[381] no importance for the movement of the whole. The word "mass society^a" has little to do-- under certain circumstances, it has something to do--with great masses. But the CHARACTERISTICS of mass society can be seen in very small groups. The most famous example is a theater in which someone suddenly cries "Fire!"--and in this moment the reaction of everybody is, for the first moment, SAUVE QUI PEUT!--[let] him who can, save himself! And everybody runs toward the exit, and all the horrors which then happen are the results of this mass instinct, in which the individual characteristics of the often highly sophisticated and individualized people are almost completely gone, in such a situation. A few MINUTES after the panic, the individual is reestablished

again, and he may be ashamed that in this moment he ceased to be a spontaneous free-acting individual, that he has become a particle of the mass, moving like the mass as a whole. So it is in gangs, where one leader gives the word "Let's do this!" and then they all lose their independent judgment. It is in crusades, where larger masses are moved for a special purpose in the same way. And there are many other examples. But they are examples only for the character of what a mass is; they are NOT examples for mass society because they all are transitory. Mass society is long-lasting-- of course, not eternal, or endless, but long-lasting; while the others are short and transitory--

often very short. Now what happens in a long-lasting mass society^b? The individual resistance against the movement of the mass as such--the activities and the ideas and the conventions--is reduced (slowly, but safely); and is reduced more and more, ideally to a point where it is of [no] influence on the movement of the whole any more. This is the definition of a mass society. This takes much