conditions of its emergence,mass discourse invariablyconstitutes the masses as
the abject other of an ideal society alternatelycalled estates system, classsoci-
ety,orfolk community.This discursive function of otherness in mass discourse is
reinscribed through an almost obsessive preoccupation with distinctions: be-
tween masses, groups,and crowds; between mass, people, folk, and class; be-
tween active and passive masses; between spontaneous, violent eruptions and
more stable social formations; and between the masses as spectacle,event,
and state of being.Needless to say, neither the masses nor the people exist as
social facts. Lüdemann and Gamper insist thatthey are discursive constructions.
But asJonsson rightlyargues, although the masses maynot beahistoricalreal-
ity,they are also not justahistorical construction; they are“an effect ofrepre-
sentation.”¹⁵
All historical contributionsto mass discourse (and later scholarlyassess-
ments of these debates) can be traced back to LeBon’sTheCrowdand,more spe-
cifically, his belief inasoul of the masses (l’ame des foules). In this influential
work, LeBonpresentsapsychologicallybasedmodel of the masses that identi-
fies suggestion and contagion as its constitutive principles. LeBon’smotivation
is obvious: to prevent mass rule–that is, the socialist movement–through the
affirmation of conservative values. The same can be said about his criticalmeth-
od: toreducecomplex social phenomena to the alternativesofindividualismver-
sus collectivism. References to“the threateninginvasion of socialism”and“an
armyofproletarians”make clear that the so-called popularclasses emerging
in“the eraofcrowds”must be regarded asaserious threatto the(bourgeois)
individual as the embodiment ofreason, liberty,and civilization.¹⁶
Le Bon’smasspsychologyemergedaspart ofalargerscholarlyproject that
beganwith his affirmation of the primacy of national and ethnic identity inLois
psychologiques de l’évolution des peuples(1894,translated asThePsychology of
Peoples)and culminated in his analysis of contemporary political problems in
the above-mentionedThePsychology of Socialism.These books, in turn, must
2013).Forauseful comparison ofFrench mass psychology and German sociology of the masses,
also seeSusanne Lüdemann,“’Zusammenhanglose Bevölkerungshaufen, aller inneren Glieder-
ung bar.’Die Masse als das Andereder Ordnung im Diskurs der Soziologie,”Behemoth.AJournal
on Civilization7.1(2014): 103–117.
Jonsson,Crowds and Democracy,27.
Gustave Le Bon,TheCrowd:AStudy of the Popular Mind(Kitchener:Batoche,2001),41.To
what degreethe ideological work performed by mass discourse and its suppressed historical ref-
erent,class,involvedanaffirmation of traditional notions of(bourgeois) subjectivity was first
made clear by SigmundFreudinhis critical rereadingofLeBon inMassenpsychologie und
Ich-Analyse(1921), translatedinto English as“Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego.”
The Threatofthe Proletariat and the Discourseofthe Masses 41