It is certainly not difficult to imagine that an objective observer on an alien, more advanced planet, after studying the human record, would come to this diagnosis. We are of course always willing and ready to go along with such science-fiction fantasies, so long as we do not have to take the conclusions literally, and apply them to the reality around us. But let us try to do just that, and to imagine the observer's reaction when he discovers that for nearly two thousand years, millions of otherwise intelligent people were convinced that the vast majority of our species who did not share their particular creed and did not perform its rites were consumed by flames through eternity by order of a loving god. This observation, I realise, is not exactly new. But to dismiss such singular phenomena simply as indoctrination or superstition means to beg the question, which is at the very core of the human predicament.
The Cheerful Ostrich
Before going further, let me try to forestall a frequently met objection. When you mention, however tentatively, the hypothesis that a paranoid streak is inherent in the human condition, you will promptly be accused of taking a one-sided, morbid view of history; of being hypnotised by its negative aspects; of picking out the black stones in the mosaic, and neglecting the triumphant achievements of human progress. Why not select the white stones instead -- the Golden Age of Greece, the monuments of Egypt, the marvels of the Renaissance, Newton's equations, the conquest of the moon?
True enough, this way offers a more cheerful view. Personally speaking, having written such a lot about the creative side of man, I can hardly be accused of belittling his achievements. However, the question is not one of choosing, according to temperament or mood, the brighter or the darker side; but of perceiving both together, of noticing the contrast, and inquiring into its causes. To dwell on the glories of man and ignore the symptoms of his possible insanity is not a sign of optimism, but of ostrichism. It could be compared to the attitude of that jolly physician who, a short time before Van Gogh committed suicide, declared that he could not be insane because he painted such beautiful pictures. A number of authors, with whose attitude I am otherwise in sympathy, seem to be writing in the same jolly vein when they discuss the future prospects of man: C.G. Jung and his followers; Teilhard de Chardin, and the so-called Evolutionary Humanists.
A more balanced approach to human history might be to view it as a symphony with a rich orchestration, played against a background of persistent drumming by a savage horde of shamans. At times a scherzo would make us forget it, but in the long run the monotonous beating of the tom-toms always gains the upper hand and tends to drown every other sound.
Integration and Identification
Poets have always said that man is mad; and their audiences always nodded delightedly because they thought it was a cute metaphor. But if the statement were taken literally, there would seem to be little hope: for how can a madman diagnose his own madness? The answer is that he can, because he is not entirely mad the entire time. In their periods of remission, psychotics have written astonishingly sane and lucid reports of their illness; even in the acute phases of phychoses artificially induced by drugs like L.S.D., the subject, while experiencing vivid delusions, knows them to be delusions.
Any attempt at a diagnosis of the predicament of man must proceed in several cautious steps. In the first place, let us remember that all our emotions consist of 'mixed feelings' in which both the self-assertive and the self-transcending tendencies participate. But they can interact in various ways -- some beneficial, some disastrous.
The most common and normal interaction is mutual restraint: the two tendencies counterbalance, equilibrate each other. Competitiveness is restrained by acceptance of the rules of civilised conduct. The self-assertive component in sexual desire seeks only its own satisfaction, but in a harmonious relationship it is combined with the equally strong need to provide pleasure and satisfaction to the other. Irritation, caused by a person's obnoxious behaviour, is mitigated by empathy -- by understanding the motives of that behaviour. In the creative scientist or artist, ambition is balanced by self-transcending immersion in the task. In an ideal society, both tendencies would be harmoniously combined in its citizens -- they would be saintly and efficient, yogis and commissars at the same time. But let tensions wax or integration wane, and competition turns into ruthlessness, desire into rape, irritation into rage, ambition into ego-mania, the commissar into a terrorist.
However, on the historic scale, the ravages caused by the excesses of individual self-assertion are, as already suggested, relatively small compared to those which result from misplaced devotion. Let us inquire a little closer into the causative processes behind it.
The integrative tendencies of the individual operate through the mechanisms of empathy, sympathy, projection, introjection, identification, worship -- all of which make him feel that he is a part of some larger entity which transcends the boundaries of the individual self (p. 190). This psychological urge to belong, to participate, to commune, is as primary and real as its opposite. The all-important question is the nature of that higher entity of which the individual feels himself a part. In early infancy, symbiotic consciousness unites the self and the world in an indivisible unit. Its reflection survives in the sympathetic magic of primitives, the belief in transubstantiation, the mystic bonds which unite a person with his tribe, his totem, his shadow, his effigy, and later with his god. In the major Eastern philosophies, the 'I am thou and thou art me', the identity of the 'Real Self' with the Atman, the all-one, has been preserved throughout the ages. In the West it only survived in the tradition of the great Christian mystics; European philosophy and science, from Aristotle onward, made every man an island. It could not tolerate those vestiges of symbiotic awareness which survived in other cultures; the urge for self-transcendence had to be sublimated and canalised.
One way of achieving this was through the transformation of magic into art and science. This made it possible for the happy few to achieve self-transcendence on a higher turn of the spiral, by that sublime expansion of awareness which Freud called the oceanic feeling, which Maslow calls 'the peak experience' [9], and which I called the AH-reaction. But only a minority qualifies for it. For the others, there are only a few traditional outlets open to transcend the rigid boundaries of the ego. Historically speaking for the vast majority of mankind, the only answer to its integrative cravings, its longing to belong and to find meaning in existence, was identification with tribe, caste, nation, church or party -- with a social holon.
But now we arrive at a crucial point. The psychological process, by means of which this identification was achieved, was mostly of the primitive, infantile kind of projection which populates heaven and earth with angry father-figures, fetishes to be worshipped, demons to be execrated, dogmas to be blindly believed. This crude form of identification is something quite different from integration into a well-ordered social hierarchy. It is a regression to an infantile form of self-transcendence; and in extreme cases almost a shortcut back to the womb. To quote Jung for a change: 'Not only do we speak of Mother Church, but even of the "womb of the Church" . . . Catholics call the baptismal font immaculata divini fontis uterus.' [10] However, we need not go to these extremes to realise that mature, sublimated expressions of the integrative tendency are the exception rather than the rule in human society. In looking at the historic record, men at all times seem to have behaved like Konrad Lorenz' 'imprinted' geese, which forever follow the keeper in misguided devotion because he was the first moving object they saw after hatching, cunningly substituted for the mother goose.
As far as we can look back on history, human societies have always been fairly successful in enforcing the sublimation of the self-assertive impulses of the individual -- until the howling little savage in its cot became transformed into a more or less law-abiding and civilised member of society. But at the same time they singularly failed to induce a similar sublimation of the self-transcending impulses. Accordingly, the longing to belong, left wit
hout appropriately mature outlets, manifested itself mostly in primitive or perverted forms. The cause of this important contrast between the development of the two basic tendencies will, I hope, become apparent later on. But first, let us have a closer look at its psychological and social consequences.
The Perils of Identification
How does identification work? Let us consider the simplest case, where only two individuals are involved. Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Brown are friends. Mrs. Brown has lost her husband in an accident; as Mrs. Smith sheds compassionate tears, she participates in her friend's sorrow, becomes partially identified with her by an act of empathy, projection or introjection -- whatever you like to call it. A similar process takes place when the other person is not a real individual but a heroine on the screen or in the pages of a novel. It is essential, however, that we make a clear distinction between two different emotional processes involved in the event, although they are experienced at the same time. The first is the act of identification itself, characterised by the fact that the subject has, for the moment, more or less forgotten her own existence and participates in the existence of another person, who may even live at another place in another time. This is clearly a self-transcending, gratifying and cathartic experience for the simple reason that, while it lasts, Mrs. Smith has quite forgotten her own worries, jealousies and grudges against Mr. Smith. The act of identification temporarily inhibits the self-asserting tendencies.
But there is a second process involved which may have the opposite effect: the process of identification may lead to the arousal of vicarious emotions. When Mrs. Smith is 'sharing Mrs. Brown's sorrow', the process of sharing (the first process) instantly leads to the second: the experience of sorrow. But the second process may also be the feeling of anxiety or anger. You commiserate with young Oliver Twist; as a result you feel like strangling Fagin with your own hands. The sharing is a self-transcending, cathartic experience. But it may act as a vehicle for anger -- anger as a vicarious emotion, experienced on behalf of another, but genuinely felt.
The anger felt at the machinations of the perfidious villain on the screen -- whom Mexican audiences have been known to riddle with bullets -- is genuine anger. When we watch a thriller, we develop the physical symptoms of acute anxiety -- palpitations, tense muscles, sudden jumps of alarm. Here, then, is the paradox -- and the predicament. We have seen, on the one hand, that the self-transcending impulses of projection, participation, identification inhibit self-assertion, purge us of our selfish worries and desires. But on the other hand, the process of identification may stimulate the surge of anger, fear and vengefulness -- which, although experienced on behalf of another person, nevertheless express themselves in the well-known adreno-toxic symptoms. The physiological mechanisms that enter into action are essentially the same whether the threat or offence is directed at oneself or the person or group with whom one identifies. They are self-assertive, although the self has momentarily changed its address -- by being, for instance, projected into the guileless hero on the screen; or the local soccer team; or into 'my country, right or wrong'.
Art is a school of self-transcendence; but so is a patriotic rally, a voodoo session, a war dance. It is a triumph of the imaginative powers of our minds that we are capable of shedding tears over the death of an Anna Karenina who only exists as printer's ink on paper, or as a shadow on a screen. The illusions of the stage are ultimately derived from sympathetic magic -- from the partial identification of spectator, actor, and the god or hero whom he impersonates. But this magic is highly sublimated; the process of identification is tentative, partial, a momentary suspension of disbelief; it does not impair the critical faculties, does not undermine personal identity. But the voodoo session or Nuremberg rally does just that. The films shown by the Ministry of Truth in Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four aim at regressing the audience to a primitive level, and trigger off orgies of collective hatred. The spectators, nevertheless, are experiencing vicarious emotions of an unselfish kind; a righteous indignation whose manifestations are the more savage because it is impersonal, self-transcending and can be indulged in with a clean conscience.
Thus the glory and the tragedy of the human condition both derive from our powers of self-transcendence. It is a power which can be harnessed to creative or destructive purpose; it is equally capable of turning us into artists or killers, but more likely into killers. It can restrain selfish impulses, but also arouse violent emotions experienced on behalf of the entity with whom the identificatory rapport has been established. Injustices, or pretended injustices, inflicted on that entity are likely to generate more fanatical behaviour than the sting of a personal insult. Jenkins' ear may have become a comic cliché, but at the time it was a major contributary cause for the declaration of war on Spain. The execution of Nurse Edith Louisa Cavell in World War I caused more spontaneous indignation against Teutonic brutality than the mass executions of Jews in World War II. It is easy to identify oneself with a heroic Red Cross nurse, whereas persecuted Jews may arouse pity, but not impulses of identification.
Hierarchic Awareness
The mechanism which I have discussed self-transcendence serving as an instrument, or vehicle, for emotions of the opposite class finds its most disastrous expression in group psychology.
I have repeatedly stressed that the selfish impulses of man constitute a much lesser historic danger than his integrative tendencies. To put it in the simplest way: the individual who indulges in an excess of aggressive self-assertiveness incurs the penalties of society -- he outlaws himself, he contracts out of the hierarchy. The true believer, on the other hand, becomes more closely knit into it; he enters the womb of his church, or party, or whatever the social holon to which he surrenders his identity. For identification in this primitive form always entails a certain impairment of individuality, an abdication of the critical faculties and of personal responsibility. The priest is the good shepherd of his flock, but we also use the same metaphor in a derogatory way when we speak of the masses following a demagogue, like sheep; both expressions, one approving, one pejorative, express the same truth.
This leads us back to the essential difference between primitive identification, resulting in a homogeneous flock, and mature forms of integration in a social hierarchy. In a well-balanced hierarchy, the individual retains his character as a social holon, a part-whole, who qua whole, enjoys autonomy within the limits of the restraints imposed by the interests of the community. He remains an individual whole in his own right, and is even expected to assert his holistic character by originality, initiative, and above all, personal responsibility. The same criteria of value apply to the larger social holons -- professional groups, trade unions, social classes -- on the higher echelons of the hierarchy. They are expected to display the virtues implied in the Janus principle: to be self-regulating autonomous wholes, but also conform to national -- or international -- interests. An ideal society of this kind could be said to possess 'hierarchic awareness', where every holon on every level is conscious both of its rights as a whole and its duties as a part.
However, the phenomena usually designated by the terms 'group mentality' or 'psychology of the masses' (Massenpsychologie) reflect a fundamentally different attitude. It is based -- to say it once more -- not on integrated interaction, but on identificatory rapport. Integration in a social hierarchy preserves the personal identity and responsibility of its holons; identification, while it lasts, implies a partial or total surrender of both.
We have seen that this surrender can take varied forms, some beneficial, some harmful. In mystic or aesthetic entrancement, the self dissolves in the oceanic feeling; one of the French expressions for the orgasm is la petite mort; if passion is blind, true love blurs the view; a visit to the theatre is an escape from the self. Self-transcendence always entails a surrender; but the amount and quality of the sacrifice depends on the degree of sublimation and the nature of the outlets. In the more sinister phenomena of mass psychology, sublimation is minimal and
all the outlets are gleichgeschaltet -- aligned in a single direction.
Induction and Hypnosis
Among the harmless manifestations of group psychology are such trivial phenomena as infectious laughter, infectious yawning, infectious fainting. The infection, say in a girl's classroom or dormitory, seems to be transmitted by some subtle germ which fills the air, or by a kind of mutual induction: 'Whenever I looked at Sally Anne or Sally Anne at me, we started giggling again, we couldn't stop it. In the end we all got hysterical.' Not only adolescent girls, but guardsmen lined up on parade, too, are prone to such phenomena: one six-footer happens to faint, and others topple over like ninepins. At revivalist meetings, and the like occasiom, the symptoms are more lively: once the first devotee has started to holler, jump, quake or spin, others are seized by an irresistible urge to follow suit. The next step leads to more uncanny manifestations: the tarantula dancers of the Dark Ages, the collective hallucinations of the nuns of Loudun rolling on the floor in the embrace of obscene devils; the lynching crowds of all races and denominations; the revelries on Hanging Days at Newgate; the jolly French commères turned into drooling tricoteuses; and, by way of contrast, the rigidly disciplined, ritualised Nuremberg rallies and Red Square parades. Or, for another contrast, the hordes of screaming teenage Bacchantae mobbing Pop-stars, and the leering teen-age Narcissi coiffured like cockroaches.