In this episode, we talk about Elias Canetti’s 1960 book Crowds and Power. Equal parts political theory, poetic sociology, and speculative anthropology, this staggering work explores human social life through an increasingly elaborate series of reflections on the nature of crowds. The result is a fascinating typology of different kinds of crowds in which human beings cast off their individuality for the sake of equality and directed collective action: there are baiting crowds, feast crowds, prohibition crowds… Does a lynch mob follow a logic analogous to that of the viewing public in a world of mass media, a gathering of dancers attuned to the rhythms of the others, or those brought before the host of the invisible dead? What does it mean for the general strike that we fear the touch of others, until it’s the thing we desire most? It’s pretty wild stuff, and we find plenty of insights to pull out and play with.

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References:

Elias Canetti, Crowds and Power, trans. Carol Stewart (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1984).

Music:

“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com

“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN