The Psychology of Revolution - Gustave le Bon (the beach read .txt) 📗

The philosopher who studies a belief must obviously discuss its rational content, but he is more concerned with its influences upon the general mind.

Applied to the interpretation of all the great beliefs of history, the importance of this distinction is at once evident. Jupiter, Moloch, Vishnu, Allah, and so many other divinities, were, no doubt, from the rational point of view, mere illusions, yet their effect upon the life of the peoples has been considerable.

The same distinction is applicable to the beliefs which prevailed during the Middle Ages. Equally illusory, they nevertheless exercised as profound an influence as if they had corresponded with realities.

If any one doubts this, let him compare the domination of the Roman Empire and that of the Church of Rome. The first was perfectly real and tangible, and implied no illusion. The second, while its foundations were entirely chimerical, was fully as powerful. Thanks to it, during the long night of the Middle Ages, semi-barbarous peoples acquired those social bonds and restraints and that national soul without which there is no civilisation.

The power possessed by the Church proves, again, that the power of certain illusions is sufficiently great to create, at least momentarily, sentiments as contrary to the interests of the individual as they are to that of society—such as the love of the monastic life, the desire for martyrdom, the crusades, the religious wars, &c.

The application to democratic and socialistic ideas of the preceding considerations shows that it matters little that these ideas have no defensible basis. They impress and influence men’s minds, and that is sufficient. Their results may be disastrous in the extreme, but we cannot prevent them.

The apostles of the new doctrines are quite wrong in taking so much trouble to find a rational basis for their aspirations. They would be far more convincing were they to confine themselves to making affirmations and awakening hopes. Their real strength resides in the religious mentality which is inherent in the heart of man, and which during the ages has only changed its object.

Later on we shall consider from a philosophical point of view various consequences of the democratic evolution whose course we see accelerating. We may say in respect of the Church in the Middle Ages that it had the power of profoundly influencing the mentality of men. Examining certain results of the democratic doctrines, we shall see that the power of these is no less than that of the Church.

2. The Jacobin Spirit and the Mentality created by Democratic Beliefs.

Existing generations have inherited, not only the revolutionary principles but also the special mentality which achieves their success.

Describing this mentality when we were examining the Jacobin spirit, we saw that it always endeavours to impose by force illusions which it regards as the truth. The Jacobin spirit has finally become so general in France and in other Latin countries that it has affected all political parties, even the most conservative. The bourgeoisie is strongly affected by it, and the people still more so.

This increase of the Jacobin spirit has resulted in the fact that political conceptions, institutions, and laws tend to impose themselves by force. Syndicalism, peaceful enough in other countries, immediately assumed in France an uncompromising and anarchical aspect, which betrayed itself in the shape of riots, sabotage, and incendiarism.

Not to be repressed by timid Governments, the Jacobin spirit produces melancholy ravages in minds of mediocre capacity. At a recent congress of railway men a third of the delegates voted approval of sabotage, and one of the secretaries of the Congress began his speech by saying: “I send all saboteurs my fraternal greeting and all my admiration.”

This general mentality engenders an increasing anarchy. That France is not in a permanent state of anarchy is, as I have already remarked, due to the fact that the parties by which she is divided produce something like equilibrium. They are animated by a mortal hatred for one another, but none of them is strong enough to enslave its rivals.

This Jacobin intolerance is spreading to such an extent that the rulers themselves employ without scruple the most revolutionary tactics with regard to their enemies, violently persecuting any party that offers the least resistance, and even despoiling it of its property. Our rulers to-day behave as the ancient conquerors used; the vanquished have nothing to hope from the victors.

Far from being peculiar to the lower orders, intolerance is equally prominent among the ruling classes. Michelet remarked long ago that the violence of the cultivated classes is often greater than that of the people. It is true that they do not break the street lamps, but they are ready enough to cause heads to be broken. The worst violence of the revolution was the work of cultivated bourgeoisie—professors, lawyers, &c., possessors of that classical education which is supposed to soften the manners. It has not done so in these days, any more than it did of old. One can make sure of this by reading the advanced journals, whose contributors and editors are recruited chiefly from among the professors of the University.

Their books are as violent as their articles, and one wonders how such favourites of fortune can have secreted such stores of hatred.

One would find it hard to credit them did they assure us that they were consumed by an intense passion for altruism. One might more readily admit that apart from a narrow religious mentality the hope of being remarked by the mighty ones of the day, or of creating a profitable popularity, is the only possible explanation of the violence recommended in their written propaganda.

I have already, in one of my preceding works, cited some passages from a book written by a professor at the College of France, in which the author incites the people to seize upon the riches of the bourgeoisie, whom he furiously abuses, and have arrived at the conclusion that a new revolution would readily find among the authors of such books the Marats, Robespierres, and Carriers whom it might require.

The Jacobin religion—above all in its Socialist form—has all the power of the ancient faiths over feeble minds Blinded by their faith, they believe that reason is their guide, but are really actuated solely by their passions and their dreams.

The evolution of democratic ideas has thus produced not only the political results already mentioned, but also a considerable effect upon the mentality of modern men.

If the ancient dogmas have long ago exhausted their power, the theories of democracy are far from having lost theirs, and we see their consequences increasing daily. One of the chief results has been the general hatred of superiority.

This hatred of whatever passes the average in social fortune or intelligence is to-day general in all classes, from the working-classes to the upper strata of the bourgeoisie. The results are envy, detraction, and a love of attack, of raillery, of persecution, and a habit of attributing all actions to low motives, of refusing to believe in probity, disinterestedness, and intelligence.

Conversation, among the people as among the most cultivated Frenchmen, is stamped with the craze for abasing and abusing everything and everyone. Even the greatest of the dead do not escape this tendency. Never were so many books written to depreciate the merit of famous men, men who were formerly regarded as the most precious patrimony of their country.

Envy and hatred seem from all time to have been inseparable from democratic theories, but the spread of these sentiments has never been so great as to-day. It strikes all observers.

“There is a low demagogic instinct,” writes M. Bourdeau, “without any moral inspiration, which dreams of pulling humanity down to the lowest level, and for which any superiority, even of culture, is an offence to society… it is the sentiment of ignoble equality which animated the Jacobin butchers when they struck off the head of a Lavoisier or a Chenier.

This hatred of superiority, the most prominent element in the modern progress of Socialism, is not the only characteristic of the new spirit created by democratic ideas.

Other consequences, although indirect, are not less profound. Such, for example, are the progress of “statism,” the diminution of the power of the bourgeoisie, the increasing activity of financiers, the conflict of the classes, the vanishing of the old social constraints, and the degradation of morality.

All these effects are displayed in a general insubordination and anarchy. The son revolts against the father, the employee against his patron, the soldier against his officers. Discontent, hatred, and envy reign throughout.

A social movement which continues is necessarily like a machine in movement which accelerates its motion. We shall therefore find that the results of this mentality will become yet more important. It is betrayed from time to time by incidents whose gravity is daily increasing—railway strikes, postmen’s strikes, explosions on board ironclads, &c. A propos of the destruction of the Liberte, which cost more than two million pounds and slew two hundred men in the space of a minute, an ex-Minister of Marine, M. de Lanessan, expresses himself as follows:—

”The evil that is gnawing at our fleet is the same as that which is devouring our army, our public administrations, our parliamentary system, our governmental system, and the whole fabric of our society. This evil is anarchy—that is to say, such a disorder of minds and things that nothing is done as reason would dictate, and no one behaves as his professional or moral duty should require him to behave.”

On the subject of the catastrophe of the Liberte, which followed that of the Iena, M. Felix Roussel said, in a speech delivered as president of the municipal council of Paris:—

“The causes of the evil are not peculiar to our day. The evil is more general, and bears a triple name: irresponsibility, indiscipline, and anarchy.”

These quotations, which state facts with which everyone is familiar, show that the staunchest upholders of the republican system themselves recognise the progress of social disorganisation.[12] Everyone sees it, while he is conscious of his own impotence to change anything. It results, in fact, from mental influences whose power is greater than that of our wills.

[12] This disorder is the same in all the Government departments Interesting examples will be found in a report of M. Dausset to the Municipal Council:—

“The service of the public highways, which ought above all to be noted for its rapid execution, is, on the contrary, the very type of red-tape, bureaucratic, and ink-slinging administration, possessing men and money and wasting both in tasks which are often useless, for lack of order, initiative, and method—in a word, of organisation.

Speaking then of the directors of departments, each of whom works as he pleases, and after his own fashion, he adds:—

“These important persons completely ignore one another; they prepare and execute their plans without knowing anything of what their neighbours are doing; there is no one above them to group and co-ordinate their work.” This is why a road is often torn up, repaired, and then torn up again a few days later, because the departments dealing with the supply of water, gas, electricity, and the sewers are mutually jealous, and never attempt to work together. This anarchy and indiscipline naturally cost enormous sums of money, and a private firm which operated in this manner would soon find itself bankrupt.

3. Universal Suffrage and its Representatives.

Among the dogmas of democracy perhaps the most fundamental of all and the most attractive is that of universal suffrage. It gives the masses the idea of equality, since for a moment at least rich and poor, learned and ignorant, are equal before the electoral urn. The minister elbows the least of his servants, and during this brief moment the power of one is as great as the others.

All Governments,