The Crowd · Chapter
Experience explained
This chapter argues that experience is the only effective means to establish truths in the minds of crowds and to destroy dangerous illusions, but it must be repeated on a large scale and frequently.
What happens
This chapter argues that experience is the only effective means to establish truths in the minds of crowds and to destroy dangerous illusions, but it must be repeated on a large scale and frequently. Historical experiences, such as the French Revolution and costly wars, are cited to show that lessons are not easily learned by successive generations, and that repeated, ruinous experiments are necessary to shake deeply held erroneous beliefs.
Themes in this chapter
Irrationality and Credulity
Crowds cling to erroneous beliefs despite clear historical evidence, requiring repeated catastrophic experiences to change their minds.
Power of Beliefs and Ideas
Deeply implanted illusions in the minds of the masses are so powerful that only repeated, large-scale experiences can shake them.
Social Change and Revolution
The French Revolution is presented as a massive experiment in social refashioning, demonstrating the cost of attempting to reshape society by pure reason.
Characters to notice
- Crowds
The subject of the chapter; crowds are the entities whose minds are shaped by repeated experiences.
- Unknown Narrator
The narrator presents the argument about the necessity of repeated experience for crowds.
Key passages
“Experience alone can fix in the mind of crowds truths become necessary and destroy illusions grown dangerous—Experience is only effective on the condition that it be frequently repeated—The cost of the experiences requisite to persuade crowds.”
Only repeated, large-scale experience can establish necessary truths in the minds of crowds and eliminate dangerous illusions, but such experiences come at a great cost.
Opening thesis of the chapter.
“To find out that a society is not to be refashioned from top to bottom in accordance with the dictates of pure reason, it was necessary that several millions of men should be massacred and that Europe should be profoundly disturbed for a period of twenty years.”
The French Revolution proved that you cannot completely rebuild society using pure reason alone, but only after millions died and Europe was disrupted for twenty years.
Example of the cost of learning through experience.
“To prove to us experimentally that dictators cost the nations who acclaim them dear, two ruinous experiences have been required in fifty years, and in spite of their clearness they do not seem to have been sufficiently convincing.”
Two disastrous experiments with dictators in the last fifty years have shown how costly they are, yet the lesson still hasn't fully sunk in.
Observation on the repeated need for experience to teach about dictators.