Valuable lessons about crowds from 2 very good books
2020 is a year filled with crowds. Bored by having to stay at home and not having a job, did they suddenly decide to form angry mobs?
There are 2 main crowds identifiable in the USA which today (but not for much longer I believe) are the center of the world:
- The street crowd, angry protestors that do not always know why they protest, but generally hate the president of their country, hate police, and want to protect blacks. They have been destroying statues like many mobs before them, and display the same irrational & violent behavior of typical mobs. Them wearing masks I think is very symbolic: it reminds me of the faceless character of crowds and the lack of uniqueness, own thought, and self-awareness of its members (we call them NPCS today).
- The investing crowd, visible on TikTok and in the explosion of new accounts with stock brokers, TD Ameritrade daily average client trades went up 4-fold since they introduced zero commissions at the end of 2019 following the competition offered by Robinhood that attracted all the small novice clients. All the big brokers in the USA saw record numbers of new investors open share trading accounts. This is similar to what we saw in the late 90s, 1999 to be more precise, in the months leading up to to Dot Com bubble collapsing.
2020 is also the year of the general apathetic responsibility diluting crowd: Every one is willing to submit to the growing dictatorial rule of politicians, half of the crowd believes the word of so called experts as well as politicians and media, and the other half of the crowd plays along with absurd rules that maybe do not have terrible consequences worth revolting against yet. Because of a virus that killed a fraction of a percent of the population: old & sick people that had a feet in the grave. Like the most severe flu or heatwave seasons of the past, we can expect the following years to have less deaths than usual: perhaps the crowd will see this as a success of their absurd anti-science laws and it will empower corrupt and stupid politicians...
The herd has been terrified to an extreme point by this virus. While some countries (Sweden) enjoy their freedom and are not seeing apocalyptic consequences, the herd decided to ignore this and live in great fear convinced that the end is coming.
And even better! Science has shown that large gatherings were "super spreader" events, and yet, the same people terrified of this virus have gone out - wearing masks of questionnable efficacity - have gone to the street in very large numbers. And "experts" have claimed that the virus did not spread in crowds of people that were against racism but would spread in groups of religious people and beach-goers (smart virus).
Can a reasonnable intelligent human being with a functionning brain believe such absurdity?
The crowd being what it is I put my article in danger by simply mentionning facts about this current great fear.
It takes exceptional individuals to not only think differently, but to face the crowd and say "NO" and try to end the injustice. A great example in the Dreyfus case.
Between 1894 and 1906 at a time where anti-semitism was at sky high levels (also in the gentle kind good guys allies countries), a jewish officer called Dreyfus was accused of betrayal by french authorities and sent to a far away prison for life. Even after proof of his innocence was discovered, top officiers suppressed evidence and the real traitor was acquitted after 2 days. The army even forged documents to lay MORE blame on Dreyfus. Everyone turned a blind eye, continuing their routine lives.
But Émile Zola, a novelist and a journalist, created a "crazy conspiracy theory" about this case, using logic to show a lack of evidence and serious errors.
His conspiracy theory gained followers, and soon
Émile Zola put himself in danger. French corrupt disgusting dishonorable and stupid military politicians convicted him of libel, he fled to england for his own safety.
The public becomes aware of another crazy conspiracy theory: the collusion between military generals & politicians.
Under severe pressure coming from the public opinion (silent majority) the affair ends up being resolved after more than 10 years and after Zola death (he mysteriously died in Paris in 1902 of a badly ventilated chimney).
Not every one goes "The emperor is naked". I like to think I would, but it is not by great courage or a noble will of creating justice.
I personally find it irresistible to make sarcasm and belittle people that believe in absurdities. I love letting people know they are stupid. I love saying "told you so".
The following quotes come from the 2 books mentionned below:
Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds - 1841
The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind - 1895
Let us not, in the pride of our superior knowledge, turn with contempt from the follies of our predecessors. The study of the errors into which great minds have fallen in the pursuit of truth can never be uninstructive.
Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, one by one.
In crowds it is stupidity and not good sense that is accumulated.
Every one has heard of the “Lancashire witches,” a phrase now used to compliment the ladies of that county for their bewitching beauty; but it is not every one who has heard the story in which it originated. A villanous boy, named Robinson, was the chief actor in the tragedy. He confessed many years afterwards that he had been suborned by his father and other persons to give false evidence against the unhappy witches whom he brought to the stake.
(Note: Who would have thought?)
History tells us, that from the moment when the moral forces on which a civilisation rested have lost their strength,
its final dissolution is brought about by those unconscious and brutal crowds known, justifiably
enough, as barbarians. Civilisations as yet have only been created and directed by a small
intellectual aristocracy, never by crowds. Crowds are only powerful for destruction. Their rule is
always tantamount to a barbarian phase. A civilisation involves fixed rules, discipline, a passing
from the instinctive to the rational state, forethought for the future, an elevated degree of culture -
all of them conditions that crowds, left to themselves, have invariably shown themselves incapable
of realising. In consequence of the purely destructive nature of their power crowds act like those
microbes which hasten the dissolution of enfeebled or dead bodies. When the structure of a
civilisation is rotten, it is always the masses that bring about its downfall. It is at such a juncture that
their chief mission is plainly visible, and that for a while the philosophy of number seems the only
philosophy of history.
(Note: a small intellectual aristocracy, think of the founding fathers, and then the entrepreneurs of the country, the innovators and sometimes the governments the law & order etc)
Many persons grow insensibly attached to that which gives them a great deal of trouble, as a mother often loves her sick and ever-ailing child better than her more healthy offspring.
(Note: White on Black crime only...)
Crowds exhibit a docile respect for force, and are but slightly impressed by
kindness, which for them is scarcely other than a form of weakness. Their sympathies have never
been bestowed on easy-going masters, but on tyrants who vigorously oppressed them. It is to these
latter that they always erect the loftiest statues. It is true that they willingly trample on the despot
whom they have stripped of his power, but it is because, having lost his strength, he has resumed his
place among the feeble, who are to be despised because they are not to be feared. The type of hero
dear to crowds will always have the semblance of a Caesar. His insignia attracts them, his authority
overawes them, and his sword instils them with fear.
(Note: This book - The_Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind - and these quotes are very popular in MENA countries that went though the arab spring)
Many other practical applications might be made of the psychology of crowds. A knowledge of this
science throws the most vivid light on a great number of historical and economic phenomena totally
incomprehensible without it.
During seasons of great pestilence men have often believed the prophecies of crazed fanatics, that the end of the world was come. Credulity is always greatest in times of calamity. Prophecies of all sorts are rife on such occasions, and are readily believed, whether for good or evil.
During the great plague, which ravaged all Europe, between the years 1345 and 1350, it was generally considered that the end of the world was at hand. Pretended prophets were to be found in all the principal cities of Germany, France, and Italy, predicting that within ten years the trump of the Archangel would sound, and the Saviour appear in the clouds to call the earth to judgment.
(Note: What does the author think when this happens with a disease that kills 0.001% of the population?)
Hardly was that monarch (Note: Louis XIV) laid in his grave ere the popular hatred, suppressed so long, burst forth against his memory. He who, during his life, had been flattered with an excess of adulation, to which history scarcely offers a parallel, was now cursed as a tyrant, a bigot, and a plunderer. His statues were pelted and disfigured; his effigies torn down, amid the execrations of the populace, and his name rendered synonymous with selfishness and oppression. The glory of his arms was forgotten, and nothing was remembered but his reverses, his extravagance, and his cruelty.
(Note: This is what got France started into the art of coin devaluation then fiat paper magic beans and then the mississippi bubble and later revolutions)
The finances of the country were in a state of the utmost disorder. A profuse and corrupt monarch, whose profuseness and corruption were imitated by almost every functionary, from the highest to the lowest grade, had brought France to the verge of ruin. The national debt amounted to 3000 millions of livres, the revenue to 145 millions, and the expenses of government to 142 millions per annum; leaving only three millions to pay the interest upon 3000 millions. The first care of the regent was to discover a remedy for an evil of such magnitude, and a council was early summoned to take the matter into consideration.
Crowds are as incapable of willing as of thinking for any length of time.
(Note: Very valid for both US street crowds and TikTok investors, thinking is not their thing)
The idea that institutions can remedy the defects of societies, that national progress is the
consequence of the improvement of institutions and governments, and that social changes can be
effected by decrees - this idea, I say, is still generally accepted. It was the starting-point of the
French Revolution, and the social theories of the present day are based upon it.
Dictatorialness and intolerance are common to all categories of crowds, but they are met with in a varying degree of intensity.
It is fortunate for the progress of civilisation that the power of crowds only began to exist when the great discoveries of science and industry had already been effected.
(Note: He explains that crowds are extremely conservative and actually instinctively hostile to changes and progress yes they are)
Science has promised us truth. … It has never promised us either peace or happiness.
One of the most constant characteristics of beliefs is their intolerance. It is even more uncompromising as the belief is stronger. Men dominated by a certitude cannot tolerate those who do not accept it.
The art of those who govern…, consists above all in the science of employing words.
The beginning of a revolution is in reality the end of a belief.
The great upheavals which precede changes of civilisation, such as the fall of the Roman Empire and the founding of the Arabian Empire, for example, seem to have been determined mainly by considerable political transformations, invasions, or the overthrow of dynasties. But … most often, the real cause is … a profound modification in the ideas of the peoples. … The memorable events of history are the visible effects of the invisible changes of human thought. … The present epoch is one of these critical moments in which the thought of mankind is undergoing a process of transformation.
(Note: The book is from 1895. Europeans split apart from religion back then, Germans got rid of their monarch in the 1918 and as usual it ended badly in the short term, and after the wars there was a NWO and huge progress was made until recently)
Every age has its peculiar folly: Some scheme, project, or fantasy into which it plunges, spurred on by the love of gain, the necessity of excitement, or the force of imitation.
There is scarcely an occurrence in nature which, happening at a certain time, is not looked upon by some persons as a prognosticator either of good or evil. The latter are in the greatest number, so much more ingenious are we in tormenting ourselves than in discovering reasons for enjoyment in the things that surround us.
Money, again, has often been a cause of the delusion of the multitudes. Sober nations have all at once become desperate gamblers, and risked almost their existence upon the turn of a piece of paper.
Its (Note: The crowd) acts are far more under the influence of the spinal cord than of the brain. In this respect a crowd is closely akin to quite primitive beings.
A crowd may easily enact the part of an executioner, but not less easily that of a martyr. It is crowds that have furnished the torrents of
blood requisite for the triumph of every belief. It is not necessary to go back to the heroic ages to see what crowds are capable of in this latter direction. They are never sparing of their life in an insurrection, and not long since a general, becoming suddenly popular, might easily have found a hundred thousand men ready to sacrifice their lives for his cause had he demanded it.
Any display of premeditation by crowds is in consequence out of the question. They may be animated in succession by the most contrary sentiments, but they will always be under the influence of the exciting causes of the moment. They are like the leaves which a tempest whirls up and
scatters in every direction and then allows to fall.
A crowd is not merely impulsive and mobile. Like a savage, it is not prepared to admit that anything
can come between its desire and the realisation of its desire. It is the less capable of understanding
such an intervention, in consequence of the feeling of irresistible power given it by its numerical
strength. The notion of impossibility disappears for the individual in a crowd.
For instance, the difference between a Latin and an Anglo-Saxon crowd is striking. The most recent facts in French history
throw a vivid light on this point. The mere publication, twenty-five years ago, of a telegram, relating an insult supposed to have been offered an ambassador, was sufficient to determine an explosion of fury, whence followed immediately a terrible war.
(Note: In 1895 it was Telegrams, in 2020 it was Tweets. The more we go forward the more nothing changes)
Some years later the telegraphic announcement of an insignificant reverse at Langson provoked a fresh explosion which brought
about the instantaneous overthrow of the government. At the same moment a much more serious reverse undergone by the English expedition to Khartoum produced only a slight emotion in England, and no ministry was overturned. Crowds are everywhere distinguished by feminine
characteristics, but Latin crowds are the most feminine of all. Whoever trusts in them may rapidly attain a lofty destiny, but to do so is to be perpetually skirting the brink of a Tarpeian rock, with the certainty of one day being precipitated from it.
(Note: That book is full of racist & sexist references, I'm trying to filter the offensive stuff)
The creation of the legends which so easily obtain circulation in crowds is not solely the
consequence of their extreme credulity. It is also the result of the prodigious perversions that events
undergo in the imagination of a throng. The simplest event that comes under the observation of a
crowd is soon totally transformed. A crowd thinks in images, and the image itself immediately calls
up a series of other images, having no logical connection with the first.
The king can drink the best of wine -So can I;And has enough when he would dine -So have I;And can not order rain or shine -Nor can I.Then where's the difference - let me see -Betwixt my lord the king and me?
(Note: From Charles Mackay directly, not found in his famous book)
We find that whole communities suddenly fix their minds upon one object, and go mad in its pursuit; that millions of people become simultaneously impressed with one delusion, and run after it, till their attention is caught by some new folly more captivating than the first...
It will be remarked that these recognitions (Note: delusional, seing things that are no here) are most often made by women and children - that is to say, by precisely the most impressionable persons.
(Note: I strongly disagree with generalization and sexism, this quote is just here to show you how unwise the old generations were, a perfect example of a mass delusion, sexism is never ok)
To return to the faculty of observation possessed by crowds, our conclusion is that their collective
observations are as erroneous as possible, and that most often they merely represent the illusion of
an individual who, by a process of contagion, has suggestioned his fellows. Facts proving that the
most utter mistrust of the evidence of crowds is advisable might be multiplied to any extent.
Thousands of men were present twenty-five years ago at the celebrated cavalry charge during the
battle of Sedan, and yet it is impossible, in the face of the most contradictory ocular testimony, to
decide by whom it was commanded.
The English general, Lord Wolseley, has proved in a recent book that up to now the gravest errors of fact have been committed with regard to the most important incidents of the battle of Waterloo - facts that hundreds of witnesses had nevertheless attested.
(Note: All of history is a lie 🤯)
It clearly results from what precedes that works of history must be considered as works of pure
imagination. They are fanciful accounts of ill-observed facts, accompanied by explanations the
result of reflection. To write such books is the most absolute waste of time. Had not the past left us
its literary, artistic, and monumental works, we should know absolutely nothing in reality with
regard to bygone times.
Are we in possession of a single word of truth concerning the lives of the
great men who have played preponderating parts in the history of humanity - men such as Hercules,
Buddha, or Mahomet? In all probability we are not. In point of fact, moreover, their real lives are of
slight importance to us. Our interest is to know what our great men were as they are presented by
popular legend. It is legendary heroes, and not for a moment real heroes, who have impressed the
minds of crowds.
The imagination of the crowd continually transforms them as the result of
the lapse of time and especially in consequence of racial causes. There is a great gulf fixed between
the sanguinary Jehovah of the Old Testament and the God of Love of Sainte Therese, and the
Buddha worshipped in China has no traits in common with that venerated in India.
(Note: From the chapter the leaders of crowds)
These ringleaders and agitators may be divided into two clearly defined classes. The one includes
the men who are energetic and possess, but only intermittently, much strength of will, the other the
men, far rarer than the preceding, whose strength of will is enduring. The first mentioned are
violent, brave, and audacious. They are more especially useful to direct a violent enterprise
suddenly decided on, to carry the masses with them in spite of danger, and to transform into heroes
the men who but yesterday were recruits.
THE MEANS OF ACTION OF THE LEADERS: AFFIRMATION, REPETITION, CONTAGION
(Note: Hey isn't that what George Soros does?)
From the fundamental belief transient accessory ideas may arise, but they always bear the impress
of the belief from which they have sprung. The Egyptian civilisation, the European civilisation of
the Middle Ages, the Mussulman civilisation of the Arabs are all the outcome of a small number of
religious beliefs which have left their mark on the least important elements of these civilisations and
allow of their immediate recognition.
The philosophic absurdity that often marks general beliefs has never been an obstacle to their
triumph. Indeed the triumph of such beliefs would seem impossible unless on the condition that
they offer some mysterious absurdity. In consequence, the evident weakness of the socialist beliefs
of to-day will not prevent them triumphing among the masses. Their real inferiority to all religious
beliefs is solely the result of this consideration, that the ideal of happiness offered by the latter being
realisable only in a future life, it was beyond the power of anybody to contest it. The socialist ideal
of happiness being intended to be realised on earth, the vanity of its promises will at once appear as
soon as the first efforts towards their realisation are made, and simultaneously the new belief will
entirely lose its prestige.
The primary danger of this system of education - very properly qualified as Latin - consists in the
fact that it is based on the fundamental psychological error that the intelligence is developed by the
learning by heart of text-books. Adopting this view, the endeavour has been made to enforce a
knowledge of as many hand-books as possible. From the primary school till he leaves the university
a young man does nothing but acquire books by heart without his judgment or personal initiative
being ever called into play. Education consists for him in reciting by heart and obeying.
(Note: Clueless idiotic professors of economics say hi)
"Learning lessons, knowing by heart a grammar or a compendium, repeating well and imitating
well - that," writes a former Minister of Public Instruction, M. Jules Simon, "is a ludicrous form of
education whose every effort is an act of faith tacitly admitting the infallibility of the master, and
whose only results are a belittling of ourselves and a rendering of us impotent."
(Note: Dayum our politicians used to be wise, what happened since then and now???????)
Many houses have been condemned as haunted, and avoided by the weak and credulous, from circumstances the most trifling in themselves, and which only wanted a vigorous mind to clear up, at once, and dissipate all alarm. A house in Aix-la-Chapelle, a large desolate-looking building, remained uninhabited for five years, on account of the mysterious knockings that there were heard within it at all hours of the day and night. Nobody could account for the noises; and the fear became at last so excessive, that the persons who inhabited the houses on either side relinquished their tenancy, and went to reside in other quarters of the town, where there was less chance of interruption from evil spirits.
No little consternation was created in London in 1736 by the prophecy of the famous Whiston, that the world would be destroyed in that year, on the 13th of October. Crowds of people went out on the appointed day to Islington, Hampstead, and the fields intervening, to see the destruction of London, which was to be the “beginning of the end.” A satirical account of this folly is given in Swift’s Miscellanies, vol. iii., entitled A true and faithful Narrative of what passed in London on a Rumour of the Day of Judgment.
A panic terror of the end of the world seized the good people of Leeds and its neighbourhood in the year 1806. It arose from the following circumstances. A hen, in a village close by, laid eggs, on which were inscribed the words, “Christ is coming.” Great numbers visited the spot, and examined these wondrous eggs, convinced that the day of judgment was near at hand. Like sailors in a storm, expecting every instant to go to the bottom, the believers suddenly became religious, prayed violently, and flattered themselves that they repented them of their evil courses. But a plain tale soon put them down, and quenched their religion entirely. Some gentlemen, hearing of the matter, went one fine morning, and caught the poor hen in the act of laying one of her miraculous eggs. They soon ascertained beyond doubt that the egg had been inscribed with some corrosive ink, and cruelly forced up again into the bird’s body. At this explanation, those who had prayed, now laughed, and the world wagged as merrily as of yore.
At the time of the plague in Milan, in 1630, of which so affecting a description has been left us by Ripamonte, in his interesting work, De Peste Mediolani, the people, in their distress, listened with avidity to the predictions of astrologers and other impostors. It is singular enough that the plague was foretold a year before it broke out. A large comet appearing in 1628, the opinions of astrologers were divided with regard to it. Some insisted that it was a forerunner of a bloody war; others maintained that it predicted a great famine; but the greater number, founding their judgment upon its pale colour, thought it portended a pestilence. The fulfilment of their prediction brought them into great repute while the plague was raging.
(Note: Ah, authoritative "experts" 🤡)
But the minds of the people were so impressed with the idea, that scores of witnesses, half crazed by disease, came forward to swear that they also had seen the diabolical stranger, and had heard his chariot, drawn by the milk-white steeds, rumbling over the streets at midnight with a sound louder than thunder.
The number of persons who confessed that they were employed by the Devil to distribute poison is almost incredible. An epidemic frenzy was abroad, which seemed to be as contagious as the plague. Imagination was as disordered as the body, and day after day persons came voluntarily forward to accuse themselves. They generally had the marks of disease upon them, and some died in the act of confession.
During the great plague of London, in 1665, the people listened with similar avidity to the predictions of quacks and fanatics. Defoe says, that at that time the people were more addicted to prophecies and astronomical conjurations, dreams, and old wives’ tales than ever they were before or since. Almanacs, and their predictions, frightened them terribly. Even the year before the plague broke out, they were greatly alarmed by the comet which then appeared, and anticipated that famine, pestilence, or fire would follow. Enthusiasts, while yet the disease had made but little progress, ran about the streets, predicting that in a few days London would be destroyed.
(Note: Enthusiasts 😂. I'd probably be one of them. Funnier to be an end of the world perma bear screaming the end is coming than arguing with idiots and going into despair about the world being so stupid and messed up and hopeless)
The prophecies of Nostradamus consist of upwards of a thousand stanzas, each of four lines, and are to the full as obscure as the oracles of old. They take so great a latitude, both as to time and space, that they are almost sure to be fulfilled somewhere or other in the course of a few centuries. A little ingenuity, like that evinced by Lilly in his explanation about General Monk and the dreadful dead man, might easily make events to fit some of them.
He is to this day extremely popular in France and the Walloon country of Belgium, where old farmer-wives consult him with great confidence and assiduity.
(Note: Aha! I am the master of charts, the legend, I said Bitcoin would one day go up and it did - nevermind it dropped 70% before that and never got all the way to my target)
A much more remarkable story is told of an astrologer who lived in Romagna in the fifteenth century, and whose name was Antiochus Tibertus. At that time nearly all the petty sovereigns of Italy retained such men in their service; and Tibertus, having studied the mathematics with great success at Paris, and delivered many predictions, some of which, for guesses, were not deficient in shrewdness, was taken into the household of Pandolfo di Malatesta, the sovereign of Rimini. His reputation was so great, that his study was continually thronged either with visitors who were persons of distinction, or with clients who came to him for advice; and in a short time he acquired a considerable fortune. Notwithstanding all these advantages, he passed his life miserably, and ended it on the scaffold.
That is enough I think. Might as well read the whole books.
There are 2 main crowds identifiable in the USA which today (but not for much longer I believe) are the center of the world:
- The street crowd, angry protestors that do not always know why they protest, but generally hate the president of their country, hate police, and want to protect blacks. They have been destroying statues like many mobs before them, and display the same irrational & violent behavior of typical mobs. Them wearing masks I think is very symbolic: it reminds me of the faceless character of crowds and the lack of uniqueness, own thought, and self-awareness of its members (we call them NPCS today).
- The investing crowd, visible on TikTok and in the explosion of new accounts with stock brokers, TD Ameritrade daily average client trades went up 4-fold since they introduced zero commissions at the end of 2019 following the competition offered by Robinhood that attracted all the small novice clients. All the big brokers in the USA saw record numbers of new investors open share trading accounts. This is similar to what we saw in the late 90s, 1999 to be more precise, in the months leading up to to Dot Com bubble collapsing.
2020 is also the year of the general apathetic responsibility diluting crowd: Every one is willing to submit to the growing dictatorial rule of politicians, half of the crowd believes the word of so called experts as well as politicians and media, and the other half of the crowd plays along with absurd rules that maybe do not have terrible consequences worth revolting against yet. Because of a virus that killed a fraction of a percent of the population: old & sick people that had a feet in the grave. Like the most severe flu or heatwave seasons of the past, we can expect the following years to have less deaths than usual: perhaps the crowd will see this as a success of their absurd anti-science laws and it will empower corrupt and stupid politicians...
The herd has been terrified to an extreme point by this virus. While some countries (Sweden) enjoy their freedom and are not seeing apocalyptic consequences, the herd decided to ignore this and live in great fear convinced that the end is coming.
And even better! Science has shown that large gatherings were "super spreader" events, and yet, the same people terrified of this virus have gone out - wearing masks of questionnable efficacity - have gone to the street in very large numbers. And "experts" have claimed that the virus did not spread in crowds of people that were against racism but would spread in groups of religious people and beach-goers (smart virus).
Can a reasonnable intelligent human being with a functionning brain believe such absurdity?
The crowd being what it is I put my article in danger by simply mentionning facts about this current great fear.
It takes exceptional individuals to not only think differently, but to face the crowd and say "NO" and try to end the injustice. A great example in the Dreyfus case.
Between 1894 and 1906 at a time where anti-semitism was at sky high levels (also in the gentle kind good guys allies countries), a jewish officer called Dreyfus was accused of betrayal by french authorities and sent to a far away prison for life. Even after proof of his innocence was discovered, top officiers suppressed evidence and the real traitor was acquitted after 2 days. The army even forged documents to lay MORE blame on Dreyfus. Everyone turned a blind eye, continuing their routine lives.
But Émile Zola, a novelist and a journalist, created a "crazy conspiracy theory" about this case, using logic to show a lack of evidence and serious errors.
His conspiracy theory gained followers, and soon
Émile Zola put himself in danger. French corrupt disgusting dishonorable and stupid military politicians convicted him of libel, he fled to england for his own safety.
The public becomes aware of another crazy conspiracy theory: the collusion between military generals & politicians.
Under severe pressure coming from the public opinion (silent majority) the affair ends up being resolved after more than 10 years and after Zola death (he mysteriously died in Paris in 1902 of a badly ventilated chimney).
Not every one goes "The emperor is naked". I like to think I would, but it is not by great courage or a noble will of creating justice.
I personally find it irresistible to make sarcasm and belittle people that believe in absurdities. I love letting people know they are stupid. I love saying "told you so".
The following quotes come from the 2 books mentionned below:
Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds - 1841
The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind - 1895
Let us not, in the pride of our superior knowledge, turn with contempt from the follies of our predecessors. The study of the errors into which great minds have fallen in the pursuit of truth can never be uninstructive.
Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, one by one.
In crowds it is stupidity and not good sense that is accumulated.
Every one has heard of the “Lancashire witches,” a phrase now used to compliment the ladies of that county for their bewitching beauty; but it is not every one who has heard the story in which it originated. A villanous boy, named Robinson, was the chief actor in the tragedy. He confessed many years afterwards that he had been suborned by his father and other persons to give false evidence against the unhappy witches whom he brought to the stake.
(Note: Who would have thought?)
History tells us, that from the moment when the moral forces on which a civilisation rested have lost their strength,
its final dissolution is brought about by those unconscious and brutal crowds known, justifiably
enough, as barbarians. Civilisations as yet have only been created and directed by a small
intellectual aristocracy, never by crowds. Crowds are only powerful for destruction. Their rule is
always tantamount to a barbarian phase. A civilisation involves fixed rules, discipline, a passing
from the instinctive to the rational state, forethought for the future, an elevated degree of culture -
all of them conditions that crowds, left to themselves, have invariably shown themselves incapable
of realising. In consequence of the purely destructive nature of their power crowds act like those
microbes which hasten the dissolution of enfeebled or dead bodies. When the structure of a
civilisation is rotten, it is always the masses that bring about its downfall. It is at such a juncture that
their chief mission is plainly visible, and that for a while the philosophy of number seems the only
philosophy of history.
(Note: a small intellectual aristocracy, think of the founding fathers, and then the entrepreneurs of the country, the innovators and sometimes the governments the law & order etc)
Many persons grow insensibly attached to that which gives them a great deal of trouble, as a mother often loves her sick and ever-ailing child better than her more healthy offspring.
(Note: White on Black crime only...)
Crowds exhibit a docile respect for force, and are but slightly impressed by
kindness, which for them is scarcely other than a form of weakness. Their sympathies have never
been bestowed on easy-going masters, but on tyrants who vigorously oppressed them. It is to these
latter that they always erect the loftiest statues. It is true that they willingly trample on the despot
whom they have stripped of his power, but it is because, having lost his strength, he has resumed his
place among the feeble, who are to be despised because they are not to be feared. The type of hero
dear to crowds will always have the semblance of a Caesar. His insignia attracts them, his authority
overawes them, and his sword instils them with fear.
(Note: This book - The_Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind - and these quotes are very popular in MENA countries that went though the arab spring)
Many other practical applications might be made of the psychology of crowds. A knowledge of this
science throws the most vivid light on a great number of historical and economic phenomena totally
incomprehensible without it.
During seasons of great pestilence men have often believed the prophecies of crazed fanatics, that the end of the world was come. Credulity is always greatest in times of calamity. Prophecies of all sorts are rife on such occasions, and are readily believed, whether for good or evil.
During the great plague, which ravaged all Europe, between the years 1345 and 1350, it was generally considered that the end of the world was at hand. Pretended prophets were to be found in all the principal cities of Germany, France, and Italy, predicting that within ten years the trump of the Archangel would sound, and the Saviour appear in the clouds to call the earth to judgment.
(Note: What does the author think when this happens with a disease that kills 0.001% of the population?)
Hardly was that monarch (Note: Louis XIV) laid in his grave ere the popular hatred, suppressed so long, burst forth against his memory. He who, during his life, had been flattered with an excess of adulation, to which history scarcely offers a parallel, was now cursed as a tyrant, a bigot, and a plunderer. His statues were pelted and disfigured; his effigies torn down, amid the execrations of the populace, and his name rendered synonymous with selfishness and oppression. The glory of his arms was forgotten, and nothing was remembered but his reverses, his extravagance, and his cruelty.
(Note: This is what got France started into the art of coin devaluation then fiat paper magic beans and then the mississippi bubble and later revolutions)
The finances of the country were in a state of the utmost disorder. A profuse and corrupt monarch, whose profuseness and corruption were imitated by almost every functionary, from the highest to the lowest grade, had brought France to the verge of ruin. The national debt amounted to 3000 millions of livres, the revenue to 145 millions, and the expenses of government to 142 millions per annum; leaving only three millions to pay the interest upon 3000 millions. The first care of the regent was to discover a remedy for an evil of such magnitude, and a council was early summoned to take the matter into consideration.
Crowds are as incapable of willing as of thinking for any length of time.
(Note: Very valid for both US street crowds and TikTok investors, thinking is not their thing)
The idea that institutions can remedy the defects of societies, that national progress is the
consequence of the improvement of institutions and governments, and that social changes can be
effected by decrees - this idea, I say, is still generally accepted. It was the starting-point of the
French Revolution, and the social theories of the present day are based upon it.
Dictatorialness and intolerance are common to all categories of crowds, but they are met with in a varying degree of intensity.
It is fortunate for the progress of civilisation that the power of crowds only began to exist when the great discoveries of science and industry had already been effected.
(Note: He explains that crowds are extremely conservative and actually instinctively hostile to changes and progress yes they are)
Science has promised us truth. … It has never promised us either peace or happiness.
One of the most constant characteristics of beliefs is their intolerance. It is even more uncompromising as the belief is stronger. Men dominated by a certitude cannot tolerate those who do not accept it.
The art of those who govern…, consists above all in the science of employing words.
The beginning of a revolution is in reality the end of a belief.
The great upheavals which precede changes of civilisation, such as the fall of the Roman Empire and the founding of the Arabian Empire, for example, seem to have been determined mainly by considerable political transformations, invasions, or the overthrow of dynasties. But … most often, the real cause is … a profound modification in the ideas of the peoples. … The memorable events of history are the visible effects of the invisible changes of human thought. … The present epoch is one of these critical moments in which the thought of mankind is undergoing a process of transformation.
(Note: The book is from 1895. Europeans split apart from religion back then, Germans got rid of their monarch in the 1918 and as usual it ended badly in the short term, and after the wars there was a NWO and huge progress was made until recently)
Every age has its peculiar folly: Some scheme, project, or fantasy into which it plunges, spurred on by the love of gain, the necessity of excitement, or the force of imitation.
There is scarcely an occurrence in nature which, happening at a certain time, is not looked upon by some persons as a prognosticator either of good or evil. The latter are in the greatest number, so much more ingenious are we in tormenting ourselves than in discovering reasons for enjoyment in the things that surround us.
Money, again, has often been a cause of the delusion of the multitudes. Sober nations have all at once become desperate gamblers, and risked almost their existence upon the turn of a piece of paper.
Its (Note: The crowd) acts are far more under the influence of the spinal cord than of the brain. In this respect a crowd is closely akin to quite primitive beings.
A crowd may easily enact the part of an executioner, but not less easily that of a martyr. It is crowds that have furnished the torrents of
blood requisite for the triumph of every belief. It is not necessary to go back to the heroic ages to see what crowds are capable of in this latter direction. They are never sparing of their life in an insurrection, and not long since a general, becoming suddenly popular, might easily have found a hundred thousand men ready to sacrifice their lives for his cause had he demanded it.
Any display of premeditation by crowds is in consequence out of the question. They may be animated in succession by the most contrary sentiments, but they will always be under the influence of the exciting causes of the moment. They are like the leaves which a tempest whirls up and
scatters in every direction and then allows to fall.
A crowd is not merely impulsive and mobile. Like a savage, it is not prepared to admit that anything
can come between its desire and the realisation of its desire. It is the less capable of understanding
such an intervention, in consequence of the feeling of irresistible power given it by its numerical
strength. The notion of impossibility disappears for the individual in a crowd.
For instance, the difference between a Latin and an Anglo-Saxon crowd is striking. The most recent facts in French history
throw a vivid light on this point. The mere publication, twenty-five years ago, of a telegram, relating an insult supposed to have been offered an ambassador, was sufficient to determine an explosion of fury, whence followed immediately a terrible war.
(Note: In 1895 it was Telegrams, in 2020 it was Tweets. The more we go forward the more nothing changes)
Some years later the telegraphic announcement of an insignificant reverse at Langson provoked a fresh explosion which brought
about the instantaneous overthrow of the government. At the same moment a much more serious reverse undergone by the English expedition to Khartoum produced only a slight emotion in England, and no ministry was overturned. Crowds are everywhere distinguished by feminine
characteristics, but Latin crowds are the most feminine of all. Whoever trusts in them may rapidly attain a lofty destiny, but to do so is to be perpetually skirting the brink of a Tarpeian rock, with the certainty of one day being precipitated from it.
(Note: That book is full of racist & sexist references, I'm trying to filter the offensive stuff)
The creation of the legends which so easily obtain circulation in crowds is not solely the
consequence of their extreme credulity. It is also the result of the prodigious perversions that events
undergo in the imagination of a throng. The simplest event that comes under the observation of a
crowd is soon totally transformed. A crowd thinks in images, and the image itself immediately calls
up a series of other images, having no logical connection with the first.
The king can drink the best of wine -So can I;And has enough when he would dine -So have I;And can not order rain or shine -Nor can I.Then where's the difference - let me see -Betwixt my lord the king and me?
(Note: From Charles Mackay directly, not found in his famous book)
We find that whole communities suddenly fix their minds upon one object, and go mad in its pursuit; that millions of people become simultaneously impressed with one delusion, and run after it, till their attention is caught by some new folly more captivating than the first...
It will be remarked that these recognitions (Note: delusional, seing things that are no here) are most often made by women and children - that is to say, by precisely the most impressionable persons.
(Note: I strongly disagree with generalization and sexism, this quote is just here to show you how unwise the old generations were, a perfect example of a mass delusion, sexism is never ok)
To return to the faculty of observation possessed by crowds, our conclusion is that their collective
observations are as erroneous as possible, and that most often they merely represent the illusion of
an individual who, by a process of contagion, has suggestioned his fellows. Facts proving that the
most utter mistrust of the evidence of crowds is advisable might be multiplied to any extent.
Thousands of men were present twenty-five years ago at the celebrated cavalry charge during the
battle of Sedan, and yet it is impossible, in the face of the most contradictory ocular testimony, to
decide by whom it was commanded.
The English general, Lord Wolseley, has proved in a recent book that up to now the gravest errors of fact have been committed with regard to the most important incidents of the battle of Waterloo - facts that hundreds of witnesses had nevertheless attested.
(Note: All of history is a lie 🤯)
It clearly results from what precedes that works of history must be considered as works of pure
imagination. They are fanciful accounts of ill-observed facts, accompanied by explanations the
result of reflection. To write such books is the most absolute waste of time. Had not the past left us
its literary, artistic, and monumental works, we should know absolutely nothing in reality with
regard to bygone times.
Are we in possession of a single word of truth concerning the lives of the
great men who have played preponderating parts in the history of humanity - men such as Hercules,
Buddha, or Mahomet? In all probability we are not. In point of fact, moreover, their real lives are of
slight importance to us. Our interest is to know what our great men were as they are presented by
popular legend. It is legendary heroes, and not for a moment real heroes, who have impressed the
minds of crowds.
The imagination of the crowd continually transforms them as the result of
the lapse of time and especially in consequence of racial causes. There is a great gulf fixed between
the sanguinary Jehovah of the Old Testament and the God of Love of Sainte Therese, and the
Buddha worshipped in China has no traits in common with that venerated in India.
(Note: From the chapter the leaders of crowds)
These ringleaders and agitators may be divided into two clearly defined classes. The one includes
the men who are energetic and possess, but only intermittently, much strength of will, the other the
men, far rarer than the preceding, whose strength of will is enduring. The first mentioned are
violent, brave, and audacious. They are more especially useful to direct a violent enterprise
suddenly decided on, to carry the masses with them in spite of danger, and to transform into heroes
the men who but yesterday were recruits.
THE MEANS OF ACTION OF THE LEADERS: AFFIRMATION, REPETITION, CONTAGION
(Note: Hey isn't that what George Soros does?)
From the fundamental belief transient accessory ideas may arise, but they always bear the impress
of the belief from which they have sprung. The Egyptian civilisation, the European civilisation of
the Middle Ages, the Mussulman civilisation of the Arabs are all the outcome of a small number of
religious beliefs which have left their mark on the least important elements of these civilisations and
allow of their immediate recognition.
The philosophic absurdity that often marks general beliefs has never been an obstacle to their
triumph. Indeed the triumph of such beliefs would seem impossible unless on the condition that
they offer some mysterious absurdity. In consequence, the evident weakness of the socialist beliefs
of to-day will not prevent them triumphing among the masses. Their real inferiority to all religious
beliefs is solely the result of this consideration, that the ideal of happiness offered by the latter being
realisable only in a future life, it was beyond the power of anybody to contest it. The socialist ideal
of happiness being intended to be realised on earth, the vanity of its promises will at once appear as
soon as the first efforts towards their realisation are made, and simultaneously the new belief will
entirely lose its prestige.
The primary danger of this system of education - very properly qualified as Latin - consists in the
fact that it is based on the fundamental psychological error that the intelligence is developed by the
learning by heart of text-books. Adopting this view, the endeavour has been made to enforce a
knowledge of as many hand-books as possible. From the primary school till he leaves the university
a young man does nothing but acquire books by heart without his judgment or personal initiative
being ever called into play. Education consists for him in reciting by heart and obeying.
(Note: Clueless idiotic professors of economics say hi)
"Learning lessons, knowing by heart a grammar or a compendium, repeating well and imitating
well - that," writes a former Minister of Public Instruction, M. Jules Simon, "is a ludicrous form of
education whose every effort is an act of faith tacitly admitting the infallibility of the master, and
whose only results are a belittling of ourselves and a rendering of us impotent."
(Note: Dayum our politicians used to be wise, what happened since then and now???????)
Many houses have been condemned as haunted, and avoided by the weak and credulous, from circumstances the most trifling in themselves, and which only wanted a vigorous mind to clear up, at once, and dissipate all alarm. A house in Aix-la-Chapelle, a large desolate-looking building, remained uninhabited for five years, on account of the mysterious knockings that there were heard within it at all hours of the day and night. Nobody could account for the noises; and the fear became at last so excessive, that the persons who inhabited the houses on either side relinquished their tenancy, and went to reside in other quarters of the town, where there was less chance of interruption from evil spirits.
No little consternation was created in London in 1736 by the prophecy of the famous Whiston, that the world would be destroyed in that year, on the 13th of October. Crowds of people went out on the appointed day to Islington, Hampstead, and the fields intervening, to see the destruction of London, which was to be the “beginning of the end.” A satirical account of this folly is given in Swift’s Miscellanies, vol. iii., entitled A true and faithful Narrative of what passed in London on a Rumour of the Day of Judgment.
A panic terror of the end of the world seized the good people of Leeds and its neighbourhood in the year 1806. It arose from the following circumstances. A hen, in a village close by, laid eggs, on which were inscribed the words, “Christ is coming.” Great numbers visited the spot, and examined these wondrous eggs, convinced that the day of judgment was near at hand. Like sailors in a storm, expecting every instant to go to the bottom, the believers suddenly became religious, prayed violently, and flattered themselves that they repented them of their evil courses. But a plain tale soon put them down, and quenched their religion entirely. Some gentlemen, hearing of the matter, went one fine morning, and caught the poor hen in the act of laying one of her miraculous eggs. They soon ascertained beyond doubt that the egg had been inscribed with some corrosive ink, and cruelly forced up again into the bird’s body. At this explanation, those who had prayed, now laughed, and the world wagged as merrily as of yore.
At the time of the plague in Milan, in 1630, of which so affecting a description has been left us by Ripamonte, in his interesting work, De Peste Mediolani, the people, in their distress, listened with avidity to the predictions of astrologers and other impostors. It is singular enough that the plague was foretold a year before it broke out. A large comet appearing in 1628, the opinions of astrologers were divided with regard to it. Some insisted that it was a forerunner of a bloody war; others maintained that it predicted a great famine; but the greater number, founding their judgment upon its pale colour, thought it portended a pestilence. The fulfilment of their prediction brought them into great repute while the plague was raging.
(Note: Ah, authoritative "experts" 🤡)
But the minds of the people were so impressed with the idea, that scores of witnesses, half crazed by disease, came forward to swear that they also had seen the diabolical stranger, and had heard his chariot, drawn by the milk-white steeds, rumbling over the streets at midnight with a sound louder than thunder.
The number of persons who confessed that they were employed by the Devil to distribute poison is almost incredible. An epidemic frenzy was abroad, which seemed to be as contagious as the plague. Imagination was as disordered as the body, and day after day persons came voluntarily forward to accuse themselves. They generally had the marks of disease upon them, and some died in the act of confession.
During the great plague of London, in 1665, the people listened with similar avidity to the predictions of quacks and fanatics. Defoe says, that at that time the people were more addicted to prophecies and astronomical conjurations, dreams, and old wives’ tales than ever they were before or since. Almanacs, and their predictions, frightened them terribly. Even the year before the plague broke out, they were greatly alarmed by the comet which then appeared, and anticipated that famine, pestilence, or fire would follow. Enthusiasts, while yet the disease had made but little progress, ran about the streets, predicting that in a few days London would be destroyed.
(Note: Enthusiasts 😂. I'd probably be one of them. Funnier to be an end of the world perma bear screaming the end is coming than arguing with idiots and going into despair about the world being so stupid and messed up and hopeless)
The prophecies of Nostradamus consist of upwards of a thousand stanzas, each of four lines, and are to the full as obscure as the oracles of old. They take so great a latitude, both as to time and space, that they are almost sure to be fulfilled somewhere or other in the course of a few centuries. A little ingenuity, like that evinced by Lilly in his explanation about General Monk and the dreadful dead man, might easily make events to fit some of them.
He is to this day extremely popular in France and the Walloon country of Belgium, where old farmer-wives consult him with great confidence and assiduity.
(Note: Aha! I am the master of charts, the legend, I said Bitcoin would one day go up and it did - nevermind it dropped 70% before that and never got all the way to my target)
A much more remarkable story is told of an astrologer who lived in Romagna in the fifteenth century, and whose name was Antiochus Tibertus. At that time nearly all the petty sovereigns of Italy retained such men in their service; and Tibertus, having studied the mathematics with great success at Paris, and delivered many predictions, some of which, for guesses, were not deficient in shrewdness, was taken into the household of Pandolfo di Malatesta, the sovereign of Rimini. His reputation was so great, that his study was continually thronged either with visitors who were persons of distinction, or with clients who came to him for advice; and in a short time he acquired a considerable fortune. Notwithstanding all these advantages, he passed his life miserably, and ended it on the scaffold.
That is enough I think. Might as well read the whole books.