The Crowd is Untruth

I posted this a while back but I will post it in this format for those who prefer to read it this way and for those who may have missed the original posting. "The Crowd is Untruth" appears in: INSPIRE-The WIM Review-Vol. 47 No.3 (December 2021 – March 2022), pp. 50-51

The crowd is untruth

In 1847 Soren Kierkegaard wrote ‘Even though every individual possesses the truth, when he gets together in a crowd, untruth will be present at once, for the crowd is untruth.’(Kierkegaard, 2002, p.23) Kierkegaard’s observation regarding the relationship between the crowd and truth is as provocative today as it was when he penned his famous critique. What was Kierkegaard driving at in his critique of the crowd and how can we understand its relevance today?

Often misunderstood and ignored by many, Kierkegaard who was one of the most interesting theological, philosophical, and social thinkers and critics of his time provides us with insight into faith, belief in God and the human condition. Thinkers from a wide variety of religious and secular backgrounds have found much of interest in Soren Kierkegaard and his influence in contemporary philosophy and across religious traditions is worthy of note. If I venture an opinion, I suggest that “the crowd is untruth” is another of his important insights.

To understand the import of Kierkegaard’s view on the crowd let us step back a little and look at contemporary culture and our current mass society. All around us we witness the incessant and unremitting power of mass opinion, sometimes reinforced through state power, sometimes articulated through corporate interests, or often advanced though a permanent and powerful authority that mass opinion has in society. The role of the media and especially social media has on “public opinion” can challenge the strongest among us to conform or risk ostracization.

Consider for example the current issue of cancel culture. Herd mentality in social media where people with apparently outlying opinions or viewpoints are berated, ‘cancelled’, and subject to a steady stream of vitriol and crowd abuse ensures that any individual who wants to buck a trend or not go along with the latest fad or fashion ought to think long and hard about their relationship to the crowd. The crowd is increasingly the authority and those who seek to speak the truth can run afoul of the crowd and come of second best.

Think of the phenomenon of a twitter mob. Acting almost as if in unison a crowd forms on twitter and proceeds to vilify and attack other individuals on the same platform. In each individual case we find it hard to believe that the people concerned would say these things face to face to the other person. Yet as part of a crowd individuals act in ways that are shocking and perhaps at odds with how they would act in a one-on-one situation. Membership of a twitter mob can be a conduit and encouragement for us to participate in and often advance untruths.

Furthermore if this crowd mentality is reinforced in the workplace, by political elites and educational institutions then all manner of pressure can ensure that individuals are constrained to utter untruths simply to get along if not to survive socially and economically.

Kierkegaard was concerned with the way in which the crowd acted to level society and force the individual into accepting uncritically views and ideas which ultimately debase them. Conformity to the crowd levels individuals, robbing people of their individuality and their capacity for moral reasoning. Unable to choose a reasonable direction in life without curtailing one’s views to suit the crowd human beings become less than they could be. For Kierkegaard, a choice we face in modern life is between realizing our worth and potential as human beings or reducing and levelling ourselves down to being part of the crowd and leading a life of inauthenticity and despair. For Kierkegaard, where there is the crowd, “there is externality, and comparison, and indulgence, and evasion.”(Moore, 2002)

However, it would be misleading to think that Kierkegaard is simply an individualist only concerned with the self. For Kierkegaard our failure to authentically engage with each other and instead worship the crowd is to deny God. The problem with our submission to the crowd is that in submitting to fad, fashion, and fancy and submitting to the authority of the crowd we fail to exercise our humanity towards each other and fail to recognize the proper authority of God. It is God and not the crowd that is truth. Kierkegaard writes:

“To honour every individual human being, unconditionally every human being, this is the truth and is to fear God and to love the neighbour; but ethically-religiously to recognise ‘the crowd’ as the authority with regard to the truth is to deny God and cannot possibly be loving the neighbour. The neighbour is the absolutely true expression for human equality. If everyone in truth loved the neighbour as himself, then perfect human equality would be achieved unconditionally. Everyone who in truth loves the neighbour expresses human equality unconditionally; everyone who, even if he confesses, as I do, that his striving is weak and imperfect, is still aware that the task is to love the neighbour; he is also aware of what human equality is. But I have never read in Holy Scripture this commandment: You shall love the crowd, to say nothing of: ethically-religiously you are to recognise the crowd as the authority with regard to the truth, is the way to acquire tangible power, the way to all kinds of temporal and worldly advantage – it is also untruth, since the crowd is untruth.”(Stoker, 2014, p.80)

Subservience to the crowd and the tyranny of public opinion entails a diminution in our ability to attend to ultimate meanings and to each other. The crowd is untruth because in part the crowd acts to distort our understanding of ourselves, of others, and of things ultimate. In terms of our social relationships submission to the crowd leads us to say and do things that as discrete individuals we would never consider doing. Kierkegaard pulls no punches. He writes:

“Even though every individual possesses the truth, when he gets together in a crowd, untruth will be present at once, for the crowd is untruth. It either produces impenitence and irresponsibility or it weakens the individual’s sense of responsibility by placing it in a fractional category. For instance, imagine an individual walking up to Christ and spitting on him. No human being would ever have the courage or the audacity to do that. But as part of a crowd, well then they somehow have the “courage” to do it – dreadful untruth!”(Kierkegaard, 2002, p.23)

Irrespective of how far we go along with Kierkegaard in his critique of the crowd we cannot ignore his argument not least because examples of the negative effects and effects of the crowd on human beings is everywhere evident from social media, political demagoguery and even in the workplace. Kierkegaard is clear: “In truth, there is no place, not even one most disgustingly dedicated to lust and vice, where a human being is more easily corrupted – than in the crowd.”(Kierkegaard, 2002, p.23)

The challenge we face in rejecting the seductions, distortions and tyranny of the crowd is to think for ourselves. To do this requires courage, a sense of self-worth and above all a willingness to uphold truth when it is costly and not just when it benefits us. As Kierkegaard observes: “Of all the tyrannies, fear is the most dangerous.”(Kierkegaard, 2002, p.243) Being able to think for yourself and insist on truth against the crowd means we need to be able to face our fear and commit to truth. That is no easy task. Afterall its usually easier to go along to get along. It is hard to resist the untruth of the crowd.

References

Kierkegaard, S. (2002). Against the Crowd. In C. E. Moore (Ed.), Provocations: Spiritual Writings of Søren Kierkegaard. (pp. 23-24). Farmington, PA: The Bruderhof Foundation.

Moore, C. E. (2002). Introduction. In C. E. Moore (Ed.), Provocations: Spiritual Writings of Kierkegaard (pp. viii-xxix). Farmington, PA: The Bruderhof Foundation.

Stoker, B. (2014). Kierkegaard on Politics. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.