One device of leadership
is to control individual behavior by psychological means. Gustave Le Bon’s 1895 book “The Crowd: A Study of the Popular
Mind”
outlines this phenomenon. The leader uses events to short-circuit rational
thought and regress people to their unconscious and ancient fears, drives and
instincts. I don’t believe, as he did, that there is a crowd “mind” but he
did identify a real process by which the leader’s suggestions create a
primitive, unreasoning and emotional response among many listeners, so that
they become willing to follow him. They become united as a crowd in how they
are reacting and as a group of followers.
The power of a leader
expert in the technique of creating a crowd and who uses events as a backdrop
to his appeals and stories is enhanced when he can reach millions upon
millions of viewers through mass media. It is further enhanced when the media
repeat over and over his messages. It is his goal to tell a simple story that
frames the issue so effectively that it cuts off rational criticism and
creates a mass following.
I posit that the term
“nation” is a frequent trigger to create the unthinking crowd reaction. The
leader wants a unified public (crowd) support for his policies, and he
appeals to people’s belonging to a group, in this case, a “nation”.
George
Bush’s 9/11 address is
an example of how he went about creating crowd support for his policies. Over
and over, his words stressed the idea that the terrorism that day was an
attack on every American. He led off with “…our fellow citizens, our way of
life, our very freedom came under attack…” He went on to shape the
psychological reactions that would provide the ground for his policies:
“…have filled us with disbelief, terrible sadness and a quiet, unyielding
anger.”
At this point he invoked
the nation: “These acts of mass murder were intended to frighten our nation
into chaos and retreat. But they have failed. Our country is strong. A great people has been moved to defend a great nation.”
He was appealing to the
feeling of every listener and viewer of belonging to a large group, the
nation, that he suggested was under attack. He then switched to the term
“America”, using it several times to reinforce this appeal. He continued to
stress “we” and “our”, again saying “our nation saw evil”.
Toward the end of the
message, he outlined his actions and policies. The most important two
policies were radically different from one another. They appeared in two
sentences. The first was “I’ve directed the full resources for our
intelligence and law enforcement communities to find those responsible and
bring them to justice.” That policy was one of regarding the attackers or
those behind them as criminals to be brought to justice.
The second approach was
much more serious. “We will make no distinction between the terrorists who
committed these acts and those who harbor them.” This was a somewhat oblique
and veiled reference to initiating hostile actions, wars as it turned out,
against whole countries accused of being terrorist havens.
Bush went on to say
something even more serious that set off an entirely new policy and
direction: “…we stand together to win the war against terrorism.” He
announced a new war. In order to do this, he had first to frame the attacks
as a war on the nation, on “us”, on “America”, on all “Americans” that called
for going to war against the attackers and their host countries.
A second example is that
of John Rizzo, a CIA lawyer who approved torture under the name of “enhanced
interrogation techniques”. In an excerpt titled “I could have
stopped waterboarding before it happened“, he mentions what went through his mind
when he approved it. It becomes quite clear that he was laying aside the
moral considerations against torture as well as the many pragmatic
alternatives to torture. Why? One of the reasons: “…the nation was still in
the throes of fear and dread about another catastrophic attack…” And so was
he. Rationality had been laid aside. The “nation” was under attack. Bush had
rallied the crowd to this view and Rizzo was just as much part of the crowd
as anyone. True, he had other reasons and those in the CIA who were making
this proposal had their reasons. But emotions and atavistic drives were
strongly at work. The CIA interrogators were simply frustrated by the
defiance of a man they had captured, Abu Zubaydah.
Presidents refer to the
nation quite frequently in order to create the crowd support for their
policies. In Obama’s
second inaugural address, he uses the word “nation” eight times (and national once). He
affirms that Americans are one group by expressing what he thinks “binds this
nation together…” Over and over and over, he speaks of “we”. He speaks of
what “…a great nation must care for…”
He urges “…we must do
these things together, as one nation, and one people.”
He speaks of “…a nation
that rewards the effort and determination of every single American…”
He speaks of “…its most
powerful nation…”
The rhetoric of American
leaders that invokes the “nation” is frequently after one thing, the shaping
of simple stories that appeal to instincts and urges that are not checked by
rational thought, and the shaping of individuals into a collective crowd that
either remains quiescent in the face of government actions or approves them.
One of the items in the
long indictment against government is that it governs by appealing to the
lowest urges, drives and instincts that human beings ordinarily keep under
control, if not repress. One of the many ways government does this is by
appealing to membership in a group called the nation that, in this era, is
closely tied to the state, the nation-state.
