Similarly among some of the Indian tribes of Brazil, if the medicine-man predicted the death of anyone who had offended him, “the wretch5 took to his hammock instantly in such full expectation of dying, that he would neither eat nor drink, and the prediction was effectually executed.”
Speaking of certain African races Major Leonard observes: “I have seen more than one hardened old Haussa soldier dying steadily6 and by inches, because he believed himself to be bewitched; so that no nourishment7 or medicines that were given to him had the slightest effect either to check the mischief8 or to improve his condition in any way, and nothing was[304] able to divert him from a fate which he considered inevitable9.
“In the same way, and under very similar conditions, I have seen Kru-men and others die, in spite of every effort that was made to save them, simply because they had made up their minds, not (as we thought at the time) to die, but that being in the clutch of malignant10 demons12 they were bound to die.”
The gregarious13 individual must obey the master leader on pain of death. In gregarious life the whole pack attacks the disobedient individual for challenging the chief, king, priest, the god-man, the lord of the horde14. Obedience15 is a virtue, disobedience is a mortal sin, affecting the whole horde, hence a horrible death of the sinner is the sole punishment. The independent personality is inhibited16, the individual falls into a state of social somnambulism, and the will-less, self-less subconscious17, a semblance18 of personality, charged with self-preservation and fear instinct, obeys the commands of the master leader who is often a brutal19 type, a Nero, a Domitian, a Caracalla, a Caligula, a John the Terrible.
In a society where the socio-static press is always at work, where political pressure is far stronger than even in the ancient despotic monarchies20, where a class government is in possession of all modern improvements, where gray uniformity and drowsy21 monotony reign22 supreme23, obedience must be the rule. Blind, stupid obedience, that slavish obedience which[305] is peculiar24 to somnambulic subjects, characterizes such societies.
Servility is well illustrated25 by the following historical incident: Prince Sougorsky, ambassador to Germany in 1576, fell sick en route in Courland. The duke of the province often inquired as to his health. The reply was always the same: “My health matters nothing, provided the sovereign’s prospers26.” The duke, surprised, said, “How can you serve a tyrant27 with so much zeal28?” He replied, “We Russians are always devoted29 to our Czars, good or cruel. My master (Ivan the Terrible) impaled30 a man of mark for a slight fault, who for twenty-four hours, in his dying agonies, talked with his family, and without ceasing kept repeating, ‘Great God, protect the Czar!’”
The same is true of modern class societies where the Demos is the despot. God preserve the Demos! When the business demon11 of the Demos requires sacrifice, self immolation31, anticipate his order. Pray for the Demos; Great God, protect the greedy Demos! The Demos is my Lord, to him is due my servile loyalty32.
It is interesting to observe that the superstitious, the savage33, the negro, and the soldier are excellent subjects for hypnotic purposes. Soldiers as experiments show, have a strong predisposition to hypnotic states. I was told by Professor Münsterberg that the hypnotic predisposition was strongly developed[306] in the German soldier. M. Liebault experimented on ten hundred and twelve persons, and found only twenty-seven refractory34. Berenheim remarks on this that “It is necessary to take into account the fact that M. Liebault operates chiefly upon the common people.”
The great pressure exerted on the lower social strata35, and especially on soldiers, the dull monotony of their life, the habit of strict obedience to command, predisposes them to social subconscious automatisms,—to the formation of mobs, clubs, unions, lodges37, associations, parties, clans38, sects39, mobocracies. In all such organizations there is present the same servile spirit—the impersonal40 self and the gregarious fear instinct—the basis of subconscious, social somnambulism.
Man is a social somnambulist, he lives, dreams, and obeys with his eyes open. Whenever the impulse of self-preservation gets a special grip on the gregarious individual, when he becomes wild with terror in the bosom41 of the herd42, then he may be regarded as a psychopathic victim.
The historian of the future will represent our age as dark, barbaric, savage, an age of the cruel Napoleonic wars, of commercial crises, financial panics, religious revivals43, vicious, brutal, savage world wars,—mobs, crazes, plagues, social pests of all sorts and description....
[307]
A herd of sheep stand packed close together, looking stupidly into space.... Frighten them,—and if one begins to run, frantic44 with terror, the rest are sure to follow,—a stampede ensues, each sheep scrupulously45 reproduces the identical movements of the one in front of it. This susceptibility to imitation is but what we, in relation to man, term suggestibility, which consists in the impressing on the person of an idea, image, movement, however absurd and senseless, which the person in his hypnotized state reproduces like an automaton,—although he or she thinks it is done quite voluntarily. Suggestibility is natural to man as a social animal. Under specially36 favorable conditions this suggestibility which is always present in human beings may increase to an extraordinary degree, and the result is a stampede, a mob, an epidemic46.
It is sometimes claimed that somnambulic persons are asleep. Sleep and somnambulism have been identified. This is a misuse47 of words since there are a whole series of subconscious states in which not one symptom of sleep appears. Extreme susceptibility to suggestions and mental automatisms are the chief traits of the subconscious.
Gregarious men and women carry within themselves the germs of the possible mob, or of mental epidemics48. As social creatures men and women are naturally suggestible. When this susceptibility or[308] sensitivity to suggestions becomes abnormally intense, we may say that they are thrown into a social subconscious, somnambulic state.
We know by psychological and psychopathological experiments that limitation of voluntary movements and inhibition of free activities induce a subconscious state. This subconscious state is characterized by inhibition of the will power,—memory remains49 unaffected; consciousness appears intact; the subject is aware of all that goes on.
Keeping this in mind, we can understand social life, and especially morbid50, social movements, mob life of all ages.
A subconscious state is induced in the organized individual by the great limitation of his voluntary activities and by the inhibition of his free critical thought. Bound fast by the strings51 of tradition and authority, social men and women are reduced to subconscious automata. The subconscious rises with the growth of organized civilization, while the critical, independent powers of the individual correspondingly fall. Hence the apparent social paradox52 that the growth of society tends to destroy the mental forces which helped to build up civilization.
In such societies the individual staggers under the burden of laws and taboos53. Individuality is stifled55 under the endless massive excretions of legislators. Recently even the lawgivers or law manufacturers began to object to the labor56 involved in[309] the work on the ever growing mass of bills introduced into the legislature of one state alone. Thus a senator of a Western state complained that in one year over 1700 bills passed through the mill of his Legislature. Multiply that figure by the number of states, add the municipal edicts, and the endless laws turned out by the Federal Government, and one can form some faint idea of the vast burden laid on the shoulders of the individual citizen.
The Los Angeles Times, which no one will accuse of radicalism57, pointedly58 remarks: “The State has just issued a reference index to the laws of California since 1850—it is of itself a bulky volume of more than 1300 pages. When it takes a book of that size merely as an index it would seem that the lawmakers had about done their worst.”
Over-production of laws is one of the great evils of modern civilization. Civilized59 society is apt to be obsessed60 by a state of law-mania which is a danger and a menace to the free development of the individual citizen.
The Roman legal thinkers left us two significant sayings: Ex Senatus consultis et plebiscitis, crimina execrentur,—(Senatorial decisions and popular decrees give rise to crimes) and: Ut olim vitiis, sic nunc legibus laboramus,—(As we formerly61 suffered from vices62 and crimes so we suffer at present from laws and legislation)....
In describing the gregariousness63 of the Damara[310] oxen Francis Galton writes: “Although the ox has so little affection for, or interest in, his fellows, he cannot endure even a momentary64 severance65 from his herd. If he be separated from it by stratagem66 or force, he exhibits every sign of mental agony; he strives with all his might to get back again, and when he succeeds, he plunges67 into the middle to bathe his whole body with the comfort of closest companionship. This passionate68 terror is a convenience to the herdsman.” ... When an animal accustomed to a gregarious life is isolated69 from the herd, it is agitated70 with extreme terror. The same holds true of man who is a social animal. Man must go with the herd or with the pack, and he is terrified to stand alone, away from the crowd,—and still more terrorized when the crowd disapproves71 of him. Man is gregarious, and as such he must go with the mass, with the crowd. He is in mortal fear of social taboo54. As a gregarious animal man lives in fear of external danger, and is in terror of social authority.
As Galton writes: “The vast majority of persons of our race have a natural tendency to shrink from the responsibility of standing72 and acting73 alone: they exalt74 the vox populi, even when they know it to be the utterance75 of a mob of nobodies, into the vox Dei; they are willing slaves to tradition, authority and custom. The intellectual deficiencies corresponding to these moral flaws are shown by the rareness[311] of free and original thought as compared with the frequency and readiness with which men accept the opinions of those in authority as binding76 on their judgment77.” This slavish obedience is intimately bound up with one of the most fundamental of all instincts,—the fear instinct.
The individual is so effectively trained by the pressure of taboo based on self and fear, that he comes to love the yoke78 that weighs him down to earth. Chained to his bench like a criminal galley79 slave, he comes to love his gyves and manacles. The iron collar put around his neck becomes a mark of respectability, an ornament80 of civilization. Tarde finds that society is based on respect, a sort of an alloy81 of fear and love, fear that is loved. A respectable citizen is he who is fond of his bonds, stocks, and shekels, and comes to love his bonds, stocks, and shackles82 of fears and taboos.
Human institutions depend for their existence and stability on the impulse of self-preservation and its close associate,—the fear instinct.
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1
superstitious
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| adj.迷信的 | |
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infliction
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| n.（强加于人身的）痛苦，刑罚 | |
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inflicted
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| 把…强加给，使承受，遭受( inflict的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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wretch
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| n.可怜的人，不幸的人；卑鄙的人 | |
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steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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nourishment
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| n.食物，营养品；营养情况 | |
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mischief
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| n.损害，伤害，危害；恶作剧，捣蛋，胡闹 | |
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inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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malignant
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| adj.恶性的，致命的；恶意的，恶毒的 | |
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demon
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| n.魔鬼，恶魔 | |
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demons
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| n.恶人( demon的名词复数 )；恶魔；精力过人的人；邪念 | |
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gregarious
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| adj.群居的，喜好群居的 | |
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horde
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| n.群众，一大群 | |
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obedience
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| n.服从，顺从 | |
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inhibited
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| a.拘谨的，拘束的 | |
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subconscious
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| n./adj.潜意识(的)，下意识(的) | |
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semblance
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| n.外貌，外表 | |
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brutal
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| adj.残忍的，野蛮的，不讲理的 | |
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monarchies
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| n. 君主政体, 君主国, 君主政治 | |
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drowsy
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| adj.昏昏欲睡的，令人发困的 | |
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reign
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| n.统治时期，统治，支配，盛行；v.占优势 | |
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supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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illustrated
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| adj. 有插图的，列举的 动词illustrate的过去式和过去分词 | |
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prospers
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| v.成功，兴旺( prosper的第三人称单数 ) | |
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tyrant
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| n.暴君，专制的君主，残暴的人 | |
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zeal
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| n.热心，热情，热忱 | |
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devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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impaled
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| 钉在尖桩上( impale的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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immolation
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| n.牺牲品 | |
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loyalty
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| n.忠诚，忠心 | |
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savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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refractory
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| adj.倔强的，难驾驭的 | |
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strata
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| n.地层（复数）；社会阶层 | |
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specially
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| adv.特定地；特殊地；明确地 | |
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lodges
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| v.存放( lodge的第三人称单数 )；暂住；埋入；（权利、权威等）归属 | |
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clans
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| 宗族( clan的名词复数 )； 氏族； 庞大的家族； 宗派 | |
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sects
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| n.宗派，教派( sect的名词复数 ) | |
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impersonal
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| adj.无个人感情的，与个人无关的，非人称的 | |
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bosom
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| n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的 | |
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herd
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| n.兽群，牧群；vt.使集中，把…赶在一起 | |
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revivals
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| n.复活( revival的名词复数 )；再生；复兴；（老戏多年后）重新上演 | |
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frantic
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| adj.狂乱的，错乱的，激昂的 | |
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scrupulously
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| adv.一丝不苟地；小心翼翼地，多顾虑地 | |
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epidemic
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| n.流行病；盛行；adj.流行性的，流传极广的 | |
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47
misuse
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| n.误用，滥用；vt.误用，滥用 | |
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epidemics
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| n．流行病 | |
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remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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morbid
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| adj.病的；致病的；病态的；可怕的 | |
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strings
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| n.弦 | |
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paradox
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| n.似乎矛盾却正确的说法；自相矛盾的人(物) | |
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53
taboos
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| 禁忌( taboo的名词复数 )； 忌讳； 戒律； 禁忌的事物（或行为） | |
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54
taboo
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| n.禁忌，禁止接近，禁止使用；adj.禁忌的；v.禁忌，禁制，禁止 | |
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stifled
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| （使）窒息， （使）窒闷( stifle的过去式和过去分词 )； 镇压，遏制； 堵 | |
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labor
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| n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦 | |
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radicalism
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| n. 急进主义, 根本的改革主义 | |
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pointedly
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| adv.尖地，明显地 | |
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civilized
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| a.有教养的，文雅的 | |
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obsessed
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| adj.心神不宁的,鬼迷心窍的,沉迷的 | |
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formerly
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| adv.从前，以前 | |
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vices
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| 缺陷( vice的名词复数 )； 恶习； 不道德行为； 台钳 | |
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gregariousness
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| 集群性；簇聚性 | |
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momentary
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| adj.片刻的，瞬息的；短暂的 | |
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severance
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| n.离职金；切断 | |
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stratagem
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| n.诡计，计谋 | |
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plunges
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| n.跳进，投入vt.使投入，使插入，使陷入vi.投入，跳进，陷入v.颠簸( plunge的第三人称单数 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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passionate
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
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isolated
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| adj.与世隔绝的 | |
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agitated
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| adj.被鼓动的，不安的 | |
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disapproves
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| v.不赞成( disapprove的第三人称单数 ) | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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acting
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| n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的 | |
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exalt
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| v.赞扬，歌颂，晋升，提升 | |
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utterance
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| n.用言语表达，话语，言语 | |
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binding
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| 有约束力的，有效的，应遵守的 | |
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judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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yoke
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| n.轭；支配；v.给...上轭，连接，使成配偶 | |
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galley
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| n.（飞机或船上的）厨房单层甲板大帆船；军舰舰长用的大划艇； | |
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ornament
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| v.装饰，美化；n.装饰，装饰物 | |
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alloy
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| n.合金，(金属的)成色 | |
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shackles
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| 手铐( shackle的名词复数 )； 脚镣； 束缚； 羁绊 | |
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