Yo Don't expect a measured analysis from Suella Braverman, but around this time last year I was surprised to hear her describe Palestinian solidarity as “hate marches.” Earlier that week I stood with my friends (some Jewish like me, some not) before a crowd of 500,000 on Waterloo Bridge, looking west across the Thames towards Parliament, as a British Muslim girl of I sang for about eight years. A strong voice: “Gaza, Gaza, don't cry / We will never let you die.”
In my years of attending and reporting on protests, rallies, general strikes, and riots, I have rarely experienced mass gatherings more orderly, peaceful, and family-oriented than these demonstrations.
However, Braverman is not alone in her condemnation. As Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak warned that “democratic rule is being replaced by mob rule”, while Keir Starmer's office sternly advised his MPs and council leaders not to “under any circumstances” join the mob. who called for a ceasefire. In March this year, “extremism consultant” John Woodcock put forward an unusual plan for MPs and councilors to engage with protest organisers. In this case, contrary to my experience and that of hundreds of thousands of peaceful protesters, a crowd – sorry, a “mob” – has been designated by the establishment as toxic to be a part of.
I shouldn't have been surprised, because our politics, media, and pop culture have always been riddled with these myths: people in power are intelligent mobs, angry mobs, people who can't think, mobs, and herd mentality. Throughout our lives, we have been told that joining crowds deprives us of agency, our capacity for rational thought, and our sense of identity and entitlement. Violence and moral turpitude spread like a contagion, invading every member of the crowd. In short, we become animals.
Like the “angry crowd” that appears in so many episodes of The Simpsons, pitchforks and flaming torches magically appear in our hands and, hypnotized and stripped of our individual humanity, we ask no questions, we seek blood and walk in lockstep. With the crowd of zombies. Gustave Le Bon, the godfather of crowd theory, wrote in 1895: “Man descends several rungs on the ladder of civilization by being part of an organized crowd. In isolation, he may be a cultivated individual; In the middle of the crowd, he is a savage.
Le Bon's Seed Work Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind is one of the best-selling nonfiction books of all time; It was translated into 19 languages within a year of its publication in France. He won admirers among presidents and dictators, police chiefs; Even Sigmund Freud was an admirer. In 2024, columnists and politicians regularly quote him to denounce gang mania. But there are two problems with this widespread wisdom about crowd psychology and behavior.
The first problem – and it is a big one – is that the work is verifiable and scientifically absurd. Le Bon was an eccentric eugenicist and proto-fascist, scarred by war, frightened by the growing demands of the French masses for democracy, socialism and the multitude. Driven by fear and hate, not research. It was no coincidence that Goebbels and Hitler enthusiastically adopted it (scholar Alfred Stein claims that Hitler stole parts of Le Bon's The Crowd). in Mein Kampf), and through Mussolini, who liked his work so much that he and Le Bon became pen pals. There is a direct line between traditional crowd theory and the incandescent horror of the Nuremberg demonstrations.
A second problem with the myths of mob mentality, stereotypical “herd logic” and contagious mob violence is that they are incredibly persistent – albeit falsely – in slandering the masses by accusing them of always being in the service of power. of elites and undermine democracy. It was not for nothing that her opponents called suffragette Christabel Pankhurst the “Queen of the Mob.” Presenting any self-gathering group as homogeneous and dangerous is as old as hierarchical power itself. After all, what is a gang? There's nothing categorically different or analytically precise about it: a mob is a group you don't like.
Fortunately, a new generation of crowd psychologists is developing new ideas. Extensive case studies by scholars such as Stephen Reicher and Clifford Stott have demonstrated what many of us intuitively know: joining a crowd of like-minded souls brings us connection, trust, and happiness, and each crowd has a variety of psychological responses and of behavior. . In his first study of the 1980 “riots” at St Paul's in Bristol, Reicher discovered an unpleasant truth: joy, warmth and solidarity were often experienced even when cars were burned. Gathering with other football fans, music fans or people of the same political or religious affiliation greatly affirms, not destroys, our sense of identity. For example, how else do you explain moshpits? To most wars, they seem like a shortcut of twisted masochism and broken ankles; For participants, they are electrifying, life-affirming moments of collective joy, the kind that can only be happier when strangers laugh with you.
This does not mean that all multitudes are forces for good. While my reporting has led me to inspire political protests, world festivals and other festivals in the name of journalism, I have also witnessed unpleasant gatherings. the fascist paramilitary Magyar Gárda in Budapest and a pro-Trump Tea Party rally in White Plains, New York; I've even gone to see Chelsea at Stamford Bridge. Having watched with horror the racist riots of August this year, I am not surprised that many racists chose Le Bonian's classic explanation. But applying the same unfounded analysis to groups we don't like does not strengthen the anti-racist cause. When you call a violent fascist a “fool,” you are not avoiding a much-needed reckoning with his hateful ideology, freeing him from his conscious decisions and actions.
Did the rioters who tried to burn people alive in a Rotherham hotel suddenly “lost their minds”, succumbed to “herd mentality” and “were carried away by the crowd”? Or a group of mostly organized and experienced fascists with a clear plan to intimidate or even kill Muslims, refugees and other immigrants? Politicians like to dismiss riots as mass madness because a deeper look at their causes yields unpleasant answers; for example, you could link a group of violent racists shouting “stop the boats” to a political class. An election campaign a few weeks ago.
When those in authority speak of a crowd, it is a calculated attempt to reduce the multiple categories of thought, behavior, and personality of its members. Le Bon's brilliant theories of masses have remained the default for 130 years because they serve a purpose as old as masses. That purpose is simple: elevate the powerful and delegitimize the public. If we want to renew our democracy, our culture, and our civil society, the best place to start is to show some respect to the complex forces of the multitude.
