Synopsis
Le Bon argues that individuals in a crowd lose their reason and individuality, becoming suggestible, impulsive, and easily led by forceful leaders.
Core passage idea
Paraphrase · Public domainIn a crowd the conscious personality dissolves and people think and act by contagion, governed by emotion and image rather than reasoned judgment.
It plants the enduring fear that mass politics unleashes irrational collective behavior open to manipulation.
To avoid a bubble
Pair with Ortega y Gasset, The Revolt of the Masses.
Reading note
Read with caution; its sweeping claims are dated and elitist, but historically very influential.
Best paired with
Ortega y Gasset, The Revolt of the Masses