The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind [Russian Edition]

Summary

“The Crowd” - one of the greatest works on psychology, in which one of the most prominent French psychologists Gustave Le Bon, trying to understand and put on the shelves the regularities of behavior of crowds of people - the crowd.
In this case, Le Bon divides a simple “crowd of people” from the “animated crowd”, the spontaneous formation of which begins to obey completely different laws than each and any of the individuals entering this society. According to the author, such a “animated crowd” can be formed even with the number of 6 persons or more. All the properties of a personality in such “formation” recede into the background. Everything logical, self-centered and personal in such a mass of people is instantly suppressed by the individuals themselves, and completely other properties of people - subconscious ones - come out. Feelings and emotions of all those included in such “formation” are close to primitive and instinctive emotions and reactions. Moreover, such a “crowd” does not show and does not know other traits. At the same time, along with base and animal emotions, the animated crowd often has aspirations to fatal self-sacrifice and self-denial.
Such “formation” begins to resemble an unconscious animal, which, obviously, can be controlled like an animal trainer in a circus. The role of trainers begins to be played by “leaders”. And the “animated crowd” trained by them turns into an engine capable of transforming social and political reality in the most fundamental way, both regionally and globally!