Temptation of Revolution

Notes on the Nature of Mass Movements

Abstract

Author based on researcher’s refl ections on the nature of mass movements. Among them Nikolai Berdyaev, Semen Frank, Gustave Le Bon, Sigmund Freud, Erich Fromm, Serge Moscovici, Scipio Sighele, José Ortega y Gasset, Eric Hoff er, Elias Canetti and many others. But the question continues to be not fully clarifi ed: what kind of transformations occur with the consciousness of the individual, what mechanisms are activated, when the seizure by the mass movement causes the individual “I” to dissolve enthusiastically into the collective “we”? Th e author of this article considers the question of simulating and substituting the “personal self” as an experience of the illusion of fi nding “beyond self.” Th e article analyzes this transformation of consciousness under the infl uence of collective suggestion. As a method of investigation, the Jungian doctrine of archetypes and Husserl’s principle of intentionality of consciousness are used. Existential foundations of the phenomenon being investigated are revealed. Both French and Russian revolutions led to a change in the whole socio-cultural paradigm, including the modeling of a new type of personality, bringing a new system of values to the world. Th e article examines the problem of the diff erence between the revolutions that led to a change in the religious outlook, and the revolutions of the New Times, which brought ideological changes. Th e key principle is the principle of transcendence and its simulacra. Particular attention is paid to the temptation of the collective “We” inherent in mass movements.