ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines the main ways in which affect has been defined before going on to address the kinds of thinking about biology that are currently found in the social sciences, broadly defined. Recall that Tarde paralleled imitation with invention. Moscovici is writing about another less mediated time but his work seems particularly relevant to the new mediated age of the imitative crowd now inhabit, an age which might well be caricatured as mass mesmerism gone bad. For Moscovici argues that political attempts to generate affective force often try to create an illusion of love' via a range of techniques affective, corporeal, and psychological aimed at maximizing processes of suggestion and imitation, including the use of symbols, images, flags, music, affirmations, phrases, speeches, and slogans, all jammed, into the half-second delay between action and cognition. The political challenge is to extend and reinforce mental touch'.
