Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War
Wilfred Trotter, 1916
Why does a person argue heatedly about taxes and war when he has never studied them, and why is it easier to keep quiet with everyone else than to say your own view? The English surgeon Wilfred Trotter explained this by the herd instinct, which works in each of us, even when we are alone with ourselves. You will learn how it governs belief, conscience and the choice of leaders, and get a touchstone for testing your own convictions.
Who it is for
For those who want to understand why it is so hard to disagree with the majority, where firm opinions about things we know nothing about come from, and how to tell your own thought from a suggested one.
Man is too eager to feel certain before he has had the time to learn.
A firm opinion about everything
Picture an ordinary educated man at the start of the twentieth century. Wilfred Trotter describes him this way: he has a firm opinion about the origin of the universe and about what awaits us after death. He knows how a country ought to be run and why it is sliding into the abyss. He has views on military strategy and taxes, on vaccination and the treatment of flu. He even has an opinion on whether Greek should be taught at school. Ask him, and he will justify every opinion.
Trotter, an English surgeon, asks an uncomfortable question. Many of these questions are not settled even by experts, and the rest need knowledge that an ordinary person does not have. An honest mind would answer: here I do not know. So where does such certainty come from?
His answer: man remains a herd animal, and not only in a crowded square. Le Bon wrote about the crowd that gathers together. Trotter thinks that is not enough: the herd lives in each of us, even when we sit alone. It tells us what to believe, what to be ashamed of and whom to follow, and reason arrives afterwards and finds the explanations.
In this book you will learn why loneliness frightens us more than any argument, and how to tell your own opinion from a suggested one. You will see where conscience comes from and why a leader must be like us. You will also see what the war of 1914 showed the author about the unity of people. We will begin with a dog and a cat.
The dog who fears being alone
For a long time scientists tried to explain human behaviour with three instincts: self-preservation, nutrition and reproduction. It did not work. People again and again failed to look after themselves, refused food and did not give in to passion, and they had to be forced into those three boxes.
Trotter suggests we look at animals. The three instincts explain a cat and a tiger easily. But a dog, with its conscience, its terror of being alone and its devotion even to a cruel master, does not fit the scheme. Nor does a bee, which gives itself entirely to the hive. What they share is that they live in a flock. So there must be a fourth force. Trotter calls it the herd instinct.
It shows even in small things. The dog's ancestors hunted in packs and had to snatch their share of the common prey, so the dog still gulps its food and growls if you come near. A cat eats unhurriedly. A dog seeks warmth, while a cat sits calmly in the snow: for a herd animal, cold is tied to having strayed from its own.
The main quality of a herd, according to Trotter, is uniformity. A thousand individuals must act as one, so each one keenly catches what its neighbours are doing. Any animal may lead, but the others will follow only if it differs little from the rest. A wolf that does not obey the pack dies of hunger, and a straying sheep is eaten.
In a person the same mechanism is felt from the inside. Loneliness becomes real terror, and arguments of reason do not defeat it. That is where shyness, fear of the stage and dislike of standing out come from. Even the strangest eccentric, Trotter notes, leans on the agreement of a small group, and its support gives him the strength to argue with everyone else.
It may seem that civilisation has weakened the instincts. Trotter disagrees: a large brain does not weaken an instinct, but opens more paths for it. Monks and martyrs, in his view, do not disprove the force of the urges; they show how far their roundabout road can lead.
What to do about it? Admit that the wish to be like everyone else is not a weakness of character but an ancient mechanism, as old as hunger. The next time it feels uncomfortable to say your own view in company, ask yourself: am I afraid of being wrong, or am I afraid of standing apart?
About the author
Wilfred Trotter (1872-1939), English surgeon, one of Britain's first neurosurgeons. He set out his thoughts on the psychology of society in this book, which grew out of two magazine essays from 1908 and 1909.
All books by this author: Wilfred Trotter
Terms from the book
- Darwin
- Freud
- suggestibility
- Le Bon: Gustave Le Bon (1841-1931), French social researcher, author of The Psychology of Crowds (1895). Trotter cites it as a model of work on crowd behaviour.
- herd instinct: In Trotter's account, the innate tendency of a social animal to feel part of a group and respond to its voice. It is a concept of his theory, not a strict scientific term.
- Sidis: Boris Sidis (1867-1923), American psychologist and psychiatrist, author of The Psychology of Suggestion, which Trotter argues with.
- rationalisation: Choosing reasonable-sounding explanations for a belief or an action whose real causes lie elsewhere.
- uric acid: A substance formed in the body during metabolism. An excess of it is linked to gout.
- omnibuses: A multi-seat city carriage, or an early bus, that ran on a fixed route.
- shillings: British coin, one twentieth of a pound sterling. In the book, thirty shillings a week are set against thirty thousand a year as the incomes of a poor man and a rich one.
- Anglo-Boer War: Britain's war with the Boer republics in southern Africa, 1899-1902.
All terms
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