Keep reading, and then form your own knowledge system.
2023.07.01 read
This "Crowd of Crowd" was recommended to me by a friend many years ago. In the middle, I bought three times and lost it three times. Make up your mind this time, read it all at once, it doesn't matter how much you gain.
Article Directory
- Translation Preface
- sequence
- Introduction - The Age of Crowds
- volume one group psychology
- Chapter 1 General Characteristics of Crowds Spiritual Unity of Crowds
- Chapter II The Feelings and Morals of Crowds
- Chapter 3 Ideas, Reasoning, and Imagination of Crowds
- CHAPTER IV. All Beliefs of Crowds Take Religious Form
- Volume 2 Group Claims and Beliefs
- Chapter 1 The Indirect Factors of the Beliefs and Claims of Crowds
- Chapter Two: The Immediate Factors of Group Claims
- Chapter Three Group Leaders and Their Ways of Persuasion
- CHAPTER IV The Range of Variation in the Beliefs and Claims of Crowds
- Volume 3 Classification and characteristics of different groups
- Chapter 1 Classification of Groups
- Chapter II The So-Called Criminal Group
- Title III Felony Court Jury
- Chapter IV Voter Groups
- Chapter V Parliamentary Groups
Translation Preface
Before Le Pen, scholars tended to focus on heroes and leaders, and few people studied groups as a psychological entity.
To rule society, one must first conquer groups, and to influence them, one must have a correct understanding and grasp of their psychology.
An excellent ruler must have the conditions to observe and employ people. In addition, he should also have a grasp and research on the hearts of the masses. In short, he must understand human nature.
——Reposted from book friend comments
Groups are one of the basic units of society. Generally speaking, we are in different groups with different identities
——From book review
Le Pen's so-called "group" is not the general public or groups. In his view, many people gather together by chance, such as market buyers, spectators, hawkers and security guards. No matter how many of them there are, they do not constitute a group. The group he refers to is a special psychological group, which refers to people who are stimulated by a certain event, speech, passion, fear, love and hate and gather together to act for a certain goal or certain spiritual needs. They don't have to appear in the same place at the same time, and they don't have to be large in number. Sometimes a dozen or so people are enough to form a group.
sequence
Belonging to a certain school of thought is bound to have prejudices and prejudices.
I remember Mr. Luo Xiang once explained the word "model" in this way. The word "model" is next to the words of wood. If it is wood, it will rot. Therefore, a model can only be the guidance of a certain stage or a certain kind of thinking. I feel that Mr. Luo Xiang’s explanation of the role model has something in common with the meaning of this sentence. A certain school of thought will inevitably have its limitations or biases, so anyone or anything needs to be viewed dialectically.
——Reposted from book friend comments
In how we behave, there is a large proportion of the unconscious part and a small proportion of the rational part. The unconscious is still at work as an unknown force.
99% of people live unconsciously. They go to school, work, marry and have children. Few people consciously think about why they do what they do now. They are coerced by their parents, relatives, friends and even public opinion. This is also a group unconscious behavior.
——Reposted from book friend comments
It is also a bit like the triple brain theory mentioned in "Cognitive Awakening" . The triple brain includes the instinctive brain, emotional brain, and rational brain, and we are driven by the instinctive brain most of the time.
——Self-impression
Introduction - The Age of Crowds
Crowds are bad at reasoning, but good at action
This sentence reminds me of the Internet trolls on the Internet. Just separated by the screen, using the keyboard as a weapon, unscrupulously punched a stranger who didn't know anything. It seems to be maintaining a kind of justice that they take for granted. They are not good at reasoning because they don't need reasoning. The rapid development of the Internet age provides people with a fast platform to express their opinions. In such a big environment, traffic has become king in the eyes of many people. It doesn't matter whether the content is true or not, and it doesn't matter whether the video has deep meaning. The hot topic suddenly becomes the sweet pastry that hundreds of millions of people are vying for. Sometimes I stop and think, what spiritual food has the rapid development brought to contemporary youth? I also often tell myself that at this stage of life, we must learn to live with our ears covered.
——Reposted from book friend comments
Once their emotions are aroused, it is like a train that has derailed. Wherever it goes, it will crush everything. There is no longer right or wrong, but a competition of strength.
——Reposted from book friend comments
volume one group psychology
Chapter 1 General Characteristics of Crowds Spiritual Unity of Crowds
Conscious individuality disappears, and everyone's feelings and thoughts develop in the same direction, forming a collective psychology, which may be temporary, but its characteristics are quite obvious.
From the psychological point of view, without any definite purpose, even if hundreds of people happen to gather in a public square, it is not a group. To acquire the characteristics of a crowd, one must be stimulated and influenced by something.
The conscious disappearance of individuality and the development of feelings and thoughts in a given direction, which are the first characteristics of a forming crowd, do not always require the simultaneous presence of many individuals in one place.
When a psychological group is formed, it acquires certain general features, which are definite though brief. Besides these general characteristics, there are secondary characteristics which vary according to the members who make up the group, and those members change the mental structure of the group.
Psychological groups are divisible, and when we study different types of groups, we find that heterogeneous groups, that is, groups of different constituents, share certain characteristics with homogeneous groups, that is, groups of more or less the same constituents (factions, classes, classes). Besides these common features, there are also some different features that set them apart.
Before examining the different types of crowds, however, it is necessary first to examine the characteristics they have in common. We shall begin, like the naturalist, by describing the general features common to every individual in the line, and only afterwards study the individual features which distinguish the various forms of the line.
In survey research, descriptive statistics are also carried out on the overall population, and the next step is to analyze the differences between different groups of samples
——From book review
When multiple individuals form a group, each person will have a variety of individual characteristics, and they will automatically extract the largest "greatest common divisor" of all individual characteristics to form the characteristics of this group. In this process, some excellent characteristics of the individual will be discarded and abandoned, leaving only the "greatest common divisor" characteristic, so the excellent characteristics of the individual cannot be called the characteristics of the group.
——Reposted from book friend comments
The most astonishing fact exhibited by psychological groups is this: Whoever forms the group, whether they are alike in way of life, work, character, or intellect, as long as they form a group, they possess a collective mind which makes them feel, think, and act in a different way from how they feel, think, and act when they are alone.
A psychic colony is a temporary organization of heterogeneous components, united for a period of time, much like the cells that make up a living body, many cells come together to create a new life that exhibits completely different characteristics of a single cell.
Conscious behavior arises from deep unconscious structures whose foundations are largely created by genetic influences
Conscious Personality Disappears, Unconscious Personality Gains
As long as he is a member of an organized group, he is several steps back on the ladder of civilization. By himself he may be a cultured man; in a crowd he is a savage, a man of instinct.
Crowds are always mentally inferior to solitary individuals
Everything depends on the way the group is suggested.
Chapter II The Feelings and Morals of Crowds
1 Crowd impulsiveness, changeability and irritability
The behavior of crowds is almost entirely unconscious, and its behavior is more easily influenced by the spinal cord than the brain.
The solitary individual has control over his reflexes, which a crowd lacks.
2 Crowds are suggestible, changeable and gullible
Crowds always wander on the fringes of the unconscious, susceptible to suggestion, violent in their emotions, uncritical, and credulous like those who are unresponsive to reason. For them, nothing is impossible. Without understanding this, it is difficult to understand why such bizarre legends and stories are so easily born and circulated.
Collective observation has the highest error rate, and it is often just a certain person's hallucination, which is suggested to others through contagion.
Events that are proven by more people are less reliable. Saying that something was seen by thousands of people at the same time often means that the truth is very different from what people say.
3 Exaggeration and simplification of group feelings
The sentiments expressed by crowds, for better or for worse, are both simplistic and exaggerated.
What revulsion and disapproval, which arise in the solitary individual and do not intensify, quickly develop into great hatred in the individual in a crowd.
In groups, fools, idiots and envious people no longer feel mediocre and incompetent, but generate a strong, short-lived but huge energy.
4 Intolerance, dominance, and conservatism of groups
Crowds possess only simple and extreme emotions. They accept all or reject the opinions, propositions, and beliefs suggested to them as either infallibly true or entirely false. Faith is produced by suggestion rather than reason, and it always turns out to be so. Everyone knows how narrow religion is, and how despotic it is over the soul.
5 The Morality of Crowds
Chapter 3 Ideas, Reasoning, and Imagination of Crowds
1 The idea of a group
Great turmoil in history often comes from changes in basic concepts.
Whatever idea is suggested to a crowd, its form does not show its importance until it is made absolute and simple.
Ideas are accepted by crowds only after they have a very simple form. For the sake of popularization, you often have to endure radical changes, especially when it involves slightly higher-end philosophical or scientific ideas, you will find that you have to make major revisions to slowly be accepted by the group. This modification depends on the class or race of the group, but it is always necessary to slim down and simplify the concept.
It takes a long time for ideas to enter people's minds, but it takes just as long to get rid of them.
For example, from "geocentric theory" to "heliocentric theory".
——Self-feeling
2 Reasoning of crowds
When people read speeches, they are sometimes surprised to find that some speeches are of poor quality, but they have a huge impact on a large audience. This is because people forget that these speeches are meant to appeal to crowds, not to be read by philosophers. When a speaker communicates with a group, he knows how to engage them with images. If this is successful, their purpose will be achieved. A tome in twenty volumes—often the result of painstaking research—is no better than a few lines of listening.
3 The imagination of the crowd
The power of the aggressor and the power of the state are based precisely on the imagination of the masses, especially by influencing the imagination to lead the crowd.
Therefore, the great statesmen of all periods and countries, including the most brutal dictators, regard the imagination of the people as the basis of their power and never go against it.
The most classic ones are that the witch said that she could contact God, the leader said that he could communicate with God to convey the will of God, and the ancient Chinese emperors emphasized that the orthodox always liked "golden light in the room at birth", "auspiciousness from heaven", and "meteorites from heaven when suppressing rebels". Its essence is to make the people believe and obey themselves. With the power of God, the people are afraid to resist and submit to the rule. And the supernatural powers of the gods are just a product of the imagination of the people.
How dare they make a mistake after imagining that they will face the terrifying thunder and punishment after resisting?
It is not the fact itself that shapes the popular imagination, but the way in which it is diffused and communicated. It is only by "condensing," if one may call it that, that the fact can make a salient image, a memorable one. Whoever can influence the imagination of crowds has mastered the art of mastering them.
This reminds me of the donation example mentioned at the beginning of the book "The Essence of Poverty" .
——Self-feeling
CHAPTER IV. All Beliefs of Crowds Take Religious Form
The characteristics of this feeling are very simple: admiration of the sublime in the mind, fear of the so-called magical power in him, blind obedience to orders, lack of ability to analyze these creeds, and only want to spread them.
The devotion of crowds is characteristic of religious sentiment: blind obedience, extreme intolerance, and a desire to spread.
As an aside, I thought of the idea that women in rural areas who value affection, the poorer they are, the more they live, and they have the same characteristics.
Blindly obey the views of the majority: raise children to protect the old, married daughters throw water away, the poorer you are, the more you have to have more children, there are always a few who can honor their ancestors to support themselves; extremely narrow-minded: a daughter-in-law who doesn’t have a son can’t hold her head up, and she has no status in the family
.
The daughter-in-law of the so-and-so family didn't give birth to a son. Look at the whole village laughing at her all these years...
——Reposted from book friend comments
The reason why the Roman Empire can maintain its rule is not by force, but by the devout admiration it inspires. "A regime hated by the people can last for five centuries," he said not without reason. The reason why the people obey is because the emperor represents the glory and greatness of Rome and is admired by all the people like a god. In any small town in the empire, the emperor had an altar. "At that time, the people of the entire empire had a new religion in their hearts, and everyone worshiped the emperor himself as a god. Many years ago in the Christian era, sixty towns in the Gaul region built temples to Augustus, just like the one near Lyon...the priests are all local leaders, elected by the Gaul city council... All this can never be done by terror and slavery. It is impossible for all peoples to be enslaved for three centuries.
Volume 2 Group Claims and Beliefs
Chapter 1 The Indirect Factors of the Beliefs and Claims of Crowds
The factors that determine these claims and beliefs fall into two categories: indirect and direct.
1 race
2 traditional
3 hours
4 Political and social systems
Institutions and domination are products of race, far from being the creators of the ages, they are created by the ages.
In fact, it is not the system that works, because we know that the system itself is neither good nor bad, whether it succeeds or fails. It is fantasies and words that affect the spirit of crowds.
Like working hard to get rich? I feel that this thing is one of the biggest scams in China. How many people think that they are not hardworking enough to the death, and don't suspect that hard work can't make you rich at all, you can only barely eat and wear. Moreover, in our eyes, holidays are not rest at all, but when you are overtaking on a curve, you don’t want to be forced to roll. When I want to play a game at home during the holiday, I not only feel a strong sense of guilt, but also the unified speaking skills of my family, relatives and colleagues. Are you rich? Do you have a car, a house and savings? You are still young and it is time to work hard. Are You Worthy of Who
——From Book Reviews
5 Intellectual and moral education
Herbert Spencer, without hesitation, pointed out that education can neither make people virtuous nor happy, it can not change people's nature and natural passions. Sometimes, if it is not guided well, it will do more harm than good.
The country borrowed textbooks to create a large number of graduates with diplomas, but it could only use a small number of people and had to make others unemployed. As a result, the former was supported, but the latter became his enemy.
Gaining knowledge without being able to find the corresponding jobs is sure to turn everyone into rebels.
The reason is written in "The Pride of the Elite": the logic of merit first will encourage the arrogance of the winners, aggravate the humiliation of the losers, and lead to social disharmony.
——Reposted from book friend comments
Perhaps, in extreme cases, people will still accept the various disadvantages of our traditional education. Although it only creates people who lose their social status and dissatisfied people, they have accepted so much knowledge and memorized so many texts on the surface, which can always improve the students' intellectual level! Has it really improved? Unfortunately not! Judgment, experience, creativity, and character are prerequisites for success in life, and these cannot be given in books. Books are useful dictionaries for people to look up, and it is completely useless to cram a long paragraph into the brain.
What kind of education a country gives its young people can tell what will happen to the country in the future.
big problem. Everyone knows the various disadvantages of cramming education, but which child from an ordinary family can escape.
——Reposted from book friend comments
Chapter Two: The Immediate Factors of Group Claims
1 Images, words and formulas
By storing up a little cliché and common sense learned when I was young, I will be able to meet the needs of life without racking my brains and thinking hard.
The vocabulary that makes up a language changes extremely slowly over time. What is constantly changing is the image a word evokes or the meaning people assign to it.
The meaning of many words is like this, and it has changed a lot from time to time. Only after lengthy research can we understand how the ancients understood them. It has been well said that it takes a lot of reading to understand what words like "king" and "royal" meant to our ancestors. This is even more the case for more complex vocabularies.
Not only must it be combined with the time at that time, but also the environment, culture, policies and other factors at that time.
——Self-impression
The power of words is too powerful, as long as you choose well, you can give the most annoying thing a good name, so that everyone can accept it.
Speaking is an art, words are used to package. Therefore, "Judge a person not by what he says, but by what he does."
——Transferred from Book Friends Comments
Our teacher gave an example when he was in class, "Female college students often go to KTV at night, but instead of female college students, in order to reduce the burden on the family, they study during the day and stay up late at night to work part-time jobs." ——Transferred from Book Friends
Comments
There is also a scientific research mentioned by my master's supervisor: repeated defeats and repeated defeats.
——Self-feeling
2 hallucinations
Crowds never crave truth. Faced with obvious facts that they do not like, they turn their backs, preferring to deify fallacies, if only such fallacies appeal to them. Whoever can make them have illusions can easily dominate them; whoever tries to destroy their illusions will always be their enemy.
3 experiences
4 rational
To persuade crowds, one must first perceive the emotion aroused in them, pretend to share it, and then try to modify it, calling up some suggestive image in a rough combination; Having to constantly adjust your wording according to the effect of the speech is much better than a speech that has been thought and prepared in advance. An orator who only cares about his own ideas and speaks without caring about the feelings of the audience will never have any impact.
It is not even necessary to descend to the level of primitive man to discover that the struggle between reason and emotion often leads to complete defeat.
Hahaha, a straight guy with an engineering degree is simply enlightened, don't always try to use rational logic to compete with an emotional wife, or you will often lose completely.
——Reposted from book friend comments
Therefore, in a relationship, the pros and cons of being weighed are just that you have not been firmly chosen, and you don't like it enough. After all, in the struggle between emotion and reason, emotion has never lost.
——Reposted from book friend comments
Chapter Three Group Leaders and Their Ways of Persuasion
1 leader of the group
A leader is often led at first, and he himself needs to be confused by a certain idea before he becomes a supporter of this idea. This thought took possession of his mind, all other thoughts disappeared, and all opinions to the contrary seemed to him to be false and superstitious.
If, by some accident, the leader disappears and is not immediately replaced, the group will again become a non-cohesive and resistant organization. When the stagecoach drivers in Paris went on strike, it was only necessary to arrest the leader of the strike, and the strike stopped immediately. What groups want most is not freedom but enslavement. They have a strong desire to obey, and instinctively submit to those who claim to be their leaders.
We can make a clear division of the leadership class. The first type is powerful people, strong-willed, but short-lived; the second type is much less than the first type, and their will is strong and long-lasting.
The first type is rough, bold, and brave. They are especially good at commanding assaults and leading everyone to rush forward at risk. They can turn the recruits recruited the day before into heroes. These leaders can only function if they themselves are led, are constantly stimulated, are always directed by someone or an idea above, and can follow a clearly drawn line of action.
The second kind of leadership, persistent will, though less impressive, has far greater impact. They were often founders of religions or men of great deeds: St. Paul [illustration], Muhammad, Christopher Columbus [illustration], Lesseb [illustration]. It doesn't matter if they're brilliant or limited. The world will always be theirs.
2 How Leaders Work: Assertion, Repetition, and Contagion
Simple and clear assertions, free from reasoning and proof, are one of the most effective ways of getting an idea into the minds of crowds. The more concise the assertion, the less protracted proofs and explanations, the more authoritative it is.
I believe Napoleon said that the most effective rhetoric is repetition. What is affirmed by repetition sinks into the minds of men and makes them accept it as a tested truth.
The opinions and beliefs of crowds are spread primarily by contagion rather than by reasoning.
3 prestige
Prestige is actually the spiritual domination of a person, a work or an idea over us. This domination paralyzes our critical faculties and fills our souls with wonder and reverence.
Prestige itself can prevent people from seeing the truth as it is, and dull our judgment.
Success is one of the foundations of prestige, because prestige disappears almost as soon as success disappears. A hero who was applauded one day will be booed by the masses the next day if he is defeated. The greater the prestige, the stronger the backlash. Then the crowd will regard the fallen hero as one of its own kind, and will avenge the groveling it had done to him, because he is no longer superior.
CHAPTER IV The Range of Variation in the Beliefs and Claims of Crowds
1 firm belief
It is not easy to establish general beliefs, but once established they are powerful and invincible for a long time. However philosophically absurd they may be, the wisest will accept them.
2 The changing opinions of the group
Volume 3 Classification and characteristics of different groups
Chapter 1 Classification of Groups
Among these organized groups we classify as follows:
Heterogeneous groups
A. Nameless (e.g. street crowds)
B. Named (juries, parliaments, etc.)
Homogeneous groups
A. Factions (political, religious, etc.)
B. Identity groups (soldiers, monks, workers, etc.)
C. Classes (bourgeoisie, peasantry, etc.)
1 Heterogeneous groups
In a group, intellect plays no role, only unconscious emotion.
2 homogeneous groups
Chapter II The So-Called Criminal Group
After a certain exciting period, the crowd falls into an unconscious, purely automatic state under the influence of suggestion.
The crimes of crowds are often committed by strong suggestion, and the individuals who participate in the crime believe that it is right to do so, and that they are obeying some kind of duty, which is not crime in the ordinary sense at all.
Title III Felony Court Jury
These juries first clearly demonstrated that the intelligence of the group members was of little importance in sentencing. We have seen that when a jury is asked to give an opinion on a question that is not entirely technical, their intellect does not come into play at all. A jury of scholars or artists is not, in general matters, much different from the verdict of a mason or a grocer.
I recommend a very classic movie "Twelve Angry Men". Although it is about the jury system on the surface, its actual meaning is far more than that. The entire film was basically shot in one room, and the 12 people argued, full of tension. The old movie from 1957 is much better than many so-called big-scene and special-effects movies now. There is also an adaptation of this movie, "Twelve Citizens", which is worth watching.
——Reposted from book friend comments
Mr. de Glareau said, "It is enough for a woman to be lovable enough to obtain the mercy of the jury".
On the advantages of appearance, beautiful women can get rights and resources that mediocre girls can't have
——From book review
Indeed, everyone who is beautiful should thank God for this gift, and those who are not beautiful should also thank God for this gift, which makes them get rid of the pursuit of appearance early and realize that there are more important things in this world than appearance
.
We fear the power of groups, but the power of certain identity groups is scarier. The former can be persuaded, and the latter will never give in.
The former is emotion and "justice", while the latter is vested interests.
The latter can never be persuaded, only by force.
First of all, I wish I had the force to kick some people down. In addition, one day when I am old, decayed, and start to endanger society, at that time, I hope that I have the mind and courage to give up my interests and walk down by myself with dignity.
——Reposted from book friend comments
Chapter IV Voter Groups
Crowds are always and everywhere characterized by poor reasoning, lack of critical spirit, irritability, credulity, and simplicity. We also found that their decision-making was influenced by leadership figures, with factors such as assertion, repetition, prestige, and contagion at work, as listed above.
There is an old saying that "scholars who rebel will fail in three years." Throughout history, it is true that very few scholars successfully counterattacked and became the founding monarch. Liu Bang, Liu Xiu, Liu Bei, Sun Jian, Zhao Kuangyin, and Zhu Yuanzhang all started their businesses from the real bottom of society and became emperors. They all came from warriors. The first is the two major elements of personal prestige. Second, scholars tend to think carefully about things, and their narration is abstract and complicated. They cannot form a simple, vivid and specific image in the group. It is difficult to leave a deep impression on people, and it is even more difficult for the group to truly understand and contagious. Therefore, it is difficult for a scholar to become an entrepreneurial leader.
——Reposted from book friend comments
They read too much by themselves, and they are too rational. But if the group doesn’t have this cognition, just give them an order
——Transferred from book friends’ comments
The independent thinking of literati tends to look forward and backward, it is difficult to be like a martial artist, and literati are not born from the grassroots, they can only see the whole upper class, and it is difficult to use policies to assimilate the soldiers at the bottom. Only Liu Bang and Zhu Yuanzhang really started from the bottom. Liu Xiu is a descendant of the royal family; Liu Bei can barely be considered a descendant of the royal family, this status is very important; Sun Jian can be regarded as the leader of the rebel army, only occupying one side; Zhao Kuangyin's father, Zhao Hongyin, was a general during the Five Dynasties period.
——Reposted from book friend comments
Chapter V Parliamentary Groups
A leader's power of influence comes seldom from reason, but often from prestige. The best proof is that if something happens that makes these leaders lose their popularity, they immediately lose their influence.
Confidence combined with extreme narrowness of mind gives a man of prestige such power that it can sometimes be frightening to think of.
If a man lacks vitality in himself, he will inevitably find it in others.
Not only in countries, but also in family relations.
If one person in the family is particularly capable, the other members will become more and more dependent on him, more and more lazy, and this person will be forced to take on more and more responsibilities, no matter how small.
The final result must be that one party is ungrateful, and the other party is out of balance physically and mentally, resulting in constant conflicts.
——Reposted from book friend comments