Part 6/18:
Drawing from anthropology and social psychology, the author discusses how our modern societal norms and behaviors mirror historical crowd dynamics. They evoke David Riseman’s The Lonely Crowd, emphasizing that the current mass society is marked by anonymity, superficiality, and a lack of genuine community. Riseman predicted that with the rise of democratic ideals and the disintegration of traditional authority—churches, nobility, monarchies—crowds gained dominance, often leading societies into a state of mass conformity and mediocrity.