Le Bon Gustave - The psychology of socialism


Author : Le Bon Gustave
Title : The psychology of socialism
Year : 1899

Link download : Le_Bon_Gustave_-_The_psychology_of_socialism.zip

SOCIALISM consists of a synthesis of beliefs, aspirations, and ideas of reform which appeals profoundly to the mind. Governments fear it, legislators manipulate it, nations behold in it the dawn of happier destinies. This book is devoted to the study of Socialism. In it will be found the application of those principles already set forth in my two last works - The Psychology of Peoples and The Psychology of the Crowd. Passing rapidly over the details of the doctrines in question, and retaining their essentials alone, I shall examine the causes which have given birth to Socialism, and those which favour or retard its propagation. I shall show the conflict of those ancient ideas, fixed by heredity, on which societies are still reposed, with the new ideas, born of the new conditions which have been created by the evolution of modern science and industry. Without contesting the lawfulness of the tendencies of the greater number to ameliorate their condition, I shall inquire whether it is possible for institutions to have a real influence in this amelioration, or whether our destinies are not decided by necessities entirely independent of the institutions which our wills may create. Socialism has not wanted apologists to write its history, economists to discuss its dogmas, and apostles to propagate its faith. Hitherto psychologists have disdained to study it, perceiving in it only one of those elusive and indefinite subjects, like theology and politics, which can lead only to such impassioned and futile discussions as are hateful to the scientific mind. It would seem, however, that nothing but an intent psychology can exhibit the genesis of the new doctrines, or explain the influence exerted by them over the vulgar mind as well as over a certain number of cultivated understandings. We must dive to the deepest roots of the events whose evolution we are considering if we would attain a comprehension of the blossom. No apostle has ever doubted of the future of his faith, and the Socialists are persuaded of the approaching triumph of theirs. Such a victory implies of necessity the destruction of the present society, and its reconstruction on other bases. To the disciples of the new dogmas nothing appears more simple. It is evident that a society may be disorganised by violence, just as a building, laboriously constructed, may be destroyed in an hour by fire. But does our modern knowledge of the evolution of things allow us to admit that man is able to re-fashion, according to his liking, a society that has so been destroyed ? So soon as we penetrate a little into the mechanism of civilisations we quickly discover that a society, with its institutions, its beliefs, and its arts, represents a tissue of ideas, sentiments, customs, and modes of thought determined by heredity, the cohesion of which constitutes its strength. No society is firmly held together unless this moral heritage is solidly established, and established not in codes but in the natures of men; the one declines when the other crumbles, and when this moral heritage is finally disintegrated the society is doomed to disappear. Such a conception has never influenced the writers and the peoples of the Latin States. Persuaded as they are that the necessities of nature will efface themselves before their ideal of levelment, regularity, and justice, they believe it sufficient to imagine enlightened constitutions, and laws founded on reason, in order to re-fashion the world. They are still possessed by the illusions of the heroic epoch of the Revolution, when philosophers and legislators held it certain that a society was an artificial thing, which benevolent dictators could rebuild in entirety. Such theories do not appear tenable to-day. We must not, however, disdain them, for they constitute the motives of action of a destructive influence which is greatly to be feared, because very considerable. The power of creation waits upon time and place ; it is beyond the immediate reach of our desires ; but the destructive faculty is always at hand. The destruction of a society may be very rapid, but its reconstruction is always very slow. Sometimes man requires centuries of effort to rebuild, painfully, that which he destroyed in a day. If we would comprehend the profound influence of modern Socialism we need only to examine its doctrines. When we come to investigate the causes of its success we find that this success is altogether alien to the theories proposed, and the negations imposed by these doctrines. Like religions (and Socialism is tending more and more to put on the guise of a religion) it propagates itself in any manner rather than by reason. Feeble in the extreme when it attempts to reason, and to support itself by economic arguments, it becomes on the contrary extremely powerful when it remains in the region of dreams, affirmations, and chimerical promises, and if it were never to issue thence it would become even more redoubtable. Thanks to its promises of regeneration, thanks to the hope it flashes before all the disinherited of life. Socialism is becoming a belief of a religious character rather than a doctrine. Now the great power of beliefs, when they ffe^nd to assume this religious form, of whose mechanism I have elsewhere treated, lies in the fact that their propagation is independent of the proportion of truth or error that they may contain, for as soon as a belief has gained a lodging in the minds of men its absurdity no longer appears ; reason cannot reach it, and only time can impair it. The most profound thinkers of humanity—Leibnitz, Descartes, Newton—have bowed themselves without a murmur before religious doctrines whose weaknesses reason would quickly have discovered, had they been able to submit them to the ordeal of criticism. What has once entered the region of sentiment can no longer be touched by discussion. Religions, acting as they do only on the sentiments, cannot be destroyed by arguments, and it is for this reason that their power over the mind has always been so absolute. The present age is one of those periods of transition in which the old beliefs have lost their empire, while those which must replace the old are not yet estabhshed. Hitherto man has been unable to live without divinities. They fall often from their throne, but that throne has, never remained empty ; new phantoms are rising always from the dust of the dead gods. ...

You might also like

Morris Charles - The aryan race

Author : Morris Charles Title : The aryan race Year : 1888 Link download :...

Continue reading

McKilliam Kenneth Roderick - The annihilation of man

Author : McKilliam Kenneth Roderick Title : The annihilation of man The conspiracy for his...

Continue reading

Adams Ora Ray - As we sodomize America

Author : Adams Ora Ray Title : As we sodomize America The homosexual movement and the decline of...

Continue reading

Lanier Henry Wysham - A book of giants

Author : Lanier Henry Wysham Title : A book of giants Year : 1922 Link download :...

Continue reading

Campbell Howard - Anthropology for the people

Author : Campbell Howard Title : Anthropology for the people A refutation of the theory of the...

Continue reading

Taylor Thomas - The Celtic Christianity of Cornwall

Author : Taylor Thomas Title : The Celtic Christianity of Cornwall Year : 1916 Link download :...

Continue reading

Walter Ted - Beyond misinformation

Author : Walter Ted Title : Beyond misinformation Year : 2015 Link download :...

Continue reading

Vaqué Klaus D. - The plot against South Africa

Author : Vaqué Klaus D. Title : The plot against South Africa Year : 1988 Link download :...

Continue reading

Poole W. H. - Anglo-Israel or the british nation

Author : Poole W. H. Title : Anglo-Israel or the british nation Year : 1879 Link download :...

Continue reading

Bolton Kerry Raymond - Anti-semitism : cui bono ?

Author : Bolton Kerry Raymond Title : Anti-semitism : cui bono ? A report on the symbiosis between...

Continue reading




Balder Ex-Libris
Review of books rare and missing


Balder Ex-Libris