Myths?
Methinks, some other myths are growing...

Crowds are suggestible.

I agree.

Crowds are irrational.

I agree.

Crowds increase anonymity.

I agree.

Crowds are emotional.

I agree.

You can hang your rationality and scruples up, when you are alone; but it's more comfortable, when you do so as a member of a voluminous body.
That's why I even consent with Mussolini, on this point solely:

The mass, whether it be a crowd or an army, is vile.

Rotters like Mussolini knew and know how to make the vile mass feel elevated and justified. These were and are their ways of instrumentalizing the mass: (a) panem et circenses,...

Myths?
Methinks, some other myths are growing...

Crowds are suggestible.

I agree.

Crowds are irrational.

I agree.

Crowds increase anonymity.

I agree.

Crowds are emotional.

I agree.

You can hang your rationality and scruples up, when you are alone; but it's more comfortable, when you do so as a member of a voluminous body.
That's why I even consent with Mussolini, on this point solely:

The mass, whether it be a crowd or an army, is vile.

Rotters like Mussolini knew and know how to make the vile mass feel elevated and justified. These were and are their ways of instrumentalizing the mass: (a) panem et circenses, (b) forming a feeling of togetherness and gleichschaltung of the existent xenophobias, and (c) the Führer (/Duce) principle.

Considering that the article in question cited the research contradicting these myths (http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1533-8525.1994.tb00396.x, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0925-7535(96)81011-3, http://www.ssrc.org/sept11/essays/tierney.htm. http://www.jstor.org/pss/3033551, http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/cercor/10.3.295, http://www.amazon.com/dp/0202303756/ref=nosim/?tag=psy0a-20, http://www.jstor.org/pss/1958525, and http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/10007372/abstract), were you planning to actually address the data, or just stick with "that doesn't agree with my personal experience, so I'm going to say ...

Considering that the article in question cited the research contradicting these myths (http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1533-8525.1994.tb00396.x, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0925-7535(96)81011-3, http://www.ssrc.org/sept11/essays/tierney.htm. http://www.jstor.org/pss/3033551, http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/cercor/10.3.295, http://www.amazon.com/dp/0202303756/ref=nosim/?tag=psy0a-20, http://www.jstor.org/pss/1958525, and http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/10007372/abstract), were you planning to actually address the data, or just stick with "that doesn't agree with my personal experience, so I'm going to say that it's false"?

To quote Leslie Bennetts, "If you want to disagree with [these] conclusions, you need to address the facts on which they're based rather than acting as if these were simply matters of opinion. They're not."

According to its headline, the clipmarked article is expected to be about psychology; but this:

Crowds are not the many-armed destructive monsters of the popular or even fascist imagination.
["7 Myths of Crowd Psychology"]

refers to a monsters' myth and foists it flimsily to a branch of science (and/or philosophy).

"Crowds are spontaneous", "crowds are suggestible", "crowds are irrational", "crowds are emotional" - these are, of course, myths, insofar as they insinuate, crowds were super-individuals with the ability of spontaneity, suggestibility, rationality/irrationality, emotions. That can't be taken seriously. No, it's the individuals and the reasons of th...

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According to its headline, the clipmarked article is expected to be about psychology; but this:

Crowds are not the many-armed destructive monsters of the popular or even fascist imagination.
["7 Myths of Crowd Psychology"]

refers to a monsters' myth and foists it flimsily to a branch of science (and/or philosophy).

"Crowds are spontaneous", "crowds are suggestible", "crowds are irrational", "crowds are emotional" - these are, of course, myths, insofar as they insinuate, crowds were super-individuals with the ability of spontaneity, suggestibility, rationality/irrationality, emotions. That can't be taken seriously. No, it's the individuals and the reasons of the possible(!)/historically shown modifications of their attitudes and behaviour when they are thronging, that is the topic of serious social psychology.

"Crowds are unanimous", "crowds are destructive" - that's unrealistic rubbish, as experience shows. But crowds can be unanimous and destructive - and that's not a myth but a fact of experiential (historical) evidence, and social sciences have to try to get to the bottom of that phenomenon.

Crowds increase anonymity
[...] Everyday experience, though, is that people usually travel in groups, with their family or friends, and so are not anonymous at all.
["7 Myths of Crowd Psychology"]

That's a good one. It flouts the fact that, in a crowd, when being fanaticized, family ties are re-defined: In a frantic crowd, everyone feels and behaves like everyone's sibling (and the others' arch-fiend).

Résumé: Invent any questionable theses, ascribe them to anybody, disprove those theses, and flail at their alleged exponents.
Crap game; cui bono??

Lexica said:

http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1533-8525.1994.tb00396.x
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0925-7535(96)81011-3
http://www.ssrc.org/sept11/essays/tierney.htm
http://www.jstor.org/pss/3033551
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/cercor/10.3.295
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0202303756/ref=nosim/?tag=psy0a-20
http://www.jstor.org/pss/1958525
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/10007372/abstract

These are largely unhelpful hyperlinks.

http://www.ssrc.org/sept11/essays/tierney.htm contains an essay on the "Strength of a City: A Disaster Research Perspective on the World Trade Center Attack". Worthy of being quoted is this:

Kath...[-substr- said:

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Lexica said:

http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1533-8525.1994.tb00396.x
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0925-7535(96)81011-3
http://www.ssrc.org/sept11/essays/tierney.htm
http://www.jstor.org/pss/3033551
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/cercor/10.3.295
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0202303756/ref=nosim/?tag=psy0a-20
http://www.jstor.org/pss/1958525
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/10007372/abstract

These are largely unhelpful hyperlinks.

http://www.ssrc.org/sept11/essays/tierney.htm contains an essay on the "Strength of a City: A Disaster Research Perspective on the World Trade Center Attack". Worthy of being quoted is this:

Kathleen J. Tierney said:

Effective responses to community crises often look messy from the outside, but that is part of what makes them effective. The failure to understand the emergence and complexity that is typical of major disasters often results in characterizations of disaster settings as chaotic and unorganized. Critical observers may express exasperation because "no one is in charge" - as if the activities of hundreds of organizations, thousands of small groups, and tens of thousands of individuals should be controlled in real-time by some single individual or overarching entity. These kinds of comments are often rooted in inappropriate militaristic command-and-control images of disaster management and in a mistrust of non-elites and non-experts. All such criticisms fail to appreciate the strengths of situationally-driven, problem-focused, locally-based, and improvisational response strategies like those observed in New York on September 11 and in the days that followed.

Agreed.

The referenced pages on wiley.com (doi.org) and jstor.org say, "online access to this article" must be purchased (29.95USD / 14.00 USD).

Of interest, however, is to me Hiram Caton's review of Clark McPhail's The Myth of the Madding Crowd. (See my next comment.)

Crowds made invisible by theory
[Review of Clark McPhail's The Myth of the Madding Crowd]
By Hiram Caton (Brisbane Australia)

[…]
On the old view, crowds are volatile aggregations carried away by self-induced emotions to irrational acts. The crowd's self-stimulation transforms individuals from their normal condition of self-control. Individual self-identity is submerged in the collective identity, such that the crowd can act as a unit in the commission of acts that would be morally repugnant to each individual acting alone. In a word, the crowd mind can transform law-abiding individuals into ...

Crowds made invisible by theory
[Review of Clark McPhail's The Myth of the Madding Crowd]
By Hiram Caton (Brisbane Australia)

[…]
On the old view, crowds are volatile aggregations carried away by self-induced emotions to irrational acts. The crowd's self-stimulation transforms individuals from their normal condition of self-control. Individual self-identity is submerged in the collective identity, such that the crowd can act as a unit in the commission of acts that would be morally repugnant to each individual acting alone. In a word, the crowd mind can transform law-abiding individuals into madcaps, bullies, assailants, vandals, arsonists, agents of sedition, and worse.

This view, McPhail declares, is `without logical or empirical foundation'. He proposes instead the rational actor model, in which `the individual in the crowd, as elsewhere, controls his or her behavior by means of self-instructions for behavioral adjustments in relation to the goals or objectives he or she is pursuing'[…]. The `unconventional' behaviors sometimes observed are not, as sociologists previously, irrational, but rather are merely indirect methods of obtaining purposive goals.

(2 B continued.)

Continuation:

There's obviously a very deep observational discrepancy here. Anyone who has participated in the frenzy unleashed in rock concerts must hesitate to apply the label `rational actor'. The selling point of these revels is break free of conventional constraints, to `rage', to `go crazy', in imitation of the performers. McPhail seems to be saying that the wild and risky things that happen in rock revels are merely unconventional means of achieving a purposive goal-raging. Or have a peak into a sports venue. Over there are exuberant hundreds who've painted their faces in the colors of the team. Looks awfully silly. Still others are wearing zany costumes that mimic the team tot...

Continuation:

There's obviously a very deep observational discrepancy here. Anyone who has participated in the frenzy unleashed in rock concerts must hesitate to apply the label `rational actor'. The selling point of these revels is break free of conventional constraints, to `rage', to `go crazy', in imitation of the performers. McPhail seems to be saying that the wild and risky things that happen in rock revels are merely unconventional means of achieving a purposive goal-raging. Or have a peak into a sports venue. Over there are exuberant hundreds who've painted their faces in the colors of the team. Looks awfully silly. Still others are wearing zany costumes that mimic the team totem. They're jumping up and down, hollering their heads off. Rational? Don't think so. Maybe things are better on campus? Flashback to the Sixties. Thousands swarm into the quad, and wildly applaud speakers who exhort them: `Be reasonable, demand the impossible!' and give them the action slogan to intimidate their teachers: `Up against the wall, Motherf**ker!' If this is rational action, there's not much that doesn't qualify. But in that case, repudiation of the irrational actor model amounts to little more verbal manipulation.

(2 B continued.)

Continuation:

The impossible burden of supporting the rational actor thesis is perhaps the reason why McPhail avoids discussing crowd typology. That discussion compels one to consider mobbing, shaming, ostracism, threats and intimidation, collective brainwashing, rioting, looting, cultic orgies, panic and stampede, and collective suicide. Most of these behaviors were experienced on a large scale and over long times in those sorrowful orgies of fervor that were Mao's Cultural Revolution and the reign of Iran's ayatollahs.

A proper typology of crowds would quickly identify and eliminate the error that drives this study: insistence on an Either/Or classification of crowds as rational or...

Continuation:

The impossible burden of supporting the rational actor thesis is perhaps the reason why McPhail avoids discussing crowd typology. That discussion compels one to consider mobbing, shaming, ostracism, threats and intimidation, collective brainwashing, rioting, looting, cultic orgies, panic and stampede, and collective suicide. Most of these behaviors were experienced on a large scale and over long times in those sorrowful orgies of fervor that were Mao's Cultural Revolution and the reign of Iran's ayatollahs.

A proper typology of crowds would quickly identify and eliminate the error that drives this study: insistence on an Either/Or classification of crowds as rational or irrational. Why may we not have both? Civil disobedience is a model of the individual self-control that McPhail wishes to highlight. It has been one of the most widespread, and effective, techniques used in this century. It has been abundantly described and closely observed. Yet there is not a word about civil disobedience in the book!

The old model of the irrational crowd, which stems basically from Gustav LeBon, certainly needs updating. It's a century old, and there has been a vast change in the psychological and biological sciences on which the model rested. The mechanisms of collective behavior in animals-the astonishing feats of flocking, schooling, foraging, mobbing-are understood today far better than a century ago. So is the evolutionary and physiological continuity of these mechanisms with our species. But that field of investigation lies beyond sociology.