《乌合之众·第二编·群体的意见与信念·群体的领袖及其说服手段》第9节
Affirmation, however, has no real influence unless it be constantly repeated, and so far as possible in the same terms. It was Napoleon, I believe, who said that there is only one figure in rhetoric of serious importance, namely, repetition. The thing affirmed comes by repetition to fix itself in the mind in such a way that it is accepted in the end as a demonstrated truth. The influence of repetition on crowds is comprehensible when the power is seen which it exercises on the most enlightened minds. This power is due to the fact that the repeated statement is embedded in the long run in those profound regions of our unconscious selves in which the motives of our actions are forged. At the end of a certain time we have forgotten who is the author of the repeated assertion, and we finish by believing it. To this circumstance is due the astonishing power of advertisements. When we have read a hundred, a thousand, times that X's chocolate is the best, we imagine we have heard it said in many quarters, and we end by acquiring the certitude that such is the fact. When we have read a thousand times that Y's flour has cured the most illustrious persons of the most obstinate maladies, we are tempted at last to try it when suffering from an illness of a similar kind. If we always read in the same papers that A is an arrant scamp and B a most honest man we finish by being convinced that this is the truth, unless, indeed, we are given to reading another paper of the contrary opinion, in which the two qualifications are reversed. Affirmation and repetition are alone powerful enough to combat each other.
注释摘要
勒庞在这一段里要为他的断言法补上第二个关键环节。断言本身只是一个起点，如果只喊一次口号，哪怕喊得再简洁、再绝对，也像石子投入水面，激起的波纹很快会消散。他的核心主张是：断言必须通过重复，而且是尽可能用相同的措辞重复，才能真正在群体意识里生根。他借用了一个据说是拿破仑的观察来加强这个论点，说修辞学里唯一真正重要的辞格就是重复。这里勒庞的推理链条是这样展开的：…