SOC 148 Lecture Notes - Gustave Le Bon, Collective Behavior, Herbert Blumer
Document Summary
Mass society : feared the masses (bunch of sobs) Collective behavior (cb): modernization brought with it social breakdown which sponsored irrational, emotional, and destructive mass psychologies that were reflected in mass movements like nationalism, socialism, mccarthyism, and communism, but also in more limited panics, hysterias, and hostile outbursts . In wwii many ideas associated w/ mass society that came back. Fascist regimes : you are going to do this for us people went along in masses (stalin, bolsheviks, etc. ) and no one questioned it. Why were people backing authoritarians against their own better interest? strain-based participation: at ground level, people participate in these things out of deep discomfort when society broke down. Those movements are not irrational mob behaviors they actually are reasonable responses to societal conditions. African-americans who were fighting for their rights are not just people venting about their problems. They reinterpret the idea of mobs, crowds, etc.
