[No. 167] Encountering Business Books: People Lose Their 'Intelligence' When They Become a Crowd. The 130-Year-Old Prophetic Book on Social Media Firestorms, 'The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind'
In this **[Encountering Business Books]** series, I will introduce, one by one in review format, the business books I have encountered that have served as catalysts for changing my perspective on life and business.
Have you ever seen a scene where someone who is usually gentle and sensible suddenly becomes an anonymous account on social media, attacking others with foul language and participating in a firestorm? While this is often dismissed as the 'dark side of the internet society,' this phenomenon was actually fully predicted and its mechanisms explained more than 100 years before the internet was born.
Today, I will introduce an enduring classic that reveals the dark side of human psychology, secretly passed down and read by everyone from politicians who moved world history to top modern marketers.
Book and Author
The book I am introducing today is the historical masterpiece **'The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind'** (original title: Psychologie des Foules), published in 1895 by Gustave Le Bon, a French physician and social psychologist.
What kind of book is it?: A volume that elucidates how human beings enter a completely different psychological state when they exist as an 'individual' versus when they are incorporated into a 'crowd (group).' It coldly analyzes how a crowd loses its reason and becomes a slave to emotion and instinct; it is a potent psychological book said to have been read by later dictators like Hitler and Mussolini.
Introduction: 1+1 Becomes a 'Big 1'
We usually think that if smart people gather, a smarter group is formed. However, Le Bon asserts that the intelligence of a crowd does not become an 'addition.' Even in a conference room filled only with renowned scholars, the moment they become a 'crowd,' their intelligence level is dragged down to that of the least intelligent person.
'A crowd is never moved by reason'
When entering a group, people gain a sense of irresponsibility due to 'anonymity' and a sense of invincibility due to 'strength in numbers.' As a result, the individual's sense of morality and logical thinking vanish without a trace, and they transform into a primitive, emotional 'single large creature.' This is the true nature of the 'firestorms' occurring on modern social media.
The Core of the Book: The '3 Magics' That Move a Crowd
So, how can we move this 'crowd' that does not understand logic? Le Bon summarizes the techniques that a leader who incites a crowd should use into the following three points.
Affirmation Nuance and complex logic are not conveyed to a crowd. Instead of speculation like 'it might be X,' one must assert strongly and briefly without evidence, 'It is X!'
Repetition Repeat the short, affirmed phrase again and again. Rather than logical explanation, repetition carves the words into the 'depths of the unconscious' of the crowd.
Contagion When affirmation and repetition continue, enthusiasm is born within the crowd, and it spreads to other people like a virus. It is 'emotional contagion,' not logic, that is the driving force that moves a crowd.
This may look like a terrifying brainwashing technique, but it is the very technique used in modern TV commercial taglines and politicians' election slogans ('one-phrase politics').
Application to Modern Business / Practice: Do Not Confront a Crowd with Logic
In business and information dissemination, the strongest lesson we can learn from 'The Crowd' is that **'you must not counter a crowd (a firestorm) with logical explanations or arguments.'**
The Golden Rule of Handling Firestorms: When a company faces a firestorm on social media, even if they issue a long press release saying, 'The facts are such and such, and for this reason...', the emotional crowd (netizens) will not read a single line. To calm or move a crowd, there is no choice but to use 'intense imagery' or 'simple affirmations' rather than logical excuses.
The Essence of Mass Marketing: When selling a product for everyone, do not try to persuade them with complex spec sheets (logic), but appeal to their emotions with short taglines (affirmation) and commercials (repetition). This is a golden rule of business that has not changed in 130 years.
Summary: Preventing Your Own 'Crowd Mentality'
Reading 'The Crowd' might leave you feeling despair at how fragile and easily swayed human beings are.
However, this book is not just for manipulating others. Its greatest benefit is that it allows you to realize when you yourself are on the verge of becoming part of a crowd. When you are about to hit the repost button on social media in a fit of anger, you can objectively see that 'Oh, I am currently a member of a 'crowd' with diminished intelligence.'
In a modern society where information and emotions surge like a muddy torrent, this is the ultimate vaccine for protecting an individual's 'reason.'
▼ Recommended Reading (From Past Series)
This is a must-read list for applying the 'loss of reason in groups' and 'mechanisms of mass manipulation' learned in 'The Crowd' to modern marketing and social phenomena for a deeper understanding.
[No. 25] 'Propaganda: The Mechanics of Advertising and Political Promotion' [Reason for selection: The practice of crowd manipulation] A masterpiece that explains how to 'put into practice' Le Bon's 'The Crowd' in the worlds of politics and advertising. You can learn the terrifying mechanisms of propaganda that control the unconscious of the masses through assertion and repetition, guiding them in specific directions.
[No. 165] 'Mass Psychology and Advertising Techniques: Theory and Practice of Advertising Production to Dominate the Market' [Reason for selection: Hacking commercial mass psychology] Techniques for connecting the 'surges of emotion (desire)' that crowds possess to business sales. It brilliantly reveals how top copywriters use the fact that 'the masses are moved by emotion, not logic,' which Le Bon exposed, in the field of advertising.
[No. 115] 'We Are Manipulated by 'Shame': Modern Society That Exploits by Degrading Others' [Reason for selection: The modern crowd (social media mob)] The riots that occurred on the streets in Le Bon's time are now happening as 'cancel culture' and backlashes on social media. This book exposes how a crowd wearing a mask of justice attacks individuals and how social media companies exploit that system.
[No. 128] 'Obedience to Authority' [Reason for selection: The loss of individual morality] Why can good individuals do cruel things when they enter a group or authority? A psychological landmark by Stanley Milgram, known for the 'Milgram experiment.' It scientifically proves the mechanism by which an individual's sense of responsibility disappears within a crowd.
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▼ I introduce many other things too!