''Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War'' is the title of an influential book by English surgeon

Wilfred Trotter Wilfred Batten Lewis Trotter, FRS (3 November 1872 – 25 November 1939) was an English surgeon, a pioneer in neurosurgery. He was also known for his studies on social psychology, most notably for his concept of the herd instinct, which he f ...

, published in 1916. Based on the ideas of

Gustave Le Bon Charles-Marie Gustave Le Bon (7 May 1841 – 13 December 1931) was a leading French polymath whose areas of interest included anthropology, psychology, sociology, medicine, invention, and physics. He is best known for his 1895 work '' The Crowd: ...

, it was very influential in the development of

group dynamics Group dynamics is a system of behaviors and psychological processes occurring within a social group (''intra''group dynamics), or between social groups ( ''inter''group dynamics). The study of group dynamics can be useful in understanding decision ...

and

crowd psychology Crowd psychology (or mob psychology) is a subfield of social psychology which examines how the psychology of a group of people differs from the psychology of any one person within the group. The study of crowd psychology looks into the actions ...

, and the

propaganda Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be selectively presenting facts to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded l ...

Edward Bernays Edward Louis Bernays ( ; ; November 22, 1891 − March 9, 1995) was an American pioneer in the field of public relations and propaganda, referred to in his obituary as "the father of public relations". While credited with advancing the profession ...

. Trotter's book was also a key influence on Q. D. Leavis' book ''Fiction and the Reading Public'' (1932).

Quotes

From ''Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War'' (1942 ed., pg. 90): * "It has already been pointed out how dangerous it would be to breed man for reason — that is, against suggestibility. The idea is a fit companion for the device of breeding against “degeneracy”. The degenerate — that is, the mentally unstable – have demonstrated by the mere fact of instability that they possess the quality of sensitiveness to feeling and to experience, for it is this which has prevented them from applying the remedy of rationalization or exclusion when they have met with experience conflicting with the herd suggestion." * "It is interesting to notice that in discussing the mechanism of psychoanalysis in liberating the ‘abnormal’ patient from his symptoms, Freud repeatedly lays stress on the fact that the efficient factor in the process is not the actual introduction of the suppressed experiences into the conscious field, but the overcoming of the resistances to such an endeavour. I have attempted to show that these resistances or counter-impulses are of environmental origin, and owe their strength to the specific sensitiveness of the gregarious mind. Resistances of similar type and identical origin are responsible for the formation of the so-called normal type of mind. It is a principal thesis of an earlier essay in this book that this normal type is far from being psychologically healthy, is far from rendering available the full capacity of the mind for foresight and progress, and being in exclusive command of directing power in the world, is a danger to civilization."

Response

Writer

Vernon Lee Vernon Lee was the pseudonym of the French-born British writer Violet Paget (14 October 1856 – 13 February 1935). She is remembered today primarily for her supernatural fiction and her work on aesthetics. An early follower of Walter Pater, ...

owned a first edition of ''Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War'': Lee wrote

marginalia Marginalia (or apostils) are marks made in the margin (typography), margins of a book or other document. They may be scribbles, comments, gloss (annotation), glosses (annotations), critiques, doodles, drolleries, or illuminated manuscript, ...

into her copy taking issue with Trotter's ideas. Lee's notes criticised Trotter's ideas of

organicism Organicism is the philosophical position that states that the universe and its various parts (including human societies) ought to be considered alive and naturally ordered, much like a living organism.Gilbert, S. F., and S. Sarkar. 2000. "Emb ...

and his use of "crowd theory", and disagreed with Trotter's support for the First World War. Beer, Gillian, "The Dissidence of Vernon Lee: Satan the Waster and the Will to Believe", in Suzanne Raitt, and Trudi Tate (eds), ''Women’s Fiction and the Great War'' Oxford,

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the publishing house of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world. Its first book was printed in Oxford in 1478, with the Press officially granted the legal right to print books ...

, 1997. (pgs. 107-131).Mahoney, Kristin. ''Literature and the Politics of Post-Victorian Decadence''. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2015. , (pgs.57-83 ) Lee later wrote her 1932 book ''Music and its Lovers'' partly as a response to Trotter's book.

Popular culture

In the

James Bond The ''James Bond'' franchise focuses on James Bond (literary character), the titular character, a fictional Secret Intelligence Service, British Secret Service agent created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels ...

novel: '' Live and Let Die'', the villain of the book, Mister Big, speaks about and quotes this book to James Bond, from chapter 21: "You have doubtless read Trotter’s ''Instincts of the Herd in War and Peace'', Mister Bond. Well, I am by nature and predilection a wolf and I live by a wolf’s laws. Naturally the sheep describe such a person as a “criminal”. ‘The fact, Mister Bond,’ The Big Man continued after a pause, ‘that I survive and indeed enjoy limitless success, although I am alone against countless millions of sheep, is attributable to the modern techniques I described to you on the occasion of our last talk, and to an infinite capacity for taking pains. Not dull, plodding pains, but artistic, subtle pains. And I find, Mister Bond, that it is not difficult to outwit sheep, however many of them there may be, if one is dedicated to the task and if one is by nature an extremely well-equipped wolf."

References

External links

Archive.org

Google Books
1916 non-fiction books Books about propaganda Books about crowd psychology Books about social psychology History of mental health in the United Kingdom {{sociology-book-stub