Crowds and Power summary

So where do crowds come from? After all, humans haven’t always lived in big cities teeming with thousands or even millions of people. Well, crowds are deeply rooted in an older form of human association: the pack.

Packs existed long before crowds. In fact, they can be traced all the way back to the era when our ancestors still lived a pastoral and nomadic existence. Unlike crowds, packs aren’t defined by growth. A pack is an isolated group surrounded by wilderness. There simply aren’t other people who can join.

The rituals of the great world religions display dynamics that hint at their origin in much older pack and crowd behaviors.

Take Islam. Devout Muslims assemble for prayer five times a day, usually in small groups. Let’s call those groups prayer packs. On Fridays, these groups merge into vast crowds. The crowd also plays an important role in hajj, the great pilgrimage to Mecca. Once there, the crowd of pilgrims is equal and united in its pursuit of a common goal – rounding the sacred Kaaba.  

Nationalism can inspire a fanatical belief in one’s own superiority, uniqueness and greatness – ideas that, carried to their logical extreme, have underpinned some of the greatest atrocities of the modern era. So where does it come from?

Nations, Canetti argues, are rooted in the crowd, and people relate to them through crowd symbols.

These blinks are about crowds and power. So far, we’ve taken a look at crowds and their precursor – the pack. Here, we’ll move on to take a closer look at power.

So what is power? Well, at its most basic it’s the threat of force. Think of it this way. Physical force can only act in the here and now. Power, on the other hand, exceeds the limits of such immediacy. It’s about the extension of force through space and time.

Power isn’t only about force. It’s also about survival. To be powerful is to be able to survive, come hell or high water – and that survival is a symbol of power.

Imagine a battlefield shortly after the fighting has ceased. The survivor stands upright, surveying the fallen and slain at his feet. His survival is a triumph over the dead and gives him a sense of his unique status.

Have you ever seen a cat catch a mouse? If you have, you’ll know that it takes its time before killing its prey. Before that, it plays with the mouse – releasing it and letting it run away before slamming its paw down at the last second.

That’s a great example of the difference between force and power we looked at earlier.

Commands are, by their very nature, final and categorical. Put differently, they’re clear expressions of power. And we’re taught to obey them from the moment we begin to be socialized.

So what are they and what role do they play in social life?

In the old Georgian fairytale The Master and His Apprentice, a boy becomes an apprentice to the devil and begins to learn magic. After tiring of his tyrannical master, he tries to escape by turning himself into a mouse.

The devil transforms himself into a cat to pursue him. The boy then turns into a fish; the devil, into a net. On and on it goes, the boy’s pheasant now pursued by the devil’s falcon.

Rank and power aren’t only reflected in official titles but in the way humans conduct themselves. Someone’s posture, in other words, tells us a great deal about how much authority they enjoy among their peers.

If someone sits up straight while those around him stand, or if he stands while other sits, we know that they are in a position of authority.