The Crowd, Gustave le Bon [read ebook pdf .TXT] 📗

CHAPTER IV

ELECTORAL CROWDS

 

General characteristics of electoral crowds—The manner of

persuading them—The qualities that should be possessed by a

candidate—Necessity of prestige—Why working men and peasants so

rarely choose candidates from their own class—The influence of

words and formulas on the elector—The general aspect of election

oratory—How the opinions of the elector are formed—The power of

political committees—They represent the most redoubtable form of

tyranny—The committees of the Revolution— Universal suffrage

cannot be replaced in spite of its slight psychological

value—Why it is that the votes recorded would remain the same

even if the right of voting were restricted to a limited class of

citizens—What universal suffrage expresses in all countries.

 

ELECTORAL crowds—that is to say, collectivities invested with

the power of electing the holders of certain

functions—constitute heterogeneous crowds, but as their action

is confined to a single clearly determined matter, namely, to

choosing between different candidates, they present only a few of

the characteristics previously described. Of the characteristics

peculiar to crowds, they display in particular but slight

aptitude for reasoning, the absence of the critical spirit,

irritability, credulity, and simplicity. In their decision,

moreover, is to be traced the influence of the leaders of crowds

and the part played by the factors we have enumerated:

affirmation, repetition, prestige, and contagion.

 

Let us examine by what methods electoral crowds are to be

persuaded. It will be easy to deduce their psychology from the

methods that are most successful.

 

It is of primary importance that the candidate should possess

prestige. Personal prestige can only be replaced by that

resulting from wealth. Talent and even genius are not elements

of success of serious importance.

 

Of capital importance, on the other hand, is the necessity for

the candidate of possessing prestige, of being able, that is, to

force himself upon the electorate without discussion. The reason

why the electors, of whom a majority are working men or peasants,

so rarely choose a man from their own ranks to represent them is

that such a person enjoys no prestige among them. When, by

chance, they do elect a man who is their equal, it is as a rule

for subsidiary reasons—for instance, to spite an eminent man, or

an influential employer of labour on whom the elector is in daily

dependence, and whose master he has the illusion he becomes in

this way for a moment.

 

The possession of prestige does not suffice, however, to assure

the success of a candidate. The elector stickles in particular

for the flattery of his greed and vanity. He must be overwhelmed

with the most extravagant blandishments, and there must be no

hesitation in making him the most fantastic promises. If he is a

working man it is impossible to go too far in insulting and

stigmatising employers of labour. As for the rival candidate, an

effort must be made to destroy his chance by establishing by dint

of affirmation, repetition, and contagion that he is an arrant

scoundrel, and that it is a matter of common knowledge that he

has been guilty of several crimes. It is, of course, useless to

trouble about any semblance of proof. Should the adversary be

ill-acquainted with the psychology of crowds he will try to

justify himself by arguments instead of confining himself to

replying to one set of affirmations by another; and he will have

no chance whatever of being successful.

 

The candidate’s written programme should not be too categorical,

since later on his adversaries might bring it up against him; in

his verbal programme, however, there cannot be too much

exaggeration. The most important reforms may be fearlessly

promised. At the moment they are made these exaggerations

produce a great effect, and they are not binding for the future,

it being a matter of constant observation that the elector never

troubles himself to know how far the candidate he has returned

has followed out the electoral programme he applauded, and in

virtue of which the election was supposed to have been secured.

 

In what precedes, all the factors of persuasion which we have

described are to be recognised. We shall come across them again

in the action exerted by words and formulas, whose magical sway

we have already insisted upon. An orator who knows how to make

use of these means of persuasion can do what he will with a

crowd. Expressions such as infamous capital, vile exploiters,

the admirable working man, the socialisation of wealth, &c.,

always produce the same effect, although already somewhat worn by

use. But the candidate who hits on a new formula as devoid as

possible of precise meaning, and apt in consequence to flatter

the most varied aspirations, infallibly obtains a success. The

sanguinary Spanish revolution of 1873 was brought about by one of

these magical phrases of complex meaning on which everybody can

put his own interpretation. A contemporary writer has described

the launching of this phrase in terms that deserve to be

quoted:—

 

“The radicals have made the discovery that a centralised republic

is a monarchy in disguise, and to humour them the Cortes had

unanimously proclaimed a FEDERAL REPUBLIC, though none of the

voters could have explained what it was he had just voted for.

This formula, however, delighted everybody; the joy was

intoxicating, delirious. The reign of virtue and happiness had

just been inaugurated on earth. A republican whose opponent

refused him the title of federalist considered himself to be

mortally insulted. People addressed each other in the streets

with the words: `Long live the federal republic!’ After which

the praises were sung of the mystic virtue of the absence of

discipline in the army, and of the autonomy of the soldiers.

What was understood by the `federal republic?’ There were those

who took it to mean the emancipation of the provinces,

institutions akin to those of the United States and

administrative decentralisation; others had in view the abolition

of all authority and the speedy commencement of the great social

liquidation. The socialists of Barcelona and Andalusia stood out

for the absolute sovereignty of the communes; they proposed to

endow Spain with ten thousand independent municipalities, to

legislate on their own account, and their creation to be

accompanied by the suppression of the police and the army. In

the southern provinces the insurrection was soon seen to spread

from town to town and village to village. Directly a village had

made its pronunciamento its first care was to destroy the

telegraph wires and the railway lines so as to cut off all

communication with its neighbours and Madrid. The sorriest

hamlet was determined to stand on its own bottom. Federation had

given place to cantonalism, marked by massacres, incendiarism,

and every description of brutality, and bloody saturnalia were

celebrated throughout the length and breadth of the land.”

 

With respect to the influence that may be exerted by reasoning on

the minds of electors, to harbour the least doubt on this subject

can only be the result of never having read the reports of an

electioneering meeting. In such a gathering affirmations,

invectives, and sometimes blows are exchanged, but never

arguments. Should silence be established for a moment it is

because some one present, having the reputation of a “tough

customer,” has announced that he is about to heckle the candidate

by putting him one of those embarrassing questions which are

always the joy of the audience. The satisfaction, however, of

the opposition party is shortlived, for the voice of the

questioner is soon drowned in the uproar made by his adversaries.

The following reports of public meetings, chosen from hundreds of

similar examples, and taken from the daily papers, may be

considered as typical:—

 

“One of the organisers of the meeting having asked the assembly

to elect a president, the storm bursts. The anarchists leap on

to the platform to take the committee table by storm. The

socialists make an energetic defence; blows are exchanged, and

each party accuses the other of being spies in the pay of the

Government, &c… . A citizen leaves the hall with a black

eye.

 

“The committee is at length installed as best it may be in the

midst of the tumult, and the right to speak devolves upon

`Comrade’ X.

 

“The orator starts a vigorous attack on the socialists, who

interrupt him with shouts of `Idiot, scoundrel, blackguard!’ &c.,

epithets to which Comrade X. replies by setting forth a theory

according to which the socialists are `idiots’ or `jokers.’”

 

“The Allemanist party had organised yesterday evening, in the

Hall of Commerce, in the Rue du Faubourg-du-Temple, a great

meeting, preliminary to the workers’ fete of the 1st of May. The

watchword of the meeting was `Calm and Tranquillity!’

 

“Comrade G–- alludes to the socialists as `idiots’ and

`humbugs.’

 

“At these words there is an exchange of invectives and orators

and audience come to blows. Chairs, tables, and benches are

converted into weapons,” &c., &c.

 

It is not to be imagined for a moment that this description of

discussion is peculiar to a determined class of electors and

dependent on their social position. In every anonymous assembly

whatever, though it be composed exclusively of highly educated

persons, discussion always assumes the same shape. I have shown

that when men are collected in a crowd there is a tendency

towards their mental levelling at work, and proof of this is to

be found at every turn. Take, for example, the following extract

from a report of a meeting composed exclusively of students,

which I borrow from the Temps of 13th of February, 1895:—

 

“The tumult only increased as the evening went on; I do not

believe that a single orator succeeded in uttering two sentences

without being interrupted. At every instant there came shouts

from this or that direction or from every direction at once.

Applause was intermingled with hissing, violent discussions were

in progress between individual members of the audience, sticks

were brandished threateningly, others beat a tattoo on the floor,

and the interrupters were greeted with yells of `Put him out!’ or

`Let him speak!’

 

“M. C–- lavished such epithets as odious and cowardly,

monstrous, vile, venal