I Predict a Riot - a podcast by Thomas Stoeckle (strategic business development, LexisNexis BIS; co-chair Measurement Commission, Institute for PR)
from 2021-01-17T17:33:42
"The masses have never thirsted after truth. They turn aside from evidence that is not to their taste, preferring to deify error, if error seduce them. Whoever can supply them with illusions is easily their master; whoever attempts to destroy their illusions is always their victim." (Gustave Le Bon, The Crowd, p. 64)
What would Monsieur le Professeur Le Bon make of the fact that his 1895 masterpiece The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind is as timely and relevant today as it was then?
Written under the influence of his experience of the Paris Commune, the civil war between Paris and the rest of France which killed thousands and saw the burning of Tuileries Palace on 25th May 1871, some 150 years before the storming of the Capitol on 6th January 2021 (see this remarkable report from the Guardian archive), he was wary of “our savage destructive instincts” and the “cowardly ferocity” of crowds.
He should have come and watched a match at the New Den pre-lockdown.
Of course, the first SDF convention of 2021 (the sixth year of our chatventure, no less) on Friday 15th – still a Zoom affair, plus ça change – had a lot to say about that Capitol offence from nine days earlier.
And about the latest zigzagging from the government of Plague Island (thanks Sam), about trust in general and the Trust Barometer in particular – with differing opinions, though less so than on the topic of whether and how, or not, The Platforms are publishers. More of that later.
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Further episodes of Small Data Forum Podcast
Further podcasts by Thomas Stoeckle (strategic business development, LexisNexis BIS; co-chair Measurement Commission, Institute for PR)