The New State by Mary Parker Follett — Read

Many people are ready to accept the truth that association is the law of life. But in consequence of an acceptance of this theory with only a partial understanding of it, many people today are advocating the life of the crowd. The words society, crowd, and group are often used interchangeably for a number of people together. One writer says, "The real things are breathed forth from multitudes. the real forces of today are group forces. " Or we read of "the gregarious or group life," or "man is social because he is suggestible," or, "man is social because he likes to be with a crowd. " But we do not find group forces in multitudes: the crowd and the group represent entirely different modes of association. Crowd action is the outcome of agreement based on concurrence of emotion rather than of thought, or if on the latter, then on a concurrence produced by becoming aware of similarities, not by a slow and gradual creating of unity. It is a crowd emotion if we all shout "God save the King. " Suggestibility, feeling, impulse -- this is usually the order in the crowd mind.

I know a little boy of five who came home from school one day and said with much impressiveness, "Do you know whose birthday it is tomorrow? " "No," said his mother, "whose? " "Ab'm Lincoln's," was the reply. "Who is he? " said the mother. With a grave face and an awed voice the child replied, "He freed the slates! " and then added, "I don't know whether they were the big kind like mine or the little kind like Nancy's. " But his emotion was apparently as great, his sentiment as sincere, as if he had understood what Lincoln had done for his country. This is a good example of crowd suggestion because thought was in this case inhibited by contagious emotion.