Le Bon identified affirmation, repetition, and contagion as crowd persuasion devices

Evidence

The dissociation between the ‘true signification’ of words and the images they evoke requires some rhetorical devices to make it possible. According to Le Bon, there are three such devices: affirmation, repetition and contagion. — Ernesto Laclau, On Populist Reason, 77

Categorization

• DEFINE: Catalogues Le Bon’s three rhetorical devices, which Laclau then proceeds to critique one by one.
• XREF: connects to: Rulers can make odious things acceptable simply by renaming them — Ernesto Laclau, On Populist Reason, 74; Repeated assertions eventually become believed because their authorship is forgotten — Ernesto Laclau, On Populist Reason, 77; Suggestion was an unexplained mechanism that supposedly explained everything about crowds — Ernesto Laclau, On Populist Reason, 86 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Crowds arouse sub-individual instincts while organized groups transcend individuals #contradicts (0.80) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 345
• Unchallenged assertions gain credibility with passive audiences #expands (0.75) — Holm Gero Hümmler, Ulrike Schiesser, Fact and Prejudice, 263