Limitations of the Variability of Beliefs and Opinions
A culture is defined by a common set of beliefs and opinions among various people. The simple proximity of people, even for a long period of time, does not automatically create a culture, but a set of protocols by which people of different cultures may interact as necessary with one another, without forming a unified identity, and Le Bon asserts this to be the situation in the time and place he wrote this book.
(EN: It's also likely the situation of America in the present day, as "multiculturalism" is itself a lack of a common culture, and people are conscious of protocols for interacting.)
The culture of a crowd, if it may be said to have one, works in reverse: it is not a group of people with shared principles that creates a similarity in action, but a group of people with a shared agenda that creates the sense of shared principles.
(EN: Consider the disunity in political demonstrations, at which the assembled mob agrees that a specific institution is to blame for their discontent, but there is not a consistent explanation of the reasons - and in fact, many in the mob can't provide a coherent explanation at all.)
Fixed Beliefs
The anatomy of a living being is largely fixed: its biology gives it certain properties. While creatures adapt their physical characteristics, significant changes take place over thousands of years. A breeder can, within a few generations, cause certain of the properties to be accentuated or repressed, but has limited power: within a few generations of breeding he can create a cow with a thinner coat of hair, but cannot turn a cow into an horse.
Le Bon suggests that the same is true with the moral characteristics of men. We are as mentally similar as we are physically similar, and while we can remark a distinct difference in the character of two men, it is merely the accentuation or repression of a limited set of basic qualities. Teachers of philosophy can, like a breeder, effect certain changes in the way men think, but cannot produce dramatic change.
Men are guided in their conduct by their beliefs and the customers, which in turn are derived from those beliefs. However absurd, beliefs regulate the smallest acts of existence. Men are inclined to accept ideas that are aligned to their beliefs without thinking, and it is only with quite some deliberation and resistance that an idea contrary to belief can be accepted.
Within a crowd, there is even less time and capability to shape beliefs: those members of a crowd arrive as individuals, and negotiate to a temporary agreement that, for most, lasts only until the crowd disperses. If a person chooses to become or remain a member of the crowd, it is because the crowd supports his existent beliefs, even if those beliefs are like recessive traits.
For this reason, a crowd cannot be aside to act upon principles, but merely passing opinions to which each member superficially agrees, for a limited time and to a limited degree. Were it not so, crowds would disperse, or fail to consolidate, or would engage in squabbling amongst themselves rather than rallying to a collective action.
Because the crowd must achieve cohesion by appealing to the fixed beliefs of its constituents, it has a very limited set of options. It must also be extremely intolerant of any dissent, as dissent is divisive and will prevent the crowd from consolidating. As such, crowds often follow the fixed beliefs of the culture in which they are formed and are intolerant of any great variances, which limits their variability.
Neither do the beliefs of a culture derive from logic. It was not long ago that Europe was people by pagans and barbarians with very primitive and irrational beliefs, many of which had been adopted by the church and are often favored over the documented scriptures. A belief has a hypnotic effect, and reason, logic, and intelligence are often powerless. Over time experience may overcome belief with repeated demonstration, but in the short lifespan of the crowd there is no time, nor will anything subtle have any chance of spreading through the mob.
For these reasons, crowds are very fixed and limited in their ability to form consensus, and entirely unable to form a consensus based on reason, but only upon its agreement with the existing beliefs of its constituents.
The Changeable Opinions of Crowds
Beliefs are foundational, in that they remain fixed over a long period of time, but they are merely a substratum over which there is a constantly changing sequence of opinions, ideas, and thoughts that are incessantly springing up and dying out. Some exist for a moment or a day, while others become more persistent.
For a group, an idea may be passed from one to another and back, persisting for longer through mutual reinforcement, but scarce outlive a generation - which is the reason one generation may seem to differ greatly from the next, as their superficial ideas change, while the culture that is concealed beneath these ideas remains constant. It is a task of the philosopher to identify whether a concept is a mark of the culture or merely part of the moving flux of ideas and opinions.
Le Bon mentions the political upheaval in France as an example: each of the parties seemed entirely different to the others on the surface, but all derived from a basic set of beliefs. He also mentions the difference between fashion and art: fashions change and what was adored one year is regarded with contempt in the very next because of changing ideas - but those things regarded as "art" that are revered through the ages represent the fundamental beliefs of culture.
An opinion must be palatable to the underlying beliefs, but it need not derive directly from them and can, for a time, directly contradict them - they are merely ideas, like passing thoughts, that may be a source of temporary amusement, but which ultimately will be dismissed unless they agree with the beliefs.
He lists three reasons that the changeable opinions or crowds seem more numerous in his time than they had been before:
- The old beliefs were losing their influence to a greater extent and culture was reshaping itself. Where there is an inconsistency of beliefs, it is a gap in the filter that would otherwise block certain ideas.
- The power of the populace, rather than a small number of leaders, also means that there are more sources and fewer filters for ideas and less consistency in what is promulgated or suppressed.
- The increase in media (newspapers and pamphlets) facilitates the dissemination of ideas, but also fragments them: more opinions are being communicated, albeit to smaller audiences.
These three factors work together to produce a phenomenon that is "quite new in the world's history" - that government is powerless to direct opinion. In the recent past, the government was the source of ideas, and had firmer control over the dissemination of ideas to the public. But in Le Bon's day, both the press and politicians were beholden to public opinion rather than controlling of it: a newspaper will be purchased or a politician elected only if it caters to public opinion.
The opinion of crowds has thus become the supreme power. However, with the absence of any sort of control, coinciding with the destruction of general beliefs, has resulted in a chaos in which a variety of ideas and opinions may vie for control of the mob.
Consider socialism as an example. The lower classes, being intellectually unsophisticated and "quite illiterate" are easily herded into supporting ideas they do not comprehend, if they are receive a superficial promise of benefit. The literate among society are skeptical, but are inconsistent and unstable in their own opinions: they recognize socialism as a preposterous notion but have no ideas of their own to offer as a substitute.
This is common to many ideas: the practice of discussing and analyzing opinions has been largely discarded in the name of egalitarianism, in which any individual has a right to hold and promulgate the most ludicrous of opinions, and an idea that is unsound must be given equal footing with one that is plausible or even proven. The people have become largely indifferent to anything that does not have an immediate impact, and give little attention to consequences and side effects.
Ultimately, the general wearing away of opinions is "a symptom of decadence" in a culture that is dissipating - but likely a transitional phase. In time, the good ideas will prove themselves out, the bad will be discarded, and a society that is now formless will reform itself around a new set of beliefs. It is much in the way that a crowd, as ominous and dramatic as it seems, will eventually disperse and its constituents will return to the routine of normal, everyday life.
There is the potential, in the interim, for much damage to be done - as crowds behave as barbarian hordes, wreaking havoc and destruction in their conflict - but even if society is utterly destroyed, it will inevitably reform.
(EN: I can't disagree, but note that Le Bon provides no time-line for this. In over two centuries since this book was written, many societies remain in a state of chaos and flux, and have not reformed. America, in particular, seemed to congeal into a culture in the early twentieth century, but that has since been blown apart again and there are many splinter groups expressing outlandish ideas, each struggling to direct culture, and there appears for the moment to be no clear victor, nor a stable outcome in sight.)