The power of the crowd

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUee1I69nFs&t=13s

Peter Kopa, Prague, 28.3.2023.

Aristotle is credited with being the first person to write about the “wisdom of the multitude” in his work Politics.  He tells us: “it is possible that the many, though not individually good men, when they come together are better, not individually but collectively”. Crowd psychology is a branch of social psychology that deals with the differences between the psychology of a crowd and the psychology of the people in it.

Crowd psychology investigates the behaviors and thought processes of both the individual members of the crowd and the crowd as a collective social entity. The behavior of a crowd predisposes to de-individuation, the loss of a person’s responsibility, and the impression of universality of one’s behavior, both conditions that increase in magnitude with the size of the crowd. Notable theorists of crowd psychology include Gustave Le Bon, Gabriel Tarde, and Sigmund Freud. El poder de las masas I

Diversity of crowds

The behavior of a human mass depends on the end that animates it (sport, consumption, travel, political interests etc.) What interests us here is above all the interaction between the crowd and the external agent that aims to achieve a certain response from it. Thus, the crowd is the common target of multiple and diverse actions, such as commercial advertising, the political dialogue that parties maintain with the grassroots, the biased incidence of mainstream media and social networks, the impact of education at all levels, etc.

Government is what most influences the lives of individuals and is the level at which the most relevant issues are debated. Ideally, the government should be unblemished democratic (no voting fraud, ideologically neutral, faithful to the rule of law etc.) but this innocent purity does not exist. And this because man is inclined to evil, so he has to strive to be good, especially when he has an official function, because it is the source of all kinds of temptations that incline him to seek his own good at the expense of his duty to procure the good of others, who put their trust in him by voting for him and supporting him with their tax contributions.

The power dynamics of the multitude

The billions that populate the earth, or its organized parts in the form of the 200 states that exist today, are the ultimate and essential origin of all that happens: it is men, as sustainers of the power of the multitude, who produce, consume, create laws, govern and are governed, make war and peace possible, create culture and always strive to seek the highest values to reach their individual and social fulfillment.  The multitude is potentially the strongest human element, and behaves like the calm waters of the sea. Winds or other agents can turn it into useful energy or into a devastating force. El poder de las masas II

If men were all pure and good, the whole vast array of the various actions of the human mass would be straight and just. Rousseau and Voltaire had this rationalistic prejudice in opposing the Christian conception of man, as an individual inwardly wounded by his inclination to evil, yet able to overcome it with a good education in the family and through faith.

This interior injury unfortunately projects itself and stains everything that man does, both as a multitude and personally. This is how infidelity, corruption, frauds, lies and any other moral misery can be understood. This damages all forms of coexistence and cooperation, as can be seen in the family, in the state and in any other sector of social coexistence.

The power of the multitude is expressed in the organizational forms that arise according to the reasons of common sense. Thus we see above all the organization of the state, which is the reality that most affects the life of man, because it exercises the power to administer justice, the exclusivity of armed force -both police and military-, the mandate to govern and to demand fiscal contributions and, finally, it has the function of issuing laws. Therefore, as the absolute power of the multitude proceeds, in history we can see so many cases where that same power has eliminated it, when it has opposed the legitimate rights of the base. This tension has different degrees and shades, even reaching the bloody revolutionary uprising.

Another crystallization of the power of the multitude is the objectification of religious faith, where God himself in the Old and New Testament has taken the initiative and laid the essential foundations of its expression: teachings, rites, churches, priesthood and sacred art are to this day a treasure that enriches and gives the best sense and content to culture. Moreover, it is thanks to it that the greatness of Western peoples and the rule of law has been made possible. It is a law and an experience of history that the power of the multitude, if not inspired by high principles, degenerates into governments that do not seek the good of the people. Examples that we know well only in the last hundred years are the communist and Nazi governments. The prologue of Western constitutions always invoke the name of God, in one form or another, and proclaim the rights and guarantees of man, to ensure his dignity and freedom.

How to move the power of the multitude

The overwhelming power of the human mass can only be moved by a massive convergence of individual wills that pursue certain goals.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUee1I69nFs&t=13sThis dynamic can also be brought about by mass manipulation techniques: Many initiatives are launched in this direction to ‘fix the world’s problems’. It is therefore worth reflecting on ways of mobilizing the power of the multitude for the common good. The forms of action have been changing in history, according to the possibilities of communication, considering that it is only since about 150 years ago that literacy has been widely established. Today, with the advantage of digital communication at zero cost, some interventions are accessible to all, like the following:

1.Thanks to the internet there are thousands of social networks and websites that offer an alternative sphere to the monopolistic regime of the so-called ‘mainstream media’, which controls not only the leading networks (Google, Youtube, Instagram etc.) but also the production of films and videos and the immense world of information on paper or digital. Los engaños de los ´mainstream media´.  Thus networks have emerged that over the years have proven to be very effective in monitoring government management, especially in terms of laws and justice. A good example is Citizengo.org. Although it started in Spain, it now has about twenty million followers in Europe. Today, everyone should consider joining one of these means to defend their rights against the frequent abuses of the state.

2. Street demonstrations have a very strong impact on the government. In history they have succeeded in overthrowing political command or abusive laws or official measures. In the time of the pandemic we have seen how they enforce what the electorate wants, against government abuses.

The lobbying that generally provokes groups and people of some economic or scientific rank. It is a matter of directly petitioning specific points to people in parliament or government. These initiatives do not always coincide with what the citizen base wants.

4.The voting of the rulers, every four to six years. Here the big problem is electoral fraud, which is greater than is generally supposed. If this has been seen in the USA, where the Democrats have acknowledged having committed electoral fraud to save democracy from the Republican clutches, how much more this injustice will have occurred in Latin America, or even a few years ago in Spain? The big problem of democracy is that unknown people with a low personal profile are always voted https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUee1I69nFs&t=13s.

5.The referendum, an example of how it is invoked in Switzerland https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUee1I69nFs&t=13s

6.  Boycott. Here citizens who share similar moral and cultural values can very easily, via the Internet, create a regional, national or even global base for action. With the support of thousands of consumers, this gives them the strength to prevent abuses, books and productions that harm children, young and old. It is possible to demand the non-sale of certain articles, to fight against pornography and immorality in fashion, etc. Recent examples of boycotts are the Netflix and Disney crisis. Millions stop consuming their products or sell their shares on the stock exchange, as a protest against genderism and sex education of children.

Dispositions manifested by the crowd

Many thinkers have compared the human multitude with a flock of sheep, because it is calm, as long as it has good pasture, water and a good shepherd who defends them from the wolves. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUee1I69nFs&t=13s . From a material point of view, man has never lived so well as in the last hundred years. Science and technology procure him such a well-being that no king has ever had before. They would have paid half their kingdom for an antibiotic, or to be able to fly around the world, or to have a car much faster than their best horse. But the reality is that the material substratum of life only solves man’s bodily needs, but not his yearnings for happiness and fulfillment.

This material well-being tends to form a comfortable personal character, which shies away from striving for higher goods and makes people think not so much of the future, but of having a good time here and now. Unfortunately, this type of crowd is an easy prey to identify themselves with ideologies and let themselves go with the flow, like dead fish. In this drama we live today when we do not want to fight for a better world for ourselves and our children.