1. The Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for
the human race. They have greatly
increased the life-expectancy of those of us who live in "advanced"
countries, but they have destabilized
society, have made life unfulfilling, have subjected human beings to
indignities, have led to widespread
psychological suffering (in the Third World to physical suffering as well)
and have inflicted severe damage
on the natural world. The continued development of technology will worsen
the situation. It will certainly
subject human beings to greater indignities and inflict greater damage on
the natural world, it will probably
lead to greater social disruption and psychological suffering, and it may
lead to increased physical suffering
even in "advanced" countries.
2. The industrial-technological system may survive or it may break down.
If it survives, it MAY eventually
achieve a low level of physical and psychological suffering, but only after
passing through a long and very
painful period of adjustment and only at the cost of permanently reducing
human beings and many other living organisms
to engineered products and mere cogs in the social machine. Furthermore,
if the system survives, the consequences
will be inevitable: There is no way of reforming or modifying the system
so as to prevent it from depriving
people of dignity and autonomy.
3. If the system breaks down the consequences will still be very painful.
But the bigger the system grows the more
disastrous the results of its breakdown will be, so if it is to break down
it had best break down sooner rather than
later.
4. We therefore advocate a revolution against the industrial system. This
revolution may or may not make use of
violence: it may be sudden or it may be a relatively gradual process
spanning a few decades. We can't predict any of
that. But we do outline in a very general way the measures that those who
hate the industrial system should take in
order to prepare the way for a revolution against that form of society.
This is not to be a POLITICAL revolution.
Its object will be to overthrow not governments but the economic and
technological basis of the present society.
5. In this article we give attention to only some of the negative
developments that have grown out of the industrial-technological
system. Other such developments we mention only briefly or
ignore altogether. This does not mean that we
regard these other developments as unimportant. For practical reasons we
have to confine our discussion to areas
that have received insufficient public attention or in which we have
something new to say. For example, since there
are well-developed environmental and wilderness movements, we have written
very little about environmental degradation or
the destruction of wild nature, even though we consider these to be highly
important.
6. Almost everyone will agree that we live in a deeply troubled society.
One of the most widespread manifestations
of the craziness of our world is leftism, so a discussion of the psychology
of leftism can serve as an introduction
to the discussion of the problems of modern society in general.
7. But what is leftism? During the first half of the 20th century leftism
could have been practically identified
with socialism. Today the movement is fragmented and it is not clear who
can properly be called a leftist. When we
speak of leftists in this article we have in mind mainly socialists,
collectivists, "politically correct" types,
feminists, gay and disability activists, animal rights activists and the
like. But not everyone who is associated
with one of these movements is a leftist. What we are trying to get at in
discussing leftism is not so much a movement
or an ideology as a psychological type, or rather a collection of related
types. Thus, what we mean by "leftism" will
emerge more clearly in the course of our discussion of leftist psychology
(Also, see paragraphs 227-230.)
8. Even so, our conception of leftism will remain a good deal less clear
than we would wish, but there doesn't seem to
be any remedy for this. All we are trying to do is indicate in a rough and
approximate way the two psychological
tendencies that we believe are the main driving force of modern leftism.
We by no means claim to be telling the WHOLE
truth about leftist psychology. Also, our discussion is meant to apply to
modern leftism only. We leave open the question
of the extent to which our discussion could be applied to the leftists of
the 19th and early 20th century.
9. The two psychological tendencies that underlie modern leftism we call
"feelings of inferiority" and
"oversocialization." Feelings of inferiority are characteristic of modern
leftism as a whole, while oversocialization
is characteristic only of a certain segment of modern leftism; but this
segment is highly influential.
10. By "feelings of inferiority" we mean not only inferiority feelings in
the strictest sense but a whole spectrum of
related traits: low self-esteem, feelings of powerlessness, depressive
tendencies, defeatism, guilt, self-hatred, etc.
We argue that modern leftists tend to have such feelings (possibly more or
less repressed) and that these feelings
are decisive in determining the direction of modern leftism.
11. When someone interprets as derogatory almost anything that is said
about him (or about groups with whom he
identifies) we conclude that he has inferiority feelings or low
self-esteem. This tendency is pronounced among
minority rights advocates, whether or not they belong to the minority
groups whose rights they defend. They are
hypersensitive about the words used to designate minorities. The terms
"negro," "oriental," "handicapped" or
"chick" for an African, an Asian, a disabled person or a woman originally
had no derogatory connotation. "Broad"
and "chick" were merely the feminine equivalents of "guy," "dude" or
"fellow." The negative connotations have been
attached to these terms by the activists themselves. Some animal rights
advocates have gone so far as to reject
the word "pet" and insist on its replacement by "animal companion."
Leftist anthropologists go to great lengths
to avoid saying anything about primitive peoples that could conceivably be
interpreted as negative. They want to
replace the word "primitive" by "nonliterate." They seem almost paranoid
about anything that might suggest that any
primitive culture is inferior to our own. (We do not mean to imply that
primitive cultures ARE inferior to ours.
We merely point out the hypersensitivity of leftish anthropologists.)
12. Those who are most sensitive about "politically incorrect" terminology
are not the average black ghetto-dweller,
Asian immigrant, abused woman or disabled person, but a minority of
activists, many of whom do not even belong to any "oppressed"
group but come from privileged strata of society. Political correctness
has its stronghold among university professors,
who have secure employment with comfortable salaries, and the majority of
whom are heterosexual, white males from
middle-class families.
13. Many leftists have an intense identification with the problems of
groups that have an image of being weak (women),
defeated (American Indians), repellent (homosexuals), or otherwise
inferior. The leftists themselves feel that these
groups are inferior. They would never admit it to themselves that they
have such feelings, but it is precisely because
they do see these groups as inferior that they identify with their
problems. (We do not suggest that women, Indians,
etc., ARE inferior; we are only making a point about leftist psychology).
14. Feminists are desperately anxious to prove that women are as strong as
capable as men. Clearly they are
nagged by a fear that women may NOT be as strong and as capable as men.
15. Leftists tend to hate anything that has an image of being strong, good
and successful. They hate America,
they hate Western civilization, they hate white males, they hate
rationality. The reasons that leftists give
for hating the West, etc. clearly do not correspond with their real
motives. They SAY they hate the West
because it is warlike, imperialistic, sexist, ethnocentric and so forth,
but where these same faults
appear in socialist countries or in primitive cultures, the leftist finds
excuses for them, or at best
he GRUDGINGLY admits that they exist; whereas he ENTHUSIASTICALLY points
out (and often greatly exaggerates)
these faults where they appear in Western civilization. Thus it is clear
that these faults are not the leftist's
real motive for hating America and the West. He hates America and the West
because they are strong and successful.
16. Words like "self-confidence," "self-reliance," "initiative",
"enterprise," "optimism," etc. play little role in
the liberal and leftist vocabulary. The leftist is anti-individualistic,
pro-collectivist. He wants society to solve
everyone's needs for them, take care of them. He is not the sort of person
who has an inner sense of confidence in his
own ability to solve his own problems and satisfy his own needs. The
leftist is antagonistic to the concept of
competition because, deep inside, he feels like a loser.
17. Art forms that appeal to modern leftist intellectuals tend to focus on
sordidness, defeat and despair, or else
they take an orgiastic tone, throwing off rational control as if there were
no hope of accomplishing anything through
rational calculation and all that was left was to immerse oneself in the
sensations of the moment.
18. Modern leftist philosophers tend to dismiss reason, science, objective
reality and to insist that everything is
culturally relative. It is true that one can ask serious questions about
the foundations of scientific knowledge
and about how, if at all, the concept of objective reality can be defined.
But it is obvious that modern leftist
philosophers are not simply cool-headed logicians systematically analyzing
the foundations of knowledge. They are
deeply involved emotionally in their attack on truth and reality. They
attack these concepts because of their own
psychological needs. For one thing, their attack is an outlet for
hostility, and, to the extent that it is successful,
it satisfies the drive for power. More importantly, the leftist hates
science and rationality because they classify
certain beliefs as true (i.e., successful, superior) and other beliefs as
false (i.e. failed, inferior). The leftist's
feelings of inferiority run so deep that he cannot tolerate any
classification of some things as successful or superior
and other things as failed or inferior. This also underlies the rejection
by many leftists of the concept of mental
illness and of the utility of IQ tests. Leftists are antagonistic to
genetic explanations of human abilities or
behavior because such explanations tend to make some persons appear
superior or inferior to others. Leftists prefer
to give society the credit or blame for an individual's ability or lack of
it. Thus if a person is "inferior" it is
not his fault, but society's, because he has not been brought up properly.
19. The leftist is not typically the kind of person whose feelings of
inferiority make him a braggart, an egotist,
a bully, a self-promoter, a ruthless competitor. This kind of person has
not wholly lost faith in himself. He has
a deficit in his sense of power and self-worth, but he can still conceive
of himself as having the capacity to be
strong, and his efforts to make himself strong produce his unpleasant
behavior. [1] But the leftist is too far gone
for that. His feelings of inferiority are so ingrained that he cannot
conceive of himself as individually strong and
valuable. Hence the collectivism of the leftist. He can feel strong only
as a member of a large organization or a
mass movement with which he identifies himself.
20. Notice the masochistic tendency of leftist tactics. Leftists protest
by lying down in front of vehicles, they
intentionally provoke police or racists to abuse them, etc. These tactics
may often be effective, but many leftists
use them not as a means to an end but because they PREFER masochistic
tactics. Self-hatred is a leftist trait.
21. Leftists may claim that their activism is motivated by compassion or by
moral principle, and moral principle does play a role for
the leftist of the oversocialized type. But compassion and moral
principle cannot be the main motives for leftist
activism. Hostility is too prominent a component of leftist behavior; so
is the drive for power. Moreover, much
leftist behavior is not rationally calculated to be of benefit to the
people whom the leftists claim to be trying to
help. For example, if one believes that affirmative action is good for
black people, does it make sense to demand
affirmative action in hostile or dogmatic terms? Obviously it would be
more productive to take a diplomatic and
conciliatory approach that would make at least verbal and symbolic
concessions to white people who think that
affirmative action discriminates against them. But leftist activists do
not take such an approach because it would not
satisfy their emotional needs. Helping black people is not their real
goal. Instead, race problems serve as an
excuse for them to express their own hostility and frustrated need for
power. In doing so they actually harm
black people, because the activists' hostile attitude toward the white
majority tends to intensify race hatred.
22. If our society had no social problems at all, the leftists would have
to INVENT problems in order to provide themselves
with an excuse for making a fuss.
23. We emphasize that the foregoing does not pretend to be an accurate
description of everyone who might be
considered a leftist. It is only a rough indication of a general tendency
of leftism.
24. Psychologists use the term "socialization" to designate the process by
which children are trained to think and act as society demands. A person is
said to be well socialized if he believes in and obeys the moral code of his
society and fits in well as a functioning part of that society. It may seem
senseless to say that many leftists are over-socialized, since the leftist is
perceived as a rebel. Nevertheless, the position can be defended. Many leftists
are not such rebels as they seem.
25. The moral code of our society is so demanding that no one can think,
feel and act in a completely moral way. For example, we are not supposed to
hate anyone, yet almost everyone hates somebody at some time or other,
whether he admits it to himself or not. Some people are so highly socialized
that the attempt to think, feel and act morally imposes a severe burden on
them. In order to avoid feelings of guilt, they continually have to deceive
themselves about their own motives and find moral explanations for feelings
and actions that in reality have a non-moral origin. We use the term
"oversocialized" to describe such people. [2]
26. Oversocialization can lead
to low self-esteem, a sense of powerlessness, defeatism, guilt, etc. One of the
most important means by which our society socializes children is by making
them feel ashamed of behavior or speech that is contrary to society's
expectations. If this is overdone, or if a particular child is especially susceptible
to such feelings, he ends by feeling ashamed of HIMSELF. Moreover the thought
and the behavior of the oversocialized person are more restricted by society's
expectations than are those of the lightly socialized person. The majority of
people engage in a significant amount of naughty behavior. They lie, they
commit petty thefts, they break traffic laws, they goof off at work, they hate
someone, they say spiteful things or they use some underhanded trick to get
ahead of the other guy. The oversocialized person cannot do these things, or if
he does do them he generates in himself a sense of shame and self-hatred. The
oversocialized person cannot even experience, without guilt, thoughts or
feelings that are contrary to the accepted morality; he cannot think "unclean"
thoughts. And socialization is not just a matter of morality; we are socialized to
confirm to many norms of behavior that do not fall under the heading of
morality. Thus the oversocialized person is kept on a psychological leash and
spends his life running on rails that society has laid down for him. In many
oversocialized people this results in a sense of constraint and powerlessness
that can be a severe hardship. We suggest that oversocialization is among the
more serious cruelties that human beings inflict on one another.
27. We
argue that a very important and influential segment of the modern left is
oversocialized and that their oversocialization is of great importance in
determining the direction of modern leftism. Leftists of the oversocialized type
tend to be intellectuals or members of the upper-middle class. Notice that
university intellectuals (3) constitute the most highly socialized segment of our
society and also the most left-wing segment.
28. The leftist of the
oversocialized type tries to get off his psychological leash and assert his
autonomy by rebelling. But usually he is not strong enough to rebel against the
most basic values of society. Generally speaking, the goals of today's leftists
are NOT in conflict with the accepted morality. On the contrary, the left takes
an accepted moral principle, adopts it as its own, and then accuses mainstream
society of violating that principle. Examples: racial equality, equality of the
sexes, helping poor people, peace as opposed to war, nonviolence generally,
freedom of expression, kindness to animals. More fundamentally, the duty of
the individual to serve society and the duty of society to take care of the
individual. All these have been deeply rooted values of our society (or at least of
its middle and upper classes (4) for a long time. These values are explicitly or
implicitly expressed or presupposed in most of the material presented to us by
the mainstream communications media and the educational system. Leftists,
especially those of the oversocialized type, usually do not rebel against these
principles but justify their hostility to society by claiming (with some degree of
truth) that society is not living up to these principles.
29. Here is an
illustration of the way in which the oversocialized leftist shows his real
attachment to the conventional attitudes of our society while pretending to be in
rebellion against it. Many leftists push for affirmative action, for moving black
people into high-prestige jobs, for improved education in black schools and more
money for such schools; the way of life of the black "underclass" they regard as a
social disgrace. They want to integrate the black man into the system, make
him a business executive, a lawyer, a scientist just like upper-middle-class
white people. The leftists will reply that the last thing they want is to make the
black man into a copy of the white man; instead, they want to preserve African
American culture. But in what does this preservation of African American
culture consist? It can hardly consist in anything more than eating black-style
food, listening to black-style music, wearing black-style clothing and going to a
black-style church or mosque. In other words, it can express itself only in
superficial matters. In all ESSENTIAL respects more leftists of the
oversocialized type want to make the black man conform to white, middle-class
ideals. They want to make him study technical subjects, become an executive or
a scientist, spend his life climbing the status ladder to prove that black people
are as good as white. They want to make black fathers "responsible." they want
black gangs to become nonviolent, etc. But these are exactly the values of the
industrial-technological system. The system couldn't care less what kind of
music a man listens to, what kind of clothes he wears or what religion he
believes in as long as he studies in school, holds a respectable job, climbs the
status ladder, is a "responsible" parent, is nonviolent and so forth. In effect,
however much he may deny it, the oversocialized leftist wants to integrate the
black man into the system and make him adopt its values.
30. We certainly
do not claim that leftists, even of the oversocialized type, NEVER rebel against
the fundamental values of our society. Clearly they sometimes do. Some
oversocialized leftists have gone so far as to rebel against one of modern
society's most important principles by engaging in physical violence. By their
own account, violence is for them a form of "liberation." In other words, by
committing violence they break through the psychological restraints that have
been trained into them. Because they are oversocialized these restraints have
been more confining for them than for others; hence their need to break free of
them. But they usually justify their rebellion in terms of mainstream values. If
they engage in violence they claim to be fighting against racism or the like.
31. We realize that many objections could be raised to the foregoing
thumb-nail sketch of leftist psychology. The real situation is complex, and
anything like a complete description of it would take several volumes even if the
necessary data were available. We claim only to have indicated very roughly the
two most important tendencies in the psychology of modern leftism.
32. The
problems of the leftist are indicative of the problems of our society as a whole.
Low self-esteem, depressive tendencies and defeatism are not restricted to the
left. Though they are especially noticeable in the left, they are widespread in
our society. And today's society tries to socialize us to a greater extent than
any previous society. We are even told by experts how to eat, how to exercise,
how to make love, how to raise our kids and so forth.
33. Human beings have a need (probably based in biology) for something that we will call the "power process." This is closely related to the need for power (which is widely recognized) but is not quite the same thing. The power process has four elements. The three most clear-cut of these we call goal, effort and attainment of goal. (Everyone needs to have goals whose attainment requires effort, and needs to succeed in attaining at least some of his goals.) The fourth element is more difficult to define and may not be necessary for everyone. We call it autonomy and will discuss it later (paragraphs 42-44).
34. Consider the hypothetical case of a man who can have anything he wants just by wishing for it. Such a man has power, but he will develop serious psychological problems. At first he will have a lot of fun, but by and by he will become acutely bored and demoralized. Eventually he may become clinically depressed. History shows that leisured aristocracies tend to become decadent. This is not true of fighting aristocracies that have to struggle to maintain their power. But leisured, secure aristocracies that have no need to exert themselves usually become bored, hedonistic and demoralized, even though they have power. This shows that power is not enough. One must have goals toward which to exercise one's power.
35. Everyone has goals; if nothing else, to obtain the physical necessities of life: food, water and whatever clothing and shelter are made necessary by the climate. But the leisured aristocrat obtains these things without effort. Hence his boredom and demoralization.
36. Nonattainment of important goals results in death if the goals are physical necessities, and in frustration if nonattainment of the goals is compatible with survival. Consistent failure to attain goals throughout life results in defeatism, low self-esteem or depression.
37. Thus, in order to avoid serious psychological problems, a human being needs goals whose attainment requires effort, and he must have a reasonable rate of success in attaining his goals.
38. But not every leisured aristocrat becomes bored and demoralized. For example, the emperor Hirohito, instead of sinking into decadent hedonism, devoted himself to marine biology, a field in which he became distinguished. When people do not have to exert themselves to satisfy their physical needs they often set up artificial goals for themselves. In many cases they then pursue these goals with the same energy and emotional involvement that they otherwise would have put into the search for physical necessities. Thus the aristocrats of the Roman Empire had their literary pretentions; many European aristocrats a few centuries ago invested tremendous time and energy in hunting, though they certainly didn't need the meat; other aristocracies have competed for status through elaborate displays of wealth; and a few aristocrats, like Hirohito, have turned to science.
39. We use the term "surrogate activity" to designate an activity that is directed toward an artificial goal that people set up for themselves merely in order to have some goal to work toward, or let us say, merely for the sake of the "fulfillment" that they get from pursuing the goal. Here is a rule
of thumb for the identification of surrogate
activities. Given a person who
devotes much time and energy to the
pursuit of goal X, ask yourself this: If
he had to devote most of his time and
energy to satisfying his biological
needs, and if that effort required him to
use his physical and mental facilities in
a varied and interesting way, would he
feel seriously deprived because he did
not attain goal X? If the answer is no,
then the person's pursuit of a goal X is a
surrogate activity. Hirohito's studies in
marine biology clearly constituted a
surrogate activity, since it is pretty certain
that if Hirohito had had to spend
his time working at interesting non-scientific
tasks in order to obtain the
necessities of life, he would not have
felt deprived because he didn't know all
about the anatomy and life-cycles of
marine animals. On the other hand the
pursuit of sex and love (for example) is
not a surrogate activity, because most
people, even if their existence were otherwise
satisfactory, would feel deprived
if they passed their lives without ever
having a relationship with a member of
the opposite sex. (But pursuit of an
excessive amount of sex, more than one
really needs, can be a surrogate activity.)
40. In modern industrial society only
minimal effort is necessary to satisfy
one's physical needs. It is enough to go
through a training program to acquire
some petty technical skill, then come to
work on time and exert very modest
effort needed to hold a job. The only
requirements are a moderate amount
of intelligence, and most of all, simple
OBEDIENCE. If one has those, society
takes care of one from cradle to grave.
(Yes, there is an underclass that cannot
take physical necessities for granted,
but we are speaking here of mainstream
society.) Thus it is not surprising
that modern society is full of surrogate
activities. These include scientific
work, athletic achievement, humanitarian
work, artistic and literary creation,
climbing the corporate ladder,
acquisition of money and material
goods far beyond the point at which
they cease to give any additional physical
satisfaction, and social activism
when it addresses issues that are not
important for the activist personally,
as in the case of white activists who
work for the rights of nonwhite minorities.
These are not always pure surrogate
activities, since for many people
they may be motivated in part by needs
other than the need to have some goal
to pursue. Scientific work may be motivated
in part by a drive for prestige,
artistic creation by a need to express
feelings, militant social activism by
hostility. But for most people who pursue
them, these activities are in large
part surrogate activities. For example,
the majority of scientists will probably
agree that the "fulfillment" they get
from their work is more important
than the money and prestige they earn.
41. For many if not most people, surrogate
activities are less satisfying than
the pursuit of real goals ( that is, goals
that people would want to attain even if
their need for the power process were
already fulfilled). One indication of this
is the fact that, in many or most cases,
people who are deeply involved in surrogate
activities are never satisfied,
never at rest. Thus the money-maker
constantly strives for more and more
wealth. The scientist no sooner solves
one problem than he moves on to the
next. The long-distance runner drives
himself to run always farther and
faster. Many people who pursue surrogate
activities will say that they get far
more fulfillment from these activities
than they do from the "mundane" business
of satisfying their biological
needs, but that it is because in our society
the effort needed to satisfy the biological
needs has been reduced to triviality.
More importantly, in our society
people do not satisfy their biological
needs AUTONOMOUSLY but by functioning as
parts of an immense social
machine. In contrast, people generally
have a great deal of autonomy in pursuing
their surrogate activities.
have a great deal of autonomy in pursuing
their surrogate activities.
42. Autonomy as a part of the power
process may not be necessary for every
individual. But most people need a
greater or lesser degree of autonomy in
working toward their goals. Their
efforts must be undertaken on their
own initiative and must be under their
own direction and control. Yet most
people do not have to exert this initiative,
direction and control as single
individuals. It is usually enough to act
as a member of a SMALL group. Thus
if half a dozen people discuss a goal
among themselves and make a successful
joint effort to attain that goal, their
need for the power process will be
served. But if they work under rigid orders
handed down from above that
leave them no room for autonomous
decision and initiative, then their need
for the power process will not be
served. The same is true when decisions are
made on a collective bases if
the group making the collective decision
is so large that the role of each individual
is insignificant [5]
43. It is true that some individuals
seem to have little need for autonomy.
Either their drive for power is weak or
they satisfy it by identifying themselves
with some powerful organization
to which they belong. And then there
are unthinking, animal types who seem
to be satisfied with a purely physical
sense of power(the good combat soldier,
who gets his sense of power by
developing fighting skills that he is
quite content to use in blind obedience
to his superiors).
44. But for most people it is through the
power process-having a goal, making
an AUTONOMOUS effort and attaining t
the goal-that self-esteem, self-confidence
and a sense of power are
acquired. When one does not have adequate
opportunity to go throughout the
power process the consequences are
(depending on the individual and on
the way the power process is disrupted)
boredom, demoralization, low self-esteem,
inferiority feelings, defeatism,
depression, anxiety, guilt, frustration,
hostility, spouse or child abuse,
insatiable hedonism, abnormal sexual
behavior, sleep disorders, eating disorders,
etc. [6]
45. Any of the foregoing symptoms can
occur in any society, but in modern
industrial society they are present on a
massive scale. We aren't the first to
mention that the world today seems to
be going crazy. This sort of thing is not
normal for human societies. There is
good reason to believe that primitive
man suffered from less stress and frustration
and was better satisfied with
his way of life than modern man is. It
is true that not all was sweetness and
light in primitive societies. Abuse of
women and common among the
Australian aborigines, transexuality
was fairly common among some of the
American Indian tribes. But is does
appear that GENERALLY SPEAKING
the kinds of problems that we have listed
in the preceding paragraph were far
less common among primitive peoples
than they are in modern society.
46. We attribute the social and psychological
problems of modern society to
the fact that that society requires people
to live under conditions radically
different from those under which the
human race evolved and to behave in
ways that conflict with the patterns of
behavior that the human race developed
while living under the earlier conditions.
It is clear from what we have
already written that we consider lack
of opportunity to properly experience
the power process as the most important
of the abnormal conditions to
which modern society subjects people.
But it is not the only one. Before dealing
with disruption of the power
process as a source of social problems
we will discuss some of the other
sources.
47. Among the abnormal conditions
present in modern industrial society
are excessive density of population,
isolation of man from nature, excessive
rapidity of social change and the break-down
of natural small-scale communities
such as the extended family,
the village or the tribe.
48. It is well known that crowding
increases stress and aggression. The
degree of crowding that exists today
and the isolation of man from nature
are consequences of technological
progress. All pre-industrial societies
were predominantly rural. The
industrial Revolution vastly increased
the size of cities and the proportion of
the population that lives in them, and
modern agricultural technology has
made it possible for the Earth to support
a far denser population than it
ever did before. (Also, technology exacerbates
the effects of crowding because
it puts increased disruptive powers in
people's hands. For example, a variety
of noise-making devices: power mowers,
radios, motorcycles, etc. If the use of
these devices is unrestricted, people
who want peace and quiet are frustrated
by the noise. If their use is restricted,
people who use the devices are frustrated
by the regulations... But if these
machines had never been invented
there would have been no conflict and
no frustration generated by them.)
49. For primitive societies the natural
world (which usually changes only
slowly) provided a stable framework
and therefore a sense of security. In the
modern world it is human society that
dominates nature rather than the other
way around, and modern society
changes very rapidly owing to technological
change. Thus there is no stable
framework.
50. The conservatives are fools: They
whine about the decay of traditional
values, yet they enthusiastically support
technological progress and economic
growth. Apparently it never
occurs to them that you can't make
rapid, drastic changes in the technology
and the economy of a society with
out causing rapid changes in all other
aspects of the society as well, and that
such rapid changes inevitably break
down traditional values.
51.The breakdown of traditional values
to some extent implies the breakdown
of the bonds that hold together
traditional small-scale social groups. The
disintegration of small-scale social
groups is also promoted by the fact that
modern conditions often require or
tempt individuals to move to new
locations, separating themselves from their
communities. Beyond that, a technological
society HAS TO weaken family ties
and local communities if it is to function
efficiently. In modern society an
individual's loyalty must be first to the
system and only secondarily to a small-scale
community, because if the internal
loyalties of small-scale small-scale communities
were stronger than loyalty to the
system, such communities would pursue
their own advantage at the expense
of the system.
52. Suppose that a public official or a
corporation executive appoints his
cousin, his friend or his co-religionist
to a position rather than appointing the
person best qualified for the job. He has
permitted personal loyalty to supersede
his loyalty to the system, and that is
"nepotism" or "discrimination," both
of which are terrible sins in modern
society. Would-be industrial societies
that have done a poor job of subordinating
personal or local loyalties to loyalty
to the system are usually very
inefficient. (Look at Latin America.) Thus
an advanced industrial society can tolerate
only those small-scale communities
that are emasculated, tamed and
made into tools of the system. [7]
53. Crowding, rapid change and the
breakdown of communities have been
widely recognized as sources of social
problems. but we do not believe they
are enough to account for the extent of
the problems that are seen today.
54. A few pre-industrial cities were
very large and crowded, yet their
inhabitants do not seem to have suffered
from psychological problems to
the same extent as modern man. In
America today there still are uncrowded
rural areas, and we find there the
same problems as in urban areas,
though the problems tend to be less
acute in the rural areas. Thus crowding
does not seem to be the decisive factor.
55. On the growing edge of the
American frontier during the 19th century,
the mobility of the population
probably broke down extended families
and small-scale social groups to at least
the same extent as these are broken
down today. In fact, many nuclear families
lived by choice in such isolation,
having no neighbors within several
miles, that they belonged to no community
at all, yet they do not seem to have
developed problems as a result.
56.Furthermore, change in American
frontier society was very rapid and
deep. A man might be born and raised
in a log cabin, outside the reach of law
and order and fed largely on wild meat;
and by the time he arrived at old age he
might be working at a regular job and
living in an ordered community with
effective law enforcement. This was a
deeper change that that which typically
occurs in the life of a modern individual,
yet it does not seem to have led
to psychological problems. In fact, 19th
century American society had an optimistic
and self-confident tone, quite
unlike that of today's society. [8]
57. The difference, we argue, is that
modern man has the sense (largely justified)
that change is IMPOSED on him,
whereas the 19th century frontiersman
had the sense (also largely justified)
that he created change himself, by his own choice.
Thus a pioneer settled on a
piece of land of his own choosing and
made it into a farm through his own
effort. In those days an entire county
might have only a couple of hundred
inhabitants and was a far more isolated
and autonomous entity than a modern
county is. Hence the pioneer farmer
participated as a member of a relatively
small group in the creation of a new,
ordered community. One may well
question whether the creation of this
community was an improvement, but
at any rate it satisfied the pioneer's
need for the power process.
58. It would be possible to give other
examples of societies in which there
has been rapid change and/or lack of
close community ties without he kind
of massive behavioral aberration that
is seen in today's industrial society. We
contend that the most important cause
of social and psychological problems in
modern society is the fact that people
have insufficient opportunity to go
through the power process in a normal
way. We don't mean to say that modern
society is the only one in which the
power process has been disrupted.
Probably most if not all civilized societies
have interfered with the power '
process to a greater or lesser extent.
But in modern industrial society the
problem has become particularly acute.
Leftism, at least in its recent (mid-to-late
-20th century) form, is in part a
symptom of deprivation with respect to
the power process.
59. We divide human drives into three groups: (1)
those drives that can be satisfied with minimal effort; (2) those
that can be satisfied but only at the cost
of serious effort; (3) those that cannot
be adequately satisfied no matter how
much effort one makes. The power
process is the process of satisfying the
drives of the second group. The more
drives there are in the third group, the
more there is frustration, anger, eventually
defeatism, depression, etc.
60. In modern industrial society natural
human drives tend to be pushed into
the first and third groups, and the second
group tends to consist increasingly
of artificially created drives.
61. In primitive societies, physical
necessities generally fall into group 2:
They can be obtained, but only at the
cost of serious effort. But modern society
tends to guaranty the physical
necessities to everyone [9] in exchange
for only minimal effort, hence physical
needs are pushed into group 1. (There
may be disagreement about whether
the effort needed to hold a job is "minimal";
but usually, in lower- to middle-level
jobs, whatever effort is required
is merely that of obedience. You sit
or stand where you are told to sit or
stand and do what you are told to do in
the way you are told to do it. Seldom do
you have to exert yourself seriously,
and in any case you have hardly any
autonomy in work, so that the need for
the power process is not well served.)
62. Social needs, such as sex, love and status, often remain in group 2 in modern
society, depending on the situation
of the individual. [10] But, except for
people who have a particularly strong
drive for status, the effort required to
fulfill the social drives is insufficient to
satisfy adequately the need for the
power process.
63. So certain artificial needs have been
created that fall into group 2, hence
serve the need for the power process.
Advertising and marketing techniques
have been developed that make many
people feel they need things that their
grandparents never desired or even
dreamed of. It requires serious effort to
earn enough money to satisfy these
artificial needs, hence they fall into
group 2. (But see paragraphs 80-82.)
Modern man must satisfy his need for
the power process largely through pursuit
of the artificial needs created by
the advertising and marketing industry
[11], and through surrogate activities.
64. It seems that for many people,
maybe the majority, these artificial
forms of the power process are insufficient.
A theme that appears repeatedly
in the writings of the social critics of
the second half of the 20th century is
the sense of purposelessness that
afflicts many people in modern society.
(This purposelessness is often called by
other names such as "anomic" or "middle-class
vacuity.") We suggest that the
so-called "identity crisis" is actually a
search for a sense of purpose, often for
commitment to a suitable surrogate
activity. It may be that existentialism
is in large part a response to the purposelessness
of modern life. [12] Very
widespread in modern society is the
search for "fulfillment." But we think
that for the majority of people an activity
whose main goal is fulfillment (that
is, a surrogate activity) does not bring
completely satisfactory fulfillment. In
other words, it does not fully satisfy the
need for the power process. (See paragraph
41.) That need can be fully satisfied
only through activities that have
some external goal, such as physical
necessities, sex, love, status, revenge,
etc.
65. Moreover, where goals are pursued
through earning money, climbing the
status ladder or functioning as part of
the system in some other way, most
people are not in a position to pursue
their goals AUTONOMOUSLY. Most
workers are someone else's employee
as, as we pointed out in paragraph 61,
must spend their days doing what they
are told to do in the way they are told
to do it. Even most people who are in business
for themselves have only limited
autonomy. It is a chronic complaint of
small-business persons and entrepreneurs
that their hands are tied by
excessive government regulation. Some
of these regulations are doubtless
unnecessary, but for the most part government
regulations are essential and
inevitable parts of our extremely complex
society. A large portion of small
business today operates on the franchise
system. It was reported in the
Wall Street Journal a few years ago
that many of the franchise-granting
companies require applicants for franchises
to take a personality test that is
designed to EXCLUDE those who have
creativity and initiative, because such
persons are not sufficiently docile to go
along obediently with the franchise
system. This excludes from small business
many of the people who most need
autonomy.
66. Today people live more by virtue of
what the system does FOR them or TO
them than by virtue of what they do for
themselves. And what they do for themselves
is done more and more along
channels laid down by the system.
Opportunities tend to be those that the
system provides, the opportunities
must be exploited in accord with the rules
and regulations [13], and techniques
prescribed by experts must be followed
if there is to be a chance of success.
67. Thus the power process is disrupted
in our society through a deficiency of
real goals and a deficiency of autonomy
in pursuit of goals. But it is also
disrupted because of those human drives
that fall into group 3: the drives
that one cannot adequately satisfy no
matter how much effort one makes.
One of these drives is the need for security.
Our lives depend on decisions
made by other people; we have no control
over these decisions and usually
we do not even know the people who
make them. ("We live in a world in
which relatively few people -
maybe 500 or 1,00 - make the important
decisions" -
Philip B. Heymann of Harvard Law
School, quoted by Anthony Lewis, New
York Times, April 21, 1995.) Our lives
depend on whether safety standards at
a nuclear power plant are properly
maintained; on how much pesticide is
allowed to get into our food or how
much pollution into our air; on how
skillful (or incompetent) our doctor is;
whether we lose or get a job may
depend on decisions made by government
economists or corporation executives;
and so forth. Most individuals
are not in a position to secure themselves
against these threats to more
[than] a very limited extent. The individual's
search for security is therefore
frustrated, which leads to a sense of
powerlessness.
68. It may be objected that primitive
man is physically less secure than modern
man, as is shown by his shorter life
expectancy; hence modern man suffers
from less, not more than the amount of
insecurity that is normal for human
beings. but psychological security does
not closely correspond with physical
security. What makes us FEEL secure
is not so much objective security as a
sense of confidence in our ability to
take care of ourselves. Primitive man,
threatened by a fierce animal or by
hunger, can fight in self-defense or
travel in search of food. He has no certainty
of success in these efforts, but he
is by no means helpless against the
things that threaten him. The modern
individual on the other hand is threatened
by many things against which he
is helpless; nuclear accidents, carcinogens
in food, environmental pollution, war,
increasing taxes, invasion of his
privacy by large organizations,
nation-wide social or economic phenomena
that may disrupt his way of life.
69. It is true that primitive man is powerless
against some of the things that
threaten him; disease for example. But
he can accept the risk of disease stoically.
It is part of the nature of things,
it is no one's fault, unless is the fault
of some imaginary, impersonal demon.
But threats to the modern individual
tend to be MAN-MADE. They are not
the results of chance but are IMPOSED
on him by other persons whose decisions
he, as an individual, is unable to
influence. Consequently he feels frustrated,
humiliated and angry.
70. Thus primitive man for the most
part has his security in his own hands
(either as an individual or as a member
of a SMALL group) whereas the security
of modern man is in the hands of
persons or organizations that are too
remote or too large for him to be able
personally to influence them. So modern
man's drive for security tends to
fall into groups 1 and 3; in some areas
(food, shelter, etc.) his security is
assured at the cost of only trivial effort,
whereas in other areas he CANNOT
attain security. (The foregoing greatly
simplifies the real situation, but it does
indicate in a rough, general way how
the condition of modern man differs
from that of primitive man.)
71. People have many transitory drives
or impulses that are necessary frustrated
in modern life, hence fall into
group 3. One may become angry, but
modern society cannot permit fighting.
In many situations it does not even
permit verbal aggression. When going
somewhere one may be in a hurry, or
one may be in a mood to travel slowly,
but one generally has no choice but to
move with the flow of traffic and obey
the traffic signals. One may want to do
one's work in a different way, but usually
one can work only according to the rules
laid down by one's employer. In many other ways as well, modern man
is strapped down by a network of rules
and regulations (explicit or implicit)
that frustrate many of his impulses and
thus interfere with the power process.
Most of these regulations cannot be disposed
with, because the are necessary
for the functioning of industrial
society.
72. Modern society is in certain respects
extremely permissive. In matters
that are irrelevant to the functioning
of the system we can generally do
what we please. We can believe in any
religion we like (as long as it does not
encourage behavior that is dangerous
to the system). We can go to bed with
anyone we like (as long as we practice
"safe sex"). We can do anything we like
as long as it is UNIMPORTANT. But in
all IMPORTANT matters the system
tends increasingly to regulate our
behavior.
73. Behavior is regulated not only
through explicit rules and not only by
the government. Control is often exercised
through indirect coercion or
through psychological pressure or
manipulation, and by organizations
other than the government, or by the
system as a whole. Most large organizations
use some form of propaganda [14]
to manipulate public attitudes or
behavior. Propaganda is not limited to
"commercials" and advertisements,
and sometimes it is not even consciously
intended as propaganda by the people
who make it. For instance, the content
of entertainment programming is
a powerful form of propaganda. An
example of indirect coercion: There is
no law that says we have to go to work
every day and follow our employer's
orders. Legally there is nothing to prevent
us from going to live in the wild
like primitive people or from going into
business for ourselves. But in practice
there is very little wild country left,
and there is room in the economy for
only a limited number of small business
owners. Hence most of us can survive
only as someone else's employee.
74. We suggest that modern man's
obsession with longevity, and with maintaining
physical vigor and sexual
attractiveness to an advanced age, is a
symptom of unfulfillment resulting
from deprivation with respect to the
power process. The "mid-life crisis"
also is such a symptom. So is the lack
of interest in having children that is
fairly common in modern society but
almost unheard-of in primitive societies.
75. In primitive societies life is a succession
of stages. The needs and purposes
of one stage having been fulfilled,
there is no particular reluctance about
passing on to the next stage. A young
man goes through the power process by
becoming a hunter, hunting not for
sport or for fulfillment but to get meat
that is necessary for food. (In young women
the process is more complex,
with greater emphasis on social power;
we won't discuss that here.) This phase
having been successfully passed
through, the young man has no reluctance
about settling down to the
responsibilities of raising a family.
(In contrast, some modern people indefinitely
postpone having children
because they are too busy seeking some
kind of "fulfillment." We suggest that the
fulfillment they need is adequate experience of the power process -- with real goals instead of the artificial goals of surrogate activities.) Again, having successfully raised his children, going through the power process by providing them with the physical necessities, the primitive man feels that his work is done and he is prepared to accept old age (if he survives that long) and death. Many modern people, on the other hand, are disturbed by the prospect of death, as is shown by the amount of effort they expend trying to maintain their physical condition, appearance and health. We argue that this is due to unfulfillment resulting from the fact that they have never put their physical powers to any use, have never gone through the power process using their bodies in a serious way. It is not the primitive man, who has used his body daily for practical purposes, who fears the deterioration of age, but the modern man, who has never had a practical use for his body beyond walking from his car to his house. It is the man whose need for the power process has been satisfied during his life who is best prepared to accept the end of that life.
76. In response to the arguments of this section someone will say, "Society must find a way to give people the opportunity to go through the power process." For such people the value of the opportunity is destroyed by the very fact that society gives it to them. What they need is to find or make their own opportunities. As long as the system GIVES them their opportunities it still has them on a leash. To attain autonomy they must get off that leash.
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