the stature of full manhood. - - - - -V - -THE CROWD A CREATURE OF HATE - - -Probably the most telling point of likeness between the crowd-mind and -the psychoneurosis--paranoia especially--is the "delusion of -persecution." In cases of paranoia the notion that the patient is the -victim of all sorts of intrigue and persecution is so common as to be a -distinguishing symptom of this disease. Such delusions are known to be -defenses, or compensation mechanisms, growing out of the patient's -exaggerated feeling of self-importance. The delusion of grandeur and -that of being persecuted commonly go together. The reader will recall -the passage quoted from the pamphlet given me by a typical paranoiac. -The author of the document mentioned feels that he has a great mission, -that of exposing and reforming the conditions in hospitals for the -insane. He protests his innocence. In jail he feels like Christ among -his tormentors. His wife has conspired against him. The woman who owns -the hotel where he was employed wishes to put him out of the way. The -most fiendish methods are resorted to in order to end his life. "Some -one" blocked up the stovepipe, etc., etc. - -Another illustration of a typical case is given by Doctor Brill. I quote -scattered passages from the published notes on the case record of the -patient, "E. R." - - He graduated in 1898 and then took up schoolteaching.... He did - not seem to get along well with his principal and other - teachers.... He imagined that the principal and other teachers - were trying to work up a "badger game" on him, to the effect - that he had some immoral relations with his girl pupils.... - - In 1903 he married, after a brief courtship, and soon thereafter - took a strong dislike to his brother-in-law and sister and - accused them of immorality.... He also accused his wife of - illicit relations with his brother and his brother-in-law, Mr. S. - - Mr. S., his brother-in-law, was the arch conspirator against - him. He also (while in the hospital) imagined that some women - made signs to him and were in the hospital for the purpose of - liberating him. Whenever he heard anybody talking he immediately - referred it to himself. He interpreted every movement and - expression as having some special meaning for himself.... - - Now and then (after his first release by order of the court) he - would send mysterious letters to different persons in New York - City. At that time one of his delusions was that he was a great - statesman and that the United States government had appointed - him ambassador (to Canada), but that the "gang" in New York City - had some one without ability to impersonate him so that he lost - his appointment. (Later, while confined to the hospital again) - he thought that the daughter of the President of the United - States came to visit him.... - - After the patient was recommitted to Bellevue Hospital, he told - me that I (Doctor Brill) was one of the "gang." I was no longer - his wife in disguise (as he has previously imagined) but his - enemy. - -Brill's discussion of this case contains an interesting analysis of the -several stages of "regression" and the unconscious mechanisms which -characterize paranoia. He holds that such cases show a "fixation" in an -earlier stage of psychosexual development. The patient, an unconscious -homosexual, is really in love with himself. The resulting inner conflict -appears, with its defense formations, as the delusion of grandeur and as -conscious hatred for the person or persons who happen to be the object -of the patient's homosexual wish fancy. However this may be, the point -of interest for our study is the "projection" of this hatred to others. -Says Brill: - - The sentence, "I rather hate him" becomes transformed through - projection into the sentence, "he hates (persecutes) me, which - justifies my hating him." - -The paranoiac's delusional system inevitably brings him in conflict with -his environment, but his feeling of being persecuted is less the result -of this conflict with an external situation than of his own inner -conflict. He convinces himself that it is the other, or others, not he, -who is the author of this hatred. He is the innocent victim of their -malice. - -This phenomenon of "projection and displacement" has received -considerable attention in analytical psychology. Freud, in the book, -_Totem and Taboo_, shows the role which projection plays in the -primitive man's fear of demons. The demons are of course the spirits of -the dead. But how comes it that primitive people fear these spirits, and -attribute to them every sort of evil design against the living? To quote -Freud: - - When a wife loses her husband, or a daughter her mother, it not - infrequently happens that the survivor is afflicted with - tormenting scruples, called "obsessive reproaches," which raise - the question whether she herself has not been guilty, through - carelessness or neglect, of the death of the beloved person. No - recalling of the care with which she nursed the invalid, or - direct refutation of the asserted guilt, can put an end to the - torture, which is the pathological expression of mourning and - which in time slowly subsides. Psychoanalytic investigation of - such cases has made us acquainted with the secret mainspring of - this affliction. We have ascertained that these obsessive - reproaches are in a certain sense justified.... Not that the - mourner has really been guilty of the death or that she has - really been careless, as the obsessive reproach asserts; but - still there was something in her, a wish of which she was - unaware, which was not displeased with the fact that death came, - and which would have brought it about sooner had it been strong - enough. The reproach now reacts against this unconscious wish - after the death of the beloved person. Such hostility, hidden in - the unconscious behind tender love, exists in almost all cases - of intensive emotional allegiance to a particular person; - indeed, it represents the classic case, the prototype of the - ambivalence of human emotions.... - - By assuming a similar high degree of ambivalence in the - emotional life of primitive races such as psychoanalysis - ascribes to persons suffering from compulsion neurosis, it - becomes comprehensible that the same kind of reaction against - the hostility latent in the unconscious behind the obsessive - reproaches of the neurotic should also be necessary here after - the painful loss has occurred. But this hostility, which is - painfully felt in the unconscious in the form of satisfaction - with the demise, experiences a different fate in the case of - primitive man: the defense against it is accomplished by a - displacement upon the object of hostility--namely, the dead. We - call this defense process, frequent in both normal and diseased - psychic life, a "projection."... Thus we find that taboo has - grown out of the soil of an ambivalent emotional attitude. The - taboo of the dead also originates from the opposition between - conscious grief and the unconscious satisfaction at death. If - this is the origin of the resentment of spirits, it is - self-evident that the nearest and formerly most beloved - survivors have to feel it most. As in neurotic symptoms, the - taboo regulations evince opposite feelings. Their restrictive - character expresses mourning, while they also betray very - clearly what they are trying to conceal--namely, the hostility - toward the dead which is now motivated as self-defense.... - - The double feeling--tenderness and hostility--against the - deceased, which we consider well-founded, endeavors to assert - itself at the time of bereavement as mourning and satisfaction. - A conflict must ensue between these contrary feelings, and as - one of them--namely, the hostility, is altogether, or for the - greater part, unconscious, the conflict cannot result in a - conscious difference in the form of hostility or tenderness, as, - for instance, when we forgive an injury inflicted upon us by - some one we love. The process usually adjusts itself through a - special psychic mechanism which is designated in psychoanalysis - as "projection." This unknown hostility, of which we are - ignorant and of which we do not wish to know, is projected from - our inner perception into the outer world and is thereby - detached from our own person and attributed to another. Not we, - the survivors, rejoice because we are rid of the deceased, on - the contrary we mourn for him; but now, curiously enough, he has - become an evil demon who would rejoice in our misfortune and who - seeks our death. The survivors must now defend themselves - against this evil enemy; they are freed from inner oppression, - but they have only succeeded in exchanging it for an affliction - from without. - -Totem, taboo, demon worship, etc., are clearly primitive -crowd-phenomena. Freud's main argument in this book consists in showing -the likeness between these phenomena and the compulsion neurosis. The -projection of unconscious hostility upon demons is by no means the only -sort of which crowds both primitive and modern are capable. Neither must -the hostility always be unconscious. Projection is a common device -whereby even normal and isolated individuals justify themselves in -hating. Most of us love to think evil of our enemies and opponents. Just -as two fighting schoolboys will each declare that the other "began it," -so our dislike of people often first appears to our consciousness as a -conviction that they dislike or entertain unfriendly designs upon us. -There is a common type of female neurotic whose repressed erotic wishes -appear in the form of repeated accusations that various of her men -acquaintances are guilty of making improper advances to her. When the -"white slavery" reform movement swept over the country--an awakening of -the public conscience which would have accomplished a more unmixed good -if it had not been taken up in the usual crowd-spirit--it was -interesting to watch the newspapers and sensational propagandist -speakers as they deliberately encouraged these pathological phenomena in -young people. The close psychological relation between the neurosis and -the crowd-mind is shown by the fact that the two so frequently appear at -the same moment, play so easily into each other's hands, and are -apparently reactions to the very same social situation. - -In Brill's example of paranoia, it will be remembered that the patient's -delusions of persecution took the form of such statements as that the -"gang" had intrigued at Washington to prevent his appointment as -ambassador, that certain of his relatives were in a "conspiracy against -him." How commonly such phrases and ideas occur in crowd-oratory and in -the crowd-newspaper is well known to all. We have already seen that the -crowd in most cases identifies itself with "the people," "humanity," -"society," etc. Listen to the crowd-orator and you will also learn that -there are all sorts of abominable "conspiracies" against "the people." -"The nation is full of traitors." The Church is being "undermined by -cunning heretics." "The Bolshevists are in secret league with the -Germans to destroy civilization." "Socialists are planning to corrupt -the morals of our youth and undermine the sacredness of the home." "The -politicians' gang intends to loot the community." "Wall Street is -conspiring to rob the people of their liberties." "England plans to -reduce America to a British colony again." "Japan is getting ready to -make war on us." "German merchants are conducting a secret propaganda -intending to steal our trade and pauperize our nation." "The Catholics -are about to seize power and deliver us over to another Inquisition." -"The liquor interests want only to make drunkards of our sons and -prostitutes of our daughters." And so on and so forth, wherever any -crowd can get a hearing for its propaganda. Always the public welfare is -at stake; society is threatened. The "wrongs" inflicted upon an innocent -humanity are rehearsed. Bandages are taken off every social wound. -Every scar, be it as old as Cromwell's mistreatment of Ireland, is -inflamed. "The people are being deceived," "kept down," "betrayed." They -must rise and throw off their exploiters, or they must purge the nation -of disloyalty and "anarchy." - -It cannot be denied that our present social order is characterized by -deep and fundamental social injustices, nor that bitter struggles -between the various groups in society are inevitable. But the crowd -forever ignores its own share in the responsibility for human ills, and -each crowd persists in making a caricature of its enemies, real and -imagined, nourishing itself in a delusion of persecution which is like -nothing so much as the characteristic obsessions of the paranoiac. This -suspiciousness, this habit of misrepresentation and exaggeration of -every conceivable wrong, is not only a great hindrance to the -conflicting groups in adjusting their differences, it makes impossible, -by misrepresenting the real issue at stake, any effective struggle for -ideals. As the history of all crowd movements bears witness, the real -source of conflict is forgotten, the issue becomes confused with the -spectacular, the unimportant, and imaginary. Energy is wasted on side -issues, and the settlement finally reached, even by a clearly victorious -crowd, is seldom that of the original matter in dispute. In fact, it is -not at all the function of these crowd-ideas of self-pity and -persecution to deal with real external situations. These ideas are -propaganda. Their function is to keep the crowd together, to make -converts, to serve as a defense for the egoism of the crowd-man, to -justify the anticipated tyranny which it is the unconscious desire of -the individual to exercise in the moment of victory for his crowd, and, -as "they who are not for us are against us," to project the crowd-man's -hatred upon the intended victims of his crowd's will to universal -dominion. In other words, these propaganda ideas serve much the same end -as do the similar delusions of persecution in paranoia. - -This likeness between the propaganda of the crowd and the delusions of -paranoia is illustrated daily in our newspapers. The following items cut -from the New York _Tribune_ are typical. The first needs no further -discussion, as it parallels the cases given above. The second is from -the published proceedings of "a committee," appointed, as I remember it, -by the assembly of the state of New York, to conduct an investigation -into certain alleged seditious and anarchist activities. These articles -well illustrate the character of the propaganda to which such a -committee almost inevitably lends itself. Whether the committee or the -newspapers were chiefly responsible for such fabrications, I do not -know, but the crowd character of much of the attempt to stamp out -Bolshevism is strikingly revealed in this instance. No doubt the members -of this committee, as well as the detectives and the press agents who -are associated with them, are as honestly convinced that a mysterious -gang of radicals is planning to murder us all as is the paranoiac W. H. -M. fixed in his delusion that his enemies are trying to asphyxiate him. -It will be remembered that Brill's patient "E. S." interpreted "every -movement and expression as having some special meaning for himself." -This kind of "interpretation" has a curious logic all its own. It is -what I would call "compulsive thinking," and is characteristic of both -the delusions of paranoia and the rumors of the crowd. - -First clipping: - - INVENTOR IS DECLARED INSANE BY A JURY. - - W. H. M. declares rivals are attempting to asphyxiate him. W. H. - M., an inventor, was declared mentally incompetent yesterday by - a jury in the Sheriff's court.... Alienists said M. had - hallucinations about enemies who he thinks are trying to - asphyxiate him. He also imagines that he is under hypnotic - influences and that persons are trying to affect his body with - "electrical influences." - -Second clipping: - - RADICALS HERE SEEK SOLDIERS FOR "RED GUARD." - - Several hundred men, formerly in United States Service, signify - willingness to aid in project. A "Red Guard" composed of men who - have served in the American military establishment is - contemplated in the elaborate revolutionary plans of Bolshevik - leaders here. This was learned yesterday when operatives of the - Lusk committee discovered that the radicals were making every - effort to enlist the aid of the Soldiers, Sailors, and Marines - Protective Association in carrying out a plot to overthrow the - government by force. As far as the detectives have been able to - ascertain, the great mass of fighting men are not in sympathy - with the Reds, but several hundred have signified their - willingness to co-operate. - - Just how far the plans of the Reds have progressed was not - revealed. It is known, however, that at a convention of the Left - Wing Socialists in Buffalo the movement designed to enlist the - support of the Soldiers, Sailors, and Marines Protective - Association was launched. This convention was addressed by - prominent Left Wingers from Boston, New York, Philadelphia, - Pittsburgh, and Paterson. They asserted that trained military - men must be obtained for the organization if the plans were to - be successful. - - It was from this meeting, which was held in secret, that - agitators were sent to various parts of the state to form - soviets in the shops and factories. This phase of the radical - activity, according to the investigators, has met with - considerable success in some large factory districts where most - of the workers are foreign-born. In some places the soviets in - the shops have become so strong that the employers are alarmed - and have notified the authorities of the menace. When sufficient - evidence has been gathered, foreign-born agitators working to - cause unrest in factories will be apprehended and recommended - for deportation. - -Later report: - - DENIES FORMATION OF "RED GUARD" IN U. S. - - Alfred Levitt, secretary of the Soldiers, Sailors, and Marines - Protective Association, yesterday emphatically denied that the - organization was to be used as a "Red Guard" by the radicals - when they started their contemplated revolution. He said he - never had heard any of the members of the association discuss - the formation of a "Red Guard" but admitted that many of them - were radicals. - -In the two instances given above, fear, suspicion, hatred, give rise in -one case to a delusional system in the mind of an isolated individual, -and in the other to the circulation of an unfounded rumor by men who in -their right minds would, to say the least, carefully scrutinize the -evidence for such a story before permitting it to be published. As -several months have passed since the publication of this story and -nothing more has appeared which would involve our returned service men -in any such treasonable conspiracy, I think it is safe to say that this -story, like many others circulated by radicals as well as by -reactionaries during the unsettled months following the war, has its -origin in the unconscious mechanisms of crowd-minded people. Every sort -of crowd is prone to give credence to rumors of this nature, and to -accuse all those who can not at once give uncritical acceptance to such -tales of sympathy with the enemy. Later we shall have something to say -about the delusional systems which appear to be common to the crowd-mind -and the paranoiac. In this connection I am interested in pointing out -only the psychological relation between what I might call the -"conspiracy delusion" and unconscious hatred. Commonly the former is the -"projection" of the latter. - -One of the differences between these two forms of "projection" is the -fact that the hatred of the crowd is commonly less "rationalized" than -in paranoia--that is, less successfully disguised. Like the paranoiac, -every crowd is potentially if not actually homicidal in its tendencies. -But whereas with the paranoiac the murderous hostility remains for the -greater part an unconscious "wish fancy," and it is the mechanisms which -disguise it or serve as a defense against it which appear to -consciousness, with the crowd the murder-wish will itself appear to -consciousness whenever the unconscious can fabricate such defense -mechanisms as will provide it with a fiction of moral justification. -Consequently, it is this fiction of justification which the crowd-man -must defend. - -The crowd's delusion of persecution, conspiracy, or oppression is thus a -defense mechanism of this nature. The projection of this hatred on those -outside the crowd serves not so much, as in paranoia, to shield the -subject from the consciousness of his own hatred, as to provide him with -a pretext for exercising it. Given such a pretext, most crowds will -display their homicidal tendencies quite openly. - -Ordinary mobs or riots would seem to need very little justification of -this sort. But even these directly homicidal crowds invariably represent -themselves as motivated by moral idealism and righteous indignation. -Negroes are lynched in order to protect the white womanhood of the -South, also because, once accused, the negro happens to be helpless. If -the colored people were in the ascendancy and the whites helpless we -should doubtless see the reverse of this situation. A community -rationally convinced of the culprit's guilt could well afford to trust -the safety of womanhood to the justice meted out by the courts, but it -is obvious that these "moral" crowds are less interested in seeing that -justice is done than in running no risk of losing their victim, once he -is in their power. A recent development of this spirit is the lynching -in a Southern town of a juror who voted for the acquittal of a black man -accused of a crime. - -It may be taken as a general law of crowd-psychology that the -"morality" of the crowd always demands a victim. Is it likely that one -of these mobs would "call off" an interesting lynching party if at the -last minute it were demonstrated that the accused was innocent? The -practice of lynching has been extended, from those cases where the -offense with which the accused is charged is so revolting as justly to -arouse extreme indignation, to offenses which are so trivial that they -merely serve as a pretext for torture and killing. - -The homicidal tendencies of the crowd-mind always reveal themselves the -minute the crowd becomes sufficiently developed and powerful to relax -for the time being the usual social controls. Illustrations of this may -be seen in the rioting between the white and the colored -races--epidemics of killing--such as occurred recently in East St. -Louis, and in the cities of Washington, Chicago, and Omaha. The same -thing is evident in the "pogroms" of Russia and Poland, in the acts of -revolutionary mobs of Germany and Russia, in the promptness with which -the Turks took advantage of the situation created by the war to -slaughter the Armenians. This hatred is the specter which forever haunts -the conflict between labor and capital. It is what speedily transformed -the French Revolution from the dawn of an era of "Fraternity" to a day -of terror and intimidation. It is seen again in the curious interest -which the public always has in a sensational murder trial. It is evident -in the hostility, open or suppressed, with which any community regards -the strange, the foreign, the "outlandish"--an example of which is the -frequent bullying and insulting of immigrants in this country since the -war. Much of the "Americanization propaganda" which we have carried on -since the war unfortunately gave the typical crowd-man his opportunity. -One need only listen to the speeches or read the publications of certain -"patriotic" societies to learn why it was that the exhortation to our -foreign neighbors to be loyal did so much more harm than good. - -The classic example of the killing crowd is, of course, a nation at war. -There are, to be sure, wars of national self-defense which are due to -political necessity rather than to crowd-thinking, but even in such -cases the phenomena of the crowd are likely to appear to the detriment -of the cause. At such times not only the army but the whole nation -becomes a homicidal crowd. The army, at least while the soldiers are in -service, probably shows the crowd-spirit in a less degree than does the -civilian population. The mental processes of an entire people are -transformed. Every interest--profit-seeking excepted--is subordinated -to the one passion to crush the enemy. The moment when war is declared -is usually hailed with tremendous popular enthusiasm and joy. There is a -general lifting of spirits. There is a sense of release, a nation-wide -exultation, a sigh of relief as we feel the deadening hand of social -control taken from our throats. The homicidal wish-fancy, which in peace -times and in less sovereign crowds exists only as an hypothesis, can now -become a reality. And though it is doubtful if more than one person in a -million can ever give a rational account of just what issue is really at -stake in any war, the conviction is practically unanimous that an -occasion has been found which justifies, even demands, the release of -all the repressed hostility in our natures. The fact that in war time -this crowd hostility may, under certain circumstances, really have -survival value and be both beneficial and necessary to the nation, is to -my mind not a justification of crowd-making. It is rather a revelation -of the need of a more competent leadership in world politics. - -Unconsciously every national crowd, I mean the crowd-minded element in -the nation, carries a chip on its shoulder, and swaggers and challenges -its neighbors like a young town-bully on his way home from grammar -school. This swaggering, which is here the "compulsive manifestation" of -unconscious hostility characteristic of every crowd, appears to -consciousness as "national honor." To the consciousness of the -nation-crowd the quarrel for which it has been spoiling for a long time -always appears to have been "forced upon it." Some nations are much more -quarrelsome than others. I cannot believe that our conviction that -Imperial Germany was the aggressor in the great war is due merely to -patriotic conceit on our part. The difference between our national -spirit and that of Imperial Prussia is obvious, but the difference in -this respect, great as it is, is one of degree rather than of kind, and -is due largely to the fact that the political organization of Germany -permitted the Prussian patriots to hold the national mind in a permanent -crowd state to a degree which is even now hardly possible in this -republic. My point is that a nation becomes warlike to precisely the -extent that its people may be made to think and behave as a crowd. Once -a crowd, it is always "in the right" however aggressive and ruthless its -behavior; every act or proposal which is calculated to involve the -nation-crowd in a controversy, which gains some advantage over -neighboring peoples, or intensifies hatred once it is released, is -wildly applauded. Any dissent from the opinions of our particular party -or group is trampled down. He who fails at such a time to be a -crowd-man and our own sort of a crowd-man is a "slacker." Everyone's -patriotism is put under suspicion, political heresy-hunting is the rule, -any personal advantage which can be gained by denouncing as "enemy -sympathizers" rival persons or groups within the nation is sure to be -snatched up by some one. The crowd-mind, even in times of peace, -distorts patriotism so that it is little more than a compulsive -expression and justification of repressed hostility. In war the crowd -succeeds in giving rein to this hostility by first projecting it upon -the enemy. - -Freud in his little book, _War and Death_, regards war as a temporary -"regression" in which primitive impulses which are repressed by -civilization, but not eradicated, find their escape. He argues that most -people live psychologically "beyond their means." Hence war could be -regarded, I suppose, as a sort of "spiritual liquidation." But if the -hostility which the war crowd permits to escape is simply a repressed -impulse to cruelty, we should be obliged to explain a large part of -crowd-behavior as "sadistic." This may be the case with crowds of a -certain type, lynching mobs, for instance. But as the homicidal -tendencies of paranoia are not commonly explained as sadism, I can see -no reason why those of the crowd should be. Sadism is a return to an -infantile sex perversion, and in its direct overt forms the resulting -conflicts are conscious and are between the subject and environment. It -is where a tendency unacceptable to consciousness is repressed--and -inadequately--that neurotic conflict ensues. This conflict being inner, -develops certain mechanisms for the defense of the ego-feeling which is -injured. The hatred of the paranoiac is really a defense for his own -injured self-feeling. As the crowd always shows an exaggerated -ego-feeling similar to the paranoiac's delusion of grandeur, and as in -cases of paranoia this inner conflict is always "projected" in the form -of delusions of persecution, may we not hold that the characteristic -hostility of the crowd is also in some way a device for protecting this -inflated self-appreciation from injury? The forms which this hatred -takes certainly have all the appearance of being "compulsive" ideas and -actions. - -We have been discussing crowds in which hostility is present in the form -of overt destructive and homicidal acts or other unmistakable -expressions of hatred. But are there not also peaceable crowds, crowds -devoted to religious and moral propaganda, idealist crowds? Yes, all -crowds moralize, all crowds are also idealistic. But the moral -enthusiasm of the crowd always demands a victim. The idealist crowd also -always makes idols of its ideals and worships them with human -sacrifice. The peaceable crowd is only potentially homicidal. The -death-wish exists as a fancy only, or is expressed in symbols so as to -be more or less unrecognizable to ordinary consciousness. I believe that -_every crowd is_ "_against some one_." Almost any crowd will persecute -on occasion--if sufficiently powerful and directly challenged. The crowd -tends ever to carry its ideas to their deadly logical conclusion. - -I have already referred to the crowd's interest in games and athletic -events as an innocent symbolization of conflict. How easy it is to -change this friendly rivalry into sudden riot--its real meaning--every -umpire of baseball and football games knows. As an illustration of my -point--namely, that the enthusiasm aroused by athletic contests is the -suppressed hostility of the crowd, I give the following. In this letter -to a New York newspaper, the writer, a loyal "fan," reveals the same -mentality that we find in the sectarian fanatic, or good party man, -whose "principles" have been challenged. The challenge seems in all such -cases to bring the hostility into consciousness as "righteous -indignation." - - _To the Editor_: - - SIR,--The article under the caption "Giants' Chances for Flag to - be Settled in Week," on the sporting page of the _Tribune_, is - doubtless intended to be humorous. - - The section referring to the Cincinnati baseball public is - somewhat overdrawn, to say the least, and does not leave a very - favorable impression on the average Cincinnatian, such as - myself. I have been a reader of your paper for some time, but if - this sort of thing continues I shall feel very much like - discontinuing. - - W. L. D. - -The extremes to which partisan hatred and jealousy can lead even members -of the United States Senate, the intolerance and sectarian spirit which -frequently characterize crowds, the "bigotry" of reformist crowds, are -matters known to us all. Does anyone doubt that certain members of the -Society for the Prevention of Vice, or of the Prohibitionists, would -persecute if they had power? Have not pacifist mass meetings been known -to break up in a row? The Christian religion is fundamentally a religion -of love, but the Church has seldom been wholly free from the -crowd-spirit, and the Church crowd will persecute as quickly as any -other. In each period of its history when Christian believers have been -organized as dominant crowds the Church has resorted to the severest -forms of persecution. Popular religion always demands some kind of devil -to stand as the permanent object of the believer's hostility. Let an -editor, or lecturer, or clergyman anywhere attack some one, and he at -once gains following and popularity. Evangelists and political orators -are always able to "get" their crowd by resorting to abuse of some one. -Let any mass meeting become a crowd, and this note of hostility -inevitably appears. - -Notice the inscriptions which commonly appear on the banners carried in -political or labor parades. On the day after the armistice was signed -with Germany, when the most joyous and spontaneous crowds I have ever -seen filled the streets of New York, I was greatly impressed with those -homemade banners. Though it was the occasion of the most significant and -hard-won victory in human history, there was hardly a reference to the -fact. Though it was the glad moment of peace for which all had longed, I -did not see ten banners bearing the word "Peace," even in the hands of -the element in the city who were known to be almost unpatriotically -pacifist. But within less than an hour I counted on Fifth Avenue more -than a hundred banners bearing the inscription, "To Hell with the -Kaiser." - -That the man chiefly responsible for the horrors of the war should be -the object of universal loathing is only to be expected, but the -significant fact is that of all the sentiments which swept into people's -minds on that occasion, this and this alone should have been immediately -seized upon when the crowd spirit began to appear. I doubt if at the -time there was a very clear sense of the enormity of Wilhelm's guilt in -the minds of those laughing people. The Kaiser was hardly more than a -symbol. The antagonist, whoever he be, was "fallen down to hell," our -own sense of triumph was magnified by the depth of his fall. Just so the -Hebrew Prophet cried "Babylon is fallen," so the early Christians -pictured Satan cast into the bottomless pit, so the Jacobins cried "_A -bas les Aristocrats_," our own Revolutionary crowds cried "Down with -George III," and the Union soldiers sang, "Hang Jeff Davis on a Sour -Apple Tree." I repeat that wherever the crowd-mind appears, it will -always be found to be "against" some one. - -An interesting fact about the hostility of a crowd is its ability on -occasion to survive the loss of its object. It may reveal the phenomenon -which psychologists call "displacement." That is to say, another object -may be substituted for the original one without greatly changing the -quality of the feeling. A mob in the street, driven back from the object -of its attack, will loot a store or two before it disperses. Or, bent on -lynching a certain negro, it may even substitute an innocent man, if -robbed of its intended victim--as, for instance, the lynching of the -mayor of Omaha. Such facts would seem to show that these hostile acts -are really demanded by mechanisms within the psyche. Many symbolic acts -of the person afflicted with compulsion neurosis show this same _trait -of substitution_. If inhibited in the exercise of one mechanism of -escape, the repressed wish will substitute another. Also anyone -associated by the unconscious reasoning with the hated object, or anyone -who tries to defend him or prove him innocent, may suffer from this -crowd's hatred. Freud has analyzed this phenomenon in his study of -taboo. He who touches the tabooed object himself becomes taboo. - -I have said that the hostility of the crowd is a sort of "defense -mechanism." That this is so in certain cases, I think can be easily -demonstrated. The following news item is an example of the manner in -which such hostility may serve as a "defense mechanism" compensating the -self-feeling for certain losses and serving to enhance the feeling of -self-importance: - - CHARGES BAKER HAD 57 BRANDS OF ARMY OBJECTOR. - - ----, OF MINNESOTA, DEFENDING MARINES FATHERS' ASSOCIATION - PROTEST; ASSAILS FREEING OF "SLACKERS." - - WASHINGTON, _July 23_.--A bitter partisan quarrel developed in - the House today when Representative ----, of Minnesota, attacked - Secretary Baker and the President for the government's policy - toward conscientious objectors. The attack was the result of - protests by the Marines Fathers' Association of Minneapolis, - Minnesota, representing between 500 and 600 young marines now in - France, all from the Minneapolis high schools and the University - of Minnesota, and many in the famous 6th Regiment of Marines - that took a big part in stopping the Germans at Chateau Thierry. - - Upon learning of the treatment accorded conscientious objectors - in this country while their sons were dying in France, the - association asked Representative ---- to fix the responsibility - for the government's policy. Representative ---- fixed it today - as that of Secretary Baker and President Wilson, charging that - they extended the definition of those to be exempted from - military service laid down by Congress in an act of May 17, - 1917. - - "One variety of conscientious objector was not enough for Mr. - Baker," declared Representative ----. "He had 57 kinds...." - - Representative ----, of Arizona, defended Secretary Baker, - asserting that of 20,000 men who were certified as conscientious - objectors, 16,000 ultimately went to war. The case of Sergt. - Alvin C. York, the Tennessee hero, who had conscientious - objections at first, but soon changed his mind, was cited in - defense of the War Department's policy. - -Let us pass over the obviously partisan element in this Congressional -debate--a crowd phenomenon in itself, by the way--and consider the -mental state of this Fathers' Association. - -In spite of the fact that the treatment of those who refused military -service in this country was so much more severe than the manner with -which the British government is reported to have dealt with this class -of persons, that many people, including the Secretary of War, whose -loyalty except to partisan minds was above suspicion, sought in the name -of humanity to alleviate some of the conditions in our military prisons, -it was not severe enough to satisfy these "fathers." It is doubtful if -anything short of an _auto da fe_ would have met their approval. Now no -one believes that these simple farmers from the Northwest are such -sadists at heart that they enjoy cruelty for its own sake. I imagine -that the processes at work here are somewhat as follows: - -The telltale phrase here is that these farmers' sons "were dying in -France." Patriotic motives rightly demanded that fathers yield their -sons to the hardship and danger of battle, and while the sacrifice was -made consciously, with willingness and even with pride in having done -their painful duty, it was not accomplished without struggle--the -unconscious resisted it. It could not be reconciled to so great a -demand. In other words, these fathers, and probably many of their sons -also, were unconsciously "conscientious objectors." Unconsciously they -longed to evade this painful duty, but these longings were put aside, -"repressed" as shameful and cowardly--that is, as unacceptable to -conscious self-feeling. It was necessary to defend the ego against -these longings. Compensation was demanded and found in the nation-wide -recognition of the value of this patriotic sacrifice. Expressions of -patriotic sentiment on the part of others, therefore, compensated the -individual and enhanced his self-feeling. - -Successful refusal anywhere to recognize the duty which consciously -motivated this sacrifice strengthened the unconscious desire to evade -it. The unconscious reasoning was something like this: "If those men got -out of this thing, why should not we? Since we had to bear this loss, -they must also. We have suffered for duty's sake. By making them suffer -also, they will be forced to recognize this 'duty' with which we defend -ourselves against our sense of loss and desire to escape it." As a -witness to the values against which the ego of these fathers has to -struggle, the existence of the conscientious objector, in a less degree -of suffering than their own, is as intolerable as their own "shameful -and cowardly" unconscious longings. Hostility to the conscientious -objector is thus a "projection" of their own inner conflict. By becoming -a crowd, the members of this "Fathers' Association" make it mutually -possible to represent their hostility to conscientious objectors as -something highly patriotic. Secretary Baker's alleged leniency to these -hated persons is now not only an affront to these fathers, it is an -affront to the entire nation. - -Another and somewhat different example of the function of hatred in the -service of the self-feeling is the following item, which throws some -light on the motives of the race riots in Washington. This is, of -course, a defense of but one of the crowds involved, but it is -interesting psychologically. - - NEGRO EDITOR BLAMES WHITES FOR RACE RIOTS. - - Dr. W. F. B. DuBois, of 70 Fifth Avenue, editor of _The Crisis_, - a magazine published in connection with the work of the National - Association for the Advancement of the Colored People, yesterday - attributed the race riots in Washington to the irritability of - all people and the unsettling of many ideas caused by the war, - to the influx of a large number of Southerners into Washington, - and to the _presence in that city of many of the representatives - of the educated, well-dressed class of negroes_ which white - racial antagonists dislike. - - Washington policemen are notoriously unfriendly to the colored - people, he added. Time and time again they stand by and witness - a dispute between a white man and a negro, and when it is over - and the negro has been beaten they arrest the negro, and not the - white man who caused the trouble in the first place. - - The colored editor pointed out the similarity between the - present riots in Washington and the Atlanta riots which occurred - about twelve years ago. In both places, he said, white hoodlums - began rioting and killing negroes. When the latter became - aroused and began to retaliate, the authorities stepped in and - the rioting stopped. - - Major J. E. Spingarn, acting treasurer of the National - Association for the Advancement of the Colored People, said the - _soldiers and sailors who have been taking part in the rioting - in Washington resent the new attitude of self-respect which the - negro has assumed because of the part he played in the war_. - - "The soldiers," he said, "instead of fighting the negroes - because the latter think better of themselves for having fought - in the war, should respect them for having proved themselves - such good fighters." (The italics are mine.) - -It is quite possible that in most communities where such race riots -occur certain members of the colored race are responsible to the extent -that they have made themselves conspicuously offensive to their white -neighbors. - -But such individual cases, even where they exist, do not justify attacks -upon hundreds of innocent people. And it must be said that in general -the kind of people whose feelings of personal superiority can find no -other social support than the mere fact that they happen to belong to -the white race--and I think it will be found that the mobs who attack -negroes are uniformly made of people who belong to this -element--naturally find their self-feeling injured "if a nigger puts on -airs." Their fiction is challenged; to accept the challenge would force -upon the consciousness of such people a correct estimate of their own -worth. Such an idea is unacceptable to consciousness. The presumptuous -negroes who serve as such unpleasant reminders "must be put in their -proper place"--that is, so completely under the feet of the white -element in the community that the mere fact of being a white man may -serve as a defense mechanism for just those members of our noble race -who approach more closely to the social position of the colored element -in our midst. - -As the moral standards of the community will not permit even this -element of the white race to play the hoodlum with self-approval, some -disguise or "displacement" for this motive must be found whereby the -acts to which it prompts may appear to the consciousness of their -perpetrators as justifiable. A misdeed is committed by a black man; -instantly this element of the white race becomes a crowd. The deed -provides the whites with just the pretext they want. They may now -justify themselves and one another in an assault on the whole colored -community. Here I believe we have the explanation of much that is called -"race prejudice." The hatred between the races, like all crowd-hatred, -is a "defense mechanism" designed to protect the ego in its conflict -with ideas unacceptable to consciousness. - -The intensest hatred of the crowd is that directed toward the heretic, -the nonconformist, the "traitor." I have sometimes thought that to the -crowd-mind there is only one sin, heresy. Every sort of crowd, -political, religious, moral, has an ax ready for the person who in -renouncing its ideas and leaving it threatens to break it up. The bitter -partisan hatred of crowds is nothing compared to their hatred for the -renegade. To the crowd of true believers, the heretic or schismatic is -"worse than the infidel." The moral crowd will "bear with" the worst -_roué_ if only he strives to keep up appearances, has a guilty -conscience, asks forgiveness, and professes firm belief in the -conventions against which he offends; one may be forgiven his inability -to "live up to his principles" if only his professed principles are the -same as the crowd's. But let a Nietzsche, though his life be that of an -ascetic, openly challenge and repudiate the values of popular morality, -and his name is anathema. - -As an example of the hatred of the political crowd for one who, having -once put his hand to the plow and turned back, henceforth is no longer -fit for the "kingdom," I quote the following from an ultraradical paper. -It is hard to believe that this passage was written by a man who, in his -right mind, is really intelligent and kind-hearted, but such is the -case: - - AN EXPLANATION.--Owing to a failure of editorial supervision we - published an advertisement of John Spargo's book on Bolshevism. - We have returned the money we received for it, and canceled the - contract for its future appearances. We do not pretend to - protect our readers against patent-medicine swindlers, - real-estate sharpers, canned goods prevaricators, ptomaine - poisoners, fairy bond-sellers, picaroon nickel-pickers, subway - ticket speculators, postage-stamp forgers, pie and pancake - counterfeiters, plagiary burglars, lecherous pornographers, and - pictorial back-porch climbers, plundering buccaneer blackmailers - and defaulting matrimonial agents, journalistic poachers, - foragers, pickpockets, thimbleriggers, lick-sauce publicity men, - notoriety hunters, typographical body-snatchers, blackletter - assassins, and promulgators of licentious meters in free verse. - Against these natural phenomena we offer no guarantee to our - readers, but we never intended to advertise John Spargo's book - on Bolshevism. - -Here again, it seems, the reason for hatred is "self-defense." One -important difference between the crowd-mind and the psychosis is the -fact that while the psychic mechanisms of the latter serve to disguise -the inadequately repressed wish, those of the crowd-mind permit the -escape of the repressed impulse by relaxing the force which demands the -repression--namely, the immediate social environment. This relaxation is -accomplished by a general fixation of attention which changes for those -who share it the moral significance of the social demand. The repressed -wish then appears to consciousness in a form which meets with the mutual -approval of the individuals so affected. Or, as I have said, the social -environment, instead of acting as a check upon the realization of the -wish-fancy, slips along in the same direction with it. Hence the will to -believe the same, so characteristic of every crowd. As soon as this -mutuality is broken the habitual criteria of the real again become -operative. Every individual who "comes to" weakens the hold of the -crowd-ideas upon all the others to just the extent that his word must be -taken into account. The crowd resorts to all sorts of devices to bind -its members together permanently in a common faith. It resists -disintegration as the worst conceivable evil. Disintegration means that -crowd-men must lose their pet fiction--which is to say, their "faith." -The whole system elaborated by the unconscious fails to function; its -value for compensation, defense, or justification vanishes as in waking -out of a dream. - -Strong spirits can stand this disillusionment. They have the power to -create new, more workable ideals. They become capable of self-analysis. -They learn to be legislators of value and to revise their beliefs for -themselves. Their faiths become not refuges, but instruments for meeting -and mastering the facts of experience and giving them meaning. The -strong are capable of making their lives spiritual adventures in a real -world. The "truths" of such persons are not compulsive ideas, they are -working hypotheses which they are ready, as occasion may demand, to -verify at great personal risk, or to discard when proved false. Such -persons sustain themselves in their sense of personal worth less by -defense mechanisms than by the effort of will which they can make. - -As William James said: - - If the searching of our heart and reins be the purpose of this - human drama, then what is sought seems to be what effort we can - make. He who can make none is but a shadow; he who can make much - is a hero. The huge world that girdles us about puts all sorts - of questions to us, and tests us in all sorts of ways. Some of - the tests we meet by actions that are easy, and some of the - questions we answer in articulately formulated words. But the - deepest question that is ever asked admits of no reply but the - dumb turning of the will and tightening of our heartstrings as - we say, "Yes, I will even have it so!" When a dreadful object is - presented, or when life as a whole turns up its dark abysses to - our view, then the worthless ones among us lose their hold on - the situation altogether, and either escape from its - difficulties by averting their attention, or, if they cannot do - that, collapse into yielding masses of plaintiveness and fear. - The effort required for facing and consenting to such objects is - beyond their power to make. But the heroic mind does - differently. To it, too, the objects are sinister and dreadful, - unwelcome, incompatible with wished-for things. But it can face - them if necessary without losing its hold upon the rest of life. - The world thus finds in the heroic man its worthy match and - mate.... He can _stand_ this Universe. - -Indeed the path for all who would make of living a reality rather than -an imitation leads along what James used to call "the perilous edge." -Every personal history that is a history, and not a mere fiction, -contains in it something unique, a fraction for which there is no common -denominator. It requires just that effort of attention to concrete -reality and the fact of self which in the crowd we always seek to escape -by diverting attention to congenial abstractions and ready-made -universals. We "find ourselves" only as we "get over" one after another -of our crowd-compulsions, until finally we are strong enough, as Ibsen -would say, "to stand alone." - -Timid spirits seldom voluntarily succeed in getting closer to reality -than the "philosophy of '_as if_'" which characterizes the thinking both -of the crowd and the psychoneurosis. What indeed is the crowd but a -fiction of upholding ourselves by all leaning on one another, an "escape -from difficulties by averting attention," a spiritual safety-first or -"fool-proof" mechanism by which we bear up one another's collapsing -ego-consciousness lest it dash its foot against a stone? - -The crowd-man can, when his fiction is challenged, save himself from -spiritual bankruptcy, preserve his defenses, keep his crowd from going -to pieces, only by a demur. Anyone who challenges the crowd's fictions -must be ruled out of court. He must not be permitted to speak. As a -witness to contrary values his testimony must be discounted. The worth -of his evidence must be discredited by belittling the disturbing -witness. "He is a bad man; the crowd must not listen to him." His -motives must be evil; he "is bought up"; he is an immoral character; he -tells lies; he is insincere or he "has not the courage to take a stand" -or "there is nothing new in what he says." Ibsen's "Enemy of the -People," illustrates this point very well. The crowd votes that Doctor -Stockman may not speak about the baths, the real point at issue. Indeed, -the mayor takes the floor and officially announces that the doctor's -statement that the water is bad is "unreliable and exaggerated." Then -the president of the Householder's Association makes an address accusing -the doctor of secretly "_aiming at revolution_." When finally Doctor -Stockman speaks and tells his fellow citizens the real meaning of their -conduct, and utters a few plain truths about "the compact majority," the -crowd saves its face, not by proving the doctor false, but by howling -him down, voting him an "enemy of the people," and throwing stones -through his windows. - -A crowd is like an unsound banking institution. People are induced to -carry their deposits of faith in it, and so long as there is no unusual -withdrawing of accounts the insolvent condition may be covered up. Many -uneasy depositors would like to get their money out if they could do so -secretly, or without incurring the displeasure of the others. Meanwhile -all insist that the bank is perfectly safe and each does all he can to -compel the others to stay in. The thing they all most fear is that some -one will "start a run on the bank," force it to liquidate, and everyone -will lose. So the crowd functions in its way just so long as its members -may be cajoled into an appearance of continued confidence in its ideals -and values. The spiritual capital of each depends on the confidence of -the others. As a consequence they all spend most of their time exhorting -one another to be good crowd-men, fearing and hating no one so much as -the person who dares raise the question whether the crowd could really -meet its obligations. - -The classic illustration of the manner in which the crowd is led to -discredit the witness to values contrary to its own, is the oration of -Mark Antony in Shakespeare's "Julius Cæsar." It is by this means alone -that Antony is able to turn the minds of the Roman citizens into the -crowd state. It will be remembered that the address of Brutus, just -before this, while not at all a bit of crowd-oratory, left a favorable -impression. The citizens are convinced that "This Cæsar was a tyrant." -When Antony goes up to speak, he thanks them "for Brutus' sake." They -say, "'Twere best he speak no harm of Brutus here." He can never make -them his crowd unless he can destroy Brutus' influence. This is -precisely what he proceeds gradually to do. - -At first with great courtesy--"The noble Brutus hath told you Cæsar was -ambitious; if it were so it was a grievous fault ... for Brutus is an -honorable man, so are they all, all honorable men." This sentence is -repeated four times in the first section; Cæsar was a good faithful -friend to Antony, "But ... and Brutus is an honorable man." Again Cæsar -refused the crown, but "Brutus is an honorable man." Cæsar wept when the -poor cried, "sure, Brutus is an honorable man, I speak not to disprove -what he says" but "men have lost their reason" and "my heart is in the -coffin there with Cæsar." The citizens are sorry for the weeping Antony; -they listen more intently now. Again--"If I were disposed to stir your -hearts and minds to mutiny and rage"--but that would be to wrong Brutus -and Cassius, "Who you all know are honorable men"--this time said with -more marked irony. Rather than wrong such honorable men, Antony prefers -to "wrong the dead, to wrong myself--and you." That sentence sets Brutus -squarely in opposition to the speaker and his audience. Cæsar's will is -mentioned--if only the commons knew what was in it, but Antony will not -read it, "you are not wood, you are not stones, but men." The speaker -now resists their demand to hear the will, he ought not have mentioned -it. He fears he has, after all, wronged "the honorable men whose daggers -have stabbed Cæsar." The citizens have caught the note of irony now; the -honorable men are "traitors," "villains," "murderers." - -From this point on the speaker's task is easy; they have become a crowd. -They think only of revenge, of killing everyone of the conspirators, and -burning the house of Brutus. Antony has even to remind them of the -existence of the will. The mischief is set afloat the moment Brutus is -successfully discredited. - -The development of the thought in this oration is typical. Analysis of -almost any propagandist speech will reveal some, if not all, the steps -by which Brutus is made an object of hatred. _The crowd hates in order -that it may believe in itself._ - - - - -VI - -THE ABSOLUTISM OF THE CROWD-MIND - - -Wherever conscious thinking is determined by unconscious mechanisms, and -all thinking is more or less so, it is dogmatic in character. Beliefs -which serve an unconscious purpose do not require the support of -evidence. They persist because they are demanded. This is a common -symptom of various forms of psychoneurosis. Ideas "haunt the mind" of -the patient; he cannot rid himself of them. He may know they are -foolish, but he is compelled to think them. In severe cases, he may hear -voices or experience other hallucinations which are symbolic of the -obsessive ideas. Or his psychic life may be so absorbed by his one fixed -idea that it degenerates into the ceaseless repetition of a gesture or a -phrase expressive of this idea. - -In paranoia the fixed ideas are organized into a system. Brill says: - - I know a number of paranoiacs who went through a stormy period - lasting for years, but who now live contentedly as if in another - world. Such transformations of the world are common in paranoia. - They do not care for anything, as nothing is real to them. They - have withdrawn their sum of libido from the persons of their - environment and the outer world. The end of the world is the - projection of this internal catastrophe. Their subjective world - came to an end since they withdrew their love from it. By a - secondary rationalization, the patients then explain whatever - obtrudes itself upon them as something intangible and fit it in - with their own system. Thus one of my patients who considers - himself a sort of Messiah denies the reality of his own parents - by saying that they are only shadows made by his enemy, the - devil, whom he has not yet wholly subdued. Another paranoiac in - the Central Islip State Hospital, who represented himself as a - second Christ, spends most of his time sewing out on cloth crude - scenes containing many buildings, interspersed with pictures of - the doctors. He explained all this very minutely as the _new - world system_.... Thus the paranoiac builds up again with his - delusions a new world in which he can live.... (Italics mine.) - - However, a withdrawal of libido is not an exclusive occurrence - in paranoia, nor is its occurrence anywhere necessarily followed - by disastrous consequences. Indeed, in normal life there is a - constant withdrawal of libido from persons and objects without - resulting in paranoia or other neuroses. It merely causes a - special psychic mood. The withdrawal of the libido as such - cannot therefore be considered as pathogenic of paranoia. It - requires a special character to distinguish the paranoiac - withdrawal of libido from other kinds of the same process. This - is readily found when we follow the further utilization of the - libido thus withdrawn. Normally, we immediately seek a - substitute for the suspended attachment, and until one is found - the libido floats freely in the psyche and causes tensions which - influence our moods. In hysteria the freed sum of libido - becomes transformed into bodily innervations of fear. Clinical - indications teach us that in paranoia a special use is made of - the libido which is withdrawn from its object ... the freed - libido in paranoia is thrown back on the ego and serves to - magnify it. - -Note the fact that there is a necessary relation between the fixed ideal -system of the paranoiac and his withdrawal of interest in the outside -world. The system gains the function of reality for him in the same -measure that, loving not the world nor the things that are in the world, -he has rendered our common human world unreal. His love thrown back upon -himself causes him to create another world, a world of "pure reason," so -to speak, which is more congenial to him than the world of empirical -fact. In this system he takes refuge and finds peace at last. Now we see -the function, at least so far as paranoia is concerned, of the ideal -system. As Brill says, it is a curative process of a mind which has -suffered "regression" or turning back of its interest from the affairs -of ordinary men and women, to the attachments of an earlier stage in its -history. To use a philosophical term, the paranoiac is the Simon-pure -"solipsist." And as _a priori_ thinking tends, as Schiller has shown, -ever to solipsism, we see here the grain of truth in G. K. Chesterton's -witty comparison of rationalism and lunacy. - -"Regression," or withdrawal of the libido, is present to some degree I -believe in all forms of the neurosis. But we are informed that a -withdrawal of the libido may, and frequently does, occur also in normal -people. Knowledge of the neurosis here, as elsewhere, serves to throw -light on certain thought processes of people who are considered normal. -Brill says that "normally we seek a substitute for the suspended -attachment." New interests and new affections in time take the places of -the objects from which the feelings have been torn. In analytical -psychology the process by which this is achieved is called a -"transference." - -Now the crowd is in a sense a "transference phenomenon." In the -temporary crowd or mob this transference is too transitory to be very -evident, though even here I believe there will generally be found a -certain _esprit de corps_. In permanent crowds there is often a marked -transference to the other members of the group. This is evident in the -joy of the new convert or the newly initiated, also in such terms of -affection as "comrade" and "brother." I doubt, however, if this -affection, so far as it is genuine among individuals of a certain crowd, -is very different from the good will and affection which may spring up -anywhere among individuals who are more or less closely associated, or -that it ever really extends beyond the small circle of personal friends -that everyone normally gains through his daily relations with others. - -But to the crowd-mind this transference is supposed to extend to all the -members of the group; they are comrades and brothers not because we like -them and know them intimately, but because they are fellow members. In -other words, this transference, so far as it is a crowd phenomenon as -such, is not to other individuals, but to the idea of the crowd itself. -It is not enough for the good citizen to love his neighbors in so far as -he finds them lovable; he must love his country. To the churchman the -Church herself is an object of faith and adoration. One does not become -a humanitarian by being a good fellow; he must love "humanity"--which is -to say, the bare abstract idea of everybody. I remember once asking a -missionary who was on his way to China what it was that impelled him to -go so far in order to minister to suffering humanity. He answered, "It -is love." I asked again, "Do you really mean to say that you care so -much as that for Chinese, not one of whom you have ever seen?" He -answered, "Well, I--you see, I love them through Jesus Christ." So in a -sense it is with the crowd-man always; he _loves through the crowd_. - -The crowd idealized as something sacred, as end in itself, as something -which it is an honor to belong to, is to some extent a disguised object -of our self-love. But the idea of the crowd disguises more than -self-love. Like most of the symbols through which the unconscious -functions, it can serve more than one purpose at a time. The idea of the -crowd also serves to disguise the parental image, and our own imaginary -identification or reunion with it. The nation is to the crowd-man the -"Fatherland," the "mother country," "Uncle Sam"--a figure which serves -to do more than personalize for cartoonists the initials U. S. Uncle Sam -is also the father-image thinly disguised. The Church is "the Mother," -again the "Bride." Such religious symbols as "the Heavenly Father" and -the "Holy Mother" also have the value of standing for the parent image. -For a detailed discussion of these symbols, the reader is referred to -Jung's _Psychology of the Unconscious_. - -In another connection I have referred to the fact that the crowd stands -to the member _in loco parentis_. Here I wish to point out the fact that -such a return to the parent image is commonly found in the -psychoneurosis and is what is meant by "regression." I have also dwelt -at some length on the fact that it is by securing a modification in the -immediate social environment, ideally or actually, that the crowd -permits the escape of the repressed wish. Such a modification in the -social at once sets the members of the crowd off as a "peculiar people." -Interest tends to withdraw from the social as a whole and center in the -group who have become a crowd. The Church is "in the world but not of -it." The nation is an end in itself, so is every crowd. Transference to -the idea of the crowd differs then from the normal substitutes which we -find for the object from which affection is withdrawn. It is itself a -kind of regression. In the psychoneurosis--in paranoia most clearly--the -patient's attempt to rationalize this shifting of interest gives rise to -the closed systems and ideal reconstructions of the world mentioned in -the passage quoted from Brill. - -Does the crowd's thinking commonly show a like tendency to construct an -imaginary world of thought-forms and then take refuge in its ideal -system? As we saw at the beginning of our discussion, it does. The -focusing of general attention upon the abstract and universal is a -necessary step in the development of the crowd-mind. - -The crowd does not think in order to solve problems. To the crowd-mind, -as such, there are no problems. It has closed its case beforehand. This -accounts for what Le Bon termed the "credulity" of the crowd. But the -crowd believes only what it wants to believe and nothing else. Anyone -who has been in the position of a public teacher knows how almost -universal is the habit of thinking in the manner of the crowd and how -difficult it is to get people to think for themselves. One frequently -hears it said that the people do not think, that they do not want to -know the truth. - -Ibsen makes his Doctor Stockman say: - - What sort of truths are they that the majority usually supports? - They are truths that are of such advanced age that they are - beginning to break up.... These "majority truths" are like last - year's cured meat--like rancid tainted ham; and they are the - origin of the moral scurvy that is rampant in our - communities.... The most dangerous enemy of truth and freedom - among us is the compact majority, yes, the damned compact - liberal majority ... the majority has might on its side - unfortunately, but _right_ it has never. - -It is not really because so many are ignorant, but because so few are -able to resist the appeal which the peculiar logic of crowd-thinking -makes to the unconscious, that the cheap, the tawdry, the half-true -almost exclusively gain popular acceptance. The average man is a -dogmatist. He thinks what he thinks others think he is thinking. He is -so used to propaganda that he can hardly think of any matter in other -terms. It is almost impossible to keep the consideration of any subject -of general interest above the dilemmas of partisan crowds. People will -wherever possible change the discussion of a mooted question into an -antiphonal chorus of howling mobs, each chanting its ritual as ultimate -truth, and hurling its shibboleths in the faces of the others. Pursuit -of truth with most people consists in repeating their creed. Nearly -every movement is immediately made into a cult. Theology supplants -religion in the churches. In popular ethics a dead formalism puts an end -to moral advance. Straight thinking on political subjects is -subordinated to partisan ends. Catch-phrases and magic formulas become -substituted for scientific information. Even the Socialists, who feel -that they are the intellectually elect--and I cite them here as an -example in no unfair spirit, but just because so many of them are really -well-informed and "advanced" in their thinking--have been unable to save -themselves from a doctrinaire economic orthodoxy of spirit which is -often more dogmatic and intolerant than that of the "religious folks" to -whose alleged "narrow-mindedness" every Socialist, even while repeating -his daily chapter from the Marxian Koran, feels himself superior. - -The crowd-mind is everywhere idealistic, and absolutist. Its truths are -"given," made-in-advance. Though unconsciously its systems of logic are -created to enhance the self-feeling, they appear to consciousness as -highly impersonal and abstract. As in the intellectualist philosophies, -forms of thought are regarded as themselves objects of thought. Systems -of general ideas are imposed upon the minds of men apparently from -without. Universal acceptance is demanded. Thought becomes stereotyped. -What ought to be is confused with what is, the ideal becomes more real -than fact. - -In the essays on "Pragmatism" William James showed that the rationalist -system, even that of the great philosopher, is in large measure -determined by the thinker's peculiar "temperament." Elsewhere he speaks -of the "Sentiment of Rationality." For a discussion of the various types -of philosophical rationalism, the reader is referred to the criticisms -by William James, F. C. S. Schiller, Dewey, and other Pragmatists. It is -sufficient for our purpose to note the fact that the rationalist type of -mind everywhere shows a tendency to assert the unreality of the world of -everyday experience, and to seek comfort and security in the -contemplation of a logically ordered system or world of "pure reason." -Ideals, not concrete things, are the true realities. The world with -which we are always wrestling is but a distorted manifestation, a -jumbled, stereotyped copy of what James ironically referred to as "the -de luxe edition which exists in the Absolute." The parable of the cave -which Plato gives in the _Republic_ represents ordinary knowledge as a -delusion, and the empirically known world as but dancing shadows on the -wall of our subterranean prison. - -R. W. Livingstone, who sees in Platonism, from the very beginning, a -certain world-weariness and turning away of the Greek spirit from the -healthy realism which had formerly characterized it, says: - - For if Greece showed men how to trust their own nature and lead - a simply human life, how to look straight in the face of the - world and read the beauty that met them on the surface, certain - Greek writers preached a different lesson from this. In - opposition to directness they taught us to look past the - "unimaginary and actual" qualities of things to secondary - meanings and inner symbolism. In opposition to liberty and - humanism they taught us to mistrust our nature, to see in it - weakness, helplessness, and incurable taint, to pass beyond - humanity to communion with God, to live less for this world than - for one to come.... Perhaps to some people it may seem - surprising that this writer is Plato. - -According to this view reality may be found only by means of "pure -knowledge," and, to give a familiar quotation from the Phædo: - - If we would have pure knowledge of anything we must be quit of - the body; the soul in herself must behold things in themselves; - and then we shall attain the wisdom which we desire and of which - we say that we are lovers; not while we live, but after death; - for if, while in company with the body, the soul cannot have - pure knowledge, one of two things follows--either knowledge is - not to be obtained at all, or if at all after death. - -Intellectualism may not always be so clearly other-worldly as Plato -shows himself to be in this passage. But it commonly argues that behind -the visible world of "illusory sense experience" lies the true ground -and cause--an unseen order in which the contradictions of experience are -either unknown or harmonized, an external and unchangeable "Substance," -a self-contained Absolute to which our ephemeral personalities with -their imperfections and problems are unknown. A "thing in itself," or -principle of Being which transcends our experience. - -This type of thinking, whether it be known as Idealism, Rationalism, -Intellectualism, or Absolutism, finds little sympathy from those who -approach the study of philosophy from the standpoint of psychology. The -following passages taken from _Studies in Humanism_ by Schiller, show -that even without the technique of the analytical method, it was not -hard to detect some of the motives which prompted the construction of -systems of this sort. The partisanism of one of these motives is rather -suggestive for our study of the mind of the crowd. Says our author: - - Logical defects rarely kill beliefs to which men, for - psychological reasons, remain attached.... This may suggest to - us that we may have perhaps unwittingly misunderstood - Absolutism, and done it a grave injustice.... What if its real - appeal was not logical but psychological?... - - The history of English Absolutism distinctly bears out these - anticipations. It was originally a deliberate importation from - Germany, with a purpose. And this purpose was a religious - one--that of counteracting the antireligious developments of - Science. The indigenous philosophy, the old British empiricism, - was useless for this purpose. For though a form of - intellectualism, its sensationalism was in no wise hostile to - Science. On the contrary, it showed every desire to ally itself - with, and to promote, the great scientific movement of the - nineteenth century, which penetrated into and almost overwhelmed - Oxford between 1859 and 1870. - - But this movement excited natural and not unwarranted alarm in - that great center of theology. For Science, flushed with its - hard-won liberty, ignorant of philosophy, and as yet unconscious - of its proper limitations, was decidedly aggressive and - overconfident. It seemed naturalistic, nay, materialistic, by - the law of its being. The logic of Mill, the philosophy of - Evolution, the faith in democracy, in freedom, in progress (on - material lines), threatened to carry all before them. - - What was to be done? Nothing directly; for on its own ground - Science seemed invulnerable, and had the knack of crushing the - subtlest dialectics by the knockdown force of sheer scientific - fact. But might it not be possible to change the venue, to - shift the battleground to a region _ubi instabilis terra unda_ - (where the land afforded no firm footing), where the frozen sea - could not be navigated, where the very air was thick with mists - so that phantoms might well pass for realities--the realm, in - short, of metaphysics?... - - So it was rarely necessary to do more than recite the august - table of _a priori_ categories in order to make the most - audacious scientist feel that he had got out of his depth; while - at the merest mention of the Hegelian dialectic all the - "advanced thinkers" of the time would flee affrighted. - -Schiller's sense of humor doubtless leads him to exaggerate somewhat the -deliberateness of this importation of German metaphysics. That these -borrowed transcendental and dialectical systems served their purpose in -the warfare of traditional theologies against Science is but half the -truth. The other half is that these logical formulas provided certain -intelligent believers with a defense, or safe refuge, in their own inner -conflicts. - -That this is the case, Schiller evidently has little doubt. After -discussing Absolutism itself as a sort of religion, and showing that its -"catch-words" taken at their face value are not only emotionally barren, -but also logically meaningless because "inapplicable to our actual -experience," he then proceeds to an examination of the unconscious -motives which determine this sort of thinking. His description of these -motives, so far as it goes, is an excellent little bit of analytical -psychology. He says: - - How then can Absolutism possibly be a religion? It must appeal - to psychological motives of a different sort, rare enough to - account for its total divergence from the ordinary religious - feelings and compelling enough to account for the fanaticism - with which it is held and the persistence with which the same - old round of negations has been reiterated through the ages. Of - such psychological motives we shall indicate the more important - and reputable. - - (1) It is decidedly flattering to one's spiritual pride to feel - oneself a "part" or "manifestation" or "vehicle" or - "reproduction" of the Absolute Mind, and to some this feeling - affords so much strength and comfort and such exquisite delight - that they refrain from inquiring what these phrases mean.... It - is, moreover, the strength of this feeling which explains the - blindness of Absolutists toward the logical defects of their own - theory.... - - (2) There is a strange delight in wide generalization merely as - such, which, when pursued without reference to the ends which it - subserves, and without regard to its actual functioning, often - results in a sort of logical vertigo. This probably has much to - do with the peculiar "craving for unity" which is held to be the - distinctive affliction of philosophers. At any rate, the thought - of an all-embracing One or Whole seems to be regarded as - valuable and elevating quite apart from any definite function it - performs in knowing, or light it throws on any actual problem. - - (3) The thought of an Absolute Unity is cherished as a guarantee - of cosmic stability. In face of the restless vicissitudes of - phenomena it seems to secure us against falling out of the - Universe. It assures us _a_ _priori_--and that is its supreme - value--that the cosmic order cannot fall to pieces and leave us - dazed and confounded among the debris.... We want to have an - absolute assurance _a priori_ concerning the future, and the - thought of the absolute seems designed to give it. It is - probably this last notion that, consciously or unconsciously, - weighs most in the psychology of the Absolutists' creed. - -In this connection the reader will recall the passage quoted from -Adler's _The Neurotic Constitution_, in which it was shown that the -fictitious "guiding-lines" or rational systems of both the neurotic and -normal are motivated by this craving for security. But it makes all the -difference in the world whether the system of ideas is used, as in -science and common sense, to solve real problems in an objective world, -or is created to be an artificial and imaginary defense of the ego -against a subjective feeling of insecurity; whether, in a word, the -craving for security moves one to do something calculated to render the -forces with which he must deal concretely more congenial and hospitable -to his will, or makes him content to withdraw and file a demur to the -challenge of the environment in the form of theoretical denial of the -reality of the situation. - -There is no denying the fact that Absolute Idealism, if not taken too -seriously, may have the function for some people of steadying their -nerves in the battle of life. And though, as I believe, logically -untenable, it not infrequently serves as a rationalization of -faith-values which work out beneficially, and, quite apart from their -metaphysical trappings, may be even indispensable. Yet when carried to -its logical conclusions such thinking inevitably distorts the meaning of -personal living, robs our world and our acts of their feeling of -reality, serves as an instrument for "regression" or withdrawal of -interest from the real tasks and objects of living men and women, and in -fact functions for much the same purpose, if not precisely in the same -way, as do the ideal systems of the psychopath. - -In justice to idealism it should be added that this is by no means the -only species of Rationalism which may lead to such psychic results. -There are various paths by which the craving for artificial security may -lead to such attempts to reduce the whole of possible experience to -logical unity that the realities of time and change and of individual -experience are denied. How many deterministic theories, with all their -scientific jargon, are really motivated by an inability to accept a -world with an element of chance in it. There is a sense in which all -science by subsuming like individuals in a common class, and thus -ignoring their individuality, in so far as they are alike in certain -respects, gains added power over all of them. There is a sense, too, in -which science, by discovering that whenever a given combination of -elements occurs, a definitely foreseen result will follow, is justified -in ignoring time and treating certain futures as if they were already -tucked up the sleeves of the present. It should be remembered that this -sort of determinism is purely methodological, and is, like all thinking, -done for a purpose--that of effecting desirable ends in a world made up -of concrete situations. - -When this purpose becomes supplanted by a passion to discount all future -change in general--when one imagines that he has a formula which enables -him to write the equation of the curve of the universe, science has -degenerated into scientificism, or head-in-the-sand philosophy. The -magic formula has precisely the same psychic value as the "absolute." I -know a number of economic determinists, for instance, who just cannot -get out of their heads the notion that social evolution is a process -absolutely underwritten, guaranteed, and predictable, without the least -possible doubt. In such a philosophy of history as this the individual -is of course a mere "product of his environment," and his role as a -creator of value is nil. On this "materialistic" theory, the individual -is as truly a mere manifestation of impersonal evolutionary forces as he -is, according to orthodox Platonism, a mere manifestation of the -abstract idea of his species. Notwithstanding the professed -impersonalism of this view, its value for consolation in minimizing the -causes of the spiritual difference in men--that is, its function for -enhancing the self-feeling of some people, is obvious. That such an idea -should become a crowd-idea is not to be wondered at. And this leads me -to my point. _It is no mere accident that the crowd takes to -rationalistic philosophies like a duck to water._ - -The crowd-man, however unsophisticated he may be, is a Platonist at -heart. He may never have heard the word epistemology, but his theory of -knowledge is essentially the same as Plato's. Religious crowds are, to -one familiar with the Dialogues, astonishingly Platonic. There is the -same habit of giving ontological rather than functional value to general -ideas, the same other-worldliness, the same moral dilemmas, the same -contempt for the material, for the human body, for selfhood; the same -assertion of finality, and the conformist spirit. - -Reformist crowds differ only superficially from religious crowds. -Patriotic crowds make use of a different terminology, but their mental -habits are the same. It has become a cult among crowds with tendencies -toward social revolution to paint their faces with the colors of a -borrowed nineteenth-century materialism. But all this is mere swagger -and "frightfulness," an attempt to make themselves look terrible and -frighten the bourgeois. I am sure that no one who has seen all this -radical rigmarole, as I have had occasion to see it, can be deceived by -it. These dreadful materialist doctrines of the radical crowd are wooden -guns, no thicker than the soap-box. As a matter of fact, the radical -crowds are extremely idealistic. With all their talk of proletarian -opposition to intellectualism, Socialists never become a crowd without -becoming as intellectualist as Fichte or Hegel. There is a sense in -which Marx himself never succeeded in escaping Hegel's dilemmas, he only -followed the fashion in those days of turning them upside down. - -With radical crowds as with conservative, there is the same substitution -of a closed system of ideas for the shifting phenomena of our empirical -world; the same worship of abstract forms of thought, the same -uncompromising spirit and insistence upon general uniformity of -opinions; the same orthodoxy. All orthodoxy is nothing other than the -will of the crowd to keep itself together. With all kinds of crowds, -also, there is the same diverting of attention from the personal and the -concrete to the impersonal and the general; the same flight from reality -to the transcendental for escape, for consolation, for defense, for -vindication; the same fiction that existence is at bottom a sort of -logical proposition, a magic formula or principle of Being to be -correctly copied and learned by rote; the same attempt to create the -world or find reality by thinking rather than by acting. - -The intellectualist bias of the average man is doubtless due in great -part to the fact that theology, and therefore the religious education of -the young, both Christian and Jewish, has throughout the history of -these religions been saturated with Platonism. But then, the universal -sway of this philosopher may be explained by the fact that there is -something in his abstractionism which is congenial to the creed-making -propensities of the crowd-mind. The great _a priori_ thinkers, Plato, -St. Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Anselm, Rousseau, Kant, Hegel, Green, -etc., have often been called solitary men, but it is significant that -their doctrines survive in popularized form in the creeds and -shibboleths of permanent crowds of all descriptions. While humanists, -nominalists, empiricists, realists, pragmatists, men like Protagoras, -Epicurus, Abelard, Bacon, Locke, Hume, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Bergson, -James, have always had a hard time of it. They are considered -destructive, for the reason that the tendency of their teaching is to -disintegrate the crowd-mind and call one back to himself. Their names -are seldom mentioned in popular assemblies except to discredit them. -Yet it is on the whole these latter thinkers who orient us in our real -world, make us courageously face the facts with which we have to deal, -stimulate our wills, force us to use our ideas for what they -are--instruments for better living,--inspire us to finer and more -correct valuations of things, and point out the way to freedom for those -who dare walk in it. - -All this, however, is the very thing that the crowd-mind is running -headlong away from. As a crowd we do not wish to think empirically. Why -should we seek piecemeal goods by tedious and dangerous effort, when we -have only to do a little trick of attention, and behold The Good, -abstract, perfect, universal, waiting just around the corner in the -realm of pure reason, ready to swallow up and demolish all evil? Are we -not even now in possession of Love, Justice, Beauty, and Truth by the -sheer magic of thinking of them in the abstract, calling them -"principles" and writing the words with the initial letters in capitals? -The very mental processes by which a group of people becomes a crowd -change such abstract nouns from mere class names into copies of -supermundane realities. - -In wholesome thinking principles are of course necessary. They are what -I might call "leading ideas." Their function is to lead to more -satisfactory thinking--that is, to other ideas which are desired. Or -they are useful in leading us to actions the results of which are -intended and wished for. They may also be principles of valuation -guiding us in the choice of ends. If there were no substantial agreement -among us concerning certain principles we could not relate our conduct -to one another at all; social life would be impossible. But necessary as -such leading ideas are, they are means rather than ends. Circumstances -may demand that we alter them or make exceptions to their application. - -To the crowd-mind a principle appears as an end in itself. It must be -vindicated at all costs. To offend against it in one point is to be -guilty of breaking the whole law. Crowds are always uncompromising about -their principles. They must apply to all alike. Crowds are no respecters -of persons. - -As crowd-men we never appear without some set of principles or some -cause over our heads. Crowds crawl under their principles like worms -under stones. They cover up the wrigglings of the unconscious, and -protect it from attack. Every crowd uses its principles as universal -demands. In this way it gets unction upon other crowds, puts them in the -wrong, makes them give assent to the crowd's real purpose by challenging -them to deny the righteousness of the professed justifications of that -purpose. It is said that the Sioux Indians, some years ago, used to put -their women and children in front of their firing line. The braves could -then crouch behind these innocent ones and shoot at white men, knowing -that it would be a violation of the principles of humanity for the white -soldiers to shoot back and risk killing women and children. Crowds -frequently make just such use of their principles. About each crowd, -like the circle of fire which the gods placed about the sleeping -Brunhilde, there is a flaming hedge of logical abstractions, sanctions, -taboos, which none but the intellectually courageous few dare cross. In -this way the slumbering critical faculties of the crowd-mind are -protected against the intrusion of realities from outside the cult. The -intellectual curiosity of the members of the group is kept within proper -bounds. Hostile persons or groups dare not resist us, for in so doing -they make themselves enemies of Truth, of Morality, of Liberty, etc. -Both political parties, by a common impulse, "drape themselves in the -Flag." It is an interesting fact that the most antagonistic crowds -profess much the same set of principles. The "secondary rationalization" -of crowds, both Northern and Southern, at the time of the Civil War, -made use of our traditional principles of American Liberty, and -Christian Morality. We have seen both pacifist and militarist crowds -setting forth their manifestoes in terms of New Testament teaching. Each -religious sect exists only to teach "the one system of doctrine -logically deduced from Scripture." - -As an illustration of this sort of reasoning, I give here a few passages -from a propagandist publication in which the crowd-will to dominate -takes the typical American method of striving to force its cult ideas -upon the community as a whole by means of restrictive moralist -legislation--in this case attempt is made to prohibit the exhibition of -motion pictures on Sunday. That the demand for such legislation is for -the most part a pure class-crowd phenomenon, designed to enhance the -self-feeling and economic interests of the "reformers," by keeping the -poor from having a good time, is I think, rather obvious. The reasoning -here is interesting, as the real motive is so thinly disguised by -pietistic platitudes that the two follow each other in alternate -succession: - - (1) Sunday Movies are not needed. The people have six days and - six nights each week on which to attend the movies. Is not that - plenty of time for all? - - (2) Sunday Movie Theaters commercialize the Christian Sabbath. - While "the Sabbath was made for man," _yet it is God's day_. We - have no right to sell it for business purposes. It is a day for - rest and worship, not a day for greed and gain. Sunday would, - of course, be the best day in the week financially for the - movies. It would also be the best day in the week for the open - saloons and horse-racing, but that is no reason why these should - be allowed on Sunday. _The Sabbath must not be commercialized._ - - (3) _Sunday Movie Theaters destroy the rest and quiet of many - people, especially those who live in the residential district_ - of cities and in the neighborhood where such motion-picture - theaters are located. Great crowds pour along the streets near - such theaters, often breaking the Sunday quiet of that part of - the city by loud and boisterous talk. - - Thousands of people every year are moving away from the downtown - noisy districts of the cities out into the quiet residential - districts in order to have quiet Sundays. But when a - motion-picture theater comes and locates next to their homes, or - in their block, as has been done in many cases, and great noisy, - boisterous crowds surge back and forth before their homes all - Sunday afternoon and evening, going to the movies, they are - being robbed of _that for which they paid their money when they - bought a home in that quiet part of the city_.... - - (4) ... Anything that injures the Christian Sabbath injures the - Christian churches, and certainly Sunday motion-picture - theaters, wherever allowed, do injure the Christian Sabbath.... - - Dr. Wilbur F. Crafts of Washington, D. C., probably the greatest - authority on the Sabbath question in this country, says, "The - Sabbath-keeping nations are the strongest physically, mentally, - morally, _financially_, and politically." Joseph Cook said, "It - is no accident that the nations that keep the Sabbath most - carefully are those where there is the most political freedom." - _Sabbath-breaking nations gradually lose their political - freedom._ - - (5) Sunday Movie Theaters injure the Christian Sabbath and thus - injure the morals of the people. _Anything that injures the - morals of the people, injures the nation itself._ From a - _patriotic_ standpoint, we ought to stand for strict observance - of the Christian Sabbath, as past experience has shown and the - testimony of many witnesses proves that a disregard of the - Christian Sabbath produces crime and immorality and tends to - destroy the free institutions which have helped to make our - nation great.... - - Fundamentally, all such vicious laws are _unconstitutional_. - - _Sunday Movie Theaters disregard the rights of labor_.... Canon - William Sheafe Chase has aptly said, "No man has the Christ - spirit who wants a better time on Sunday than he is willing to - give everyone else."... - - Col. Fairbanks, the famous scale manufacturer, said: "I can tell - by watching the men at work Monday which spent Sunday in sport - and which at home, church, or Sabbath-school. The latter _do - more and better work_." - - Superintendents of large factories in Milwaukee and elsewhere - have said, "When our men go on a Sunday excursion, some cannot - work Monday, and many who work cannot earn their wages, while - _those who had no sport Sunday do their best day's work - Monday_." (Italics mine.) - -We need not be surprised to find that the closed ideational system which -in the first instance is a refuge from the real, becomes in turn a -device for imposing one's will upon his fellows. The believer's ego is -served in both instances. It is interesting to note also that this -self-feeling appears in crowd-thinking as its very opposite. _The -greatest enemy of personality is the crowd._ The crowd does not want -valuable men; it wants only useful men. Everyone must justify his -existence by appealing to the not-self. One may do nothing for his own -sake. He may not even strive for spiritual excellence for such a reason. -He must live for "principle," for "the great cause," for impersonal -abstractions--which is to say, he must live for his crowd, and so make -it easier for the other members to do the same with a good face. - -The complex of ideas in which the crowd-mind as we have seen takes -refuge, being necessarily made up of abstract generalizations, serves -the crowd-will to social dominance through the very claim to -universality which such ideas exert. Grant that an idea is an absolute -truth, and it follows, of course, that it must be true on all occasions -and for everyone. The crowd is justified, therefore, in sacrificing -people to its ideal--itself. The idea is no longer an instrument of -living; it is an imperative. It is not yours to use the idea; the idea -is there to use you. You have ceased to be an end. Anything about you -that does not partake of the reality of this idea has no right to be, -any experience of yours which happens to be incommensurable with this -idea loses its right to be; for experience as such has now only a -"phenomenal existence." The crowd, by identifying its will to power -with this idea, becomes _itself absolute_. Your personal self, as an -end, is quite as unwelcome to the Absolute as to the crowd. There must -be no private property in thought or motive. By making everybody's -business my business, I have made my business everybody's business. -There may be only one standard--that of our crowd, which, because of its -very universal and impersonal character is really nobody's. - -The absolutism of the crowd-mind with its consequent hostility to -conscious personality finds a perfect rationalization in the ethical -philosophy of Kant. The absolutism of the idea of Duty is less -skillfully elaborated in its popular crowd-manifestations, but in its -essentials it is always present, as propaganda everywhere when carefully -analyzed will show. We must not be deceived by Kant's assertion that the -individual is an end. This individual is not you or I, or anyone; it is -a mere logical abstraction. By declaring that everyone is equally an -end, Kant ignores all personal differences, and therefore the fact of -individuality as such. We are each an end in respect to those qualities -only in which we are identical--namely, in that we are "rational -beings." But this rational being is not a personal intelligence; it is a -fiction, a bundle of mental faculties assumed _a priori_ to exist, and -then treated as if it were universally and equally applicable to all -actually existing intelligences. - -In arguing that "I am never to act otherwise than so that I could also -will that my maxim should become a universal law," Kant may be easily -understood as justifying any crowd in seeking to make its peculiar -maxims universal laws. Who but a Rationalist or a crowd-man presumes to -have found the "universal law," who else would have the effrontery to -try to legislate for every conscience in existence? But this presumption -has its price. In thus universalizing my moral will, I wholly -depersonalize it. He says: - - It is of extreme importance to remember that we must not allow - ourselves to think of deducing the reality of this principle - from the particular attributes of human nature. For duty is to - be a practical unconditional necessity of action; it must - therefore hold for all rational beings (to whom an imperative - can apply at all), and for this reason only be also a law for - all human wills. On the contrary, whatever it deduces from the - particular natural characteristics of humanity, from certain - feelings and propensions, nay, even if possible from any - particular tendency proper to human reason, and which need not - necessarily hold for the will of every rational being, this may - indeed supply us with a maxim but not with a law; with a - subjective principle on which we may have a propension or - inclination to act, but not with an objective principle on which - we should be _enjoined_ to act, _even though all our - propensions, inclinations, and natural dispositions were - opposed_ to it. In fact, the _sublimity and intrinsic dignity_ - of the command in duty _are so much the more evident the less - subjective impulses favor it, and the more they oppose it_ - [italics here are mine], without being able in the slightest - degree to weaken the obligation of the law or to diminish its - validity. - - ... An action done from duty derives its moral worth _not from - the purpose_ which is to be attained by it, but from the maxim - by which it is determined. It (this moral worth) cannot lie - anywhere but in the _principle of The Will_, without regard to - the ends which can be attained by such action. - -This loss of the conscious self in the universal, this turning away from -the empirically known, this demand that an _a priori_ principle be -followed to its deadly practical conclusion _regardless of the ends_ to -which it leads, is of utmost importance for our study. It is precisely -what the paranoiac does after his own fashion. In crowd-thinking it is -often made the instrument of wholesale destruction and human slaughter. -The mob is ever motivated by this logic of negation, and of automatic -behavior. It is thus that compulsive thinking sways vast hordes of men -and women, impelling them, in the very name of truth or righteousness, -to actions of the most atrocious character. It is this which robs most -popular movements of their intelligent purposiveness, unleashes the -fanatic and the bigot, and leads men to die and to kill for a phrase. -This way of thinking points straight to Salem, Massachusetts, to the -torture-chamber, the pile of fagots and the mill pond at Rosmersholm. - -The habit of thinking as a crowd is so widespread that it is impossible -to trace the influence of its rationalistic negations in the daily -mental habits of most of us. We play out our lives as if we were but -acting a part which some one had assigned to us. The fact that we are -ourselves realities, as inevitable as falling rain, and with the same -right to be as the rocks and hills, positively startles us. We feel that -we must plead extenuation, apologize for our existence, as if the end -and aim of living were to serve or vindicate a Good which, being -sufficient in itself and independent of us, can never be realized as -actually good for anybody. We behave as if we were unprofitable -servants, cringing before wrathful ideas which, though our own -creations, we permit to lord it over us. Our virtues we regard not as -expressions of ourselves or as habitual ways of reaching desirable -goods, but as if they were demanded of us unwillingly by something not -self. We should remind ourselves that these big words we idolize have no -eyes to see us and no hearts to care what we do, that they are but -symbols of ideas which we might find very useful if we dared to become -masters of them. The most common use we make of such ideas is to beat -one another and ourselves into line with them, or enforce upon -ourselves and others the collection of a debt which was contracted only -by our unconscious desire to cheat at cards in the game of civilization. - -A conscious recognition of this desire and its more deliberate and -voluntary resistance in ourselves rather than in our neighbors, a candid -facing of the fact of what we really are and really want, and a mutual -readjustment of our relations on this recognized basis would doubtless -deliver us from the compulsion of crowd-thinking in somewhat the same -way that psychoanalysis is said to cure the neurotic by revealing to him -his unconscious wish. - -That some such cure is an imperative social need is evident. To-day the -mob lurks just under the skin of most of us, both ignorant and educated. -The ever-increasing frequency of outbreaks of mob violence has its -source in the crowd-thinking which is everywhere encouraged. The mob -which may at any time engulf us is, after all, but the logical -conclusion and sudden ripening of thought processes which are commonly -regarded as highly respectable, idealistic, and moral. - - - - -VII - -THE PSYCHOLOGY OF REVOLUTIONARY CROWDS - - -The crowd-mind is seen at its best and at its worst in revolution. To -many minds, revolution is so essentially a crowd phenomenon that the -terms revolution and crowd-rule are almost synonymous. "Hurrah, the mob -rules Russia," cried certain radicals in the spring of 1917--"Let the -people rule everywhere." Others, more conservative, saw in every -extravagant deed and atrocity alleged to have happened in Russia only -the thing logically to be expected where the mob rules. The idea of -revolution is itself so commonly a crowd-idea that the thinking--if -thinking it may be called--of most people on this subject depends -principally upon which crowd we happen to belong to, the crowd which -sustains the ego-feeling of its members by the hope of revolution, or -the crowd which, for similar reason, brands everything which opposes its -interests, real or imaginary, as "anarchy" and "Bolshevism." - -If the word "revolution" be taken to mean fundamental change in men's -habits of thought, and life, and the forms of their relations to one -another, then it may be said that great "revolutions may be and have -been achieved with a relatively small degree of crowd-thinking and mob -violence." Much of the normal development of civilization, for instance, -the great scientific advance of the nineteenth century, the spread of -culture, the creation of artistic values, the rise in the standard of -living, is change of this sort. Such change is, however, gradual. It is -brought about by countless concrete adaptations, by thinking always -toward realizable ends. New and often unforeseeable results are thus -reached; but they are reached, as in all organic growth and in all sound -thinking, by a series of successful adjustments within the real. True -progress is doubtless made up of changes of this sort. But for the -course of progress to run on uninterrupted and undefeated we should have -to be, both in our individual and social behavior, the reasonable beings -which certain nineteenth-century utilitarians mistook us for. - -It is the fool thing, the insincere thing, that more commonly happens in -matters social and political. The adjustment reached is not often a -solution of a social problem worked out deliberately on the -"greatest-happiness" principle. It is commonly a _status quo_, or -balance of power among contending crowds, each inspired by the fiction -of its own importance, by self-idealization, and desire to rule. It is -an unstable equilibrium usually held in place for the time by a dominant -crowd. This dominant crowd may itself be composed of quarreling -factions, but these parties, so long as they share enough of the -supremacy to keep up their self-feeling, so long, in fact, as their -members may even be able to make themselves believe that they, too, are -in the upper set, or so long as they continue to hope for success in the -social game as now played, unite in repeating the catchwords which -justify their crowd in its supremacy. The dominant group identifies its -own interests with the general welfare. And in the sense that some sort -of order, or any at all, is to be preferred to social chaos, there is an -element of truth in this identification. - -The fact remains, however, that the dominant crowd possesses always much -of the crowd-spirit which originally secured for it its enviable -position. Its ideas, like those of all crowds, are devices for -sustaining the self-feeling of its members, for protecting itself, for -keeping the group together, for justification. They are only -secondarily, if at all, instruments for dealing with new and perplexing -social situations. It cannot be denied that a certain set of opinions, -prejudices, mannerisms, ceremonies "go with" the social position which -corresponds to them. They are the ready-made habits of the "set" or -class. They are badges by which the "gentleman" is distinguished, the -evening clothes of the psyche, as it were. Many of these crowd-forms -represent true values of living, some of them are useful in our dealings -with reality; if this were not so, if such spiritual tattooings or -ceremonial forms were wholly harmful, the crowd which performed them -would be at such a disadvantage that it could not hold its own. But that -considerations of utility--other than the function which such -ceremonialism is known to have for the unconscious always--do not -directly govern these forms of thought and behavior is seen in the fact -that so many of them, as Sumner says of "folkways," are either harmful -or useless in dealing with matters of fact. - -The dominant crowd, therefore, in just so far as it must remain a crowd -in order to secure its own position of supremacy, must strive to force -all social realities into the forms of its own conflicts and dilemmas. -Inevitably the self-feeling of a great many people, who are forced by -the dominant crowd to conform and labor with no compensation, is hurt. -They cannot but contrast their own lot with that of their more fortunate -neighbors. Of all things, people probably resist most the feeling of -inferiority. Any suggestion that the difference in social position is -due to a similar difference in personal worth or in ability is hotly -resented. The resentment is in no wise abated by the fact that in some -cases this suggestion may be true. Compensations are at once created by -the unconscious. In mediæval times "all men were brothers and were equal -before the altars of the Church and in heaven." Thus distinctions of -merit, other than those which prevailed in the social order, were set up -in the interest of the common man. - -As the influence of the Renaissance directed general attention from the -realm of the spiritual to practical affairs of earth, these -compensations changed from thoughts of the future world to dreams of the -future of this world. The injured self-feeling dwells upon the economic -or political inequalities which flow from the dominance of the ruling -crowd. The injustices and acts of exploitation, which are certainly -neither new nor rare occurrences in human relations, are seized upon as -if it were these things, not the assumption to superiority, which were -the issue at stake. - -At the time of the French Revolution the Third Estate, or Bourgeois, -which showed itself quite as capable of exploiting the poor as ever were -the older aristocrats, saw itself only as part of the wronged and -exploited "people." The sufferings of the poor, which it was frequently -even then profiting in quite as heartily, to say the least, as the -titled nobility, were represented as the grievance of all mankind -against the hated nobility. That the ideas of "liberty, equality, and -fraternity" which these good tradesmen preached may easily become the -sort of compensatory ideas we have been discussing is shown by the fact -of the genuine astonishment and indignation of the burghers when later -their employees made use of this same phrase in the struggles between -labor and capital. Sans-culottism had quite as many psychological -motives as economic behind it. - -How pompous, hateful, and snobbish were those titled folk with their -powdered wigs, carriages, fine clothes, and their exclusive social -gatherings to which honest citizens, often quite as wealthy as -themselves, were not invited. If the "people"--that is, the burghers -themselves--only had a chance they would be just as fine ladies and -gentlemen as those who merely inherited their superiority. Down with the -aristocrats! All men were equal and always had been. There must be -fraternity and the _carier ouvert les talents_, in other words, -brotherhood and free competition. - -I am sure, from all I have ever seen or read of social revolt and -unrest, that this injured self-feeling, or defense against the sense of -personal inferiority, while not the only motive, is the most powerful -one at work. It crops out everywhere, in the layman's hatred of the -clergy during the Reformation, in that curious complex of ideas whereby -the uneducated often look upon a college diploma as something little -short of magical, and defend their ego against this ridiculously -exaggerated mark of distinction and accompanying feeling of -self-reproach by a slur at "high-brows." Few people realize how general -this feeling is; the trick of making fun of the educated is one of the -commonest forms of crowd-humor in America, both in vaudeville and in -popular oratory. I have previously pointed out the fact that the -religious revival in our day is to a great extent characterized by a -popular resistance to scholars. No one can read Mr. Sunday's sermons and -deny this fact. The City of New York gave the largest majority in its -history to the candidate for the office of mayor who made opposition to -"experts" the main issue in his campaign. Scores of times I have heard -popular speakers resort to this trick to gain favor with their -audiences, and I cannot remember ever having known such sentiments to -fail to gain applause--I am not speaking now of strictly academic -groups, but of general gatherings. - -The point of interest here is that these same people have a most -extravagant notion of the value of the academic training which they -encourage the crowd speaker in ridiculing. I have made it a practice of -talking with a great many people personally and drawing them out on this -point, and I have found that this is almost uniformly the case. F. B., a -cigar maker by trade, says, "Oh, if I had only had sense enough to go on -to school when I had the opportunity!" E. L., a mechanic, says, "I might -have been somebody, if I had been given any chance to get an education." -R., a sort of jack-of-all-trades, says, "If I only had N.'s education, -I'd be a millionaire." B., a farmer with limited intellectual interests, -says, "I tell you, my boys are not going to be like me; they have got to -go to college." G., a waiter, says, "I don't know much," and then -proceeds to impress me with the latest bit of academic information which -he has picked up. C., a printer, who has been moderately successful, -says: "I'd give ten thousand dollars right this minute if I knew Greek; -now there is ---- and there is ----, neighbors of mine, they're highly -educated. When I'm with them I'm ashamed and feel like a dub." - -When, on such occasions, I repeatedly say that the average academic -student really learns hardly anything at all of the classic languages, -and cite the small fruits of my own years of tedious study as an -example, the effect produced is invariably comforting--until I add that -one need not attend a university seven years or even four to become -educated, but that nearly everyone with ability to learn and with -genuine intellectual interests may achieve a remarkable degree of -learning. The answer of the perplexed person is then often an -extenuation. "Well, you see, a busy person or a working man is so tired -after the day's work that he has no energy left for study," or it is, -"Wait till the working class have more leisure, then they, too, can be -cultivated." Passing over this extenuation, which ignores the fact that -some of the best informed and clearest thinking people one meets are -working people, while the average university graduate leads anything but -an intellectual life, it can hardly be denied, I think, that our crowd -cult of anti-"highbrowism" is really a defense mechanism against an -inner feeling of inferiority. Now the interesting thing about this -feeling of inferiority is the exaggerated notion of the superiority of -the college-trained, which is entertained chiefly by the uneducated -themselves. What appears here is in fact nothing other than a cheapening -of the idea of superiority. Personal excellence is something which -anyone may attain; it is not something congenital, but something to be -added on; one "gets an education," possesses something of advantage, -merely by a few years of conventional study of books. Anyone might do -that, therefore. "I, too, if I only cared to, or had been given -opportunity, might now be famous." "The difference between myself and -the world's greatest genius is not a spiritual chasm which I could not -myself, at least hypothetically, cross." "It is rather an 'acquired -character,' a mere fruit of special opportunity--which in a few cases it -doubtless may be--but it is something external; at bottom we are all -equal." - -Many facts may be advanced to corroborate the results of our analysis -here. The crowd always resents the Carlyle, William James, Nietzsche, -Goethe theory of genius. Genius is not congenital superiority. It is the -result of hard work. The genius is not a unique personal fact, he is a -"representative man." He says just what his age is thinking. The -inarticulate message of his contemporaries simply becomes articulate in -some one, and behold a genius. In other words, I suppose, all Vienna, -messenger boys and bootblacks especially, were suddenly fascinated by -Schiller's "Ode to Joy" and went about whistling improvised musical -renderings of the theme of this poem, till the deaf Beethoven heard and -wrote these whistlings down in the form of the Ninth Symphony. - -According to the crowd, Luther did not create the Reformation, or -Petrarch the Renaissance; these movements themselves created their -leaders and founders; all that the genius did was to interpret and -faithfully obey the People's will. Ergo, to be a genius one need only -study hard enough to be able to tell the people what they already think. -The superiority of genius is therefore no different from that of any -educated person; except in degree of application. Anyone of us might -possess this superiority. In other words, the "intellectual -snobbishness" which the crowd resents is nothing else than the -crowd-man's own fiction of self-importance, projected upon those whose -imagined superiority he envies. It is recognized, even exaggerated by -the unlearned, because it is precisely the sort of superiority which the -ignorant man himself, in his ignorance, imagines that he himself would -display if he "only had the chance," and even now possesses -unrecognized. - -We have made the foregoing detour because I think it serves to -illustrate, in a way, the psychic processes behind much revolutionary -propaganda and activity. I would not attempt to minimize the extent of -the social injustice and economic slavery which a dominant crowd, -whether ecclesiastical, feudal, or capitalistic, is guilty of in its -dealings with its subjects. But every dominant crowd, certain sections -of the "proletariat" as quickly as any other, will resort to such -practices, and will alike justify them by moral catchwords the minute -its supremacy over other crowds gives it opportunity. Therefore there is -a certain amount of tautology in denouncing the "master class" for its -monstrous abuses. That the real point at issue between the dominant -crowd and the under crowd is the assumed personal superiority of the -members of the former, rather than the economic "exploitation" which it -practices, is shown by the fact that the French Revolution was led by -wealthy bourgeois, and that the leading revolutionary element in the -working class to-day consists, not of the "down and out" victims of -capitalist exploitation, but of the members of the more highly skilled -and better paid trades, also of certain intellectuals who are not -"proletarians" at all. - -And now we come to our point: the fiction of superiority of the dominant -crowd, just as in the case of the assumed personal superiority of the -intellectuals, is resented by the under crowd because it is _secretly -recognized_ by the under crowd. Of course the dominant crowd, like all -crowds, is obsessed by its feelings of self-importance, and this feeling -is apparently vindicated by its very social position. But the fiction is -recognized at its full face value, and therefore resented by the under -crowds, because that is precisely the sort of personal supremacy to -which they also aspire. - -One commonly hears it said to-day, by those who have made the catchwords -of democracy their crowd cult, that the issue in modern society is -between democracy and capitalism. In a sense this may be true, but only -in a superficial sense; the real issue is between the personal self as a -social entity and the crowd. Capitalism is, to my mind, the logical -first fruit of so-called democracy. Capitalism is simply the social -supremacy of the trader-man crowd. For a hundred years and more -commercial ability--that of organizing industry and selling goods--has -been rewarded out of all proportion to any other kind of ability, -because, in the first place, it leads to the kind of success which the -ordinary man most readily recognizes and envies--large houses, fine -clothes, automobiles, exclusive clubs, etc. A Whittier may be ever so -great a poet, and yet sit beside the stove in the general store of his -little country village, and no one thinks he is so very wonderful. Some -may envy him his fame, but few will envy and therefore be fascinated by -that in him which they do not understand. But a multimillionaire in -their community is understood; everyone can see and envy his success; he -is at once both envied and admired. - -Moreover, the commercial ability is the sort which the average man most -commonly thinks he possesses in some degree. While, therefore, he -grumbles at the unjust inequalities in wealth which exist in modern -society, and denounces the successful business man as an exploiter and -fears his power, the average man will nevertheless endure all this, much -in the same spirit that a student being initiated into a fraternity will -take the drubbing, knowing well that his own turn at the fun will come -later. It is not until the members of the under crowd begin to suspect -that their own dreams of "aping the rich" may never come true that they -begin to entertain revolutionary ideas. In other words, forced to -abandon the hope of joining the present dominating crowd, they begin to -dream of supplanting and so dispossessing this crowd by their own crowd. - -That the dominant crowd is just as much to blame for this state of -affairs as the under crowd, perhaps more so, is shown by the history of -every period preceding a revolutionary outbreak. I will dwell at some -length on this fact later. My point here is that, first, a revolution, -in the sense that the word means a violent uprising against the existing -order, is a psychological crowd-phenomenon--and second, that it takes -two crowds to make a revolution. - -Writers, like Le Bon, have ignored the part which the dominant crowd -plays in such events. They have thought of revolution only as the -behavior of the under crowd. They have assumed that the crowd and the -people were the same. Their writings are hardly more than conservative -warnings against the excess and wickedness of the popular mind once it -is aroused. Sumner says: - - Moral traditions are the guides which no one can afford to - neglect. They are in the mores, and they are lost in every great - revolution of the mores. Then the men are morally lost. - -Le Bon says, writing of the French Revolution: - - The people may kill, burn, ravage, commit the most frightful - cruelties, glorify its hero to-day and throw him into the gutter - to-morrow; it is all one; the politicians will not cease to - vaunt its virtues, its high wisdom, and to bow to its every - decision. - - Now in what does this entity really consist, this mysterious - fetich which revolutionists have revered for more than a - century? - - It may be decomposed into two distinct categories. The first - includes the peasants, traders, and workers of all sorts who - need tranquillity and order that they may exercise their - calling. This people forms the majority, but a majority which - never caused a revolution. Living in laborious silence, it is - ignored by historians. - - The second category, which plays a capital part in all national - disturbances, consists of a subversive social residue dominated - by a criminal mentality. Degenerates of alcoholism and poverty, - thieves, beggars, destitute "casuals," indifferent workers - without employment--these constitute the dangerous bulk of the - armies of insurrection.... To this sinister substratum are due - the massacres which stain all revolutions.... To elements - recruited from the lowest dregs of the populace are added by - contagion a host of idle and indifferent persons who are simply - drawn into the movement. They shout because there are men - shouting, and revolt because there is a revolt, without having - the vaguest idea of the cause of the shouting or revolution. The - suggestive power of the environment absolutely hypnotized them. - -This idea, which is held with some variation by Sumner, Gobineau, -Faguet, and Conway, is, I believe, both unhistorical and -unpsychological, because it is but a half-truth. This substratum of the -population does at the moment of revolution become a dangerous mob. Such -people are unadjusted to any social order, and the least deviation from -the routine of daily life throws them off their balance. The relaxation -of authority at the moment when one group is supplanting another in -position of social control, is to these people like the two or three -days of interregnum between the pontificates of Julius and Leo, -described by Cellini. Those who need some one to govern them, and they -are many, find their opportunity in the general disturbance. They -suddenly react to the revolutionary propaganda which up to this minute -they have not heeded, they are controlled by revolutionary crowd-ideas -in a somnambulistic manner, and like automatons carry these ideas -precipitately to their deadly conclusion. But this mob is not the really -revolutionary crowd and in the end it is always put back in its place by -the newly dominant crowd. The really revolutionary crowd consists of the -group who are near enough the dominant crowd to be able to envy its -"airs" with some show of justification, and are strong enough to dare -try issue with it for supreme position. Madame Rolland, it will be -remembered, justified her opposition to aristocrats on the principle of -equality and fraternity, but she could never forget her resentment at -being made, in the home of a member of this aristocracy, to eat with the -servants. - -What Le Bon and others seem to ignore is that the ruling class may be -just as truly a crowd as the insurrectionary mob, and that the violent -behavior of revolutionary crowds is simply the logic of crowd-thinking -carried to its swift practical conclusion. - -It is generally assumed that a revolution is a sudden and violent change -in the form of government. From what has been said it will be seen that -this definition is too narrow. History will bear me out in this. The -Protestant Reformation was certainly a revolution, as Le Bon has shown, -but it affected more than the government or even the organization of the -Church. The French Revolution changed the form of the government in -France several times before it was done, passing through a period of -imperial rule and even a restoration of the monarchy. But the revolution -as such survived. Even though later a Bourbon or a prince of the House -of Orleans sat on the throne of France, the restored king or his -successor was hardly more than a figurehead. A new class, the Third -Estate, remained in fact master of France. There had been a change in -the ownership of the land; power through the control of vested property -rested with the group which in 1789 began its revolt under the -leadership of Mirabeau. A new dictatorship had succeeded the old. And -this is what a revolution is--_the dictatorship of a new crowd_. The -Russian revolutionists now candidly admit this fact in their use of the -phrase "the dictatorship of the proletariat." Of course it is claimed -that this dictatorship is really the dictatorship of "all the people." -But this is simply the old fiction with which every dominant crowd -disguises seizure of power. Capitalist republicanism is also the rule of -all the people, and the pope and the king, deriving their authority from -God, are really but "the servants of all." - -As we have seen, the crowd mind as such wills to dominate. Society is -made up of struggle groups, or organized crowds, each seeking the -opportunity to make its catchwords realities and to establish itself in -the position of social control. The social order is always held intact -by some particular crowd which happens to be dominant. A revolution -occurs when a new crowd pushes the old one out and itself climbs into -the saddle. When the new crowd is only another faction within the -existing dominant crowd, like one of our established political parties, -the succession will be accomplished without resort to violence, since -both elements of the ruling crowd recognize the rules of the game. It -will also not result in far-reaching social changes for the same reason. -A true revolution occurs when the difference between the dominant crowd -and the one which supplants it is so great as to produce a general -social upheaval. The Reformation, the French Revolution, and the -"Bolshevist" _coup d'etat_ in Russia, all were of this nature. A new -social leadership was established and secured by a change in each case -in the personnel of the ownership of such property as would give the -owners the desired control. In the first case there was a transfer of -property in the church estates, either to the local congregations, or -the state, or the denomination. In the second case the property -transferred was property in land, and with the Russian revolutionists -landed property was given to the peasants and vested capital turned -over to the control of industrial workers. - -Those who lay all emphasis on this transfer of property naturally see -only economic causes in revolutionary movements. Economics, however, is -not a science of impersonal things. It treats rather of men's relations -to things, and hence to one another. It has to do with valuations and -principles of exchange and ownership, all of which need psychological -restatement. The transfer of the ownership of property in times of -revolution to a new class is not an end, it is a means to a new crowd's -social dominance. The doctrines, ideals, and principles believed by the -revolutionary crowd also serve this end of securing its dominance, as do -the social changes which it effects, once in power. - -Revolutions do not occur directly from abuses of power, for in that case -there would be nothing but revolution all the time, since every dominant -crowd has abused its power. It is an interesting fact that revolution -generally occurs after the abuses of which the revolutionists complain -have been in great measure stopped--that is, after the ruling crowd has -begun to make efforts at reform. The Reformation occurred in the -pontificate of Leo X. If it had been the result of intolerable abuse -alone, it would have happened in the time of Alexander VI, Borgia. The -French Revolution fell upon the mild head of Louis XVI, though the -wrongs which it tried to right mostly happened in the reign of his -predecessor. In most cases the abuses, the existence of which a -revolutionary crowd uses for propaganda purposes, are in turn repeated -in new form by itself after it becomes dominant. The Reformers in the -sixteenth and seventeenth centuries resorted to much the same kind of -persecution from which they had themselves earlier suffered. The -Constituent Assembly, though it had demanded liberty, soon set up a more -outrageous tyranny through its own committees than any that the Louies -had dreamed of. Bolshevists in capitalist countries are the greatest -advocates of free speech; in Russia they are the authors of a very -effective press-censorship. - -No, it is hardly the abuses which men suffer from their ruling crowds -which cause insurrection. People have borne the most terrible outrages -and suffered in silence for centuries. Russia itself is a good example -of this. - -_A revolution occurs when the dominant crowd begins to weaken._ I think -we find proof of this in the psychology of revolutionary propaganda. A -general revolution is not made in a day, each such cataclysm is preceded -by a long period of unrest and propaganda of opposition to the existing -order and its beneficiaries. The Roman Republic began going to pieces -about a hundred years before the battle of Actium. The social unrest -which followed the Punic Wars and led to the revolt of the brothers -Gracchi was never wholly checked during the century which followed. The -dominant party had scarcely rid itself of these troublesome "demagogues" -than revolt broke out among the slave population of Sicily. This was -followed by the revolt of the Italian peasants, then again by the -insurrection of Spartacus, and this in turn by the civil war between -Marius and Sulla, the conspiracy of Catiline, the brief triumph of -Julius Cæsar over the Senate, the revenge of the latter in the -assassination of Cæsar, and the years of turmoil during the Second -Triumvirate. - -It is doubtful if there was at any time a very clear or widespread -consciousness of the issues which successively arose during that unhappy -century. It would seem that first one counter-crowd and then another, -representing various elements of the populace, tried issue with the -ruling crowd. The one factor which remained constant through all this -was the progressive disintegration of the dominant party. The supremacy -of the _Patres Conscripti et Equites_ became in fact a social -anachronism the day that Tiberius Gracchus demanded the expropriation of -the landed aristocracy. The ideas whereby the dominant crowd sought to -justify its pre-emptions began to lose their functional value. Only the -undisguised use of brute force was left. Such ideas ceased to convince. -Men of unusual independence of mind, or men with ambitious motives, who -had grown up within the dominant crowd, began to throw off the spell of -its control-ideas, and, by leaving it, to weaken it further from within. -No sooner was this weakness detected by other groups than every sort of -grievance and partisan interest became a moral justification for efforts -to supplant the rulers. The attempt of the dominant crowd to retain its -hold by repeating its traditional justification-platitudes, unchanged, -but with greater emphasis, may be seen in the orations of Cicero. It -would be well if some one besides high-school students and their Latin -teachers were to take up the study of Cicero; the social and -psychological situation which this orator and writer of moral essays -reveals has some suggestive similarities to things which are happening -to-day. - -The century and more of unrest which preceded both the Reformation and -the French Revolution is in each instance a long story. But in both -there is the same gradual loss of prestige on the part of the dominant -crowd; the same inability of this crowd to change with the changes of -time; to find new sanctions for itself when the old ones were no longer -believed; the same unadaptability, the same intellectual and moral -bankruptcy, therefore, the same gradual disintegration from within; the -same resort to sentimentalism and ineffective use of force, the same -circle of hungry counter-crowds waiting around with their tongues -hanging out, ready to pounce upon that before which they had previously -groveled, and to justify their ravenousness as devotion to principle; -the same growing fearlessness, beginning as perfectly loyal desire to -reform certain abuses incidental to the existing order, and advancing, -with every sign of disillusionment or weakness, to moral indignation, -open attack upon fundamental control ideas, bitter hostility, augmented -by the repressive measures taken by the dominant crowd to conserve a -_status quo_ which no longer gained assent in the minds of a growing -counter-crowd; finally force, and a new dominant crowd more successful -now in justifying old tyrannies by principles not yet successfully -challenged. - -In the light of these historical analogies the record of events during -the last seventy-five years in western Europe and America is rather -discomforting reading, and I fear the student of social psychology will -find little to reassure him in the pitiable lack of intellectual -leadership, the tendency to muddle through, the unteachableness and -general want of statesmanlike vision displayed by our present dominant -crowds. If a considerable number of people of all classes, those who -desire change as well as those who oppose it, could free their thinking -from the mechanisms of the crowd-mind, it might be possible to find the -working solution of some of our pressing social problems and save our -communities from the dreadful experience of another revolution. Our hope -lies in the socially minded person who is sufficiently in touch with -reality to be also a non-crowd man. - -Anyone who is acquainted with the state of the public mind at present, -knows that _a priori_ arguments against revolution as such are not -convincing, except to those who are already convinced on other ground. -The dominant crowd in each historical epoch gained its original -supremacy by means of revolution. One can hardly make effective use of -the commonplace antirevolutionary propaganda of defense of a certain -order which has among its most ardent supporters people who are proud to -call themselves sons and daughters of the Revolution. Skeptics at once -raise the question whether, according to such abstract social ethics, -revolutionists become respectable only after they are successful or have -been a long time dead. In fact, the tendency to resort to such reasoning -is one among many symptoms that the conservative mind has permitted -itself to become quite as much a crowd-phenomenon as has the radical -mind. - -The correct approach here is psychological and pragmatic. There is an -increasingly critical social situation, demanding far-reaching -reconstructive change; only the most hopeless crowd-man would presume to -deny this fact. The future all depends upon the mental processes with -which we attempt to meet this situation. Nothing but useless misery can -result from dividing crowd against crowd. Crowd-thinking, as I have -said, does not solve problems. It only creates ideal compensations and -defense devices for our inner conflicts. Conservative crowd-behavior has -always done quite as much as anything else to precipitate a -revolutionary outbreak. Radical crowd-behavior does not resolve the -situation, it only inverts it. Any real solution lies wholly outside -present crowd-dilemmas. What the social situation demands most is a -different kind of thinking, a new education, an increasing number of -people who understand themselves and are intellectually and morally -independent of the tyranny of crowd-ideas. - -From what has been said above, it follows that revolutionary propaganda -is not directly the cause of insurrection. Such propaganda is itself an -effect of the unconscious reaction between a waning and a crescent -crowd. It is a symptom of the fact that a large number of people have -ceased to believe in or assent to the continued dominance of the present -controlling crowd and are looking to another. - -There is always a tendency among conservative crowds to hasten their own -downfall by the manner in which they deal with revolutionary propaganda. -The seriousness of the new issue is denied; the crowd seeks to draw -attention back to the old issue which it fought and won years ago in the -hour of its ascendancy. The fact that the old charms and shibboleths no -longer work, that they do not now apply, that the growing counter-crowd -is able to psychoanalyze them, discover the hidden motives which they -disguise, and laugh at them, is stoutly denied. The fiction is -maintained to the effect that present unrest is wholly uncalled-for, -that everything is all right, that the agitators who "make people -discontented" are alien and foreign and need only be silenced with a -time-worn phrase, or, that failing, shut up by force or deported, and -all will be well. - -I do not doubt that before the Reformation and the French Revolution -there were ecclesiastics and nobles aplenty who were quite sure that the -masses would never have known they were miserable if meddling disturbers -had not taken the trouble to tell them so. Even an honest critical -understanding of the demands of the opposing crowd is discouraged, -possibly because it is rightly felt that the critical habit of mind is -as destructive of one crowd-complex as the other and the old crowd -prefers to remain intact and die in the last ditch rather than risk -dissolution, even with the promise of averting a revolution. Hence the -Romans were willing to believe that the Christians worshiped the head of -an ass. The mediæval Catholics, even at Leo's court, failed to grasp the -meaning of the outbreak in north Germany. Thousands saw in the -Reformation only the alleged fact that the monk Luther wanted to marry a -wife. To-day one looks almost in vain among business men, editors, and -politicians for a more intelligent understanding of socialism. A crowd -goes down to its death fighting bogies, and actually running upon the -sword of its real enemy, because a crowd, once its constellation of -ideas is formed, _never learns anything_. - -The crowd-group contains in itself, in the very nature of -crowd-thinking, the germs which sooner or later lay it low. When a crowd -first becomes dominant, it carries into a place of power a number of -heterogeneous elements which have, up to this time, been united in a -great counter-crowd because of their common dissatisfaction with the old -order. Gradually the special interests of these several groups become -separated. The struggle for place is continued as a factional fight -within the newly ruling crowd. This factional struggle greatly -complicates every revolutionary movement. We witness this in the -murderously hostile partisan conflicts which broke out in the -revolutionary Assemblies in France. It is seen again in the Reformation, -which had hardly established itself when the movement was rent by -intense sectarian rivalries of all sorts. The same is true of Russia -since the fall of the Tsar, and of Mexico ever since the overthrow of -the Diaz regime. If these factional struggles go so far as to result in -schism--that is, in a conscious repudiation by one or more factions of -the revolutionary creed which had formerly united them all, there is -disintegration and in all probability a return to the old ruling crowd. - -This reaction may also be made possible by a refusal of one faction to -recognize the others as integral parts of the newly triumphant crowd. If -the new crowd after its victory can hold itself together, the revolution -is established. It then becomes the task of the leading faction in the -newly dominant crowd to grab the lion's share of the spoils for itself, -give the other factions only so much prestige as will keep alive in -their minds the belief that they, too, share in the new victory for -"humanity" and hold the new social order together, while at the same -time justifying its own leadership by the compulsive power of the idea -which they all alike believe. This belief, as we have seen, is the _sine -qua non_ of the continued existence of any crowd. A dominant crowd -survives so long as its belief is held uncritically and repeated and -acted upon automatically both by the members of the crowd and its -victims. When the factions which have been put at a disadvantage by the -leading faction renounce the belief, or awake to the fact that they -"have been cheated," disintegration begins. - -Between the crowd's professed belief and the things which it puts into -practice there is a great chasm. Yet the fiction is uniformly maintained -that the things done are the correct and faithful application of the -great principles to which the crowd is devoted. We saw in our study of -crowd-ideas in general that such ideas are not working programs, but are -screens which disguise and apparently justify the real unconscious -motive of crowd-behavior. The crowd secures its control, first, by -proclaiming in the most abstract form certain generally accepted -principles, such as freedom, righteousness, brotherly love--as though -these universal "truths" were its own invention and exclusive monopoly. -Next, certain logical deductions are made from these principles which, -when carried to their logical conclusions regardless of fact or the -effect produced, make the thing which the crowd really wants and does -appear to be a vindication of the first principles. It is these -inferences which go to make up the conscious thinking or belief of the -crowd. Thus in the revolutionary convention in France all agree to the -principles of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity. Fidelity to these -principles would to a non-crowd mean that the believer should not try to -dictate to his fellows what they must believe and choose, that he would -exercise good will in his dealings with them and show them the same -respect which he wished them to have for himself. But the crowd does not -understand principles in this manner. Do all agree to the great slogan -of the revolution? Well, then, fidelity to Liberty, Equality, and -Fraternity demands that the enemies of these principles and the crowd's -definition of them be overthrown. The Mountain is the truly faithful -party, hence to the guillotine with the Gironde. This chasm between -crowd faith and crowd practice is well illustrated in the case of those -Southern patriots in America who were ready to fight and die for the -rights of man as expressed in the Declaration of Independence, but -refused to apply the principle of the inalienable rights of all men to -their own black slaves. Or, again in the case of nineteenth-century -capitalism, liberty must be given to all alike. Liberty means equal -opportunity. Equal opportunity means free competition in business. Free -competition exists only where there is an "incentive"; hence the -investor must be encouraged and his gains protected by law. Therefore -anti-capitalistic doctrines must be suppressed as subversive of our free -institutions. Immigrants to whom for a generation we have extended the -hospitality of our slums and labor camps, and the opportunity of freely -competing with our well-intrenched corporations, must be made to feel -their ingratitude if they are so misguided as to conclude, from the fact -that hundreds of leading radicals have been made to serve jail -sentences, while after thirty years of enforcing the antitrust law not a -single person has ever been sent to prison, that possibly this is not a -free land. - -Or again--one convicts himself of being a crowd-man who shows partiality -among crowds--the principle of democracy is generally accepted. Then -there should be industrial democracy as well as political--hence the -"Dictatorship of the Proletariat"--for the workers are "the people." -Parliamentary assemblies elected by all the people do not necessarily -represent labor. Organized labor, therefore, though a minority of the -whole, should establish "industrial democracy" by force. So, according -to Bolshevist crowd-logic, democracy means the rule of a minority by -means of force. - -Now it is this fictitious, paranoiac, crowd-logic which one must be able -to dispel before he can extricate himself from the clutches of his -crowd. If he subjects the whole fabric of abstractions to critical -analysis, revalues it, puts himself above it, assumes a pragmatic -attitude toward whatever truths it contains, dares to test these truths -by their results in experience and to use them for desired ends; if, in -short, he scrutinizes his own disguised impulses, brings them to -consciousness as what they are, and refuses to be deceived as to their -real import, even when they appear dressed in such sheep's clothing as -absolutes and first principles, he becomes a non-crowd man, a social -being in the best sense. - -Those, however, who continue to give assent to the crowd's first -principles, who still accept its habit of _a priori_ reasoning, merely -substituting for its accepted deductions others of their own which in -turn serve to conceal and justify their own unconscious desires, will -turn from the old crowd only to be gobbled up by a new and -counter-crowd. Such people have not really changed. They denounce the -old crowd on the ground that "it has not lived up to its principles." It -is a significant fact that a crowd's rule is generally challenged in -the name of the very abstract ideas of which it has long posed as the -champion. - -For instance, there is liberty. Every crowd demands it when it is -seeking power; no crowd permits it when it is in power. A crowd which is -struggling for supremacy is really trying to free itself and as many -people as possible from the control of another crowd. Naturally, the -struggle for power appears to consciousness as a struggle for liberty as -such. The controlling crowd is correctly seen to be a tyrant and -oppressor. What the opposition crowd does not recognize is its own wish -to oppress, hidden under its struggle for power. We have had occasion to -note the intolerance of the crowd-mind as such. A revolutionary crowd, -with all its lofty idealism about liberty, is commonly just as -intolerant as a reactionary crowd. It must be so in order to remain a -crowd. Once it is triumphant it may exert its pressure in a different -direction, but the pinch is there just the same. Like its predecessor, -it must resort to measures of restraint, possibly even a "reign of -terror," in order that the new-won "liberty"--which is to say, its own -place at the head of the procession--may be preserved. The denial of -freedom appears therefore as its triumph, and for a time people are -deceived. They think they are free because everyone is talking about -liberty. - -Eventually some one makes the discovery that people do not become free -just by repeating the magic word "liberty." A disappointed faction of -the newly emancipated humanity begins to demand its "rights." The crowd -hears its own catchwords quoted against itself. It proceeds to prove -that freedom exists by denouncing the disturbers and silencing them, if -necessary, by force. The once radical crowd has now become reactionary. -Its dream of world emancipation is seen to be a hoax. Lovers of freedom -now yoke themselves in a new rebel crowd so that oppressed humanity may -be liberated from the liberators. Again, the will to power is clothed in -the dream symbols of an emancipated society, and so on around and around -the circle, until people learn that with crowds freedom is impossible. -For men to attain to mastery of themselves is as abhorrent to one crowd -as to another. The crowd merely wants freedom to be a crowd--that is, to -set up its own tyranny in the place of that which offends the -self-feeling of its members. - -The social idealism of revolutionary crowds is very significant for our -view of the crowd-mind. There are certain forms of revolutionary belief -which are repeated again and again with such uniformity that it would -seem the unconscious of the race changes very little from age to age. -The wish-fancy which motivates revolutionary activity always appears to -consciousness as the dream of an ideal society, a world set free; the -reign of brotherly love, peace, and justice. The folly and wickedness of -man is to cease. There will be no more incentive for men to do evil. The -lion and the lamb shall lie down together. Old extortions and tyrannies -are to be left behind. There is to be a new beginning, poverty is to be -abolished, God's will is to be done in earth, or men are at last to live -according to reason, and the inalienable rights of all are to be -secured; or the co-operative commonwealth is to be established, with no -more profit-seeking and each working gladly for the good of all. In -other words, the mind of revolutionary crowds is essentially -_eschatological_, or Messianic. The crowd always imagines its own social -dominance is a millennium. And this trait is common to revolutionary -crowds in all historical periods. - -We have here the psychological explanation of the Messianic faith which -is set forth with tremendous vividness in Biblical literature. The -revolutionary import of the social teaching of both the Hebrew and -Christian religions is so plain that I do not see how any honest and -well-informed person can even attempt to deny it. The telling -effectiveness with which this element in religious teaching may be used -by clever radicals to convict the apologists of the present social -order by the words out of their own mouths is evident in much of the -socialist propaganda to-day. The tendency of the will to revolt, to -express itself in accepted religious symbols, is a thing to be expected -if the unconscious plays the important part in crowd-behavior that we -have contended that it does. - -The eighth-century Hebrew prophet mingles his denunciations of those who -join house to house and field to field, who turn aside the way of the -meek, and sit in Samaria in the corner of a couch and on the silken -cushions of a bed, who have turned justice to wormwood and cast down -righteousness to the earth, etc., etc.,--reserving his choicest woes of -course for the foreign oppressors of "my people"--with promises of "the -day of the Lord" with all that such a day implies, not only of triumph -of the oppressed over their enemies, but of universal happiness. - -Similarly the same complex of ideas appears in the writings which deal -with the Hebrew "Captivity" in the sixth century B.C., with the revolt -of the Maccabeans, and again in the impotent hatred against the Romans -about the time of the origin of Christianity. - -The New Testament dwells upon some phase of this theme on nearly every -page. Blessed are ye poor, and woe unto you who are rich, you who laugh -now. The Messiah has come and with him the Kingdom of the Heavens, but -at present the kingdom is revealed only to the believing few, who are in -the world, but not of it. However, the Lord is soon to return; in fact, -this generation shall not pass away until all these things be -accomplished. After a period of great trial and suffering there is to be -a new world, and a new and holy Jerusalem, coming down from the skies -and establishing itself in place of the old. All the wicked, chiefly -those who oppress the poor, shall be cast into a lake of fire. There -shall be great rejoicing, and weeping and darkness and death shall be no -more. - -The above sketch of the Messianic hope is so brief as to be hardly more -than a caricature, but it will serve to make my point clear, that -_Messianism is a revolutionary crowd phenomenon_. This subject has been -presented in great detail by religious writers in recent years, so that -there is hardly a member of the reading public who is not more or less -familiar with the "social gospel." My point is that _all revolutionary -propaganda is "social gospel_." Even when revolutionists profess an -antireligious creed, as did the Deists of the eighteenth century, and as -do many modern socialists with their "materialist interpretation of -history," nevertheless the element of irreligion extends only to the -superficial trappings of the revolutionary crowd-faith, and even here -is not consistent. At bottom the revolutionists' dream of a new world is -religious. - -I am using the word "religious" in this connection in its popular sense, -meaning no more than that the revolutionary crowd rationalizes its dream -of a new world-order in imagery which repeats over and over again the -essentials of the Biblical "day of the Lord," or "kingdom of heaven" to -be established in earth. This notion of cosmic regeneration is very -evident in the various "utopian" socialist theories. The Fourierists and -St. Simonists of the early part of the nineteenth century were extremely -Messianic. So-called "scientific socialists" are now inclined to -ridicule such idealistic speculation, but one has only to scratch -beneath the surface of present-day socialist propaganda to find under -its materialist jargon the same old dream of the ages. A great -world-change is to come suddenly. With the triumph of the workers there -will be no more poverty or ignorance, no longer any incentive to men to -do evil to one another. The famous "Manifesto" is filled with such -ideas. Bourgeois society is doomed and about to fall. Forces of social -evolution inevitably point to the world-wide supremacy of the working -class, under whose mild sway the laborer is to be given the full product -of his toil, the exploitation of children is to cease, true liberty -will be achieved, prostitution, which is somehow a bourgeois -institution, is to be abolished, everyone will be educated, production -increased till there is enough for all, the cities shall no more lord it -over the rural communities, all alike will perform useful labor, waste -places of the earth will become cultivated lands and the fertility of -the soil will be increased in accordance with a common plan, the state, -an instrument of bourgeois exploitation, will cease to exist; in fact, -the whole wicked past is to be left behind, for as - - The Communist revolution is the most radical rupture with - traditional property relations, no wonder that its development - involves the most radical rupture with traditional ideas. - -In fine, - - In place of the old bourgeois society with its classes and class - antagonisms we shall have an association in which the free - development of each is the condition for the free development of - all. - -Le Bon says of the French Revolution: - - The principles of the Revolution speedily inspired a wave of - mystic enthusiasm analogous to those provoked by the various - religious beliefs which had preceded it. All they did was to - change the orientation of a mental ancestry which the centuries - had solidified. - - So there is nothing astonishing in the savage zeal of the men of - the Convention. Their mystic mentality was the same as that of - the Protestants at the time of the Reformation. The principal - heroes of the Terror--Couthon, Saint Just, Robespierre, - etc.--were apostles. Like Polyeuctes destroying the altars of - the false gods to propagate his faith, they dreamed of - converting the globe.... The mystic spirit of the leaders of the - Revolution was betrayed in the least details of their public - life. Robespierre, convinced that he was supported by the - Almighty, assured his hearers in a speech that the Supreme Being - had "decreed the Republic since the beginning of time." - -A recent writer, after showing that the Russian revolution has failed to -put the Marxian principles into actual operation, says of Lenin and his -associates: - - They have caught a formula of glittering words; they have - learned the verbal cadences which move the masses to ecstasy; - they have learned to paint a vision of heaven that shall - outflare in the minds of their followers the shabby realities of - a Bolshevik earth. They are master phraseocrats, and in Russia - they have reared an empire on phraseocracy. - - The alarmists who shriek of Russia would do well to turn their - thoughts from Russia's socialistic menace. The peril of Russia - is not to our industries, but to our states. The menace of the - Bolsheviki is not an economic one, it is a political menace. It - is the menace of fanatic armies, drunken with phrases and - sweeping forward under Lenin like a Muscovite scourge. It is the - menace of intoxicated proletarians, goaded by invented visions - to seek to conquer the world. - - In Nicolai Lenin the Socialist, we have naught to fear. In - Nicolai Lenin the political chief of Russia's millions, we may - well find a menace, for his figure looms over the world. His - Bolshevik abracadabra has seduced the workers of every race. His - stealthy propaganda has shattered the morale of every army in - the world. His dreams are winging to Napoleonic flights, and - well he may dream of destiny; for in an age when we bow to - phrases, it is Lenin who is the master phraseocrat of the world. - -Passing over the question of Lenin's personal ambitions, and whether our -own crowd-stupidity, panic, and wrong-headed Allied diplomacy may not -have been contributing causes of the menace of Bolshevism, it can hardly -be denied that Bolshevism, like all other revolutionary crowd-movements, -is swayed by a painted vision of heaven which outflares the miseries of -earth. _Every revolutionary crowd of every description is a pilgrimage -set out to regain our lost Paradise._ - -Now it is this dream of paradise, or ideal society, which deserves -analytical study. Why does it always appear the minute a crowd is -sufficiently powerful to dream of world-power? It will readily be -conceded that this dream has some function in creating certain really -desirable social values. But such values cannot be the psychogenesis of -the dream. If the dream were ever realized, I think William James was -correct in saying that we should find it to be but a "sheep's heaven -and lubberland of joy," and that life in it would be so "mawkish and -dishwatery" that we should gladly return to this world of struggle and -challenge, or anywhere else, if only to escape the deadly inanity. - -We have already noted the fact that this dream has the function of -justifying the crowd in its revolt and will to rule. But this is by no -means all. The social idealism has well been called a dream, for that is -just what it is, the daydream of the ages. It is like belief in fairies, -or the Cinderella myth. It is the Jack-and-the-beanstalk philosophy. The -dream has exactly the same function as the Absolute, and the ideal -world-systems of the paranoiac; _it is an imaginary refuge from the -real_. Like all other dreams, it is the realization of a wish. I have -long been impressed with the static character of this dream; not only is -it much the same in all ages, but it is always regarded as the great -culmination beyond which the imagination cannot stretch. Even those who -hold the evolutionary view of reality and know well that life is -continuous change, and that progress cannot be fixed in any passing -moment, however sweet, are generally unable to imagine progress going on -after the establishment of the ideal society and leaving it behind. - -Revolutionary propaganda habitually stops, like the nineteenth-century -love story, with a general statement, "and so they lived happily ever -after." It is really the end, not the beginning or middle of the story. -It is the divine event toward which the whole creation moves, and having -reached it, _stops_. Evolution having been wound up to run to just this -end, time and change and effort may now be discontinued. There is -nothing further to do. In other words, the ideal is lifted clear out of -time and all historical connections. As in other dreams, the empirically -known sequence of events is ignored. Whole centuries of progress and -struggle and piecemeal experience are telescoped into one imaginary -symbolic moment. The moment now stands for the whole process, or rather -it is _substituted_ for the process. We have taken refuge from the real -into the ideal. The "Kingdom of Heaven," "Paradise," "The Return to Man -in the State of Nature," "Back to Primitive New Testament Christianity," -"The Age of Reason," "Utopia," the "Revolution," the "Co-operative -Commonwealth," all mean psychologically the same thing. And that thing -is not at all a scientific social program, but a symbol of an easier and -better world where desires are realized by magic, and everyone's check -drawn upon the bank of existence is cashed. _Social idealism of -revolutionary crowds is a mechanism of compensation and escape for -suppressed desires._ - -Is there any easier way of denying the true nature and significance of -our objective world than by persuading ourselves that that world is even -now doomed, and is bound suddenly to be transformed into the land of our -heart's desire? Is it not to be expected that people would soon learn -how to give those desires greater unction, and to encourage one another -in holding to the fictions by which those desires could find their -compensation and escape, by resorting to precisely the crowd-devices -which we have been discussing? - -The Messianists of Bible times expected the great transformation and -world cataclysm to come by means of a divine miracle. Those who are -affected by the wave of premillennialism which is now running through -certain evangelical Christian communions are experiencing a revival of -this faith with much of its primitive terminology. - -Evolutionary social revolutionists expect the great day to come as the -culmination of a process of economic evolution. This is what is meant by -"evolutionary and revolutionary socialism." The wish-fancy is here -rationalized as a doctrine of evolution by revolution. Thus the -difference between the social revolutionist and the Second Adventist is -much smaller than either of them suspects. As Freud would doubtless say, -the difference extends only to the "secondary elaboration of the -manifest dream formation"--the latent dream thought is the same in both -cases. The Adventist expresses the wish in the terminology of a -prescientific age, while the social revolutionist makes use of modern -scientific jargon. Each alike finds escape from reality in the -contemplation of a new-world system. The faith of each is a scheme of -redemption--that is, of "compensation." Each contemplates the sudden, -cataclysmic destruction of the "present evil world," and its replacement -by a new order in which the meek shall inherit the earth. To both alike -the great event is destined, in the fullness of time, to come as a thief -in the night. In the one case it is to come as the fulfillment of -prophecy; in the other the promise is underwritten and guaranteed by -impersonal forces of "economic evolution." - -This determinism is in the one case what Bergson calls "radical -finalism," and in the other "radical mechanism." But whether the -universe exists but to reel off a divine plan conceived before all -worlds, or be but the mechanical swinging of the shuttle of cause and -effect, what difference is there if the point arrived at is the same? In -both cases this point was fixed before the beginning of time, and the -meaning of the universe is just that and nothing else, since that is -what it all comes to in the end. - -Whether the hand which turns the crank of the world-machine be called -that of God or merely "Evolution," it is only a verbal difference; it is -in both cases "a power not ourselves which makes for righteousness." And -the righteousness? Why, it is just the righteousness of our own -crowd--in other words, the crowd's bill of rights painted in the sky by -our own wish-fancy, and dancing over our heads like an aurora borealis. -It is the history of all crowds that this dazzling pillar of fire in the -Arctic night is hailed as the "rosy-fingered dawn" of the Day of the -Lord. - -Or, to change the figure somewhat, the faithful crowd has but to follow -its fiery cloud to the promised land which flows with milk and honey; -then march for an appointed time about the walls of the wicked bourgeois -Jericho, playing its propaganda tune until the walls fall down by magic -and the world is ours. _No revolution is possible without a miracle and -a brass band._ - -I have no desire to discourage those who have gone to work at the real -tasks of social reconstruction--certainly no wish to make this study an -apology for the existing social order. In the face of the ugly facts -which on every hand stand as indictments of what is called "capitalism," -it is doubtful if anyone could defend the present system without -recourse to a certain amount of cynicism or cant. The widespread social -unrest which has enlisted in its service so much of the intellectual -spirit of this generation surely could never have come about without -provocation more real than the work of a mere handful of -"mischief-making agitators." The challenge to modern society is not -wholly of crowd origin. - -But it is one thing to face seriously the manifold problems of -reconstruction of our social relations, and it is quite another thing to -persuade oneself that all these entangled problems have but one -imaginary neck which is waiting to be cut with a single stroke of the -sword of revolution in the hands of "the people." Hundreds of times I -have heard radicals, while discussing certain evils of present society, -say, "All these things are but symptoms, effects; to get rid of them you -must remove the cause." That cause is always, in substance, the present -economic system. - -If this argument means that, instead of thinking of the various phases -of social behavior as isolated from one another, we should conceive of -them as so interrelated as to form something like a more or less -causally connected organic whole, I agree. But if it means something -else--and it frequently does--the argument is based upon a logical -fallacy. The word "system" is not a causal term; it is purely -descriptive. The facts referred to, whatever connections we may discover -among them, are not the effects of a mysterious "system" behind the -facts of human behavior; the facts themselves, taken together, are the -system. - -The confusion of causal and descriptive ideas is a habit common to both -the intellectualist philosopher and the crowd-minded. It enables people -to turn their gaze from the empirical Many to the fictitious One, from -the real to the imaginary. The idea of a system behind, over, outside, -and something different from the related facts which the term "system" -is properly used to describe, whether that system be a world-system, a -logical system, or a social system, whether it be capitalism or -socialism, "system" so conceived is a favorite crowd-spook. It is the -same logical fallacy as if one spoke of the temperature of this May day -as the effect of the climate, when all know that the term climate is -simply (to paraphrase James) the term by which we characterize the -temperature, weather, etc., which we experience on this and other days. -We have already seen to what use the crowd-mind puts all such -generalizations. - -A popular revolutionary philosophy of history pictures the procession of -the ages as made up of a pageant of spook-social systems, each distinct -from the others and coming in its appointed time. But social systems do -not follow in a row, like elephants in a circus parade--each huge beast -with its trunk coiled about the end of his predecessor's tail. The -greater part of this "evolutionary and revolutionary" pageantry is -simply dream-stuff. Those who try to march into Utopia in such an -imaginary parade are not even trying to reconstruct society; they are -sociological somnambulists. - -The crowd-mind clings to such pageantry because, as we saw in another -connection, the crowd desires to believe that evolution guarantees its -own future supremacy. It then becomes unnecessary to solve concrete -problems. One need only possess an official program of the order of the -parade. In other words, the crowd must persuade itself that only one -solution of the social problem is possible, and that one inevitable--its -own. - -Such thinking wholly misconceives the nature of the social problem. Like -all the practical dilemmas of life, this problem, assuming it to be in -any sense a single problem, is real just because more than one solution -is possible. The task here is like that of choosing a career. Whole -series of partially foreseen possibilities are contingent upon certain -definite choices. Aside from our choosing, many sorts of futures may be -equally possible. Our intervention at this or that definite point is an -act by which we will one series of possibilities rather than another -into reality. But the act of intervention is never performed once for -all. Each intervention leads only to new dilemmas, among which we must -again choose and intervene. It is mainly in order to escape from the -necessity of facing this terrifying series of unforeseeable dilemmas -that the crowd-man walketh in a vain show. - -In pointing out the futility of present-day revolutionary -crowd-thinking, I am only striving to direct, in however small a degree, -our thought and energies into channels which lead toward desired -results. It is not by trombones that we are to redeem society, nor is -the old order going to tumble down like the walls of Jericho, and a -complete new start be given. Civilization cannot be wiped out and begun -all over again. It constitutes the environment within which our -reconstructive thinking must, by tedious effort, make certain definite -modifications. Each such modification is a problem in itself, to be -dealt with, not by belief in miracle, but by what Dewey calls "creative -intelligence." Each such modification must be achieved by taking all the -known facts, which are relevant, into account. As such it is a new -adaptation, and the result of a series of such adaptations may be as -great and radical a social transformation as one may have the courage -to set as the goal of a definite policy of social effort. But there is a -world of difference between social thinking of this kind, where faith is -a working hypothesis, and that which ignores the concrete problems that -must be solved to reach the desired goal, and, after the manner of -crowds, dreams of entering fairyland, or of pulling a new world _en -bloc_ down out of the blue, by the magic of substituting new tyrannies -for old. - -Revolutionary crowd-thinking is not "creative intelligence." It is -_hocus-pocus_, a sort of social magic formula like the "mutabor" in the -Arabian Nights; it is an _Aladdin's-lamp_ philosophy. And here we may -sum up this part of our argument. The idea of the revolution is to the -crowd a symbol, the function of which is compensation for the burdens of -the struggle for existence, for the feeling of social inferiority, and -for desires suppressed by civilization. It is an imaginary escape from -hard reality, a new-world system in which the ego seeks refuge, a -defense mechanism under the compulsive influence of which crowds behave -like somnambulistic individuals. It is the apotheosis of the under crowd -itself and the transcendental expression and justification of its will -to rule. It is made up of just those broad generalizations which are of -use in keeping that crowd together. It gives the new crowd unction in -its fight with the old, since it was precisely these same dream-thoughts -which the old crowd wrote on its banners in the day when it, too, was -blowing trumpets outside the walls of Jericho. - - - - -VIII - -THE FRUITS OF REVOLUTION--NEW CROWD-TYRANNIES FOR OLD - - -So much for the psychology of the revolutionary propaganda. Now let us -look at what happens in the moment of revolutionary outbreak. We have -dwelt at some length on the fact that a revolution occurs when a new -crowd succeeds in displacing an old one in position of social control. -At first there is a general feeling of release and of freedom. There is -a brief period of ecstasy, of good will, a strange, almost mystical -magnanimity. A flood of oratory is released in praise of the "new day of -the people." Everyone is a "comrade." Everyone is important. There is an -inclination to trust everyone. This Easter-morning state of mind -generally lasts for some days--until people are driven by the pinch of -hunger to stop talking and take up again the routine tasks of daily -living. We have all read how the "citizens" of the French Revolution -danced in the streets for sheer joy in their new-won liberty. Those who -were in Petrograd during the days which immediately followed the -downfall of the Tsar bear witness to a like almost mystical sense of the -general goodness of human kind and of joy in human fellowship. - -With the return to the commonplace tasks of daily life, some effort, and -indeed further rationalization, is needed to keep up the feeling that -the new and wonderful age has really come to stay. Conflicts of interest -and special grievances are viewed as involving the vital principles of -the Revolution. People become impatient and censorious. There is a -searching of hearts. People watch their neighbors, especially their -rivals, to make sure that nothing in their behavior shall confirm the -misgivings which are vaguely felt in their own minds. The rejoicing and -comradeship which before were spontaneous are now demanded. Intolerance -toward the vanquished crowd reappears with increased intensity, not a -little augmented by the knowledge that the old enemies are now at "the -people's" mercy. - -There is a demand for revenge for old abuses. The displaced crowd likely -as not, foreseeing the doom which awaits its members, seeks escape by -attempting a counter-revolution. A propaganda of sympathy is carried on -among members of this same class who remain in the dominant crowd in -communities not affected by the revolution. There is secret plotting -and suspicion of treason on every hand. People resort to extravagant -expressions of their revolutionary principles, not only to keep up their -own faith in them, but to show their loyalty to the great cause. The -most fanatical and uncompromising members of the group gain prominence -because of their excessive devotion. By the very logic of -crowd-thinking, leadership passes to men who are less and less competent -to deal with facts and more and more extreme in their zeal. Hence the -usual decline from the Mirabeaus to the Dantons and Cariers, and from -these to the Marats and Robespierres, from the Milukoffs to the -Kerenskys and from the Kerenskys to the Trotzkys. With each excess the -crowd must erect some still new defense against the inevitable -disclosure of the fact that the people are not behaving at all as if -they were living in the kingdom of heaven. With each farther deviation -from the plain meaning of facts, the revolution must resort to more -severe measures to sustain itself, until finally an unsurmountable -barrier is reached, such as the arrival on the scene of a Napoleon. Then -the majority are forced to abandon the vain hope of really attaining -Utopia, and content themselves with fictions to the effect that what -they have really _is_ Utopia--or with such other mechanisms as will -serve to excuse and minimize the significance of existing facts and put -off the complete realization of the ideal until some future stage of -progress. It is needless to add that those who have most profited by the -revolutionary change are also most ready to take the lead in persuading -their neighbors to be content with these rational compromises. - -Meanwhile, however, the revolutionary leaders have set up a dictatorship -of their own, which, while necessary to "save the revolution," is itself -a practical negation of the revolutionary dream of a free world. This -dictatorship, finally passing into the hands of the more competent -element of the revolutionary crowd, justifies itself to the many; -professing and requiring of all a verbal assent to the revolutionary -creed of which its very existence is a fundamental repudiation. This -group becomes in time the nucleus about which society finally settles -down again in comparative peace and equilibrium. - -In general, then, it may be said that a revolution does not and cannot -realize the age-long dream of a world set free. Its results may be -summed up as follows: a newly dominant crowd, a new statement of old -beliefs, new owners of property in the places of the old, new names for -old tyrannies. Looking back over the history of the several great tidal -waves of revolution which have swept over the civilization which is -to-day ours, it would appear that one effect of them has been to -intensify the hold which crowd-thinking has upon all of us, also to -widen the range of the things which we submit to the crowd-mind for -final judgment. In confirmation of this it is to be noted that it is on -the whole those nations which have been burnt over by both the -Reformation and the eighteenth-century revolution which exhibit the most -chauvian brand of nationalism and crowd-patriotism. It is these same -nations also which have most highly depersonalized their social -relationships, political structures, and ideals. It is these nations -also whose councils are most determined by spasms of crowd-propaganda. - -The modern man doubtless has a sense of self in a degree unknown--except -by the few--in earlier ages, but along with this there exists in "modern -ideas," a complete system of crowd-ideas with which the conscious self -comes into conflict at every turn. Just how far the revolutionary crowds -of the past have operated to provide the stereotyped forms in which -present crowd-thinking is carried on, it is almost impossible to learn. -But that their influence has been great may be seen by anyone who -attempts a psychological study of "public opinion." - -Aside from the results mentioned, I think the deposit of revolutionary -movements in history has been very small. It may be that, in the -general shake-up of such a period, a few vigorous spirits are tossed -into a place where their genius has an opportunity which it would -otherwise have failed to get. But it would seem that on the whole the -idea that revolutions help the progress of the race is a hoax. Where -advancement has been achieved in freedom, in intelligence, in ethical -values, in art or science, in consideration for humanity, in -legislation, it has in each instance been achieved by unique -individuals, and has spread chiefly by personal influence, never gaining -assent except among those who have power to recreate the new values won -in their own experience. - -Whenever we take up a new idea as a crowd, we at once turn it into a -catchword and a fad. Faddism, instead of being merely a hunger for the -new is rather an expression of the crowd-will to uniformity. To be -"old-fashioned" and out of date is as truly to be a nonconformist as to -be a freak or an originator. Faddism is neither radicalism nor a symptom -of progress. It is a mark of the passion for uniformity or _the -conservatism of the crowd-mind_. It is change; but its change is -insignificant. - -It is often said that religious liberty is the fruit of the Reformation. -If so it is an indirect result and one which the reformers certainly -did not desire. They sought liberty only for their own particular -propaganda, a fact which is abundantly proved by Calvin's treatment of -Servetus and of the Anabaptists, by Luther's attitude toward the Saxon -peasants, by the treatment of Catholics in England, by the whole history -of Cromwell's rule, by the persecution of Quakers and all other -"heretics" in our American colonies--Pennsylvania, I believe, -excepted--down to the date of the American Revolution. - -It just happened that Protestantism as _the religion of the bourgeois_ -fell into the hands of a group, who, outside their religious-crowd -interests were destined to be the greatest practical beneficiaries of -the advancement of applied science. Between applied science and science -as a cultural discipline--that is, science as a humanistic study--the -line is hard to draw. The Humanist spirit of the sciences attained a -certain freedom, notwithstanding the fact that the whole Reformation was -really a reactionary movement against the Renaissance; in spite, -moreover, of the patent fact that the Protestant churches still, -officially at least, resist the free spirit of scientific culture. - -It is to the free spirits of the Italian Renaissance, also to the -Jeffersons and Franklins and Paines, the Lincolns and Ingersolls, the -Huxleys and Darwins and Spencers, the men who dared alone to resist the -religious crowd-mind and to undermine the abstract ideas in which it had -intrenched itself, to whom the modern world owes its religious and -intellectual liberty. - -The same is true of political liberty. England, which is the most free -country in the world to-day, never really experienced the revolutionary -crowd-movement of the eighteenth century. Instead, the changes came by a -process of gradual reconstruction. And it is with just such an -opportunist reconstructive process that England promises now to meet and -solve the problems of the threatened social revolution. In contrast with -Russia, Socialism in England has much ground for hope of success. The -radical movement in England is on the whole wisely led by men who with -few exceptions can think realistically and pragmatically, and refuse to -be swept off their feet by crowd-abstractions. The British Labor party -is the least crowd-minded of any of the socialistic organizations of our -day. The Rochdale group has demonstrated that if it is co-operation that -people desire as a solution of the economic problem, the way to solve it -is to co-operate along definite and practicable lines; the co-operators -have given up belief in the miracle of Jericho. The British trade-union -movement has demonstrated the fact that organization of this kind -succeeds in just the degree that it can rise above crowd-thinking and -deal with a suggestion of concrete problems according to a statesmanlike -policy of concerted action. - -To be sure it cannot be denied that the social reconstruction in England -is seriously menaced by the tendency to crowd-behavior. At best it -reveals hardly more than the superior advantage to the whole community -of a slightly less degree of crowd-behavior; but when compared with the -Socialist movement in Russia, Germany, and the United States, it would -seem that radicalism in England has at least a remote promise of -reaching a working solution of the social problem; and that is more than -can at present be said for the others. - -In the light of what has been said about the psychology of revolution, I -think we may hazard an opinion about the vaunted "Dictatorship of the -Proletariat"--an idea that has provided some new catchwords for the -crowd which is fascinated by the soviet revolution in Russia. Granting -for the sake of argument that such a dictatorship would be desirable -from any point of view--I do not see how the mere fact that people work -proves their capacity to rule, horses also work--would it be possible? I -think not. Even the temporary rule of Lenin in Russia can hardly be -called a rule of the working class. Bolshevist propaganda will have it -that such a dictatorship of the working class is positively necessary -if we are ever to get away from the abuses of present "capitalistic -society." Moreover, it is argued that this dictatorship of the organized -workers could not be undemocratic, for since vested property is to be -abolished and everyone forced to work for his living, all will belong to -the working class, and therefore the dictatorship of the proletariat is -but the dictatorship of all. - -In the first place, assuming that it is the dictatorship of all who -survive the revolution, this dictatorship of all over each is not -liberty for anyone; it may leave not the tiniest corner where one may be -permitted to be master of himself. The tyranny of all over each is as -different from freedom as is pharisaism from spiritual living. - -Again, what is there to show that this imagined dictatorship of all is -to be shared equally by all, and if not have we not merely set up a new -privileged class--the very thing which the Socialist Talmud has always -declared it is the mission of the workers to destroy forever? While the -workers are still a counter-crowd, struggling for power against the -present ruling class, they are of course held together by a common -cause--namely, their opposition to capital. But with labor's triumph, -everybody becomes a worker, and there is no one longer to oppose. That -which held the various elements of labor together in a common crowd of -revolt has now ceased to exist, "class consciousness" has therefore no -longer any meaning. Labor itself has ceased to exist _as a class_ by -reason of its very triumph. What then remains to hold its various -elements together in a common cause? Nothing at all. The solidarity of -the workers vanishes, when the struggle which gave rise to that -solidarity ceases. There remains now nothing but the humanitarian -principle of the solidarity of the human race. Solidarity has ceased to -be an economic fact, and has become purely "ideological." - -Since by hypothesis everyone is a worker, the dictatorship of the -workers is a dictatorship based not on labor as such, but upon a -universal human quality. It would be quite as truly a dictatorship of -everyone if based upon any other common human quality--say, the fact -that we are all bipeds, that we all have noses, or the fact of the -circulation of the blood. As the purely proletarian character of this -dictatorship becomes meaningless, the crowd-struggle switches from that -of labor as a whole against capital, to a series of struggles within the -dominant labor group itself. - -The experience of Russia has even now shown that if the soviets are to -save themselves from nation-wide bankruptcy, specially trained men must -be found to take charge of their industrial and political activities. -Long training is necessary for the successful management of large -affairs, and becomes all the more indispensable as industry, education, -and political affairs are organized on a large scale. Are specially -promising youths to be set apart from early childhood to prepare -themselves for these positions of authority? Or shall such places be -filled by those vigorous few who have the ambition and the strength to -acquire the necessary training while at the same time working at their -daily tasks? In either case an _intellectual class_ must be developed. -Does anyone imagine that this new class of rulers will hesitate to make -use of every opportunity to make itself a privileged class? - -"But what opportunity can there be," is the reply, "since private -capital is to be abolished?" Very well, there have been ruling classes -before in history who did not enjoy the privilege of owning private -property. The clergy of the Middle Ages was such a class, and their -dominance was quite as effective and as enduring as is that of our -commercial classes today. But let us not deceive ourselves; in a soviet -republic there would be opportunity aplenty for exploitation. As the -solidarity of labor vanished, each important trade-group would enter -into rivalry with the others for leadership in the co-operative -commonwealth. Every economic advantage which any group possessed would -be used in order to lord it over the rest. - -For instance, let us suppose that the workers in a strategic industry, -such as the railways, or coal mines, should make the discovery that by -going on a strike they could starve the community as a whole into -submission and gain practically anything they might demand. Loyalty to -the rest of labor would act no more as a check to such ambitions than -does loyalty to humanity in general now. As we have seen, the crowd is -always formed for the unconscious purpose of relaxing the social control -by mechanisms which mutually justify such antisocial conduct on the part -of members of the crowd. There is every reason, both economic and -psychological, why the workers in each industry would become organized -crowds seeking to gain for their particular groups the lion's share of -the spoils of the social revolution. What would there be, then, to -prevent the workers of the railroads or some other essential industry -from exploiting the community quite as mercilessly as the capitalists -are alleged to do at present? Nothing but the rivalry of other crowds -who were seeking the same dominance. In time a _modus vivendi_ would -doubtless be reached whereby social control would be shared by a few of -the stronger unions--and their leaders. - -The strike has already demonstrated the fact that in the hands of a -well-organized body of laborers, especially in those trades where the -number of apprentices may be controlled, industrial power becomes a much -more effective weapon than it is in the hands of the present -capitalistic owners. - -A new dictatorship, therefore, must inevitably follow the social -revolution, in support of which a favored minority will make use of the -industrial power of the community, just as earlier privileged classes -used military power and the power of private property. And this new -dominance would be just as predatory, and would justify itself, as did -the others, by the platitudes of crowd-thinking. The so-called -dictatorship turns out, on examination, to be the dictatorship of one -section of the proletariat over the rest of it. The dream of social -redemption by such means is a pure _crowd-idea_. - - - - -IX - -FREEDOM AND GOVERNMENT BY CROWDS - - -The whole philosophy of politics comes down at last to a question of -four words. Who is to govern? Compared with this question the problem of -the form of government is relatively unimportant. Crowd-men, whatever -political faith they profess, behave much the same when they are in -power. The particular forms of political organization through which -their power is exerted are mere incidentals. There is the same -self-laudation, the same tawdry array of abstract principles, the same -exploitation of under crowds, the same cunning in keeping up -appearances, the same preference of the charlatan for positions of -leadership and authority. Machiavelli's Prince, or Dostoievsky's Grand -Inquisitor, would serve just as well as the model for the guidance of a -Cæsar Borgia, a leader of Tammany Hall, a chairman of the National -Committee of a political party, or a Nicolai Lenin. - -Ever since the days of Rousseau certain crowds have persisted in the -conviction that all tyrannies were foisted upon an innocent humanity by -a designing few. There may have been a few instances in history where -such was the case, but tyrannies of that kind have never lasted long. -For the most part the tyrant is merely the instrument and official -symbol of a dominant crowd. His acts are his crowd's acts, and without -his crowd to support him he very soon goes the way of the late Sultan of -Turkey. The Cæsars were hardly more than "walking delegates," -representing the ancient Roman Soldiers' soviet. They were made and -unmade by the army which, though Cæsars might come and Cæsars might go, -continued to lord it over the Roman world. While the army was pagan, -even the mild Marcus Aurelius followed Nero's example of killing -Christians. When finally the army itself became largely Christian, and -the fiction that the Christians drank human blood, worshiped the head of -an ass, and were sexually promiscuous was no longer good patriotic -propaganda, the Emperor Constantine began to see visions of the Cross in -the sky. The Pope, who is doubtless the most absolute monarch in the -Occident, is, however, "infallible" only when he speaks -_ex-cathedra_--that is, as the "Church Herself." His infallibility is -that of the Church. All crowds in one way or another claim -infallibility. The tyrant Robespierre survived only so long as did his -particular revolutionary crowd in France. - -The fate of Savonarola was similar. From his pulpit he could rule -Florence with absolute power just so long as he told his crowd what it -wished to hear, and so long as his crowd was able to keep itself -together and remain dominant. The Stuarts, Hohenzollerns, Hapsburgs, and -Romanoffs, with all their claims to divine rights, were little more than -the living symbols of their respective nation-crowds. They vanished when -they ceased to represent successfully the crowd-will. - -In general, then, it may be said that _where the crowd is, there is -tyranny_. Tyranny may be exercised through one agent or through many, -but it nearly always comes from the same source--the crowd. Crowd-rule -may exist in a monarchical form of government, or in a republic. The -personnel of the dominant crowd will vary with a change in the form of -the state, but the spirit will be much the same. Conservative writers -are in the habit of assuming that democracy is the rule of crowds pure -and simple. Whether crowd-government is more absolute in a democracy -than in differently constituted states is a question. The aim of -democratic constitutions like our own is to prevent any special crowd -from intrenching itself in a position of social control and thus -becoming a ruling class. As the experiment has worked out thus far it -can hardly be said that it has freed us from the rule of crowds. It has, -however, multiplied the number of mutually suspicious crowds, so that no -one of them has for long enjoyed a sufficiently great majority to make -itself clearly supreme, though it must be admitted that up to the -present the business-man crowd has had the best of the deal. The story -of the recent Eighteenth Amendment shows how easy it is for a determined -crowd, even though in a minority, to force its favorite dogmas upon the -whole community. We shall doubtless see a great deal more of this sort -of thing in the future than we have in the past. And if the various -labor groups should become sufficiently united in a "proletarian" crowd -there is nothing to prevent their going to any extreme. - -We are passing through a period of socialization. All signs point to the -establishment of some sort of social state or industrial commonwealth. -No one can foresee the extent, to which capital now privately owned is -to be transferred to the public. It is doubtful if anything can be done -to check this process. The tendency is no sooner blocked along one -channel than it begins to seep through another. In itself there need be -nothing alarming about this transition. If industry could be better -co-ordinated and more wisely administered by non-crowd men for the -common good, the change might work out to our national advantage. - -It is possible to conceive of a society in which a high degree of social -democracy, even communism, might exist along with a maximum of freedom -and practical achievement. But we should first have to get over our -crowd-ways of thinking and acting. People would have to regard the state -as a purely administrative affair. They would have to organize for -definite practical ends, and select their leaders and administrators -very much as certain corporations now do, strictly on the basis of their -competency. Political institutions would have to be made such that they -could not be seized by special groups to enhance themselves at the -expense of the rest. Partisanship would have to cease. Every effort -would have to be made to loosen the social control over the individual's -personal habits. The kind of people who have an inner gnawing to -regulate their neighbors, the kind who cannot accept the fact of their -psychic inferiority and must consequently make crowds by way of -compensation, would have to be content to mind their own business. -Police power would have to be reduced to the minimum necessary to -protect life and keep the industries running. People would have to -become much more capable of self-direction as well as of voluntary -co-operation than they are now. They would have to be more resentful of -petty official tyranny, more independent in their judgments and at the -same time more willing to accept the advice and authority of experts. -They would have to place the control of affairs in the hands of the type -of man against whose dominance the weaker brethren have in all ages -waged war--that is, the free spirits and natural masters of men. All pet -dogmas and cult ideas that clashed with practical considerations would -have to be swept away. - -Such a conception of society is, of course, wholly utopian. It could not -possibly be realized by people behaving and thinking as crowds. With our -present crowd-making habits, the process of greater socialization of -industry means only increased opportunities for crowd-tyranny. In the -hands of a dominant crowd an industrial state would be indeed what -Herbert Spencer called the "coming slavery." - -As it is, the state has become overgrown and bureaucratic. Commissions -of all sorts are being multiplied year by year. Public debts are piled -up till they approach the point of bankruptcy. Taxes are increasing in -the same degree. Statutes are increased in number until one can hardly -breathe without violating some decree, ordinance, or bit of sumptuary -legislation. Every legislative assembly is constantly besieged by the -professional lobbyists of a swarm of reformist crowds. Busybodies of -every description twist the making and the enforcement of law into -conformity with their peculiar prejudices. Censorships of various kinds -are growing in number and effrontery. Prohibition is insincerely put -forth as a war measure. Ignorant societies for the "suppression of vice" -maul over our literature and our art. Parents of already more children -than they can support may not be permitted lawfully to possess -scientific knowledge of the means of the prevention of conception. The -government, both state and national, takes advantage of the war for -freedom to pass again the hated sort of "alien and sedition" laws from -which the country thought it had freed itself a century ago. A host of -secret agents and volunteer "guardians of public safety" are ready to -place every citizen under suspicion of disloyalty to the government. Any -advocacy of significant change in established political practices is -regarded as sedition. An inquisition is set up for the purpose of -inquiring into people's private political opinions. Reputable citizens -are, on the flimsiest hearsay evidence or rumor that they entertain -nonconformist views, subjected to public censure by notoriety-seeking -"investigation commissions"--and by an irresponsible press. Only members -of an established political party in good standing are permitted to -criticize the acts of the President of the United States. Newspapers and -magazines are suppressed and denied the privilege of the mails at the -whim of opinionated post-office officers or of ignorant employees of the -Department of Justice. An intensely patriotic weekly paper in New York, -which happened to hold unconventional views on the subject of religion, -has had certain issues of its paper suppressed for the offense of -publishing accounts of the alleged misconduct of the Y. M. C. A. - -The stupidity and irresponsibility of the Russian spy-system which has -grown up in this country along with our overweening state is illustrated -by an amusing little experience which happened to myself several months -after the signing of the armistice with Germany. All through the trying -months of the war the great audience at Cooper Union had followed me -with a loyalty and tolerance which was truly wonderful. Though I knew -that many had not always been in hearty accord with my rather -spontaneous and outspoken Americanism, the Cooper Union Forum was one of -the few places in America where foreign and labor elements were present -in large numbers in which there was no outbreak or demonstration of any -kind which could possibly be interpreted as un-American. We all felt -that perhaps the People's Institute with its record of twenty years' -work behind it had been of some real service to the nation in adhering -strictly to its educational method and keeping its discussions wholly -above the level of any sort of crowd-propaganda. - -However, in the course of our educational work, it became my task to -give to a selected group of advanced students a course of lectures upon -the Theory of Knowledge. The course was announced with the title, "How -Free Men Think," and the little folder contained the statement that it -was to be a study of the Humanist logic, with Professor F. C. S. -Schiller's philosophical writings to be used as textbooks. The -publication of this folder announcing the course was held up by the -printer, and we learned that he had been told not to print it by some -official personage whose identity was not revealed. Notwithstanding the -fact that Schiller is professor of philosophy in Corpus Christi College, -Oxford, and is one of the best-known philosophical writers in the -English-speaking world, and holds views practically identical with what -is called the "American School," led by the late William James, it -developed that the government agents--or whoever they were--objected to -the publication of the announcement on the ground that they _thought -Schiller was a German_. Such is our intellectual freedom regarding -matters which have no political significance whatever, in a world made -"safe for democracy." But we must not permit ourselves to despair or -grow weary of life in this "safety first" world--waves of -pseudo-patriotic panic often follow on the heels of easily won victory. -Crowd-phenomena of such intensity are usually of short duration, as -these very excesses soon produce the inevitable reaction. - -The question, however, arises, is democracy more conducive to freedom -than other forms of political organization? To most minds the terms -"liberty" and "democracy" are almost synonymous. Those who consider that -liberty consists in having a vote, in giving everyone a voice regardless -of whether he has anything to say, will have no doubts in the matter. -But to those whose thinking means more than the mere repetition of -eighteenth-century crowd-ideas, the question will reduce itself to this: -Is democracy more conducive to crowd-behavior than other forms of -government? Le Bon and those who identify the crowd with the masses -would answer with an _a priori_ affirmative. I do not believe the -question may be answered in any such off-hand manner. It is a question -of fact rather than of theory. Theoretically, since we have -demonstrated I think that the crowd is not the common people as such, -but is a peculiar form of psychic behavior, it would seem that there is -no logical necessity for holding that democracy must always and -everywhere be the rule of the mob. And we have seen that other forms of -society may also suffer from crowd-rule. I suspect that the repugnance -which certain aristocratic, and bourgeois writers also, show for -democracy is less the horror of crowd-rule as such, than dislike of -seeing control pass over to a crowd other than their own. Theoretically -at least, democracy calls for a maximum of self-government and personal -freedom. The fact that democracy is rapidly degenerating into tyranny of -all over each may be due, not to the democratic ideal itself, but the -growing tendency to crowd-behavior in modern times. It may be that -certain democratic ideals are not so much causes as effects of -crowd-thinking and action. It cannot be denied that such ideals come in -very handy these days in the way of furnishing crowds with effective -catchwords for their propaganda and of providing them with ready-made -justifications for their will to power. I should say that democracy has -_indirectly permitted_, rather than directly caused, an extension in the -range of thought and behavior over which the crowd assumes -dictatorship. - -In comparing democracy with more autocratic forms of government, this -extent or range of crowd-control over the individual is important. Of -course, human beings will never permit to one another a very large -degree of personal freedom. It is to the advantage of everyone in the -struggle for existence to reduce his neighbors as much as possible to -automatons. In this way one's own adjustment to the behavior of others -is made easier. If we can induce or compel all about us to confine their -actions to perfect routine, then we may predict with a fair degree of -accuracy their future behavior, and be prepared in advance to meet it. -We all dread the element of the unexpected, and nowhere so much as in -the conduct of our neighbors. If we could only get rid of the humanly -unexpected, society would be almost fool-proof. Hence the resistance to -new truths, social change, progress, nonconformity of any sort; hence -our orthodoxies and conventions; hence our incessant preaching to our -neighbors to "be good"; hence the fanaticism with which every crowd -strives to keep its believers in line. Much of this insistence on -regularity is positively necessary. Without it there could be no social -or moral order at all. It is in fact the source and security of the -accepted values of civilization, as Schiller has shown. - -But the process of keeping one another in line is carried much farther -than is necessary to preserve the social order. It is insisted upon to -the extent that will guarantee the survival, even the dominance, of the -spiritually sick, the morally timid, the trained-animal men, those who -would revert to savagery, or stand utterly helpless the moment a new -situation demanded that they do some original thinking in the place of -performing the few stereotyped tricks which they have acquired; the -dog-in-the-manger people, who because they can eat no meat insist that -all play the dyspeptic lest the well-fed outdistance them in the race of -life or set them an example in following which they get the stomach -ache; the people who, because they cannot pass a saloon door without -going in and getting drunk, cannot see a moving-picture, or read a -modern book, or visit a bathing beach without being tormented with their -gnawing promiscuous eroticism, insist upon setting up their own -perverted dilemmas as the moral standard for everybody. - -Such people exist in great numbers in every society. They are always -strong for "brotherly love," for keeping up appearances, for removing -temptation from the path of life, for uniform standards of belief and -conduct. Each crowd, in its desire to become the majority, to hold the -weaker brethren within its fold, and especially as everyone of us has a -certain amount of this "little brother" weakness in his own nature, -which longs to be pampered if only the pampering can be done without -hurting our pride--the crowd invariably plays to this sort of thing and -bids for its support. As the little brother always expresses his -survival-values in terms of accepted crowd-ideas, no crowd can really -turn him down without repudiating its abstract principles. In fact, it -is just this weakness in our nature which, as we have seen, leads us to -become crowd-men in the first place. Furthermore, we have seen that any -assertion of personal independence is resented by the crowd because it -weakens the crowd-faith of all. - -The measure of freedom granted to men will depend, therefore, upon how -many things the crowd attempts to consider its business. There is a law -of inertia at work here. In monarchical forms of government, where the -crowd-will is exercised through a single human agent, the monarch may be -absolute in regard to certain things which are necessary to his own and -his crowd's survival. In such matters "he can do no wrong"; there is -little or no appeal from his decisions. But the very thoroughness with -which he hunts down nonconformity in matters which directly concern his -authority, leaves him little energy for other things. Arbitrary power -is therefore usually limited to relatively few things, since the -autocrat cannot busy himself with everything that is going on. Within -the radius of the things which the monarch attempts to regulate he may -be an intolerable tyrant, but so long as he is obeyed in these matters, -so long as things run on smoothly on the surface, there are all sorts of -things which he would prefer not to have brought to his attention, as -witness, for instance, the letter of Trajan to the younger Pliny. - -With a democracy it is different. While the exercise of authority is -never so inexorable--indeed democratic states frequently pass laws for -the purpose of placing the community on record "for righteousness," -rather than with the intention of enforcing such laws--the number of -things which a democracy will presume to regulate is vastly greater than -in monarchical states. As sovereignty is universal, everybody becomes -lawmaker and regulator of his neighbors. As the lawmaking power is -present everywhere, nothing can escape its multieyed scrutiny. All sorts -of foibles, sectional interests, group demands, class prejudices become -part of the law of the land. A democracy is no respecter of persons and -can, under its dogma of equality before the law, admit of no exceptions. -The whole body politic is weighed down with all the several bits of -legislation which may be demanded by any of the various groups within -it. An unusual inducement and opportunity are thus provided for every -crowd to force its own crowd-dilemmas upon all. - -The majority not only usurps the place of the king, but it tends to -subject the whole range of human thought and behavior to its -authority--everything, in fact, that anyone, disliking in his neighbors -or finding himself tempted to do, may wish to "pass a law against." -Every personal habit and private opinion becomes a matter for public -concern. Custom no longer regulates; all is rationalized according to -the logic of the crowd-mind. Public policy sits on the doorstep of every -man's personal conscience. The citizen in us eats up the man. Not the -tiniest personal comfort may yet be left us in private enjoyment. All -that cannot be translated into propaganda or hold its own in a -legislative lobby succumbs. If we are to preserve anything of our -personal independence, we must organize ourselves into a crowd like the -rest and get out in the streets and set up a public howl. Unless some -one pretty soon starts a pro-tobacco crusade and proves to the -newspaper-reading public that the use of nicotine by everybody in equal -amount is absolutely necessary for the preservation of the American -home, for economic efficiency and future military supremacy, we shall -doubtless all soon be obliged to sneak down into the cellar and smoke -our pipes in the dark. - -Here we see the true argument for a written constitution, and also, I -think, a psychological principle which helps us to decide what should be -in a constitution and what should not. The aim of a constitution is to -put a limit to the number of things concerning which a majority-crowd -may lord it over the individual. I am aware that the appeal to the -Constitution is often abused by predatory interests which skulk behind -its phraseology in their defense of special economic privilege. But, -nevertheless, people in a democracy may be free only so long as they -submit to the dictation of the majority in _just and only those few -interests concerning which a monarch, were he in existence, would take -advantage of them for his personal ends_. There are certain political -and economic relations which cannot be left to the chance exploitation -of any individual or group that happens to come along. Some one is sure -to come along, for you may be sure that if there is a possible -opportunity to take advantage, some one will do it sooner or later. - -Now because people have discovered that there is no possible individual -freedom in respect to certain definite phases of their common life which -are always exposed to seizure by exploiters, democrats have substituted -a tyranny of the majority for the tyranny of the one or the favored few -which would otherwise be erected at these points. Since it is necessary -to give up freedom in these regions anyway, there is some compensation -in spreading the tyrannizing around so that each gets a little share of -it. But every effort should be made to _limit the tyranny of the -majority to just these points_. And the line limiting the number of -things that the majority may meddle with must be drawn as hard and fast -as possible, since every dominant crowd, as we have seen, will squeeze -the life out of everything human it can get its hands on. The minute a -majority finds that it can extend its tyranny beyond this strictly -constitutionally limited sphere, nothing remains to stop it; it becomes -worse than an autocracy. Tyranny is no less abhorrent just because the -number of tyrants is increased. A nation composed of a hundred million -little tyrants snooping and prying into every corner may be democratic, -but, personally, if that ever comes to be the choice I think I should -prefer one tyrant. He might occasionally look the other way and leave me -a free man, long enough at least for me to light my pipe. - -True democrats will be very jealous of government. Necessary as it is, -there is no magic about government, no saving grace. Government cannot -redeem us from our sins; it will always require all the decency we -possess to redeem the government. Government always represents the moral -dilemmas of the worst people, not the best. It cannot give us freedom; -it can give or grant us nothing but what it first takes from us. It is -we who grant to the government certain powers and privileges necessary -for its proper functioning. We do not exist for the government; it -exists for us. We are not its servants; it is our servant. Government at -best is a useful and necessary machine, a mechanism by which we protect -ourselves from one another. It has no more rights and dignities of its -own than are possessed by any other machine. Its laws should be obeyed, -for the same reason that the laws of mechanics should be -obeyed--otherwise the machine will not run. - -As a matter of fact it is not so much government itself against which -the democrat must be on guard, but the various crowds which are always -seeking to make use of the machinery of government in order to impose -their peculiar tyranny upon all and invade the privacy of everyone. By -widening the radius of governmental control, the crowd thus pinches down -the individuality of everyone with the same restrictions as are imposed -by the crowd upon its own members. - -Conway says: - - Present-day Democracy rests on a few organized parties. What - would a democracy be like if based on millions of independent - Joneses each of whom decided to vote this or that way as he - pleased? The dominion of the crowd would be at an end, both for - better and for worse. We shall not behold any such revolution in - the world as we know it.... - - Thus we must conclude that the crowd by its very nature tends, - and always must tend, to diminish (if possible, to the vanishing - point) the freedom of its members, and not in one or two - respects alone, but in all. The crowd's desire is to swallow up - the individuality of its members and reduce them one and all to - the condition of crowd units whose whole life is lived according - to the crowd-pattern and is sacrificed and devoted to - crowd-interests.... - - An excellent illustration of this crowd-dominance crops up in my - afternoon paper.... It appears that in certain parts of the - country artisans, by drinking too much alcohol, are reducing - their capacity of doing their proper work, which happens at the - moment to be of great importance to the country at war. Many - interferences with liberty are permitted in war time by general - consent. It is accordingly proposed to put difficulties in the - way of these drinkers by executive orders. One would suppose - that the just way to do this would be to make a list of the - drinkers and prohibit their indulgence. But this is not the way - the crowd works. To it everyone of its constituent members is - like another, and all must be drilled and controlled alike.... - Whatever measure is adopted must fall evenly on all classes, - upon club, restaurant and hotel as upon public house. Could - anything be more absurd? Lest a gunmaker or a shipbuilder in - Glasgow should drink too much, Mr. Asquith must not take a glass - of sherry with his lunch at the Athenæum!... - - We live in days when crowd dominion over individuals has been - advancing at a headlong pace.... If he is not to drink in London - lest a Glasgow engineer should get drunk, why should not his - eating be alike limited? Why not the style and cut of his - clothes? Why not the size and character of his house? He must - cause his children to be taught at least the minimum of muddled - information which the government calls education. He must insure - for his dependents the attention of an all-educated physician, - and the administration of drugs known to be useless. If the - crowd had its way every mother and infant would be under the - orders of inspectors, regardless of the capacity of the parent. - We should all be ordered about in every relation of life from - infancy to manhood.... Freedom would utterly vanish, and this, - not because the crowd can arrange things better than the - individual. It cannot. It lacks the individual's brains. The - ultimate reason for all this interference is the crowd's desire - to swallow up and control the unit. The instinct of all crowds - is to dominate, to capture and overwhelm the individual, to make - him their slave, to absorb all his life for their service. - -The criticism has often been made of democracy that it permits too much -freedom; the reverse of this is nearer the truth. It was de Tocqueville, -I think, who first called attention to the "tyranny of the majority" in -democratic America. Probably one of the most comprehensive and -discriminating studies that have ever been made of the habits and -institutions of any nation may be found in the work of this observing -young Frenchman who visited our country at the close of its first half -century of political independence. De Tocqueville's account of Democracy -in America is still good reading, much of it being applicable to the -present. This writer was in no sense an unfriendly critic. He praised -much that he saw, but even in those days (the period of 1830) he was not -taken in by the fiction that, because the American people live under -laws of their own making, they are therefore free. Much of the following -passages taken here and there from Chapters XIV and XV is as true today -as it was when it was written: - - America is therefore a free country in which, lest anybody be - hurt by your remarks, you are not allowed to speak freely of - private individuals, of the State, or the citizens, or the - authorities, of public or private undertakings, in short of - anything at all, except perhaps the climate and the soil, and - even then Americans will be found ready to defend both as if - they had concurred in producing them. - - The American submits without a murmur to the authority of the - pettiest magistrate. This truth prevails even in the trivial - details of national life. An American cannot converse--he speaks - to you as if he were addressing a meeting. If an American were - condemned to confine himself to his own affairs, he would be - robbed of one-half of his existence; his wretchedness would be - unbearable.... - - The moral authority of the majority in America is based on the - notion that there is more intelligence and wisdom in a number of - men united than in a single individual.... The theory of - equality is thus applied to the intellects of men. - - The French, under the old regime, held it for a maxim that the - King could do no wrong. The Americans entertain the same opinion - with regard to the majority. - - In the United States, all parties are willing to recognize the - rights of the majority, because they all hope at some time to be - able to exercise them to their own advantage. The majority - therefore in that country exercises a prodigious actual - authority and a power of opinion which is nearly as great (as - that of the absolute autocrat). No obstacles exist which can - impair or even retard its progress so as to make it heed the - complaints of those whom it crushes upon its path. This state of - things is harmful in itself and dangerous for the future. - - As the majority is the only power which it is important to - court, all its projects are taken up with the greatest ardor; - but no sooner is its attention distracted than all this ardor - ceases. - - There is no power on earth so worthy of honor in itself, or - clothed with rights so sacred, that I would admit its - uncontrolled and all-predominant authority. - - In my opinion the main evil of the present democratic - institutions of the United States does not arise, as is so often - asserted in Europe, from their weakness, but from their - irresistible strength.... I am not so much alarmed by the - excessive liberty which reigns in that country, as by the - inadequate securities which one finds against tyranny. When an - individual or party is wronged in the United States, to whom can - he apply for redress? - - It is in the examination of the exercise of thought in the - United States that we clearly perceive how far the power of the - majority surpasses all the powers with which we are acquainted - in Europe. At the present time the most absolute monarchs in - Europe cannot prevent certain opinions hostile to their - authority from circulating in secret through their dominions and - even in their courts. - - It is not so in America. So long as the majority is undecided, - discussion is carried on, but as soon as its decision is - announced everyone is silent.... - - I know of no country in which there is so little independence of - mind and real freedom of discussion as in America. In America - the majority raises formidable barriers around the liberty of - opinion. Within these barriers an author may write what he - pleases, but woe to him if he goes beyond them. Not that he is - in danger of an _auto-da-fe_, but he is exposed to continued - obloquy and persecution. His political career is closed for - ever. Every sort of compensation, even that of celebrity, is - refused him. Those who think like him have not the courage to - speak out, and abandon him to silence. He yields at length, - overcome by the daily effort which he has to make, and subsides - into silence as if he felt remorse for having spoken the truth. - - Fetters and headsmen were coarse instruments ... but - civilization has perfected despotism itself. Under absolute - despotism of one man, the body was attacked to subdue the soul, - but the soul escaped the blows and rose superior. Such is not - the course adopted in democratic republics; there the body is - left free, but the soul is enslaved.... - - The ruling power in the United States is not to be made game of. - The smallest reproach irritates its sensibilities. The slightest - joke which has any foundation in truth renders it indignant. - Everything must be the subject of encomium. No writer, whatever - his eminence, can escape paying his tribute of adoration to his - fellow citizens. - - The majority lives in the perpetual utterance of self-applause, - and there are certain truths which Americans can only learn from - strangers, or from experience. If America has not yet had any - great writers, the reason is given in these facts--there can be - no literary genius without freedom of opinion, and freedom of - opinion does not exist in America. - -Such passages as the above, quoted from the words of a friendly student -of American democracy, show the impression which, notwithstanding our -popular prattle about freedom, thoughtful foreigners have since the -beginning received. And de Tocqueville wrote long before crowd-thinking -had reached anything like the development we see at present. To-day the -tyrannizing is not confined to the majority-crowd. All sorts of -minority-crowds, impatient of waiting until they can by fair means -persuade the majority to agree with them, begin to practice coercion -upon everyone within reach the minute they fall into possession of some -slight advantage which may be used as a weapon. From the industrial side -we were first menaced by the "invisible government" of organized vested -interests; now, by a growing tendency to government by strikes. -Organized gangs of all sorts have at last learned the amusing trick of -pointing a pistol at the public's head and threatening it with -starvation, and up go its hands, and the gang gains whatever it wants -for itself, regardless of anyone else. But this "hold-up game" is by no -means confined to labor. Capitalistic soviets have since the beginning -of the war taken advantage of situations to enhance their special -crowd-interests. The following, quoted from a letter written during the -war to the _Atlantic Monthly_, by a thoroughly American writer, Charles -D. Stewart, describes a type of mob rule which existed in almost every -part of the nation while we were fighting for freedom abroad: - - Carlyle said that "Of all forms of government, a government of - busybodies is the worst." This is true. It is worse than - Prussianism, because that is one form of government, at least; - and worse than Socialism, because Socialism would be run by law, - anyway. But government by busybodies has neither head nor tail; - working outside the law, it becomes lawless; and having no law - to support it, it finally depends for its enforcement upon - hoodlums and mob rule. When the respectable and wealthy elements - are resorting to this sort of government, abetted by the - newspapers and by all sorts of busybody societies intent upon - "government by public sentiment," we finally have a new thing in - the world and a most obnoxious one--mob rule by the rich; with - the able assistance of the hoodlums--always looking for a - chance. - - It starts as follows: - - The government wishes a certain amount of money. It therefore - appeals to local pride; it sets a "quota," which has been - apportioned to each locality, and promises of a fine - "over-the-top" flag to be hoisted over the courthouse. All well - and good; local pride is a very fine thing, competition is - wholesome. - - But the struggle that ensues is not so much local pride as it - looks to be. - - Milwaukee, for instance, a big manufacturing center, is noted - for its German population. This, the local proprietors fear, may - affect its trade. It may be boycotted to some extent. A - traveling man comes back and says that a certain dealer in - stoves refuses to buy stoves made in Milwaukee! - - Ha!--Milwaukee must redeem its reputation; it must always go - over the top: it must be able to affix this stamp to all its - letters. - - Now, as the state has a quota, and the county and city has each - its quota, so each individual must have his quota. Each - individual must be "assessed" to buy a certain quota [government - war loan] of bonds. Success must be made sure: the manufacturers - must see the honor of Milwaukee, and Wisconsin, maintained. - - It is not compulsory to give a certain "assessed" amount to the - Y. M. C. A.; and the government does not make a certain quota of - bonds compulsory on citizens--oh, no! it is not compulsory, only - you must abide by your assessment. And we will see that you do. - No excuse accepted.... - - Picture to yourself the following "collection committee" - traveling out of the highly civilized, "kultured" city of - Milwaukee. - - Twenty-five automobiles containing sixty to seventy respectable - citizens of Milwaukee. - - One color guard (a flag at the head) with two home guardsmen in - citizens' clothes. - - Two deputy sheriffs. - - One "official" photographer. - - One "official" stenographer. - - One banker (this personage to make arrangements to lend a farmer - the money in case he protests that he has subscribed too much - already). - - This phalanx, entirely lawless, moves down upon a farmer who is - urging two horses along a cloddy furrow, doing his fall plowing. - - They form a semicircle about him; the speechmaker says, "Let us - salute the flag" (watching him to see that he does it promptly); - and while his horses stand there the speechmaker delivers a - speech. He must subscribe his "assessed" amount--no excuses - accepted. If he owes for the farm, and has just paid his - interest, and has only fifteen dollars to go on with, it makes - no difference. He must subscribe the amount of his "assessment," - and "sign here." - - If not, what happens? The farmer all the time, of course, is - probably scared out of his wits, or does not know what to make - of this delegation of notables bearing down upon his solitary - task in the fields. But if he argues too much, he finds this. - They have a large package of yellow placards reading: - - THE OCCUPANT OF THESE PREMISES HAS REFUSED TO TAKE - HIS JUST SHARE OF LIBERTY BONDS. - - And they put them all over his place. He probably signs. - - Now bear in mind that this method is not practiced merely - against farmers who have made unpatriotic remarks, or have - refused to support the war. It is practiced against a farmer who - has taken only one hundred dollars when he was assessed a - hundred and fifty--and this is to make him "come across" with - the remainder. - - You might ask, Is this comic opera or is it government? - - And now we come to the conclusion. Imagine yourself either a - workman in Milwaukee, or a farmer out in the country. You are - dealt with in this entirely Prussian manner--possibly the - committee, which knows little of your financial difficulties in - your home, has just assessed you arbitrarily. - - Your constitutional rights do not count. There is no remedy. If - you are painted yellow, the District Attorney will pass the - buck--he knows what the manufacturer expects of him, and the - financier. The state officers of these drives, Federal - representatives, are always Milwaukee bankers. - - But for you there is no remedy if you are "assessed" too high. - - With the Y. M. C. A., and other religious society drives, the - same assessment scheme is worked. You cannot give to the - Y. M. C. A. You are told right off how much you are to pay. - -It would seem that in our democracy freedom consists first of freedom to -vote; second, of freedom to make commercial profit; third, of freedom to -make propaganda; fourth, of freedom from intellectual and moral -responsibility. Each of these "liberties" is little more than a -characteristic form of crowd-behavior. The vote, our most highly prized -modern right, is nearly always so determined by crowd-thinking that as -an exercise of individual choice it is a joke. Men are herded in droves -and delivered by counties in almost solid blocks by professional traders -of political influence. Before each election a campaign of crowd-making -is conducted in which every sort of vulgarity and insincerity has -survival value, in which real issues are so lost in partisan propaganda -as to become unrecognizable. When the vote is cast it is commonly a -choice between professional crowd-leaders whose competency consists in -their ability to Billy Sundayize the mob rather than in any marked -fitness for the office to which they aspire--also between the horns of a -dilemma which wholly misstates the issue involved and is trumped up -chiefly for purposes of political advertising. Time and again the -franchise thus becomes an agency by which rival crowds may fasten their -own tyrannies upon one another. - -Freedom to make commercial profit, to get ahead of others in the race -for dollars, is what democracy generally means by "opportunity." Nothing -is such a give-away of the modern man as the popular use of the word -"individualism." It is no longer a philosophy of _becoming_ something -genuine and unique, but of _getting_ something and using it according to -your own whims and for personal ends regardless of the effect upon -others. This pseudo-individualism encourages the rankest selfishness and -exploitation to go hand in hand with the most deadly spiritual -conformity and inanity. Such "individualism" is, as I have pointed out, -a crowd-idea, for it is motivated by a cheaply disguised ideal of -personal superiority through the mere fact of possessing things. -Paradoxical as it may appear at first sight, this is really the old -crowd notion of "equality," for, great as are the differences of wealth -which result, every man may cherish the fiction that he possesses the -sort of ability necessary for this kind of social distinction. Such -superiority thus has little to do with personal excellence; it is the -result of the external accident of success. One man may still be "as -good as another." - -Against this competitive struggle now there has grown up a counter-crowd -ideal of collectivism. But here also the fiction of universal spiritual -equality is maintained; the competitive struggle is changed from an -individual to a gang struggle, while the notion that personal worth is -the result of the environment and may be achieved by anyone whose belly -is filled still persists. Proletarians for the most part wish, -chinch-bug fashion, to crawl into the Elysian fields now occupied by the -hated capitalists. The growing tendency to industrial democracy will -probably in the near future cut off this freedom to make money, which -has been the chief "liberty" of political democracy until now, but -whether liberty in general will be the gainer thereby remains to be -seen. One rather prominent Socialist in New York declares that liberty -is a "myth." He is correct, in so far as the democratic movement, either -political or social, is a crowd-phenomenon. Socialist agitators are -always demanding "liberty" nevertheless, but the liberty which they -demand is little more than freedom to make their own propaganda. And -this leads us to the third liberty permitted by modern democracy. - -The "freedom of speech" which is everywhere demanded in the name of -democracy is not at all freedom in the expression of individual opinion. -It is only the demand for advertising space on the part of various -crowds for the publication of their shibboleths and propaganda. Each -crowd, while demanding this freedom for itself, seeks to deny it to -other crowds, and all unite in denying it to the non-crowd man wherever -possible. The Puritan's "right to worship according to the dictates of a -man's own conscience" did not apply to Quakers, Deists, or Catholics. -When Republicans were "black abolitionists" they would have regarded any -attempt to suppress _The Liberator_, as edited by William Lloyd -Garrison, as an assault upon the constitutional liberties of the whole -nation. But they are not now particularly interested in preserving the -constitutional liberties of the nation as represented in the right of -circulation of _The Liberator_, edited by Max Eastman. In Jefferson's -time, when Democrats were accused of "Jacobinism," they invoked the -"spirit of 1776" in opposition to the alien and sedition laws under -which their partisan propaganda suffered limitation. To-day, when they -are striving to outdo the Republicans in "Americanization propaganda," -they actually stand sponsor for an espionage law which would have made -Jefferson or Andrew Jackson froth at the mouth. Socialists are convinced -that liberty is dead because Berger and Debs are convicted of uttering -opinions out of harmony with temporarily dominant crowd-ideas of -patriotism. But when Theodore Dreiser was put under the ban for the -crime of writing one of the few good novels produced in America, I do -not recall that Socialists held any meetings of protest in Madison -Square Garden. I have myself struggled in vain for three hours or more -on a street corner in Green Point trying to tell liberty-loving -Socialists the truth about the Gary schools. When the politicians in our -legislative assemblies were tricked into passing the obviously unliberal -Eighteenth Amendment, I was much interested in learning how the bulk of -the Socialists in the Cooper Union audiences felt about it. As I had -expected, they regarded it as an unpardonable infringement of personal -freedom, as a typical piece of American Puritan hypocrisy and -pharisaism. But they were, on the whole, in favor of it because they -thought it would be an aid to Bolshevist propaganda, since it would make -the working class still more discontented! Such is liberty in a -crowd-governed democracy.... It is nothing but the _liberty of crowds to -be crowds_. - -The fourth liberty in democratic society to-day is freedom from moral and -intellectual responsibility. This is accomplished by the magic of -substituting the machinery of the law for self-government, bureaucratic -meddlesomeness for conscience, crowd-tyranny for personal decency. -Professor Faguet has called democracy the "cult of incompetence" and the -"dread of responsibility." He is not far wrong, but these epithets apply -not so much to democracy as such as to democracy under the heel of the -crowd. The original aim of democracy, so far as its philosophical -thinkers conceived of it, was to set genius free from the trammels of -tradition, realize a maximum of self-government, and make living -something of an adventure. But crowds do not so understand democracy. -Every crowd looks upon democracy simply as a scheme whereby it may have -its own way. We have seen that the crowd-mind as such is a device for -"kidding" ourselves, for representing the easiest path to the -enhancement of our self-feeling as something highly moral, for making -our personal right appear like universal righteousness, for dressing up -our will to lord it over others, as if it were devotion to impersonal -principle. As we have seen, the crowd therefore insists upon universal -conformity; goodness means only making everyone alike. By taking refuge -in the abstract and ready-made system of crowd-ideas, the unconscious -will to power is made to appear what it is not; the burden of -responsibility is transferred to the group with its fiction of absolute -truth. Le Bon noted the fact of the irresponsibility of crowds, but -thought that such irresponsibility was due to the fact that the crowd, -being an anonymous gathering, the individual could lose his identity in -the multitude. The psychology of the unconscious has provided us with -what I think is a better explanation, but the fact of irresponsibility -remains and is evident in all the influence of crowd-thinking upon -democratic institutions. The crowd-ideal of society is one in which -every individual is protected not only against exploitation, but against -temptation--protected therefore _against himself_. The whole tendency of -democracy in our times is toward just such inanity. Without the least -critical analysis of accepted moral dilemmas, we are all to be made -moral in spite of ourselves, regardless of our worth, without effort on -our part, moral in the same way that machines are moral, by reducing the -will to mere automatic action, leaving no place for choice and -uncertainty, having everyone wound up and oiled and regulated to run at -the same speed. Each crowd therefore strives to make its own moral -ideas the law of the land. Law becomes thus a sort of anthology of -various existing crowd-hobbies. In the end moral responsibility is -passed over to legislatures, commissions, detectives, inspectors, and -bureaucrats. Anything that "gets by" the public censor, however rotten, -we may wallow in with a perfect feeling of respectability. The right and -necessity of choosing our way is superseded by a system of statutory -taboos, which as often as not represent the survival values of the -meanest little people in the community--the kind who cannot look upon a -nude picture without a struggle with their perverted eroticism, or -entertain a significant idea without losing their faith. - -The effect of all this upon the intellectual progress and the freedom of -art in democratic society is obvious, and is just what, to one who -understands the mechanisms of the crowd-mind, might be expected. No -wonder de Tocqueville said he found less freedom of opinion in America -than elsewhere. Explain it as you will, the fact is here staring us in -the face. Genius in our democracy is not free. It must beg the -permission of little crowd-men for its right to exist. It must stand, -hat in hand, at the window of the commissioner of licenses and may gain -a permit for only so much of its inspiration as happens to be of -use-value to the uninspired. It must play the conformist, pretend to be -hydra-headed rather than unique, useful rather than genuine, a servant -of the "least of these" rather than their natural master. It must -advertise, but it may not prophesy. It may flatter and patronize the -stupid, but it may not stand up taller than they. In short, democracy -everywhere puts out the eyes of its Samson, cuts off his golden-rayed -locks, and makes him grind corn to fill the bellies of the Philistines. - -From the beginning of the nineteenth century until now it has been -chiefly the business man, the political charlatan, the organizer of -trade, the rediscoverer of popular prejudices who have been preferred in -our free modern societies. Keats died of a broken heart; Shelley and -Wagner were exiled; Beethoven and Schubert were left to starve; Darwin -was condemned to hell fire; Huxley was denied his professorship; -Schopenhauer was ostracized by the élite; Nietzsche ate his heart out in -solitude; Walt Whitman had to be fed by a few English admirers, while -his poems were prohibited as obscene in free America; Emerson was for -the greater part of his life _persona non grata_ at his own college; -Ingersoll was denied the political career which his genius merited; Poe -lived and died in poverty; Theodore Parker was consigned to perdition; -Percival Lowell and Simon Newcomb lived and died almost unrecognized by -the American public. Nearly every artist and writer and public teacher -is made to understand from the beginning that he will be popular in just -the degree that he strangles his genius and becomes a vulgar, -commonplace, insincere clown. - -On the other hand steel manufacturers and railroad kings, whose business -record will often scarcely stand the light, are rewarded with fabulous -millions and everyone grovels before them. When one turns from the -"commercialism," which everywhere seems to be the dominant and most -sincere interest in democratic society, when one seeks for spiritual -values to counterbalance this weight of materialism, one finds in the -prevailing spirit little more than a cult of naïve sentimentality. - -It can hardly be denied that if Shakespeare, Boccaccio, Rabelais, -Montaigne, Cassanova, Goethe, Dostoievsky, Ibsen, Tolstoi, Rousseau, St. -Augustine, Milton, Nietzsche, Swinburne, Rossetti, or even Flaubert, -were alive and writing his masterpiece in America to-day, he would be -instantly silenced by some sort of society for the prevention of vice, -and held up to the public scorn and ridicule as a destroyer of our -innocence and a corrupter of public morals. The guardians of our -characters are ceaselessly expurgating the classics lest we come to harm -reading them. I often think that the only reason why the Bible is -permitted to pass through our mails is because hardly anyone ever reads -it. - -It is this same habit of crowd-thinking which accounts to a great extent -for the dearth of intellectual curiosity in this country. From what we -have seen to be the nature of the crowd-mind, it is to be expected that -in a democracy in which crowds play an important part the condition -described by de Tocqueville will generally prevail. There is much truth -in his statement that it seems at first as if the minds of all the -Americans "were formed upon the same model." Spiritual variation will be -encouraged only in respect to matters in which one crowd differs from -another. The conformist spirit will prevail in all. Intellectual -leadership will inevitably pass to the "tight-minded." There will be -violent conflicts of ideas, but they will be crowd ideas. - -The opinions about which people differ are for the most part ready-made. -They are concerned with the choice of social mechanisms, but hardly with -valuations. With nearly all alike, there is a notion that mankind may be -redeemed by the magic of externally manipulating the social environment. -There is a wearisome monotony of professions of optimism, idealism, -humanitarianism, with little knowledge of what these terms mean. - -I am thinking of all those young people who, in the decade and a half -which preceded the war, represented the finished product of our -colleges and universities. What a stretch of imagination is needed -before one may call these young people educated! How little of -intellectual interest they have brought back from school to their -respective communities! How little cerebral activity they have stirred -up! Habits of study, of independent thinking, have seldom been acquired. -The "educated" have possibly gained a little in social grace; they have -in some cases learned things which are of advantage to them in the -struggle for position. Out of the confused mass of unassimilated -information which they dimly remember as the education which they "got," -a sum of knowledge doubtless remains which is greater in extent than -that possessed by the average man, but, though greater in extent, this -knowledge is seldom different in kind. There is the same superficiality, -the same susceptibility to crowd-thinking on every subject. The mental -habits of American democracy are probably best reflected to-day by the -"best-seller" novel, the _Saturday Evening Post_, the Chautauqua, the -Victrola, the moving picture. - -Nearly everyone in America can read, for the "schoolhouse is the bulwark -of democratic freedom." However, with the decrease in illiteracy there -has gone a corresponding lowering of literary and intellectual -standards, a growing timidity in telling the truth, and a passion for -the sensationally commonplace. If it be true that before people may be -politically free they must be free to function mentally, one wonders how -much of an aid to liberty the public schools in this country have been, -or if, with their colossal impersonal systems and stereotyped methods of -instruction, they have not rather on the whole succeeded chiefly in -making learning uninteresting, dulling curiosity and killing habits of -independent thinking. There is probably no public institution where the -spirit of the crowd reigns to the extent that it does in the public -school. The aim seems to be to mold the child to type, make him the -good, plodding citizen, teaching him only so much as some one thinks it -is to the public's interest that he should know. I am sure that everyone -who is familiar with the actions of the school authorities in New York -City during the two years, 1918 and 1919, will be impelled to look -elsewhere for much of that liberty which is supposed to go with -democracy. - -Some years ago I conducted a little investigation into the mental habits -of the average high-school graduate. An examination was made of twenty -or more young people who had been out of school one year. This is -doubtless too limited a number to give the findings great general -significance, but I give the results in brief for what they are worth. -These students had been in school for eleven years. I thought that they -ought at least to have a minimum of general cultural information and to -be able to express some sort of opinion about the commonplaces of our -spiritual heritage. The questions asked were such as follow: What is the -difference between the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution -of the United States? What is a dicotyledon? Does the name Darwin mean -anything to you? Have you ever heard of William James? What is the -significance of the battle of Tours? Who was Thomas Jefferson? There -were twenty questions in all. The average grade, even with the most -liberal marking, was 44.6. The general average was raised by one pupil -who made a grade of 69. But then we should not be too severe upon the -public-school graduate. One of the brightest college graduates I know -left a large Eastern institution believing that Karl Marx was a -philologist. Another, a graduate from a Western college, thought that -Venus de Milo was an Italian count who had been born without any arms. I -know a prominent physician, whose scientific training is such that he -has been a lecturer in a medical college, who believes that Heaven is -located just a few miles up in the sky, beyond the Milky Way. These are -doubtless exceptional cases, but how many persons with university -degrees are there who have really caught the spirit of the humanistic -culture, or have ever stopped to think why the humanities are taught in -our colleges? How many are capable of discriminating criticism of works -of music, or painting, literature, or philosophy? My own experience -convinces me, and I am sure that other public teachers who have had a -like experience will bear witness to the same lamentable fact, that such -little genuine intellectual interest as there is in this country is -chiefly confined to immigrant Jews, our American youth being, on the -whole, innocent of it. The significance of this fact is obvious, as is -its cause. Due to the conformist spirit of the dominant crowd, -native-born Americans are losing their intellectual leadership. - -We must not ignore the fact that there is among the educated here a -small and, let us hope, growing group of youthful "intellectuals." But -in the first place the proportion of these to the whole mass is -tragically small. In the second place intellectual liberalism has been -content for the most part to tag along behind the labor movement, as if -the chief meaning of the intellectual awakening were economic. It is no -disparagement of labor to say that the intellect in this country of -crowds has also other work to do, and that, until it strikes out for -itself, neither the labor movement nor anything else will rise above -commonplace crowd dilemmas. Too much of our so-called intellectualism is -merely the substitution of ready-made proletarian crowd-ideas for the -traditional crowd-ideas which pass for thinking among the middle -classes. - -All the facts which have been pointed out above are the inevitable -consequences of government by crowds. There can be no real liberty with -crowds because there can be no personal independence. The psychic -mechanisms of the crowd are hostile to conscious personality. The -independent thinker cannot be controlled by catchwords. In our day -intellectual freedom is not smothered in actual martyr fires, but it is -too often strangled in the cradle. The existence of new values, a thing -which will inevitably happen where the human spirit is left free in its -creative impulses, is disturbing to the crowd-mind. Education must -therefore be made "safe for democracy"; it must be guarded carefully -lest the youth become an original personal fact, a new spiritual -creation. I realize the element of truth in the statement often made, -that there is already too much spiritual originality in the youths of -this generation. I am not contending that certain phases of egoism -should not be checked by education. A solid intellectual basis must be -created which will make social living possible. The trouble is, -however, that this task is done too well. It is the merely useful man, -not the unusual man, whom the crowd loves. Skill is encouraged, for, -whether it be skill in serving or in demanding service, skill in itself -does not upset existing crowd-values. Reflection is "wicked" for it -leads to doubt, and doubt is non-gregarious behavior. Education ceases -to be the path of spiritual freedom; it becomes a device for harnessing -the spirit of youth in the treadmill of the survival-values of the -crowd. It is also the revenge of the old against the young, a way of -making them less troublesome. It teaches the rules for success in a -crowd-governed world while taking advantage of the natural credulity of -childhood to draw the curtain with such terrifying mummery about the -figure of wisdom that the average mind, never having the daring or -curiosity to lift it, will remain to its dying day a dullard and a -mental slave without suspecting the fact. Every "dangerous" thought is -denatured and expurgated. The student is skillfully insulated from any -mental shock that might galvanize him into original intellectual life. -The classic languages are taught for purposes of "discipline." After six -or seven years' study of Greek literature in the accepted manner one may -be able to repeat most of the rules of Goodwin's _Greek Grammar_, and -pride himself upon being a cultivated person, knowing in the end less -of the language than a bootblack from modern Athens knows of it, or than -a waiter from Bologna knows of English after one year's residence in -Greenwich Village. And the all-important thing is that never once has -the student been given a glimpse of the beautiful free pagan life which -all this literature is about. - -Science is taught that the student, if he has ability, may learn how to -make a geological survey of oil lands, construct and operate a cement -factory, make poison gas, remove infected tonsils, or grow a culture of -bacteria; but should he cease to hold popular beliefs about the origin -of life or the immortality of the soul it is well for him to keep the -tragic fact to himself. Those who teach history, economics, and -political science in such a way as to stimulate independence of thinking -on the part of the students are likely to be dismissed from their -faculties by the practical business men who constitute the boards of -trustees of our institutions of higher learning; the purpose of these -sciences is to make our youth more patriotic. Finally, the average -instructor receives less pay than a policeman, or a headwaiter, and the -unconscious reason for this is all of a piece with the psychology of the -crowd-mind. The ignorant man's resentment toward superiority, or -"highbrowism," is thereby vindicated. Moreover, the integrity of the -complex of ruling crowd-ideas is less endangered. There is less -likelihood of its being undermined in the process of education when -vigorous, independent spirits are diverted from intellectual pursuits by -richer prizes offered in other fields, and the task of instruction -therefore left largely to the underfed and timid who are destined by -temperament to trot between the shafts. - -In this discussion of the government of crowds I have ignored -consideration of the mechanisms of political and social organizations -which usually characterize the treatment of this subject. It is not that -I wish to divert attention from the necessity of more practical and just -social arrangements and political forms of organizations. These we must -achieve. But the facts which ultimately make for our freedom or slavery -are of the mind. The statement that we cannot be politically or -economically a free people until we attain mental freedom is a -platitude, but it is one which needs special emphasis in this day when -all attention is directed to the external form of organization. - -No tyranny was ever for long maintained by force. All tyrannies begin -and end in the tyranny of ideas uncritically accepted. It is of just -such ideas that the conscious thinking of the crowd consists, and it is -ultimately from the crowd as a psychological mechanism that tyranny as -such proceeds. Democracy in America fails of freedom, not because of our -political constitution, though that would doubtless be modified by a -people who were more free at heart; it fails because freedom of opinion, -intellectual alertness, critical thinking about fundamentals, is not -encouraged. There is, moreover, little promise of greater freedom in the -various revolutionary crowds who to-day want freedom only to add to the -number of crowds which pester us. And for this we have, whether we are -radicals or reactionaries or simply indifferent, no one to blame but -ourselves and our own crowd-thinking. - - - - -X - -EDUCATION AS A POSSIBLE CURE FOR CROWD-THINKING - - -We have seen that Democracy in and of itself is no more sure a guarantee -of liberty than other forms of government. This does not necessarily -mean that we have been forced by our psychological study into an -argument against the idea of democracy as such. In fact, it cannot be -denied that this form of human association may have decided advantages, -both practical and spiritual, if we set about in the right way to -realize them. It does not follow that, because the franchise is -exercised by all, democracy must necessarily be an orgy of mob rule. If, -under our modern political arrangements, it has been shown that the -crowd presumes to regulate acts and thought processes hitherto -considered purely personal matters, it is also true that the dominance -of any particular crowd has, in the long run, been rendered less -absolute and secure by the more openly expressed hostility of rival -crowds. But crowd-behavior has been known in all historic periods. -Democracy cannot be said to have caused it. It may be a mere accident -of history that the present development of crowd-mindedness has come -along with that of democratic institutions. Democracy has indeed given -new kinds of crowds their hope of dominance. It has therefore been made -into a cult for the self-justification of various modern crowds. - -The formula for realizing a more free and humane common life will not be -found in any of the proffered cure-alls and propagandas which to-day -deafen our ears with their din. Neither are we now in such possession of -the best obtainable social order that one would wish to preserve the -_status quo_ against all change, which would mean, in other words, the -survival of the present ruling crowds. Many existing facts belie the -platitudes which these crowds speak in their defense, just as they lay -bare the hidden meaning of the magic remedies which are proposed by -counter-crowds. There is no single formula for social redemption, and -the man who has come to himself will refuse to invest his faith in any -such thing--which does not mean, however, that he will refuse to -consider favorably the practical possibilities of any proposed plan for -improving social conditions. - -The first and greatest effort must be to _free democracy from -crowd-mindedness, by liberating our own thinking_. The way out of this -complex of crowd compulsions is the solitary part of self-analysis and -intellectual courage. It is the way of Socrates, and Protagoras, of -Peter Abelard, and Erasmus, and Montaigne, of Cervantes and Samuel -Butler, of Goethe, and Emerson, of Whitman and William James. - -Just here I know that certain conservatives will heartily agree with me. -"That is it," they will say; "begin with the individual." Yes, but which -individual shall we begin with? Most of those who speak thus mean, begin -with some other individual. Evangelize the heathen, uplift the poor, -Americanize the Bolshevists, do something to some one which will make -him like ourselves; in other words, bring him into our crowd. The -individual with whom I would begin is myself. Somehow or other if I am -to have individuality at all it will be by virtue of being an -individual, a single, "separate person." And that is a dangerous and at -present a more or less lonely thing to do. But the problem is really one -of practical psychology. We must come out of the crowd-self, just as, -before the neurotic may be normal, he must get over his neurosis. To do -that he must trace his malady back to its source in the unconscious, and -learn the meaning of his conscious behavior as it is related to his -unconscious desires. Then he must do a difficult thing--he must _accept -the fact of himself at its real worth_. - -It is much the same with our crowd-mindedness. If psychoanalysis has -therapeutic value by the mere fact of revealing to the neurotic the -hidden meaning of his neurosis, then it would seem that an analysis of -crowd-behavior such as we have tried to make should be of some help in -breaking the hold of the crowd upon our spirits, and thus freeing -democracy to some extent from quackery. - -To see behind the shibboleths and dogmas of crowd-thinking the -"cussedness"--that is, the primitive side--of human nature at work is a -great moral gain. At least the "cussedness" cannot deceive us any more. -We have won our greatest victory over it when we drag it out into the -light. We can at least wrestle with it consciously, and maybe, by -directing it to desirable ends, it will cease to be so "cussed," and -become a useful servant. No such good can come to us so long as this -side of our nature is allowed its way only on condition that it paint -its face and we encourage it to talk piously of things which it really -does not mean. Disillusionment may be painful both to the neurotic and -to the crowd-man, but the gain is worth the shock to our pride. The ego, -when better understood, becomes at once more highly personalized because -more conscious of itself, and more truly social because better adjusted -to the demands of others. It is this socialized and conscious selfhood -which is both the aim and the hope of true democracy. - -Such analysis may possibly give us the gift to see ourselves as others -do not see us, as we have not wished them to see us, and finally enable -us to see ourselves and others and to be seen by them as we really are. - -We shall be free when we cease pampering ourselves, stop lying to -ourselves and to one another, and give up the crowd-mummery in which we -indulge because it happens to flatter our hidden weaknesses! In the end -we shall only begin to solve the social problem when we can cease -together taking refuge from reality in systems made up of general ideas -that we should be using as tools in meeting the tasks from which as -crowd-men and neurotics people run away; when we discontinue making use -of commonly accepted principles and ideals as defense formations for -shameful things in which we can indulge ourselves with a clear -conscience only by all doing them together. - -There must be an increase in the number of unambitious men, men who can -rise above vulgar dilemmas and are deaf to crowd propaganda, men capable -of philosophical tolerance, critical doubt and inquiry, genuine -companionship, and voluntary co-operation in the achievement of common -ends, free spirits who can smile in the face of the mob, who know the -mob and are not to be taken in by it. - -All this sounds much like the old gospel of conviction of sin and -repentance; perhaps it is just that. We must think differently, change -our minds. Again and again people have tried the wide way and the broad -gate, the crowd-road to human happiness, only to find that it led to -destruction in a _cul-de-sac_. Now let us try the other road, "the -strait and narrow path." The crowd-path leads neither to self-mastery -nor social blessedness. People in crowds are not thinking together; they -are not thinking at all, save as a paranoiac thinks. They are not -working together; they are _only sticking together_. We have leaned on -one another till we have all run and fused into a common mass. The -democratic crowd to-day, with its sweet optimism, its warm "brotherly -love," is a sticky, gooey mass which one can hardly touch and come back -to himself clean. By dissolving everything in "one great union" people -who cannot climb alone expect to ooze into the co-operative commonwealth -or kingdom of heaven. I am sick of this oozing democracy. There must be -something crystalline and insoluble left in democratic America. -Somewhere there must be people with sharp edges that cut when they are -pressed too hard, people who are still solid, who have impenetrable -depths in them and hard facets which reflect the sunlight. They are the -hope of democracy, these infusible ones. - -To change the figure, may their tribe increase. And this is the business -of every educator who is not content to be a faker. What we need is not -only more education, but a different kind of education. There is more -hope in an illiterate community where people hate lying than in a -high-school educated nation which reads nothing but trash and is fed up -on advertising, newspapers, popular fiction, and propaganda. - -In the foregoing chapter, reference was made to our traditional -educational systems. The subject is so closely related to the mental -habits of democracy that it would be difficult to overemphasize its -importance for our study. Traditional educational methods have more -often given encouragement to crowd-thinking than to independence of -judgment. Thinking has been divorced from doing. Knowledge, instead of -being regarded as the foresight of ends to be reached and the conscious -direction of activity toward such ends, has been more commonly regarded -as the copying of isolated things to be learned. The act of learning has -been treated as if it were the passive reception of information imposed -from without. The subject to be learned has been sequestered and set -apart from experience as a whole, with the result that ideas easily -come to be regarded as things in themselves. Systems of thought are -built up with little or no sense of their connection with everyday -problems. Thus our present-day education prepares in advance both the -ready-made logical systems in which the crowd-mind takes refuge from the -concretely real and the disposition to accept truth second-hand, upon -the authority of another, which in the crowd-man becomes the spirit of -conformity. - -Even science, taught in this spirit may be destructive of intellectual -freedom. Professor Dewey says that while science has done much to modify -men's thoughts, still - - It must be admitted that to a considerable extent the progress - thus procured has been only technical; it has provided more - efficient means for satisfying pre-existent desires rather than - modified the quality of human purposes. There is, for example, - no modern civilization which is the equal of Greek culture in - all respects. Science is still too recent to have been absorbed - into imaginative and emotional disposition. Men move more - swiftly and surely to the realization of their ends, but their - ends too largely remain what they were prior to scientific - enlightenment. This fact places upon education the - responsibility of using science in a way to modify the habitual - attitude of imagination and feeling, not leave it just an - extension of our physical arms and legs.... - - The problem of an educational use of science is then to create - an intelligence pregnant with belief in the possibility of the - direction of human affairs by itself. The method of science - ingrained through education in habit means emancipation from - rule of thumb and from the routine generated by rule of thumb - procedure.... - - That science may be taught as a set of formal and technical - exercises is only too true. This happens whenever information - about the world is made an end in itself. The failure of such - instruction to procure culture is not, however, evidence of the - antithesis of natural knowledge to humanistic concern, but - evidence of a wrong educational attitude. - -The new kind of education, the education which is to liberate the mind, -will make much of scientific methods. But let us notice what it is to -set a mind free. Mind does not exist in a vacuum, nor in a world of -"pure ideas." The free mind is the functioning mind, the mind which is -not inhibited in its work by any conflict within itself. Thought is not -made free by the mere substitution of naturalistic for theological -dogma. It is possible to make a cult of science itself. Crowd-propaganda -is often full of pseudoscientific jargon of this sort. Specialization in -technical training may produce merely a high-class trained-animal man, -of the purely reflex type, who simply performs a prescribed trick which -he has learned, whenever an expected motor-cue appears. In the presence -of the unexpected such a person may be as helpless as any other animal. -It is possible to train circus dogs, horses, and even horned toads, to -behave in this same way. Much so-called scientific training in our -schools to-day is of this sort. It results not in freedom, but in what -Bergson would call the triumph of mechanism over freedom. - -Science, to be a means of freedom--that is, science as culture--may not -be pursued as pure theorizing apart from practical application. Neither -may a calculating utilitarianism gain freedom to us by ignoring, in the -application of scientific knowledge to given ends, a consideration of -the ends themselves and their value for enriching human experience. It -is human interest which gives scientific knowledge any meaning. Science -must be taught in the humanist spirit. It may not ignore this quality of -human interest which exists in all knowledge. To do so is to cut off our -relations with reality. And the result may become a negation of -personality similar to that with which the crowd compensates itself for -its unconscious ego-mania. - -The reference just made to Humanism leads us next to a consideration of -the humanities. It has long been the habit of traditional education to -oppose to the teaching of science the teaching of the classic languages -and the arts, as if there were two irreconcilable principles involved -here. Dewey says that - - Humanistic studies when set in opposition to study of nature are - hampered. They tend to reduce themselves to exclusively literary - and linguistic studies, which in turn tend to shrink to "the - classics," to languages no longer spoken.... It would be hard to - find anything in history more ironical than the educational - practices which have identified the "humanities" exclusively - with a knowledge of Greek and Latin. Greek and Roman art and - institutions made such important contributions to our - civilization that there should always be the amplest - opportunities for making their acquaintance. But to regard them - as _par excellence_ the humane studies involves a deliberate - neglect of the possibilities of the subject-matter which is - accessible in education to the masses, and tends to cultivate a - narrow snobbery--that of a learned class whose insignia are the - accidents of exclusive opportunity. Knowledge is humanistic in - quality not because it is _about_ human products in the past, - but because of what it _does_ in liberating human intelligence - and human sympathy. Any subject-matter which accomplishes this - result is humane and any subject-matter which does not - accomplish it is not even educational. - -The point is that it is precisely what a correct knowledge of ancient -civilization through a study of the classics _does_ that our traditional -educators most dread. William James once said that the good which came -from such study was the ability to "know a good man when we see him." -The student would thus become more capable of discriminating -appreciation. He would grow to be a judge of values. He would acquire -sharp likes and dislikes and thus set up his own standards of judgment. -He would become an independent-thinker and therefore an enemy of crowds. -Scholars of the Renaissance knew this well, and that is why in their -revolt against the crowd-mindedness of their day they made use of the -_litteræ humanores_ to smash to pieces the whole dogmatic system of the -Middle Ages. - -With the picture of ancient life before him the student could not help -becoming more cosmopolitan in spirit. Here he got a glimpse of a manner -of living in which the controlling ideas and fixations of his -contemporary crowds were frankly challenged. Here were witnesses to -values contrary to those in which his crowd had sought to bring him up -in a docile spirit. Inevitably his thinking would wander into what his -crowd considered forbidden paths. One cannot begin to know the ancients -as they really were without receiving a tremendous intellectual -stimulus. After becoming acquainted with the intellectual freedom and -courage and love of life which are almost everywhere manifest in the -literature of the ancients, something happens to a man. He becomes -acquainted with himself as a valuing animal. Few things are better -calculated to make free spirits than these very classics, once the -student "catches on." - -But that is just the trouble; from the Renaissance till now, the -crowd-mind, whether interested politically, morally, or religiously; -whether Catholic, or Protestant, or merely Rationalist, has done its -level best to keep the student from "catching on." Educational -tradition, which is for the most part only systematized crowd-thinking, -has perverted the classics into instruments for producing spiritual -results of the very opposite nature from the message which these -literatures contain. Latin and Greek are taught for _purposes of -discipline_. The task of learning them has been made as difficult and as -uninteresting as possible, with the idea of forcing the student to do -something he dislikes, of whipping his spirit into line and rendering -him subservient to intellectual authority. Thus, while keeping up the -external appearance of culture, the effect is to make the whole thing so -meaningless and unpleasant that the student will never have the interest -to try to find out what it is all about. - -I have said that the sciences and classics should be approached in the -"humanistic" spirit. The humanist method must be extended to the whole -subject-matter of education, even to a revaluation of knowing itself. I -should not say _even_, but _primarily_. It is impossible here to enter -into an extended discussion of the humanist theories of knowledge as -contrasted with the traditional or "intellectualist" theories. But since -we have seen that the conscious thinking of the crowd-mind consists in -the main of abstract and dogmatic logical systems, similar to the -"rationalizations" of the paranoiac, it is important to note the bearing -of humanism upon these logical systems wherever they are found. - -A number of years ago, while discussing certain phases of this subject -with one of the physicians in charge of a large hospital for the insane, -the significance of education for healthy mental life was brought out -with great emphasis. It was at the time when psychiatrists were just -beginning to make use of analytical psychology in the treatment of -mental and nervous disorders. - -"The trouble with a great many of our patients," said my friend, "is the -fact that they have been wrongly educated." - -"Do you mean," I said, "that they have not received proper moral -instruction?" - -"Yes, but by the proper moral instruction I do not mean quite the same -thing that most people mean by that. It all depends on the way in which -the instruction is given. Many of these patients are the mental slaves -of convention. They have been terrified by it; its weight crushes them; -when they discover that their own impulses or behavior are in conflict -with what they regard as absolute standards, they cannot bear the shock. -They do not know how to use morality; they simply condemn themselves; -they seek reconciliation by all sorts of crazy ideas which develop into -the psychoneurosis. And the only hope there is of cure for them is -re-education. The physician, when it is not too late, often to do any -good has to become an educator." - -The practice of psychoanalysis as a therapeutic method is really hardly -anything more than re-education. The patient must first be led to face -the fact of himself as he really is; then he must be taught to revalue -conventional ideas in such a way that he can use these ideas as -instruments with which he may adjust himself in the various relations of -life. This process of education, in a word, is humanistic. It is -pragmatic; the patient is taught that his thinking is a way of -functioning; that ideas are instruments, ways of acting. He learns to -value these tendencies to act and to find himself through the mastery of -his own thinking. - -Now we have seen that the neurosis is but one path of escape from this -conflict of self with the imperatives and abstract ideas through which -social control is exercised. The second way is to deny, unconsciously, -the true meaning of these ideas, and this, as we have seen, is -crowd-thinking. Here, as in the other case, the education which is -needed is that which acquaints the subject with the functional nature of -his own thinking, which directs his attention to results, which -dissolves the fictions into which the unconscious takes refuge, by -showing that systems of ideas have no other reality than what they do -and no other meaning than the difference which their being true makes in -actual experience somewhere. - -We have previously noted the connection between the intellectualist -philosophies with their closed systems of ideas, their absolutists, and -the conscious thinking of crowds. The crowd finds these systems -ready-made and merely backs into them and hides itself like a hermit -crab in a deserted seashell. It follows that the humanist, however -social he may be, cannot be a crowd-man. He, too, will have his ideals, -but they are not made-in-advance goods which all must accept; they are -good only as they may be made good in real experience, true only when -verified in fact. To such a mind there is no unctuousness, by which -ideas may be fastened upon others without their assent. Nothing is -regarded as so final and settled that the spirit of inquiry should be -discouraged from efforts to modify and improve it. - -Generalizations, such as justice, truth, liberty, and all other -intellectualist- and crowd-abstractions, become to the humanist not -transcendental things in themselves, but descriptions of certain -qualities of behavior, actual or possible, existing only where they are -experienced and in definite situations. He will not be swept into a -howling mob by these big words; he will stop to see what particular -things are they which in a given instance are to be called just, what -particular hypothesis is it which it is sought to verify and thus add to -the established body of truth, whose liberty is demanded and what, to be -definite, is it proposed that he shall do with the greater opportunity -for action? Let the crowd yell itself hoarse, chanting its abstract -nouns made out of adjectives, the humanist will know that these are but -words and that the realities which they point to, if they have any -meaning at all, are what "they are known as." - -This humanist doctrine of the concreteness of the real is important. It -is a reaffirmation of the reality of human experience. William James, -who called himself a "radical empiricist," made much of this point. -Experience may not be ruled out for the sake of an _a priori_ notion of -what this world ought to be. As James used to say, we shall never know -what this world really is or is to become until the last man's vote is -in and counted. Here, of course, is an emphasis upon the significance of -unique personality which no crowd will grant. Crowds will admit -personality as an abstract principle, but not as an active will having -something of its own to say about the ultimate outcome of things. - -Another important point in which humanism corrects crowd-thinking is the -fact that it regards intellect as an instrument of acting, and not as a -mere copyist of realities earthly or supermundane. Dewey says: - - If it be true that the self or subject of experience is part and - parcel of the course of events, it follows that the self becomes - a knower. It becomes a mind in virtue of a distinctive way of - partaking in the course of events. The significant distinction - is no longer between a knower _and_ the world, it is between - different ways of being in and of the movement of things; - between a physical way and a purposive way.... - - As a matter of fact the pragmatic theory of intelligence means - that the function of mind is to project new and more complex - ends to free experience from routine and caprice. Not the use of - thought to accomplish purposes already given either in the - mechanism of the body or in that of the existent state of - society, but the use of intelligence to liberate and liberalize - action, is the pragmatic lesson.... Intelligence as intelligence - is inherently forward looking; only by ignoring its primary - function does it become a means for an end already given. The - latter is servile, even when the end is labeled moral, - religious, esthetic. But action directed to ends to which the - agent has not previously been attached inevitably carries with - it a quickened and enlarged spirit. A pragmatic intelligence is - a creative intelligence, not a routine mechanic. - -Hence humanism breaks down the conformist spirit of crowds. From the -simplest to the most complex, ideas are regarded as primarily motor, or, -rather, as guides to our bodily movements among other things in our -environment. James says that the stream of life which runs in at our -eyes and ears is meant to run out at our lips, our feet, and our -fingertips. Bergson says that ideas are like snapshots of a man running. -However closely they are taken together, the movement always occurs -between them. They cannot, therefore, give us reality, or the movement -of life as such, but only cross-sections of it, which serve as guides in -directing the conscious activity of life upon matter. According to James -again, there are no permanently existing ideas, or impersonal ones; each -idea is an individual activity, known only in the thinking, and is -always thought _for a purpose_. As all thinking is purposive, and -therefore partial, emphasizing just those aspects of things which are -useful for our present problem, it follows that the sum total of partial -views cannot give us the whole of reality or anything like a true copy -of it. Existence as a whole cannot be reduced to any logical system. The -One and the Absolute are therefore meaningless and are only logical -fictions, useful, says James, by way of allowing us a sort of temporary -irresponsibility, or "moral holiday." - -From all this follows the humanist view of Truth. Truth is nothing -complete and existing in itself independent of human purpose. The word -is a noun made out of an adjective, as I have said. An idea becomes -true, says James, when it fits into the totality of our experience; -truth is what we say about an idea when it works. It must be made true, -by ourselves--that is, verified. Truth is therefore of human origin, -frankly, man-made. To Schiller it is the same as the good; it is the -attainment of satisfactory relations within experience. Or, to quote the -famous humanist creed of Protagoras, as Schiller is so fond of doing, -"Man is the measure of all things." The meaning of the world is -precisely, for all purposes, its meaning for us. Its worth, both logical -and moral, is not something given, but just what we through our activity -are able to assign to it. - -The humanist is thus thrown upon his own responsibility in the midst of -concrete realities of which he as a knowing, willing being is one. His -task is to make such modifications within his environment, physical and -social, as will make his own activity and that of others with him richer -and more satisfactory in the future. - -The question arises--it is a question commonly put by crowd-minded -people and by intellectual philosophers; Plato asks it of the -Protagoreans--how, if the individual man is the measure of all things, -is there to be any common measure? How any agreement? May not a thing be -good and true for one and not for another? How, then, shall there be any -getting together without an outside authority and an absolute standard? -The answer, as Schiller and James showed, is obvious; life is a matter -of adjustment. We each constitute a part of the other's environment. At -certain points our desires conflict, our valuations are different, and -yet our experience at these points overlaps, as it were. It is to our -common advantage to have agreement at these points. Out of our habitual -adjustments to one another, a body of mutual understanding and agreement -grows up which constitutes the intellectual and moral order of life. But -this order, necessary as it is, is still in the making. It is not -something given; it is not a copy of something transcendent, impersonal, -and final which crowds may write upon their banners and use to gain -uniform submission for anything which they may be able to express in -terms which are general and abstract. This order of life is purely -practical; it exists for us, not we for it, and because we have agreed -that certain things shall be right and true, it does not follow that -righteousness and truth are fixed and final and must be worshiped as -pure ideas in such a way that the mere repetition of these words -paralyzes our cerebral hemispheres. - -Doubtless one of the greatest aids of the humanist way of thinking in -bringing the individual to self-consciousness is the way in which it -orients us in the world of present-day events. It inspires one to -achieve a working harmony, not a fictitious haven of rest for the mind -interested only in its relations to its own ideas. The unity which life -demands of us is not that of a perfect rational system. It is rather the -unity of a healthy organism all the parts of which can work together. - -Cut up as we are into what Emerson called "fragments of men," I think we -are particularly susceptible to crowd-thinking because we are so -disintegrated. Thought and behavior must always be more or less -automatic and compulsory where there is no conscious co-ordination of -the several parts of it. It is partly because we are the heirs of such a -patchwork of civilization that few people to-day are able to think their -lives through. There can be little organic unity in the heterogeneous -and unrelated aggregation of half-baked information, warring interests, -and irreconcilable systems of valuation which are piled together in the -modern man's thinking. - -Life may not be reduced to a logical unity, but it is an organic whole -for each of us, and we do not reach that organic unity by adding -mutually exclusive partial views of it together. - -Something happens to one who grasps the meaning of humanism; he becomes -self-conscious in a new way. His psychic life becomes a fascinating -adventure in a real world. He finds that his choices are real events. He -is "set intellectually on fire," as one of our educators has correctly -defined education. As Jung would doubtless say, he has "extroverted" -himself; his libido, which in the crowd seeks to enhance the ego feeling -by means of the mechanism which we have described, now is drawn out and -attached to the outer world through the intellectual channel. Selfhood -is realized in the satisfactoriness of the results which one is able to -achieve in the very fullness of his activity and the richness of his -interests. - -Such a free spirit needs no crowds to keep up his faith, and he is truly -social, for he approaches his social relationships with intelligent -discrimination and judgments of worth which are his own. He contributes -to the social, not a copy or an imitation, not a childish wish-fancy -furtively disguised, but a psychic reality and a new creative energy. It -is only in the fellowship of such spirits, whatever political or -economic forms their association may take, that we may expect to see the -Republic of the Free. - - - - -INDEX - - - Abelard, 153, 283. - - Absolute, the, 143. - - Absolutism, 133, 144. - - Abstract ideas, 2, 49, 160. - - ---- function of, 154, 155. - - Adler, Dr. Alfred, 59. - - ---- _The Neurotic Constitution_, 20, 61, 63. - (Translated by Bernard Glueck and John A. Land; Moffat, Yard & Co., - New York, 1917.) - - Adventist, 211. - (See also Messianism.) - - Age of Reason, 209. - - Agitators, 192. - - Alcoholic neurosis, 86. - - _Alice in Wonderland_, 2. - - Ambition, 66. - - America, conformist spirit in, 275. - - ---- crowd movements in, 53. - - ---- democracy in, 253, 280. - - ---- education in, 273, 280. - - ---- freedom of opinion in, 268. - - ---- leadership in, 275. - - ---- present condition, 189. - - American colonists, 52. - - ---- Declaration of Independence, 196. - - ---- democracy, mental habits in, 272. - - ---- revolution, 225. - - Americanism, 87. - - Americanisation propaganda, 108. - - Anabaptists, 225. - - Analytical psychology, 12, 294. - (See also Psychoanalysis, Freud, Jung, Adler, Brill, The - Unconscious.) - - Anselm, 153. - - _a priori_ ideas in paranoia, 67. - - Arbitrary power, limits of, 246. - - Aristocrats, 182. - - Armenians, persecution of, 107. - - Armistice, the, 115. - - Athletic contests, 82. - - ---- events, symbols of conflict, 113. - - _Atlantic Monthly_, 258. - - Attention, 36. - - ---- direction of, 29. - - ---- function of, 58. - - Augustine, Saint, 153, 270. - - - Bacon, Francis, 153. - - Baker, Secretary Newton D., 117, 119. - - Beethoven, 175, 269. - - Behavior, social, 5. - - Belief, crowd a creature of, 31. - - Beliefs, as ends in themselves, 33. - - ---- crowd professions of, 195. - - Berger, Victor, 265. - - Bergson, Henri, 153. - - ---- on sleep, 57. - - ---- _Creative Evolution_, 211, 299. - (Translated by Arthur Mitchell; Henry Holt & Co., New York, 1911.) - - ---- _Time_ and _Free Will_, 290. - (Translated by F. L. Pogson; George Allen & Co., London, 1912.) - - Bible, 270. - - Birth control, 239. - - Boccaccio, 270. - - Bolshevism, 166, 186, 207. - (See also Soviets, Revolution, Russia.) - - Bolshevist propaganda, 228. - - Bourgeois, 170, 225. - - Brill, Dr. A. A., 59. - - ---- _Psychoanalysis; Its Theories and Application_ (W. B. - Saunders, Philadelphia, Pa.), 55, 61, 93, 133, 135. - - British Labor Party, 226. - - Butler, Samuel, 283. - - Byron, 62. - - - Cæsar Borgia, 233. - - Calvin, 225. - - Capitalism, 177, 178. - - Carlyle, 258. - - ---- _Heroes and Hero Worshipers_, 175. - - ---- _Sartor Resartus_, 46. - - Cassanova, 270. - - Categorical imperative, 90. - - Catholics, 264. - - ---- in England, 225. - - Censorships, 239. - - Cervantes, 283. - - Chautauqua, the, 272. - - Chauvanism, 223. - - Chesterton, G. K., 135. - - Chicago, riot in, 107. - - Child, egoism of, 62. - - Christianity, primitive, 193, 209. - - Church, the, 83, 114, 170, 234. - - Cicero, 188. - - Citizen, the, 248. - - Civilization, continuity of, 216. - - Class, the master, 177. - - ---- struggle, 43. - (See also Revolution.) - - Classics, the, 292. - - Clergy of Middle Ages, 230. - - Collective Mind, 15. - - College students, egoism of, 78, 79. - - Communion of the saints, 83. - - Compensation, 120. - - ---- mechanisms of, 84. - - Complex formations, causes of, 65. - - Compromise mechanisms, 71. - - Compulsive hatred, 112. - - ---- thinking, 71, 102. - - Conflict, psychic, 3. - - ---- within the psyche, 70. - - Conformist spirit, 275. - - Conformity, insisted upon by crowds, 266. - - Conscientious objector, 120. - - Consciousness, 57. - - Conservatism of the crowd-mind, 224. - - Conservative crowds, 191. - - Conspiracy, delusion of, 105. - (See also Paranoia, Projection, Persecution.) - - Constantine, 234. - - Constituent assembly, French, 186. - - Constitution, 247, 249. - - Constitutional government, 235. - - Convert, the, 86. - - Conway, Sir Martin, 17, 181. - - ---- _The Crowd in Peace and War._ (Longmans, Green & Co., - London, 1915.) - - Co-operation, 226. - - Co-operative commonwealth, 209. - - Cooper Union Forum, 25, 26, 265, 240. - - Counter crowds, 198. - - Couthon, 206. - - _Creative Intelligence_, 298. - - Cromwell, Oliver, 225. - - Crowd, the, 6. - - ---- against some one, 113. - (See also Hatred, Paranoia, Delusion of Persecution, Projection.) - - ---- a creature of belief, 31. - - ---- a state of mind, 19. - - ---- compulsive thinking of, 71, 102. - - ---- defined, 5. - - ---- delusion of conspiracy in, 105. - - ---- delusion of persecution, 99. - - ---- dogma of equality in, 175. - - ---- dominant, 35, 177. - - ---- effect on social peace, 8. - - ---- effect on the individual, 8. - - ---- ego mania of, 74. - - ---- enemy of personality, 159. - - ---- ethics of, 90. - - ---- fear and suspicion in, 104. - - ---- function of ideals in, 84. - - ---- hates in order that it may believe in itself, 132. - - ---- hatred, a motive of self-defense, 113, 125. - - ---- homicidal tendencies of, 106-107. - - ---- ideal of society, 267. - - ---- idealism of, 160. - - ---- idealizes itself, 43. - - ---- itself absolute, 161. - - ---- its resentment of educated man, 172. - - ---- movements in America, 53. - - ---- moral, 124. - - ---- moral dilemmas of, 88. - - ---- motives in education, 271, 272. - - ---- notions of equality, 262. - - ---- parental function of, 44. - - ---- restrictions upon freedom, 25. - - ---- rumor in, 104. - - ---- self-deception of, 54. - - ---- self-pity in, 101. - - ---- sense of responsibility in, 100. - - ---- transference phenomenon, a 136, 138. - - ---- truths are _a priori_ concepts, 141. - - ---- tyranny in, 101. - - ---- tyranny of, 235. - - ---- unconscious egoism of, 73. - - ---- unconscious motives of, 51. - - ---- virtues and vices of, 88. - - ---- virtues of, 164. - - Crowd-behavior, in a democracy, 242. - - ---- pseudo-social, 22. - - Crowd-ethics, 267. - - Crowd-ideas, abstract, 49. - - Crowd-ideas, moral significance of, 35. - - ---- pathology of, 37. - - ---- phenomenon of attention in, 36. - - ---- ready made, 26. - - Crowd man, a dogmatist, 140. - - Crowd mentality, 5. - - Crowd-mind--and paranoia, 92. - - ---- absolutism of, chapter vi, 133. - - ---- conservatism of, 224. - - ---- distorts patriotism, 111. - - ---- influence upon education, 277. - - ---- orthodoxy of, 152. - - ---- similarity--to paranoia, 98. - - ---- tendency to exaggerate, 100. - - Crowd morality, 35, 157-158. - - ---- demands a victim, 106. - - Crowd orator, 99. - - Crowd-propaganda, 289. - - Crowd-thinking--conservative, 191. - - ---- destructive tendencies of, 163. - - ---- finality of, 44. - - ---- function of, 191. - - ---- intensified by revolution, 223. - - ---- logic of, 140. - - ---- not creative, 217. - - ---- pageantry of, 215. - - ---- quest of "magic formulas," 150. - - ---- rationalisation of, 150-151. - - ---- wanting in intellectual curiosity, 271. - - Crowds, claim to infallibility, 234. - - ---- counter, 198. - - ---- credulity of, 139-140. - - ---- dictatorship of, 183. - - ---- dignity of, 83. - - ---- disintegration of, 195. - - ---- dominant, 168. - - ---- faith of, 126. - - ---- function of ideas in, 155-156. - - ---- hostility to freedom, 200. - - ---- idealism of, 112. - - ---- illiberalism of, 276. - - ---- in modern society, 7. - - ---- liberty of, 266. - - ---- Messianic faith of, 201. - - ---- permanent, 42. - - ---- phenomenon of displacement in, 116. - - ---- resist disintegration, 129. - - ---- revolutionary, 180. - - ---- revolutionary phenomena in, 203. - - ---- self-adulation of, 77. - - ---- self-feeling in, 170. - - ---- slow to learn, 193. - - ---- spirit of, 298. - - ---- will to dominance, 79. - - Curiosity of crowds, 271. - - - Darwin, 225, 269. - - Day dreams, 84. - - Day of the Lord, 202. - - Debs, Eugene V., 265. - - Decalogue, 90. - - Defense-mechanism, 94. - - Deists, 264. - - Delusion of conspiracy, 105. - (See also Paranoia, Persecution.) - - ---- of grandeur, 92. - (See also Paranoia, Egoism, Self-feeling.) - - ---- of persecution, 68, 69, 92, 99. - (See also Paranoia, Projection, Hate.) - - Democracy, 178, 266, 282. - - ---- crowd behavior in, 242. - - ---- genius in, 268. - - ---- in America, 253, 272, 280. - - ---- law in, 268. - - ---- lawmaking power in, 247. - - ---- liberty in, 248, 261-267. - - ---- mental habits of, 287. - - ---- not synonymous with liberty, 242. - - Democratic constitutions, 235. - - Democrats, 264. - - Demons, 95. - - Demon worship, 97. - - Demosthenes, 62. - - Department of Justice, United States, 240. - - Determination, unconscious, 5. - - Determinism, psychological motives of, 149. - - Devil, the, 114. - - Dewey, John, _Ethics_, by Dewey and Tufts (Henry Holt & Co., - New York. 1910), 89. - - ---- _Essays in Experimental Logic_ (University of Chicago - Press, 1916), 142. - - ----- Creative Intelligence (Henry Holt & Co., New York, 1917), 298. - - ---- _Democracy and Education_ (The Macmillan Company, New - York, 1916), 288-289, 290, 291. - - Dias, 194. - - Dictatorship, 222. - - Dictatorship of crowds, 183. - - Dictatorship of the proletariat, 193, 228, 229-232. - - Dignity of crowds, 83. - (See also Egoism.) - - Disguise, mechanisms of, 73. - - Disintegration of crowds, 129, 195. - - Dogma of infallibility, 234. - - Dogmatism, 140. - - Dominant crowd, 177. - - Dostoievsky, 270. - - ---- _The Brothers Karamasov_, 233. - - Dream, the, 34. - - ---- fancies, 58. - - ---- of Paradise, 207. - - ---- of social redemption, 232. - - ---- of world set free, 222. - - Dreams, 57, 84. - - ---- disguise in, 73. - - Dreiser, Theodore, 265. - - ---- _The Genius_, 265. - - DuBois, W. F. B., 121. - - Duty, 161. - - - East St. Louis, riot in, 107. - - Eastman, Max, 264. - - Economic system, 213. - - Economics, science of, 185. - - Educated man, crowd's resentment of, 172. - - Education, chapter x, 281. - - ---- crowd motive in, 271-272. - - ---- of present day, 288. - - ---- religious, 153. - - ---- the new, 284, 286, 289. - - ---- traditional, 292. - - ---- traditional systems, 277, 278. - - Ego, consciousness, 70. - (See also Self-feeling.) - - ---- mania, 74. - - Egoism of the neurotic, 61. - - ---- unconscious, 73. - - Eighteenth amendment to Constitution of United States, 236, 265. - - Emerson, 9, 269, 283, 302. - - Emotion, theory of, 18. - - Empiricism, 297. - - England, political liberty in, 226. - - ---- Socialism in, 227. - - Environment, social, 35. - - Epicurus, 153. - - Equality, 175, 262. - - Erasmus, 283. - - Espionage, in United States, 241. - - Ethic, of Kant, 162. - - Ethics, 267. - - ---- of crowd, 90. - - Europe, present condition in, 189. - - Evangelists, 114. - (See also Sunday, William.) - - Evolution, 212. - - ---- doctrines of, 210. - - Exaggeration of crowd-mind, 100. - - Exodus of children of Israel, 52. - - Exploitation, 170, 177. - - Extroversion, 303. - - - Fads, 224. - - Faguet, _The Cult of Incompetence_, 17. - (Translated by Beatrice Barstow; E. P. Dutton & Co., New - York, 1916.) - - ---- _The Dread of Responsibility_, 266. - (Translated by Emily James; G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York, - 1914.) - - Faith, 126. - - Fanaticism, 86. - - Fear, 104, 128. - - Feeling of importance, 82. - (See also Egoism.) - - Female neurotic, 98. - - Fichte, 152. - - Fiction of justification, 106. - - Fictions, 20, 128. - - Fictitious logic, 198. - - Fixations, phenomenon of, 94. - - Flaubert, 270. - - Forgetting, purposeful, 56. - - Fourierists, 204. - - Franklin, 225. - - Freedom, 154, 244, 248. - - ---- in democracy, 261-267. - - ---- of speech, 264. - - ---- to vote, 261. - - Free spirit, 303. - - French Revolution, 38, 107, 170, 182-183, 192, 194, 219. - - Freud, Dr. Sigmund, 30, 34, 59, 117, 210. - (See Analytical Psychology.) - - ---- _Delusion and Dream_, 55. - (Translated by Helen Downey; Moffat, Yard & Co., New York, 1917.) - - ---- _The Interpretation of Dreams_, 12, 59. - (Translated by Dr. A. A. Brill; The Macmillan Company, New York, - 1915.) - - ---- _Three Contributions to the Sexual Theory._ "Nervous and - Mental Diseases," Monograph Series No. 4, 63. - - ---- _Totem and Taboo_, 12, 90, 95. - (Translated by Dr. A. A. Brill; Moffat, Yard & Co., New York, - 1918.) - - ---- influence upon general psychology, 12. - - ---- on dream thoughts, 30. - - - Garrison, William Lloyd, 264. - - Gary schools, 265. - - Genius, 67, 268. - - Germany, 110. - - ---- and the war, 38. - - ---- Socialist movement in, 227. - - Gironde, 196. - (See also French Revolution.) - - Gobineau, 17, 54, 181. - - Goethe, 175, 270, 283. - - Good, the, 90. - - Goodness, 89. - - Government, by crowds, chapter ix, 233. - - Government, functions of, 251. - - Grandeur, delusions of, 92. - (See also Egoism, Paranoia.) - - Greatest happiness, principle of, 167. - - Greece, 143. - - Greek literature, 277. - - - Hapsburg, the, 235. - - Hatred, 132. - - ---- in paranoia, 94, 112. - - Hebrew prophet, 202. - - Hegel, 152-153. - - Heretic, the, 123. - - Hero worship, 81, 82. - - Hohenzollerns, the, 235. - - Homicidal tendencies, 105. - (See also Crowd, Paranoia, Hatred.) - - Homosexuality, 94. - - Human nature, evil of, 284. - - ---- weakness of, 245-246. - - Human sacrifice, 112. - - Humanism, 225, 290, 293, 298, 300, 302. - (See also Pragmatism.) - - Humanist, the, 296. - - Hume, David, 153. - - Huxley, 226, 269. - - Hypocrisy, among crowds, 54. - - Idealism, 141, 144. - - ---- modern, 223. - - ---- of crowds, 112. - - ---- psychology of, 148. - - Ideals, of the crowd, 84. - - Ideas, _a priori_, 67. - - ---- descriptive confused with casual, 214. - - ---- no impersonal, 3. - - ---- political, moral, religious, 44. - - ---- tyranny of, 279. - - Ideational system, 159. - (See also Paranoia, Crowd Thinking.) - - Illusions, 31. - - Imitation and suggestion, theory of, 33. - - Individual, the, 150, 283, 297, 301. - - ---- and society, 1-32. - - Individualism, 153, 262. - - Infallibility, dogma of, 234. - - Inferiority, feeling of, 62, 169-170. - (See also Egoism, Compensation.) - - Ingersoll, Robert, 225, 269. - - Insanity, 3. - - Insanity and emotion, 19. - (See also Paranoia, Psychoanalysis.) - - Instinct, 11. - - Instrumental theory of intellect, 298. - - Intellectualism, 144, 296. - - ---- and conservatism, 18. - - Intellectuals, the, 230. - - - Jackson, Andrew, 265. - - Jacobinism, 264. - - Jacobins, the, 116. - - James, William, 2, 31, 153, 207, 241, 283, 291, 297. - - James, William, _Essays in Radical Empiricism_ (Longmans, Green - & Co., New York, 1912), 142. - - ---- _The Meaning of Truth_, 301. - - ---- _Pragmatism_ (Longmans, Green & Co., New York, 1905), 142. - - ---- _Principles of Psychology_ (Henry Holt & Co., New York, - 1890), 37, 127, 298. - - ---- _The Will to Believe_ (Longmans, Green & Co., Reprint, - 1912), 57, 175. - - ---- _Varieties of Religious Experience_, (Longmans, Green & - Co., New York, 1906), 22. - - Jefferson, 225, 264. - - Jericho, fall of a Revolutionary symbol, 212. - - Judgment Day, 81. - - Julius Cæsar, 130. - - Julius II, Pope, 181. - - Jung, Dr. C. G., 59. - (See also Psychoanalysis.) - - ---- _Analytical Psychology_, 85, 303. (Translated by E. Long; - Moffat, Yard & Co., New York, 1917.) - - ---- Psychology of the Unconscious, 66, 138. (Translated by Beatrice - Hinkle; Moffat, Yard & Co., New York, 1916.) - - Justification, mechanism of, 106. - - Kaiser Wilhelm II, 80, 115. - - Kant, 153, 161. - - ---- _Metaphysics of Morals_, 90, 162-163. (Translated by Thos. - K. Abbot; Longmans, Green & Co., New York. Sixth edition, 1917.) - - Keats, 269. - - Kingdom of Heaven, 202. - - - Labor, assumed triumph of, 229. - - Law, in a democracy, 268. - - Leadership, 271. - - ---- in America, 275. - - L Bon, Gustave, 5, 17, 19, 139, 205, 242, 269. - - ---- on the unconscious, 14. - - ---- summary of his theory, 47. - - ---- _The Crowd, A Study of the Popular Mind_ (Eleventh edition. - T. Fisher Unwin, Ltd., London, 1917), 15. - - ---- _The Psychology of Revolution_, 180, 182, 205. (Translated - by Miall; G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York, 1912.) - - Lenin, Nicolai, 206, 227, 233. - - Leo X, Pope, 181, 185. - - Liberator, the, 124, 125, 264. - - Liberty, 199. - - ---- in a democracy, 242, 261-267. - - ---- of crowds, 266, 276. - - Libido, 65, 136, 303. - - Lincoln, 225. - - Livingstone, R. W., _The Greek Genius and Its Meaning for Us_, - 143. - - Locke, John, 153. - - Logic, of crowd-thinking, 140. - - ---- in crowds and in paranoia, 198. - - Louis XVI, 186. - - Lowell, Percival, 269. - - Lusk Committee, the, 103. - - Luther, Martin, 175, 193, 225. - - Lynchings, 38, 106. - - - McDougal, Prof. William, 10. _An Introduction to Social - Psychology_ (John W. Luce & Co., Boston, 1917), 11. - - Machiavelli, _The Prince_, 233. - - Madison Square Garden, 265. - - Majority, as king, 248. - - ---- tyranny of, 250. - - Man in the state of nature, 209. - - Manifesto, Socialist, 204. - (See also Karl Marx.) - - "Man the Measure of all Things," 300. - - Marcus Aurelius, 234. - - Marines' Fathers' Association, 117-118. - - Marx, Karl, 152. - - Masculine protest, 62. - - Masochism, 39, 65. - - Mass meetings, 23. - - Master class, 177. - - Materialism, 150. - - Mechanisms, of compensation, 84. - - ---- of defense, 94. - - ---- of disguise, 73. - - ---- of justification, 40, 106. - - Mechanistic theories, 1. - - Mediæval thinkers, 10. - - Mental habits, 272. - - Messianism as a revolutionary crowd phenomenon, 203, 210. - - Mexico, 194. - - Millennium, 201. - - Milton, 270. - - Milwaukee, pseudo-patriotism in, 259. - - Mind, collective, 15. - - Minority crowds, arrogance of, 257. - - Mirabeau, 183. - - Mob, 6, 165. - - ---- outbreaks, 37. - - Mobs, 107. - - ---- modern, 47. - - ---- Southern, 39. - - Modern society challenged, 213. - - Modernism, 223. - - Montaigne, 270, 283. - - Moral dilemmas, 88. - - Morality, 106. - - ---- of crowd-mind, 157-158. - - ---- of the crowd, 124. - - Motion pictures, 157. - - Multiple personality, 5. - - Mysticism of revolutionary crowds, 219. - - - Napoleon, 221. - - Narcissus, stage, 66. - - Nations as crowds, 83. - - Negation, phenomenon of, 89. - - Nero, 234. - - Neurotic, female, 98. - - ---- similarity to crowd, 71. - - Newcomb, Simon, 269. - - Newspapers, 45. - - New York City, 172. - - ---- crowds in, 115. - - New Testament, 202. - - Nietzsche, Friederich, 153, 269, 270. - - ---- _Antichrist_ (Third English edition. Dr. Oscar Levy; The - Macmillan Company, New York, 1911), 81. - - ---- _Beyond Good and Evil_ (Third English edition. Dr. Oscar - Levy; The Macmillan Company, New York), 17, 124, 194. - - ---- _Genealogy of Morals_ (Edited by Dr. Oscar Levy; The - Macmillan Company, New York. 1911), 91. - - ---- _Thus Spake Zarathustra_, 175. (Translated by Thomas - Gommon.) - - ---- _The Will to Power_, 62. (Translated by A. M. Ludovici; - Oscar Levy edition; The Macmillan Company.) - - Nonconformist, 123. - - Non-crowd man, 226, 285. - - - Obsessions, 134. - - Oedipus complex, 66. - - Omaha, riot in, 107, 116. - - Orators, 25. - - Oratory, 99. - - Orthodoxy, 152. - - - Pageantry, 216. - - Paine, Thomas, 225. - - Parades, 115. - - Paranoia, 22, 67, 92, 93, 94, 102, 294. - - ---- and fanaticism, 86. - - ---- hatred in, 112. - - ---- obsessive ideas in, 134. - - ---- rationalization in, 139. - - ---- similarity to crowd-mind, 98. - - Paranoiac, 84, 163, 208. - - Parker, Theodore, 269. - - Partisanship, 140, 194. - - Pathological types, 58. - - Patriotic crowds, 151. - - Patriotism, 80, 111, 118, 119. - - People's Institute of New York, 241. - - Permanent crowds, 42. - - Persecution, delusion of, 68, 69, 92. - - Personal liberty, 244. - - ---- in a democracy, 248. - - Personality, 297. - - Perversion, 64. - - Petrarch, 175. - - Petrograd, 219. - - Philosophers, intellectualist, 296. - - Philosophical idealism, 148. - (See also Intellectualism, Rationalism.) - - Philosophy, humanist, 293. - - Philosophy of "as if," 128. - - Platitudes in crowd oratory, 26. - - Plato, 150, 153, 300. - - ---- _The Republic_, 143. (Translated by Jowett; Third edition, - Oxford Press, 1892.) - - Pliny, 247. - - Poe, 269. - - Pogroms, 107. - - Poland, 107. - - Political conventions, 27. - - Political liberty in England, 226. - - Politics, philosophy of, 233. - - Pope, the, 62. - - Power, abuses of, 185. - - ---- crowd, will to, 160. - - Pragmatism, 142, 299, 301. - (See also Humanism.) - - Principles, as justification mechanisms, 40. - - ---- as leading ideas, 154. - - Progress, 167. - - Prohibition, 239, 265. - - Prohibition agitator, 88. - - Prohibitionists, the, 80, 114. - - Projection, phenomenon of, 87, 95, 105. - - Proletarian crowd, 236. - - Proletarians, 263. - - Proletariat, the, 183. - - ---- dictatorship of, 197, 229-232. - - Propaganda, 54, 101, 103, 142, 157, 264, 289. - - ---- Bolshevist, 228, 265. - - ---- revolutionary, 181, 189, 208. - - Protagoras, 153, 283, 300. - - Protestantism, 225. - - Prussianism, 258. - - Psychic conflict, 3. - - Psychoanalysis, 34, 59, 165, 295. - - ---- therapeutic value of, 165, 284. - - Psychology of crowd, summary of author's view, 48, 49, 50. - - Psychology, social, 11. - - ---- of the unconscious, 12, 51, 56, 57, 58, 64, 70, 138, 267. - - Psychoneurosis, 92. - - ---- egoism of, 61. - - Psychosexual, 64. - - Public opinion, 4, 46. - - Public schools, 273-274. - - Puritanism, 264, 265. - - - Quakers, the, 225, 264. - - - Rabelais, 270. - - Race riots, 107. - - ---- motive of, 121. - - Radical crowds, 152. - - Rationalism, 144. - (See also Intellectualism.) - - Rationalization, 144, 249. - - ---- in crowds, 156. - - ---- of revolutionary wish-fancy, 210. - - Real, the, concreteness of, 297. - - Reality, criterion of, 32. - - ---- sense of, 37. - - Re-education, 294. - - Reform, "white slavery," 98. - - Reformation, the, 182, 192, 225. - - Reformers, 157, 270. - - Reformist crowds, 151. - - Regression, 111, 135. - - Religion, 201. - - ---- Messianism and revolution, 204. - - Religious convert, 86. - - ---- crowds, 151. - - ---- education, 153. - - ---- symbolism, 66. - - Renaissance, 170, 175, 225, 292. - - Repression, 34, 45, 63, 64. - - Republicans, the, 264. - - Responsibility, sense of, 100. - - Revenge, 220. - - Revival meetings, 76. - (See also Sunday, William.) - - Revolution, chapter vii, 166, 183. - - ---- as a crowd phenomenon, 180. - - ---- psychic causes of, 171. - - ---- small fruits of, 224. - - ---- violence in, 167. - - Revolution, French, 38, 170, 182, 183, 192, 194, 205, 219. - - ---- Russian, 9, 183, 206. - - Revolutionary creed, 222. - - ---- crowds, 151, 200. - - ---- propaganda, 181, 188, 189, 208. - - Riots, 106. - - Robespierre, 206, 235. - - Rochdale movement, 226. - - Rolland, Mme., 182. - - Roman republic, 187. - - Romanoffs, the, 235. - - Rossetti, 270. - - Rousseau, Jean J., 153, 233, 270. - - Rumor, 104. - - Russia, pogroms in, 107. - - ---- revolution in, 186. - - ---- Socialist movement in, 227. - - Russian revolution, 9, 53, 183, 206. - - - Sadism, 39, 65, 111. - - Saint Just, 206. - - Saint Simonists, 204. - - Salem, Massachusetts, 163. - - Sans-culottism, 171. - - _Saturday Evening Post_, 272. - - Savonarola, 235. - - Saxon peasants, 225. - - Schiller, F. C. S., 241, 300, 301. - - ---- _Humanism_ (Second edition. The Macmillan Company, London, - 1912), 142. - - ---- _Studies in Humanism_ (Second edition. The Macmillan - Company, London, 1912), 144-147. - - Schopenhauer, 153, 269. - - Schubert, 269. - - Science, 159, 278. - - ---- humanist spirit of, 225. - - Self-appreciation, 63. - (See also Egoism.) - - ---- consciousness, 301. - - ---- deception of crowds, 54. - - ---- defense, a motive of crowd hatred, 125. - - Self-appreciation, feeling, 170, 223. - - ---- hood, 303. - - ---- pity, 101. - - Senate of United States, 114. - - Servetus, 225. - - Sexuality, repressed, 63. - - Shakespeare, 270. - - Shakespeare's "Julius Cæsar," 130. - - Shelley, 269. - - Sioux Indians, 156. - - Social behavior, 1, 2. - - ---- environment, 35, 37. - - ---- idealism, 200. - - ---- order, how possible, 301. - - ---- order, the present, 100. - - ---- psychology, 11. - - ---- reconstruction, task of, 212. - - ---- redemption, dream of, 207, 222, 232. - - ---- redemption, no formula for, 282. - - ---- thinking, 2. - - Socialism in England, 226. - - Socialist, 80. - - ---- movement in Germany, 227. - - ---- movement in Russia, 227. - - ---- movement in United States, 227. - - ---- philosophy, 210. - - Socialists, the, 141, 204, 265. - - Socialisation, present tendencies toward, 236. - - Society, as "Thing-in-itself," 2. - - Society for the Prevention of Vice, 114. - - Socrates, 283. - - South, lynchings in, 106. - - Southern mobs, 39. - - Soviet republic, 9. - - ---- spirit, 9. - - Soviets, 38. - - Spargo, John, 124. - - ---- _The Psychology of Bolshevism_ (Harper & Brothers, - 1919), 8. - - Spencer, Herbert, 16, 226, 238. - - ---- _Principles of Sociology_ (D. Appleton & Co., New York, - 1898), 11. - - Spingarn, Maj. J. E., 122. - - Spirit of 1776, 264. - - Spiritual valuation, 271. - - State, bureaucratic, 238. - - Stewart, Charles D., 258. - - Strikes, 232. - - Stuarts, the, 235. - - Substitution, phenomenon of, 116. - - Suggestion, 33. - - Sumner, William Graham, 181. - - ---- _Folkways_ (Ginn & Co., New York, 1906), 11, 181, 169. - - Sunday, Rev. William, 24, 42, 76, 172. - - Superiority, idea of, 174. - - Suppressed wish, 40. - - Suspicion, 104. - - Survival values, 77. - - Swinburne, 270. - - Symbolic thought, 20. - - Symbolism, religious, 66. - - - Taboo, 117. - - Tammany Hall, 233. - - Tarde, Gabriel, _The Laws of Imitation_, 17. (Translated by - Parsons.) - - Theology, 141. - - Theory of knowledge, 241. - - ---- humanist, 293. - - ---- instrumental, 298. - - Thinking, compulsive, 102. - - ---- function of, 299. - - ---- instrumental nature of, 20. - - ---- of crowds, 142. - - ---- social, 2. - - ---- symbolic nature of, 20. - - Thomas Aquinas, 153. - - Tocqueville, de, democracy in America, 253-257, 268, 271. - - Tolstoi, 270. - - _Totem and Taboo_, 95. - - Tragedy, psychological meaning of, 66. - - Transference phenomenon, 136. - - Tribune, the, New York, 101, 113. - - Truth, 299, 300. - - Truths, 141. - - Truths, independent, 3. - - Turkey, Sultan of, 234. - - Turks, the, 107. - - Tyranny, 101, 235. - - ---- of ideas, 279. - - ---- of the majority, 250. - - - Unconscious, the, chapter iii, 5, 12, 14, 35, 49, 51, 56, 57, 61, - 64, 155, 267. - - ---- desire, 120. - - ---- determinism, 5. - - Unction, 210. - - United States, Socialist movement in, 227. - - Universal judgments, 88. - (See also Absolute, Crowd-thinking, Intellectualism.) - - Unrest, social, 213. - - Utilitarianism, nineteenth century, 10. - - Utopia, 209, 215, 221. - - - Values, 169. - - ---- creation of, 276. - - Variation, 271. - - Violence, causes of, 39. - - Virtues, 88. - - ---- of the crowd, 164. - - Vote, right to, 261. - - - Wagner, 269. - - Wallas, Graham, _The Great Society_ (The Macmillan Company, - New York, 1917), 14, 16. - - War psychology, 108, 109. - - Ward, Lester, _Pure Sociology_ (The Macmillan Company, New - York. Second edition, 1916), 11. - - Washington, D. C., riot in, 107. - - Weakness of human nature, 245-246. - - White, Dr. William, _Mechanisms of Character Formation_ - (The Macmillan Company, New York), 59. - - White slavery, reform, 98. - - Whitman, Walt, 268, 283. - - Whittier, 179. - - Will, healthy, 89. - - Will to dominance, 79. - - Wish-fancy, 303. - - ---- rationalized, 210. - - Wish, suppressed, 40. - - Working class, 18, 204, 227. - (See also Proletariat.) - - World War, 38. - - - Young Men's Christian Association, 240, 259. - - -THE END - - - * * * * * - -Transcriber's Notes: - -Punctuation and spelling standardized. - -Inconsistent hyphenation not changed. - -Page 121, 307: "W. F. B. DuBois" probably should be "W. E. B. DuBois" - -Page 197: ambiguous quotation marks resolved. - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's The Behavior of Crowds, by Everett Dean Martin - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BEHAVIOR OF CROWDS *** - -***** This file should be named 40914-8.txt or 40914-8.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/4/0/9/1/40914/ - -Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Charlie Howard and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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