The Imagination of Crowds ; The Imagination of Crowds: The efficacy of a false hypothesis

Abstract

International audience ; Literature produced around the notion of charisma (attributed to the chief, the master, the leader, the Father, the guru, the boss, etc.) has supplied, in the past, arguments for Nazi and Fascist propaganda (Cohen 2013; De Felice 1968). This seems clear by Hitler and Mussolini's great interest for Gustave Le Bon's The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind (1895), translated in English one year later (Le Bon 2001). How does Le Bon describe the absence of control, the exceptional character and the radical alterity of this crowd or "multitude" (Le Bon, 2001: 68)? In his major book, Gustave Le Bon - father of social psychology, in late nineteenth century - builds a visual theory of the crowd and a visual politics of charismatic domination. Nevertheless, we can conclude that Le Bon formulated a false hypothesis, based on a false effective appearance. As we have seen, Le Bon explains throughout his treatise, what are the characteristics of the "crowds", why do they need to be commanded by a charismatic chief, and how shall this chief behave, purposely using the visual to give a political form to the crowd, and to maintain the multitude under his control. The efficacy of visual representation is the means through which the dominant class can maintain his power. My hypothesis is that, following the use made after The Crowd by early twentieth century men of industry, liberal western statesmen, and European dictators -, Le Bon's thesis has worked as a self-fulfilling prophecy. Le Bon produces a strange relationship between belief and behaviour, where the content of the first shapes the second. Making Le Bon's theory of charismatic leadership a self-fulfilling prophecy, means not distinguishing between from one side, the political and visual imagination of a crowd, and, from the other side, the shaping of a crowd. Formulating clearly this distinction seems to be a necessary act of critique. Le Bon captures the fact that an affective dynamics constitutes the charismatic relationship between a chief and ...