The Weirdness of the Crowd

A read-ahead summarizing texts we’ll cover Tues

I. Defining the basics:

Mass movements: we’ll go over the academic definition to kick off the presentation, but thought it’d be more interesting to have you all think about what makes a mass movement, or examples of mass movements, before we chat - so, no spoilers from us here. 😃

II. Summarizing the texts:

Crowds and Power

Historical context:

Written in 1960, translated to English from German in 1962.

Author, Elias Canetti, grew up between two world wars and was forced to flee Vienna when the Nazis arrived in 1938. “There is no other hope for the survival of mankind than knowing enough about the people it is made up of.”

In 1981, he won the Nobel Prize in Literature for the work.

Central themes (see below)

Examples (see below)

The Power Tactics of Jesus Christ [Megan? If not, I will allude to it but not Cliffs Notes it…]

The True Believer [Megan]

III. Discussion: questions to think about in advance that we’ll be discussing, to relate the material to the present:

What is “the crowd” today? Where is it? Online, offline examples.

What is a “true believer” in today’s terms? What motivates people to form crowds today?

Forces shaping crowds/true believers

Technology - social platforms as The Great Enabler, eliminating the need for physical proximity. Recommendation engines disrupting the market for cult leaders as people self-select into ad hoc groups around particular issues, regardless of facts/mainstream norms.

Political structures - the resurgence of populism, the rise of Trump

Axes upon which people align - religious vs secular, local vs global, protectionist impulses

Crowds and Power: central themes

On Crowds:

“There is nothing that man fears more than the touch of the unknown.” Canetti means this literally as well as figuratively - think of the way we move on public transit, the way we lock our doors even when the likelihood of someone entering is remote.

The counterintuitive is that we no longer fear being touched when we’re in a crowd. We feel safe as part of the masses, provided the mass is dense enough.

Canetti differentiates between open and closed crowds. Open crowds, which he considers “true” crowds, are marked by their spontaneity: they grow, they naturally attract everyone who observes them, drawing them in with a gravitational force, and they are destructive (in a physical sense). And then, they dissipate. Closed crowds are marked by permanence, boundaries, and in-group/out-group dynamics. Their size is often deliberately limited in some way; Canetti uses the analogy of a vessel filling with liquid. What closed crowds sacrifice in growth they gain in staying power; they often turn into institutions. Closed crowds can transform into open crowds by means of an eruption.

Canetti uses the term “the discharge” to describe the moment that creates the crowd. In the discharge, all men suddenly feel themselves to be equal. This is the generation of camaraderie, which may be fleeting in an open crowd, but is nonetheless powerful. All men are the same in the crowd; the distance between haves and have-nots is temporarily eliminated. But when the crowd dissipates, that distance returns. This leads to a fundamental underlying tension - the crowd must keep momentum to stave off that return. (Note: the truly converted may not return to pre- or non-crowd behavior. Potential tie-in to True Believers here, or to an overarching theme: what is the relationship or ratio between true-believers and hangers-on in crowds? What leads some to take that next leap?)

Crowd destructiveness happens in large part because of the discharge; barriers and limitations between the self and others must be destroyed, particularly physical things like buildings and fences. Fire is a remarkably effective means of doing this, because it can be seen from a distance and attracts others, so it serves the dual purpose of growing the crowd as well.

Regardless of the type of crowd, there needs to be direction, a common goal - and the fear of the crowd dispersing is enough to make it prone to accept any goal.

A sense of persecution unites the crowd, as it believes itself to be under constant attack from without and within. If the attack is from outside, it strengthens the crowd as it unites against the “other”. If the attack is from within, however, it’s dangerous; this is where we see the notion of “false flag” conspiracy theories, accusations that members are spies, and checks of doctrinal soundness coming into play.

Some crowds come together around “crowd crystals” - distinct small groups of people who precipitate crowds.

Brief summary of the behavior of crowds (directly quoted from text):

The crowd always wants to grow

Within the crowd there is equality

The crowd loves density

The crowd needs a direction

The five main types of crowds:

Baiting crowds - “found among animals as well as amongst men”, this crowd forms with an eye on a quickly achievable goal. Canetti describes this as a group of hunters after a kill, with everyone who participates personally determined to strike a blow. This crowd forms quickly because there is safety in numbers; they can satiate bloodlust with little to no personal risk.

Flight crowds - created by a common danger that the members must flee; members are unified because the danger is distributed and therefore most will survive. When members do fall, it increases the resolve of the others, spurs them to continue the flight. (Canetti felt this one personally; his example was the movement of the Germans into cities leading up to World War II)

Prohibition crowds - marked by a group refusing to do something they had previously always done; a labor strike is an obvious example.

Reversal crowds - the crowd of revolutions and revolts, in which “the sheep eat the wolves” for a change. The precondition is strata: societal layers, perceived affronts such as being subject to commands.

Feast crowds - unified in celebration.

Crowds in the present:

World religions - stagnant, closed crowds

Interesting example of The Sermon on the Mount as a differentiator between open and closed crowd; the Sermon was open, whereas the religious crowds of the day that gathered in temples were closed.

The Pilgrimage to Mecca

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http://media.worldbulletin.net/news/2015/09/23/arafat1.jpg

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Theatrical events or concerts - audiences watching a performance, constrained within a theatre.

Political movements - we will talk extensively about this

Wars - specifically, these are an eruption of two crowds.

Mobs

Sporting events - closed crowds, strong incorporation of ritual and allusions to older, warlike crowds. Rhythmic movements, chants, physicality.

https://youtu.be/0x21u-GzI8c

On Power:

While crowds themselves may or may not be benign, the opposite behavior never is: power-seekers avoid participation in the crowd and its security in numbers. They are “incapable of deep empathy…they dehumanize those who oppose them and assume that all who differ from them, however various wear confounding disguises. Beneath those disguises…may be found in every case the same enemy.” (citation for quoted summary: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3318363?seq=2#page_scan_tab_contents)

Renee thought: Consider the language of politicians - they are always of the people. They are always the everyman, there is no distance. They expend great energy proclaiming that they not “elite”; to be branded elitist is the most career-damaging form of othering.

The command - first introduced in the section on reversal crowds, the command is a small, painful insult to the one receiving it (if it is directed specifically to an individual). Commands have momentum - the recipient must act - and sting. This recipient passes on the sting of command to make himself feel better, by either issuing his own command to one still lower, or by attempting to exact revenge on the one who commanded him. (If there are many below and one above, a reversal crowd may be successful in revenge against one issuing commands.)

As the recipient feels sting, the person giving the command feels anxiety and recoil. The anxiety is that the recipient will always remember the command and may attempt to exact revenge in the future.

Commands given to groups - think military - are diffused across a large group of people, and so there is no sting. A command addressed to a group has the intent of turning them into a crowd, so there is no sting or fear - this can be the command of a captain, or the “slogan of a demagogue, impelling people in a certain direction.”

Commands are so ancient that they predate speech and transcend species; the domestication of dogs.

Those who commit atrocities in the name of command often see themselves as victims, since they feel the sting.

Power addiction is indicated by demands for secrecy and obedience, application of physical means of control and intimidation (torture, imprisonment).

Elements of Power:

Force is the “lower and cruder” manifestation of power. “When force gives itself time in which to operate it becomes power.” Power is ceremonious, patient, and not rushed. It is less dynamic. Power takes up space and time; force is instantaneously deployed.

To understand the distinction between the two, Canetti uses the example of the domestic cat, which toys with its prey before killing it. To obtain the prey, it must use force; once it has it under control, it ceases to use force and takes its time. It may even let the prey almost get away - but the reality is that the cat is always in control, and the cat never actually changes its intentions or loses interest. The prey is always in the “sphere of power” of the cat. At the final moment of the kill, the cat will revert again to force.

Another example provided is that of religion, particularly Islam and Calvinism: “Their believes yearn for God’s force; His power alone does not satisfy them; it is too distant and leaves them too free.” Some religions look for specific commands, specific intense moments of God exercising force in their life - think snake handlers.

Speed - speed of pursuit of power, speed of grasping power.

Questions are often evidence of a power dynamic; “all questioning is a forceable intrusion,” claims Canetti. Questioning is a dissection, a getting at what is inside a person. Interrogation is an extreme form. Questions require an answer, and silence, while a defense, does nothing to change the power dynamic because the questioner still holds the cards.

Canetti gives the example of Socrates holding court; a master of the role of questioner

Secrecy is the core of power. In animals, stalking and lying in wait is secrecy. In humans, it can take several forms. Knowledge of a secret is power, even if it is knowledge of a dubious secret (think healers, medicine men, sorcerers). “Power is impenetrable. The man who has it sees through other men, but does not allow them to see through him.”

Judgement and condemnation

And the flip side: the power of pardon and mercy, which are rarely bestowed, largely ceremonial, and should not be misinterpreted as forgiveness or forgetting.

Case study from The Crowd in History:

Highlighting the specific example of Germany & Versailles, and the rise of Hitler and Nazism (a fairly comprehensive example covering quite a bit of specific ground relating to what is mentioned in theory above)

The crowd symbol of Germany, dating as far back as the 1870s, was the army (which Canetti traces back further to having the origin of being a symbol of the forest - he uses a lot of nature metaphors for crowd symbols)

The German people were extremely used to seeing army squadrons; they were proud of them, and thus they were a symbol of the nation. More importantly, however, the army was also tangible: every German served in this closed crowd. Belief in the importance and value of army service was more universal than belief in religion. “The conviction of its profound significance and the veneration accorded it, had a wider reach than the traditional religions, for it embraced Catholics and Protestants alike. Anyone who excluded himself was no German.”

While Canetti generally excludes standing armies from his definition of crowds (not spontaneous; highly regimented), he makes a specific exception for the German army.

The start of World War I transformed Germany into “one open crowd” - Adolf Hitler himself recounted the collective excitement of the nation in his memoirs, mentioned falling to his knees and thanking God upon hearing that the war had begun. Canetti calls this Hitler’s “decisive experience” - the moment in which Hitler himself was part of the crowd. Subsequently, Hitler would recreate this moment from the outside, holding himself apart from the crowd, but reminding Germany of a time in which it was “conscious of its military striking power and exulting and united in it.”

The Treaty of Versailles led to the disbanding of the German army, which crushed national identity. And, according to Canetti, “Every closed crowd which is dissolved by force transforms itself into an open crowd to which it imparts all its own characteristics.” In this case, the dissolution of the closed crowd of the army birthed the open crowd of National Socialism. Everyone who could not participate in the dissolved army could still participate in Nazism. “Versailles” became a rallying cry - not of defeat, but of the “prohibition of specific and sacrosanct practices” core to German life.

Hitler and other Nazi leaders spoke repeatedly of “The Diktat of Versailles” - hammering home that it was a command, a rule from the enemy, from outsiders, from aliens.

The entire Third Reich can be viewed as a movement to reconstitute the crowd - the German army - and, by extension, the pride and unity of the German people.