Crowds and Power 👥⚡: The Essence and Formation of Crowds
CaP NDC-01-02: Exploring "Crowds and Power" by Elias Canetti through examples and simulations. NDC : Nature and Dynamics of a Crowd is part 1/3 of this series.
The following analysis is done to understand and simulate different concepts presented in the book Crowds and Power by Elias Canetti.
The formation of a crowd is dependent on the reversal of the fear of being touched, discussed in the post below.
In this post, we will understand the attributes of crowds and an effects caused due to interplay of some of these attributes.
The Essence and Formation of Crowds
There are certain characteristics by which we can analyze a crowd. They tell us a lot about the dynamics of a crowd and helps us to look at it as a life form in itself.
The interplay of different characteristics of a crowd can inform us about the possible futures it might have. As we go ahead we will try to simulate existing postulates provided by Canetti in Crowds and Power.
I also use the terms attributes and characteristics interchangeably here.
In this section we are going to look at the Essence and Formation of Crowds. The book doesn’t provide distinct subsections for these so I have taken the liberty to restructure some of these ideas for ease of consumption.
As we start moving beyond the individual, we start worrying about the dynamics of individuals which convey the attributes of these crowds.
The attributes of a crowd help us understand it’s formation as a whole and what factors directly contribute to their creation, expansion and death.
The first attribute we will be discussing is the Openness of a crowd. Without openness a crowd cannot come into existence. In it’s lifetime a crowd has to be open at some point for it to go from a bunch of people with a crazy idea into a crowd or a community of individuals. We will discuss this attribute in depth in Open and Closed Crowds.
Open and Closed Crowds (Openness)
… The natural crowd is the Open Crowd.
~ Elias Canetti, Crowds and Power
Crowds have a natural urge to grow. The growth or life of a crowd are both dependent on it’s Openness. When a crowd forms for the first time, it’s first instinct is to grow even more before it moves on to the next stage in it’s life.
Growth is important for crowds to be successful but not always useful in the crowd’s lifetime. As a crowd’s success is not all that dependent on it’s growth but what is the crowd’s original purpose and how the crowd progresses in it’s life to achieve that purpose. The life of a crowd depends on it’s purpose and growth becomes an important factor to achieve the crowd’s goals, but it’s not the only thing that matters.
Needless growth can cause anomalies leading the crowds to fail. A loss of purpose. A failure for a crowd is failing to achieve what the crowd set out to do.
But maybe it’s about all the friends we made along the way. Just maybe.
Crowds start with being open and then in the name of permanence embrace barriers reducing openness. We shall discuss this after we understand how Open Crowds work.
Open Crowds
Understanding Openness and it’s effects
… the urge to grow is the first and supreme attribute of the crowd…
~ Elias Canetti, Crowds and Power
Openness of a crowd is arguably the most important mechanical attribute of a crowd. Without it, a crowd cannot exist. An Open Crowd is also arguably the most impactful state of a crowd.
Degree of Openness
A crowd may go through transitional open or closed states based on the degree of it’s openness. Below, we look at how a very open crowd might look like. It grows quickly and keeps growing. The simulation restarts when the Max People allowed in the Circle threshold is reached.
Sketch 2.1: High Degree Openness of a Crowd
In Canetti's framework, the openness of a crowd refers to its expansive, unbounded nature, where the crowd grows and spreads, potentially without limits.
Simulating Open Crowds
We try to simulate open crowds in the p5.js sketch above.
Simulating a crowd’s growth
The interactive simulation shown in the video above (Sketch 2.1: High Degree Openness of a Crowd) adds people to a crowd dynamically based on the crowd’s Openness. The Openness in the above example is 0.7 which means the crowd has a 70% acceptance rate. Better than most overrated colleges /s.
The simulation keeps adding stick figures based on the Openness here and addition continues till the maximum limit (Max People) is reached, after which the simulation is reset. Max People is the maximum number of people that can be added to this crowd.
Movement Towards the Center
Each stick figure moves towards the center of the canvas. This movement can be seen as a metaphor for the gravitational pull of the crowd's core, a common feature in Open Crowds where individuals are drawn to the collective action or sentiment. In this case ideas can literally move people /j.
Closed Crowds
Open vs. Closed Crowds
As an Open Crowd expands and loses sight of it’s purpose, the crowd can stagnate and disperse.
Transitioning from Open to Closed Crowds
The openness of a crowd can be restricted so that their long term growth and permanence is ensured. A Closed Crowd is one which limits expansion for the sake of permanence making the size of the crowd sometimes smaller initially or have a stagnant growth in some part of it’s life to ensure quality over quantity.
Simulating Closed Crowds
In the below sketch we can see that the Openness of the crowd is very low compared to the setting in the sketch above. Here it is 1% compared to the 70% openness. Hence, we have made the crowd a lot more closed.
Sketch 2.2: Low Openness / High Closeness of a Crowd
Simulating Slow growth of Closed Crowds
Closed Crowds take a lot more to form due to it’s reduced openness. That sounds redundant, yes. So was elementary abstract algebra /s/j in college. Don’t @ me.
These crowds usually prioritize permanence over size. This takes them some time to build. The time to build also adds to the lifetime of the crowd. Making these crowds stay alive for longer as they slowly build themselves out.
Closeness might not always be great and prolonged lack of openness might lead to stagnation of a crowd leading to dispersion.
Direction, Density and Equality
Direction, Density and Equality are related to the movement of individuals in the crowd. The direction of a crowd is dictated by the general direction of the people in it. If a dense group of individuals are moving roughly in the same direction or cross paths in some way or the other and are made to feel equal, we can call the small constellation of individuals as a crowd.
Moving away from boring stick figures, we move into cool particles where each particle represents an individual. In the sketch below we explore how these three attributes contribute to formation of a crowd.
Sketch 3: Direction, Density and Equality
In the above sketch, the particles start of with all different colors. Once can see this simulation as how different individuals when the cross paths, or are going in the same direction with enough people can become part of the same crowd. When individuals are part of the same crowd they are all equal.
This is absolute and indisputable and never questioned by the crowd itself.
~ Elias Canetti on Equality in Crowds and Power
Simulating attributes of Direction, Density and Equality
Direction and Equality
The direction, which is common to all it’s members, strenthens the feeling of equality…
~ Elias Canetti on Direction in Crowds and Power
If two or more individuals cross paths are in the same vicinity, they form constellations of sorts which can be called a crowd. Individuals who are part of a constellation but not have the same grey colors as the rest of the individuals from the crowd can be considered as outcasts or anomalies in the crowd.
Density and Equality
It can never feel too dense. Nothing must stand between it’s parts or divide them…
~ Elias Canetti on Density in Crowds and Power
As more people are added to the crowd using the slider in the simulation, we can see that the crowd becomes more coherent with increased density. Density of a crowd directly makes people feel closer and makes them equals.
Direction, Density and Equality work in tandem with each other to maintain a healthy crowd. Reversals in any of these can push a crowd to it’s dispersion.
Rhythm of a Crowd
…The crowd develops a rhythm, a pulse that, for Canetti, comes off like some ancient dance, with pounding feet and chanting voices.1
~ Seth Lerer on Crowds and Power
Sketch 4: Two crowds moving in different rhythms
The two crowds in question
Two crowds, each represented by a collection of particles of a distinct color, move and interact according to a set rhythm in the above sketch. The two crowds here are the 1. greenish yellow and the 2. violet crowds.
Simulating rhythm it’s interplay with other attributes of a crowd
Rhythm, Direction and Density
When the two crowds above move in different rhythms we can see that they form and lose the same connections over and over again. The density of these dynamic groups also increase and decrease over time in the same way as we hang out with different groups at different times only to keep crossing paths because we live in the same society. The world is small and we all have network effects on one another as long as we choose to be part of the network.
Rhythm as an identity
The simulation exemplifies the attribute of the rhythm of the crowd by showing how individual particles (representing people) move in a synchronized manner, creating a collective rhythm. Crowds develop a pulse or rhythm, akin to an ancient dance, which is a fundamental aspect of their identity and unity. Even without the colors on the crowd we should be able to distinguish which are the two different crowds based on the rhythms.
The simulation allows users to see how the rhythm of a crowd can emerge from the individual movements of its members and how different crowds can interact and unify, reflecting Canetti's ideas on the rhythmic and unifying nature of crowds.
Interplay Effects
Currently we are looking at two interplay effects of a crowd’s attributes. First is slowness and the other is stagnation. It is important to understand how crowds can reach these two stages in their life based on how different attributes of a crowd work together.
Causes of Slowness in a Crowd
Slowness due to increased density
…The feeling of relief is most striking where the density of the crowd is greatest…
~ Elias Canetti on Density in Crowds and Power
As a crowd becomes denser, the physical space each individual can occupy becomes limited, thereby reducing their ability to move quickly. This high density creates a compact mass where movement is inherently slowed down as individuals move in unison rather than independently. We can see in Sketch 3: Direction, Density and Equality that increasing the number of particles on the screen causes slowness in the crowd. This is not because of there being too many objects in p5.js to process but as a natural phenomena for a large collection of anything to work together well, the internal processes which keep systems alive need to slow down before they can get accustomed to the structural changes and increase their speeds of their internal processes again.
Slowness due to a crowd’s emotional state
Another attribute leading to slowness is the crowd's emotional state. Crowds can enter a state of stagnation, where they are not actively moving towards a goal but are instead absorbed in the experience of being part of the crowd.
~ Elias Canetti in Crowds and Power
Crowds can enter a state of stagnation, where they are not actively moving towards a goal but are instead absorbed in the experience of being part of the crowd. This emotional engagement can lead to a deliberate slowing down as the crowd savors the feeling of unity and closeness without well thought out movement towards a goal. In this case it makes sense to reduce the Openness of the crowd and re-focus on the purpose. This can help one take inventory of the current state of the crowd before needlessly growing without a purpose.
Slowness due to direction
The crowd needs a direction. It is in movement and it moves towards a goal.
~ Elias Canetti in Crowds and Power
The direction or lack thereof can also cause slowness in a crowd. Crowds often need a clear goal or stimulus to propel them forward. In the absence of a strong directive or when the goal is not immediately achievable, the crowd's movement can become aimless and slow, as there is no urgent motivation to move swiftly.
References
https://blog.lareviewofbooks.org/essays/patience-hand-elias-canettis-crowds-power-current-crisis/
In the upcoming release in this series of Nature and Dynamics of a Crowd, we will look at another interplay effect i.e. stagnation, some other essential characteristics of a crowd which define it’s nature.