CCA #4- Surrendering To the Hands of the Crowd

The reason why crowds are easily controlled by an individual is because crowds are driven by basic primal instincts such as emotion and passion, rather than conscious actions like intelligence, reason. This is due to a lack of individualism in a crowd that creates individual invisibility, contagion and suggestibility for crowd members.
Recently in my community, I observed this type of crowd behaviour displayed between Natives and non-Native Caledonia residents over land claim disputes. To begin, individuals in a crowd gain a sense of invincibility due to the number of members involved. One feels their actions will not be noticed, and it validates them to do bad things. An example of this invisibility is when the prominent members of the Native and non-Native Caledonia community involved themselves with brawling.
In addition, crowds become victims of contagion. All acts are contagious to a degree, thus leading to the individual sacrificing his or her own interest to the collective. At the protest, a crowd member beat up a reporter and stole his camera as to protect the crowds’ image. He was charged with aggravated assault. He ‘surrendered’ himself for the crowd.
Finally, Gary McHale was an outsider who organized the protest against the Native land claim occupation. As LeBon states, “having entirely lost his conscious personality, he obeys all suggestions of the operator who has deprived him of it” (LeBon,124). In this case the operator was Gary McHale. Those involved in the crowd lost their sense of personal boundaries, morals and beliefs. This demonstrates how suggestibility is used by the operator of the crowd.
In closing, it is easy to see how crowds can be controlled. As discussed, this is due to a lack of individualism in the crowd, which creates individual invincibility, contagion and suggestibility for crowd members. Although effortless to spot for a foreign observer, crowd members will be oblivious to the control over themselves.
LeBon, Gustav.” General Characteristics of Crowds- Psychological Law of Their Mental Utility.” Introduction to Communication. Iowa: Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company, 2006. 121-125.