Format:
Online-Ressource (xxii, 418 p.)
,
22 cm
Edition:
2nd. ed., rev (Online-Ausg.)
Content:
"Participation in group life degrades the individual, assimilating his mental processes to those of the crowd, whose brutality, inconstancy, and unreasoning impulsiveness have been the theme of many writers; yet only by participation in group life does man become fully man, only so does he rise above the level of the savage. The resolution of this paradox is the essential theme of this book. It examines and fully recognises the mental and moral defects of the crowd and its degrading effects upon all those who are caught up in it and carried away by the contagion of its reckless spirit. It then goes on to show how organisation of the group may, and generally does in large measure, counteract these degrading tendencies; and how the better kinds of organisation render group life the great ennobling influence by aid of which alone man rises a little above the animals and may even aspire to fellowship with the angels." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved)
Content:
"In this book I have sketched the principles of the mental life of groups, and have made a rough attempt to apply these principles to the understanding of the life of nations. It may seem to some minds astonishing that I should now admit that the substance of this book was committed to writing before the Great War; for that war is supposed by some to have revolutionised all our ideas of human nature and of national life. But the war has given me little reason to add to or to change what I had written. This may be either because I am too old to learn, or because what I had written was in the main true; and I am naturally disposed to accept the second explanation. I wish to make it clear to any would-be reader of this volume that it is a sequel to my Introduction to Social Psychology, that it builds upon that book and assumes that the reader is acquainted with it. I have striven to make this a strictly scientific work, rather than a philosophical one; that is to say, I have tried to ascertain and state the facts and principles of social life as it is and has been, without expressing my opinion as to what it should be. But, in order further to guard myself against the implications attached by German "idealism" to the notion of a collective mind, I wish to state that politically my sympathies are with individualism and internationalism, although I have, I think, fully recognised the great and necessary part played in human life by the Group Spirit, and by that special form of it which we now call 'Nationalism'."
Note:
Includes index. - A sequel to the author's Introduction to social psychology. - Electronic reproduction; Washington, D.C; American Psychological Association; 2005; Available via the World Wide Web; Access limited by licensing agreement; s2005 dcunns
Language:
English
Author information:
McDougall, William 1871-1938
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