Swarming out When we are part of a group, we often find a double attitude in ourselves: we long for the safe security of the group and we want to perform strongly or express ourselves as individuals. The latter requires a somewhat loosening or transcendence of the group. Looking for the happiness of loneliness.
E
lias Canetti deals with this phenomenon in ‘Power and mass’. Especially on forming a mass, a large group. In such a group, the urge for safety in the group is stronger than the fear of influence by the unknown, the fear of touch by an unknown person. The safety of the group expresses itself in an electroplating effect, a loss of individuality, and the merging into the group. The group becomes one body. Achieving this maximum effect is called by Canetti: the discharge of the group. All who belong to the group feel equal, they have completely discarded their differences - but temporarily. Because of this happy moment, in which nobody is better than another, people become a mass. Later, the group will irrevocably fall apart again, under the influence of internal and external forces. The differences between people will once again become painfully clear.
idea around which the first people gather. The masses by nature always want to expand. To be able to discharge again and again - the happy experience of equality - she must continue to grow. The mass becomes large, becomes too large, must be organized. The organization becomes an institute. The institution’s own weight, which then leads a life in itself, gradually dampens the power of the original recruitment, the fire from which the masses once began to form. The purpose of the masses- why people unite consciously – in a church is placed far away in time. In this way the mass will continue to exist, even if there is little growth in the number of people. Repetition, including the repetition of rites, guarantees a controlled self-experience to the people in the group. Vincent van Gogh, 1888. Pencil, pen and reed pen in ink, on paper. © Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation) Vincent made this drawing after one of his own paintings: The Sower. The sower symbolizes the eternal cycle of existence. He who sows brings forth new life.
It is striking how some groups or organizations, some masses in the making, deal with the tendencies, present in groups of people. Think of a church, for example. It starts from the power of the
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Swarming out
