Gustave Le Bon | |
|---|---|
 Le Bon, 1888 | |
| Born | Charles-Marie-Gustave Le Bon (1841-05-07)7 May 1841 |
| Died | 13 December 1931(1931-12-13) (aged 90) |
| Resting place | Père Lachaise Cemetery |
| Education | University of Paris (M.D.) |
| Known for | The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind Crowd Psychology |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Anthropology,psychology,sociology,medicine,engineering,physics |
Charles-Marie Gustave Le Bon[a] (7 May 1841 – 13 December 1931) was a leading Frenchpolymath whose areas of interest includedanthropology,psychology,sociology,medicine, invention, andphysics.[1][2][3] He is best known for his 1895 workThe Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind, which is considered one of the seminal works ofcrowd psychology.[4][5]
A native ofNogent-le-Rotrou, Le Bon qualified as a doctor of medicine at theUniversity of Paris in 1866. He opted against the formal practice of medicine as a physician, instead beginning his writing career the same year of his graduation. He published a number of medical articles and books before joining theFrench Army after the outbreak of theFranco-Prussian War. Defeat in the war coupled with being a first-hand witness to theParis Commune of 1871 strongly shaped Le Bon's worldview. He then travelled widely, touring Europe, Asia and North Africa. He analysed the peoples and the civilisations he encountered under the umbrella of the nascent field of anthropology, developing anessentialist view of humanity, and invented a portablecephalometer during his travels.
In the 1890s, he turned to psychology and sociology, in which fields he released his most successful works. Le Bon developed the view that crowds are not the sum of their individual parts, proposing that within crowds there forms a new psychological entity, the characteristics of which are determined by the "racial unconscious" of the crowd. At the same time he created his psychological and sociological theories, he performed experiments in physics and published popular books on the subject, anticipating themass–energy equivalence and prophesising theAtomic Age. Le Bon maintained his eclectic interests up until his death in 1931.
Ignored or maligned by sections of the French academic and scientific establishment during his life due to his politicallyconservative andreactionary views, Le Bon was critical ofmajoritarianism andsocialism.
Charles-Marie Gustave Le Bon was born inNogent-le-Rotrou,Centre-Val de Loire on 7 May 1841 to a family ofBreton ancestry. At the time of Le Bon's birth, his mother, Annette Josephine Eugénic Tétiot Desmarlinais, was twenty-six and his father, Jean-Marie Charles Le Bon, was forty-one and a provincial functionary of the French government.[6] Le Bon was a direct descendant of Jean-Odet Carnot, whose grandfather, Jean Carnot, had a brother, Denys, from whom the fifth president of theFrench Third Republic,Marie François Sadi Carnot, was directly descended.[7]
When Le Bon was eight years old, his father obtained a new post in French government and the family, including Gustave's younger brother Georges, left Nogent-le-Rotrou never to return. Nonetheless, the town was proud that Gustave Le Bon was born there and later named a street after him.[7] Little else is known of Le Bon's childhood, except for his attendance at alycée inTours, where he was an unexceptional student.[8]
In 1860, he began medicinal studies at theUniversity of Paris. He completed his internship atHôtel-Dieu de Paris, and received hisdoctorate in 1866. From that time on, he referred to himself as "Doctor" though he never formally worked as a physician. During his university years, Le Bon wrote articles on a range of medical topics, the first of which related to the maladies that plagued those who lived inswamp-like conditions. He published several other aboutloa loa filariasis andasphyxia before releasing his first full-length book in 1866,De la mort apparente et des inhumations prématurées. This work dealt with the definition ofdeath, preceding 20th-centurylegal debates on the issue.[9]
After his graduation, Le Bon remained in Paris, where he taught himselfEnglish andGerman by readingWilliam Shakespeare's works in each language.[10] He maintained his passion for writing and authored several papers onphysiological studies, as well as an 1868 textbook aboutsexual reproduction, before joining theFrench Army as a medical officer after the outbreak of theFranco-Prussian War in July 1870.[11] During the war, Le Bon organised a division ofmilitary ambulances. In that capacity, he observed the behaviour of the military under the worst possible condition—total defeat, and wrote about his reflections on military discipline, leadership and the behaviour of man in a state of stress and suffering. These reflections garnered praise from generals, and were later studied atSaint-Cyr and other military academies in France. At the end of the war, Le Bon was named aChevalier of theLegion of Honour.[12]
Le Bon also witnessed theParis Commune of 1871, which deeply affected his worldview. The then thirty-year-old Le Bon looked on as Parisian revolutionary crowds burned down theTuileries Palace, the library of theLouvre, theHôtel de Ville, theGobelins Manufactory, thePalais de Justice, and other irreplaceable works of architectural art.[13]
From 1871 on, Le Bon was an avowed opponent ofsocialistpacifists andprotectionists, who he believed were halting France's martial development and stifling her industrial growth; stating in 1913: "Only people with lots of cannons have the right to be pacifists."[14] He also warned his countrymen of the deleterious effects of political rivalries in the face of German military might and rapid industrialisation, and therefore was uninvolved in theDreyfus Affair which dichotomised France.[13]
Le Bon became interested in the emerging field ofanthropology in the 1870s and travelled throughoutEurope,Asia andNorth Africa. Influenced byCharles Darwin,Herbert Spencer andErnst Haeckel, Le Bon supportedbiological determinism and a hierarchical view of the races and sexes; after extensive field research, he posited a correlation between cranial capacity and intelligence inRecherches anatomiques et mathématiques sur les variations de volume du cerveau et sur leurs relations avec l'intelligence (1879), which earned him the Godard Prize from theFrench Academy of Sciences.[15] During his research, he invented a portablecephalometer to aid with measuring the physical characteristics of remote peoples, and in 1881 published a paper, "The Pocket Cephalometer, or Compass of Coordinates", detailing his invention and its application.[16]
In 1884, he was commissioned by the French government to travel aroundAsia and report on the civilisations there.[11] The results of his journeys were a number of books, and a development in Le Bon's thinking to also view culture to be influenced chiefly by hereditary factors such as the unique racial features of the people.[17][18] The first book, entitledLa Civilisation des Arabes, was released in 1884. In this, Le Bon praisedArabs highly for their contributions to civilisation, but criticisedIslamism as an agent of stagnation.[19][20] He also described their culture as superior to that of theTurks who governed them, and translations of this work were inspirational to earlyArab nationalists.[21][22] He followed this with a trip toNepal, becoming the first Frenchman to visit the country, and releasedVoyage au Népal in 1886.[23]
He next publishedLes Civilisations de l'Inde (1887), in which he applauded Indian architecture, art and religion but argued that Indians were comparatively inferior to Europeans in regard to scientific advancements, and that this had facilitated British domination.[24] In 1889, he releasedLes Premières Civilisations de l'Orient, giving in it an overview of the Mesopotamian, Indian, Chinese and Egyptian civilisations. The same year, he delivered a speech to the International Colonial Congress criticising colonial policies which included attempts ofcultural assimilation, stating: "Leave to the natives their customs, their institutions and their laws."[25] Le Bon released the last book on the topic of his travels, entitledLes monuments de l'Inde, in 1893, again praising the architectural achievements of the Indian people.[26]
On his travels, Le Bon travelled largely on horseback and noticed that techniques used by horse breeders and trainers varied dependent on the region. He returned to Paris and in 1892, while riding a high-spirited horse, he was bucked off and narrowly escaped death. He was unsure as to what caused him to be thrown off the horse, and decided to begin a study of what he had done wrong as a rider.[27] The result of his study wasL'Équitation actuelle et ses principes. Recherches expérimentales (1892), which consisted of numerous photographs of horses in action combined with analysis by Le Bon. This work became a respected cavalry manual, and Le Bon extrapolated his studies on the behaviour of horses to develop theories onearly childhood education.[28]
Le Bon's behavioural study of horses also sparked a long-standing interest inpsychology, and in 1894 he releasedLois psychologiques de l'évolution des peuples. This work was dedicated to his friendCharles Richet though it drew much from the theories ofThéodule-Armand Ribot, to whom Le Bon dedicatedPsychologie des Foules (1895).[29]Psychologie des Foules was in part a summation of Le Bon's 1881 work,L'Homme et les sociétés, to whichÉmile Durkheim referred in his doctoral dissertation,De la division du travail social.[30]
Both were best-sellers, withPsychologie des Foules being translated into nineteen languages within one year of its appearance.[31] Le Bon followed these with two more books on psychology,Psychologie du Socialisme andPsychologie de l'Éducation, in 1896 and 1902 respectively. These works rankled the largely socialist academic establishment of France.[32]
Le Bon constructed a home laboratory in the early 1890s, and in 1896 reported observing "black light", a new kind ofradiation that he believed was distinct from, but possibly related to,X-rays andcathode rays.[33] Not the same type of radiation as what is now known asblack light, its existence was never confirmed and, similar toN rays, it is now generally understood to be non-existent, but the discovery claim attracted much attention among French scientists at the time, many of whom supported it and Le Bon's general ideas on matter and radiation, and he was even nominated for theNobel Prize in Physics in 1903.[34]
In 1902, Le Bon began a series of weekly luncheons to which he invited prominent intellectuals, nobles and ladies of fashion. The strength of his personal networks is apparent from the guest list: participants included cousinsHenri andRaymond Poincaré,Paul Valéry,Alexander Izvolsky,Henri Bergson,Marcellin Berthelot andAristide Briand.[35]
InL'Évolution de la Matière (1905), Le Bon anticipated themass–energy equivalence, and in a 1922 letter toAlbert Einstein complained about his lack of recognition. Einstein responded and conceded that a mass–energy equivalence had been proposed before him, but only thetheory of relativity had cogently proved it.[36]Gaston Moch gave Le Bon credit for anticipating Einstein's theory of relativity.[37] InL'Évolution des Forces (1907), Le Bon prophesied theAtomic Age.[38][39] He wrote about "the manifestation of a new force—namelyintra-atomic energy—which surpasses all others by its colossal magnitude," and stated that a scientist who discovered a way todissociate rapidly one gram of any metal would "not witness the results of his experiments ... the explosion produced would be so formidable that his laboratory and all neighbouring houses, with their inhabitants, would be instantaneously pulverised."[40][41]
Le Bon discontinued his research in physics in 1908, and turned again to psychology. He releasedLa Psychologie politique et la défense sociale,Les Opinions et les croyances,La Révolution Française et la Psychologie des Révolutions,Aphorismes du temps présent, andLa Vie des vérités in back-to-back years from 1910 to 1914, expounding in which his views on affective and rational thought, the psychology of race, and the history of civilisation.
Le Bon continued writing throughoutWorld War I, publishingEnseignements Psychologiques de la Guerre Européenne (1915),Premières conséquences de la guerre: transformation mentale des peuples (1916) andHier et demain. Pensées brèves (1918) during the war.
He then releasedPsychologie des Temps Nouveaux (1920) before resigning from his position as Professor of Psychology and Allied Sciences at the University of Paris and retiring to his home.
He releasedLe Déséquilibre du Monde,Les Incertitudes de l'heure présente andL'évolution actuelle du monde, illusions et réalités in 1923, 1924 and 1927 respectively, giving in them his views of the world during the volatileinterwar period.
He became aGrand-Croix of the Legion of Honour in 1929. He published his last work, entitledBases scientifiques d'une philosophie de l'histoire, in 1931 and on 13 December, died inMarnes-la-Coquette,Île-de-France at the age of ninety.[42]
In putting an end to the long, diverse and fruitful activity of Gustave Le Bon, death deprived our culture of a truly remarkable man. His was a man of most exceptional intelligence; it sprang entirely from within himself; he was his own master, his own initiator.... Science and philosophy have suffered a cruel loss.[43]
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Convinced that human actions are guided by eternal laws, Le Bon attempted to synthesiseAuguste Comte andHerbert Spencer withJules Michelet andAlexis de Tocqueville.[citation needed]
According toSteve Reicher, Le Bon was not the firstcrowd psychologist: "The first debate in crowd psychology was actually between twocriminologists,Scipio Sighele andGabriel Tarde, concerning how to determine and assign criminal responsibility within a crowd and hence who to arrest."[44] Le Bon, who also explicitly recognised the positive potential of crowds, viewed the criminological focus of the earlier authors as an unnecessary restriction for the study of crowd psychology.[45]
Le Bon theorised that the new entity, the "psychological crowd", which emerges from incorporating the assembled population not only forms a new body but also creates a collective "unconsciousness". As a group of people gather together and coalesces to form a crowd, there is a "magnetic influence given out by the crowd" that transmutes every individual's behaviour until it becomes governed by the "group mind". This model treats the crowd as a unit in its composition which robs every individual member of their opinions, values and beliefs; as Le Bon states: "An individual in a crowd is a grain of sand amid other grains of sand, which the wind stirs up at will".
Le Bon detailed three key processes that create the psychological crowd: i) Anonymity, ii) Contagion and iii) Suggestibility. Anonymity provides to rational individuals a feeling of invincibility and the loss of personal responsibility. An individual becomes primitive, unreasoning, and emotional. This lack of self-restraint allows individuals to "yield to instincts" and to accept the instinctual drives of their "unconscious". For Le Bon, the crowd inverts Darwin's law of evolution and becomesatavistic, provingErnst Haeckel's embryological theory: "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny". Contagion refers to the spread in the crowd of particular behaviours and individuals sacrifice their personal interest for the collective interest. Suggestibility is the mechanism through which the contagion is achieved; as the crowd coalesces into a singular mind, suggestions made by strong voices in the crowd create a space for the unconscious to come to the forefront and guide its behaviour. At this stage, the psychological crowd becomes homogeneous and malleable to suggestions from its strongest members. "The leaders we speak of," says Le Bon, "are usually men of action rather than of words. They are not gifted with keen foresight... They are especially recruited from the ranks of those morbidly nervous excitable half-deranged persons who are bordering on madness."
George Lachmann Mosse claimed that fascist theories of leadership that emerged during the 1920s owed much to Le Bon's theories of crowd psychology.Adolf Hitler is known to have readThe Crowd and inMein Kampf drew on thepropaganda techniques proposed by Le Bon.[46][47]Benito Mussolini also made a careful study of Le Bon.[48]
Le Bon was widely read within theCommittee of Union and Progress in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Philosophical and military leaders who would later lead theYoung Turk Revolution, such asAhmet Rıza andEnver Bey, took inspiration from Le Bon and movements such asSocial Darwinism to define their elitist and authoritarian approach to politics, as well as their advocacy ofrevolution from above.[49]
Some commentators have drawn a link between Le Bon andVladimir Lenin / theBolsheviks.[50]
Just prior toWorld War I,Wilfred Trotter introducedWilfred Bion to Le Bon's writings andSigmund Freud's workGroup Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego. Trotter's bookInstincts of the Herd in Peace and War (1919) forms the basis for the research of both Wilfred Bion andErnest Jones who established what would be calledgroup dynamics. During the first half of the twentieth century, Le Bon's writings were used by media researchers such asHadley Cantril andHerbert Blumer to describe the reactions of subordinate groups to media.
Edward Bernays, a nephew ofSigmund Freud, was influenced by Le Bon and Trotter. In his influential bookPropaganda, he declared that a major feature ofdemocracy was the manipulation of the electorate by themass media andadvertising. Some have claimed that,Theodore Roosevelt andCharles G. Dawes and many other Americanprogressives in the early 20th century were also deeply affected by Le Bon's writings.[51]
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