5: The Psychology of the Revolutionary Assemblies
Characteristics of Assemblies
Any political assembly, such as a parliament or congress, is a crowd that often fails in effectual action on account of the contrary sentiments of the groups composing it.
These groups are defined by specific interests, which in effect represent the interest of crowds external to the assembly. In this sense an assembly is formed of the representative of many crowds, each obeying its own particular leadership and pursuing its one particular agenda. As such the assembly will at times seem to manifest itself as a crowd and at other times evidence the strife among the crowds who are represented.
It is also noted that the leadership within an assembly, like that of any crowd, is often quite cowardly. In spite of the boldness of their language, they invariably yield to the will of the crowd, which contradicts or subverts the suggestions of a leader to suit its own agenda. At this point, the leader meekly accepts the compromise.
Great political leaders have had the ability to cause the assembly to function as a single crowd, and instead of aggregating the will of the represented groups into a single assembly have used the assembly to push the will of the leader out to the external groups. By persuasion or by force, they have exerted control over the crowd rather than allowing themselves to be compromised by it.
Le Bon provides examples of "strong" and "weak" monarchs who either commanded or yielded to the will of their governing bodies, which is to say whether they sought to dominate parliament and their advisors or allowed themselves to be dominated by them.
Because an assembly is a crowd, it will similarly be extreme in its sentiments, excessive in both cowardice and violence. A crowd is hostile to the weak and servile to the strong. This goes for both those among its members who wish to take command as well as those external to the crowd that are perceived as dangerous foes or safe victims.
But again, the will of the crowd cannot be assessed by any rational standard: the aggregation of emotions, and the predominance of strong emotions, is the basis for the action of a crowd. It does not act with measured deliberation, but with the passion of haste; it does not consider the consequences beyond a very limited scope.
The Psychology of Revolutionary Clubs
The French Revolution was not a unified action of all citizens, but ta confederation of small assemblies of men professing the same beliefs and interests who formed themselves into clubs. There were many "secret societies" prior to the revolution, which aggregated members and coordinated with other clubs to form an assembly in favor of revolution. In spite of their differences, the clubs all supported the notion that the overthrow of the existing regime was in their common interest.
The leader of a club served as its representative in the assembly, and served the dual purpose of representing the interests of his club to the assembly as well as maintaining support for the assembly by the club when its resolutions were not in service of the club's specific interest.
The clandestine nature of these proceedings was necessary for the safety of its members, but it also exacerbated their tendency toward violence. No citizen could publicly declare his desire to destroy a government office or murder government officials, but from the anonymity of a secret society, such demands could be made without risk - and so they were.
At the same time, the will of the assembly was not inviolate, which was particularly evident when the clubs refused an order issued by the assembly. For the example, the order to destroy the Louvre was universally disregarded - that it was issued at all is an example of the mindlessness of an assembly.
(EN: It should noted that, given this arrangement, there was a lapse between decision and action that gave people the opportunity to think better of it. When an order for destruction is given to an assembled mob proximate to a target, its destruction follows in short order. When the order is issued to people who must then assemble and travel to the target, they have time to think it over and reason has a chance to prevail.)
The disjunction of decision and action was also apparent in the existing regime. Consider that the nobility at one point had voted in favor of abandoning certain feudal privileges over their subjects - yet it was seen that after this revolution only a few acted accordingly. Another example is of a leader of the revolution known for his viciousness and violence against the enemy, but who was previously known to be among "the most gentle and feeble of men, and wouldn't have killed a chicken." This exemplifies how the individuals in a crowd act differently in their role as a member of the crowd and their role as an individual.
The Revolutionary Convention also functioned to overcome the disagreements of the entire body by organizing itself into committees consisting of a limited number of individuals. In such a committee, dissent can be more easily confronted than it can in the general assembly, such that a smaller number of men can come to a quicker agreement and then present a proposal to the larger group, which will often accept it without question.
There's also a bit that considers the power of a group as opposed to the power of its individual members (EN: but it's a bit convoluted and unclear what Le Bon is attempting to say, except the obvious: that in a group, an individual is overwhelmed by the sentiment of the majority, or what he perceives that sentiment to be.)
The Progressive Exaggeration of Sentiments in Assemblies
The sentiment of a collective cannot be precisely assessed, but Le Bon reckons that consent begins to build slowly, then dramatically, then dissipates just as rapidly. The critical point in stirring a crowd to action is to make a suggestion for action when consensus has achieved its peak.
Why should it be that the acceleration toward collective sentiment should not result in a sustained plateau, but fall off? His explanation for this is in the nature of emotional exhaustion: a person cannot be angry or joyful in infinite measure - the feeling grows, peaks, and dissipates because man does not have the ability to sustain a high level of emotion for a long period of time.
The crowd reflects this same curve of growth and exhaustion of emotional energy, aggregating those of its participants. If a person in a "ready" state to take action is put on hold, his readiness to act will dissipate - and in a crowd of a hundred people, those whose passion is thus spent can no longer be counted on to take action.
He concedes that this theory is "extremely rough" but does seem to make sense: that emotion surpasses reason for a very limited time, which creates a small window of opportunity for those who would direct the actions of crowds. Those who understand and can exploit this become leaders of the mob.