《乌合之众·第二编·群体的意见与信念·群体信念与意见的变异限度》第10节
Finally, the third reason is the recent development of the newspaper press, by whose agency the most contrary opinions are being continually brought before the attention of crowds. The suggestions that might result from each individual opinion are soon destroyed by suggestions of an opposite character. The consequence is that no opinion succeeds in becoming widespread, and that the existence of all of them is ephemeral. An opinion nowadays dies out before it has found a sufficiently wide acceptance to become general. A phenomenon quite new in the world's history, and most characteristic of the present age, has resulted from these different causes; I allude to the powerlessness of governments to direct opinion. In the past, and in no very distant past, the action of governments and the influence of a few writers and a very small number of newspapers constituted the real reflectors of public opinion. To-day the writers have lost all influence, and the newspapers only reflect opinion. As for statesmen, far from directing opinion, their only endeavour is to follow it. They have a dread of opinion, which amounts at times to terror, and causes them to adopt an utterly unstable line of conduct. The opinion of crowds tends, then, more and more to become the supreme guiding principle in politics. It goes so far to-day as to force on alliances, as has been seen recently in the case of the Franco-Russian alliance, which is solely the outcome of a popular movement. A curious symptom of the present time is to observe popes, kings, and emperors consent to be interviewed as a means of submitting their views on a given subject to the judgment of crowds. Formerly it might have been correct to say that politics were not a matter of sentiment. Can the same be said to-day, when politics are more and more swayed by the impulse of changeable crowds, who are uninfluenced by reason and can only be guided by sentiment?
注释摘要
勒庞在这一段试图完成一个三层递进的论证。他首先提出报纸将截然相反的意见源源不断送到群众面前，每一则新闻所携带的暗示刚刚成形就被另一则相反的暗示冲垮，结果没有任何一种意见能够累积到足够广泛的程度成为稳固的信念。接着他把这一逻辑推到政治领域：既然连意见都无法沉淀，政府便不再能够像过去那样制造或引导舆论，反而只能追着舆论跑，政治人物对舆论心怀恐惧，政策因此变得摇…