Mass psychology – Gustave Le Bon | Psychology

The author believes that the masses are not rational, as they reject ideas or accept them entirely without engaging in discussion. What the leaders say to them quickly invades their minds, so they tend to turn it into movement and action, and what is inspired to them elevates it to the level of an example, then impulsively pushes it toward self-sacrifice. They know nothing but intense emotion, so their empathy soon turns into worship, and they hardly dislike something until they rush to hate it. In the collective state, the capacity for thinking decreases, and the different dissolves into the similar, while characteristics originating from the subconscious dominate. Even if the masses are secular, they still have religious reactions, leading them to worship the leader, fear his wrath, and blindly submit to his will, so his words become dogma that is not to be discussed, and the desire to generalize this dogma arises. Those who do not share the masses' admiration for the leader's words become enemies. There are no masses without a leader just as there is no leader without masses. Gustave Le Bon (1841-1931), a French doctor and sociologist who was interested in Eastern civilization, a pioneer of sociology, one of the most famous Western philosophers, and one of those who appreciated Arab and Islamic civilization.