POWER OF AN INDIVIDUAL

The Beginning of Reformation

GUSTAVE LE BON  (1841–1931), a  French  social psychologist, best known for his 1895 work The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind, observes that:

“Civilisations as yet have only been created and directed by a small intellectual aristocracy, never by crowds. Crowds are only powerful for destruction. Their rule is always tantamount to a barbarian phase.” 

The right way to bring about a revolution is through individual effort, not crowd-based effort. A true reformer must adopt a low-profile approach; a microscopic way of thinking. He should first train individuals and form a team of selected people before trying to bring about change in society or the system. 

This method was successfully adopted by the Fabian Society of England, founded in 1884. The society laid the foundations of the  Labour Party and subsequently affected the policies of states emerging from the decolonization of the British Empire.


The right way to bring about a revolution is through individual effort, not crowd-based effort.


Several great minds such as George Bernard Shaw were involved with the Fabian Society. They trained the British people on lines that were rather unpopular during the post-war period. Although the British had emerged victorious from World War II, the Fabian Society recommended decolonization. This was against the grain of popular thinking. However, a literary campaign by the Fabian Society proved successful in the post-war elections when the British people rejected Winston Churchill and elected Lord Clement Attlee who was never in favour of colonization while Churchill was known to be strongly against the policy of decolonization. This decision at that critical juncture saved the British nation and helped maintain their dignity in the post-colonial era.

We can understand from the above examples that whatever one wants to accomplish at a mass level, one has to adopt the method of addressing individual minds. Even if one feels there is dearth of time to do this type of work, one should not be tempted in trying to reach out to multitudes, for in terms of results one person who is sincere and serious and understands the importance of the mission is better than a thousand half-hearted volunteers. o