Here are psychologists' explanations of wars and constitutional monarchies.

Carnages and Kings

I . P A R A N O I A AND W A R

By R O G E R M O N E Y - K Y R L E

From Life and Letters Today, English Literary Quarterly,

T H E R E is a cer ta in biological in-compa tab i l i ty between aggressiveness and gregariousness; for aggressive ani-mals are seldom able to cooperate in groups. Y e t evolut ion favors both charac ters and has succeeded in com-bining them in m a n . A m o n g the ex-t inc t races of t he wor ld , some m a y have been less aggressive and others less gregarious (e.g., pe rhaps H o m o Neander tha lens i s ) t h a n ourselves. If so, t hey were s t a m p e d o u t by our own ancestors ' un ique capac i ty to co-opera te for war .

B u t t h e mi l i t a ry v i r tues , which possessed such g rea t survival -value in the earlier h i s tory of our species, seem largely to have lost the i r funct ion and to have become a m e n a c e ra the r t han an i n s t rumen t of progress. An ex-cessive increase in popu la t ion can be checked by o the r m e a n s than war , and biological i m p r o v e m e n t can be secured more efficiently by eugenic propagat ion t h a n by t he group-bat t les of the pas t . Moreove r no t only have our lethal weapons become incom-

parably more des t ruc t ive bu t our cul-ture has become more complex and therefore vulnerable . Thus , if we con-t inue to exercise our capaci ty for group-aggressiveness, our civilization m a y very easily collapse.

If , as the ut i l i tar ians main ta ined , man were real ly a --rational egoist intelligently pursuing his self-interest, an era of peace and prosper i ty would almost cer ta in ly emerge. For he would recognize t h a t nei ther wars nor revo-lutions paid (only a ve ry small section of the popula t ion ra t ional ly expect to benefit by t h e m ) , and subs t i tu te a spirit of compromise for the unyielding group-enmit ies t h a t have become dis-astrous for those who win as well as for those w h o lose. T h i s spir i t— whether due to enl ightened self-inter-est, or h u m a n i t a r i a n sent iment , or a mixture of t he two—is, in fact , t h e ideal of the Liberal movemen t in t he widest sense of the word. I t has sought to avoid civil or in ternat ional u p -heavals by concessions between classes or nations. I t has raised the s t a n d a r d

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of living of the masses, done some-thing to establish ethnological bound-aries between nat ions, and inspired the ideal of self-determination. B u t a l though Liberal ism was fashionable for a while, becoming almost every-where a t least the official creed, i t was never whole-heartedly accepted by the world a t large. Now its existence is precarious even in this count ry , and in m a n y places i t is already dead. N o t only h a v e par t ies to impending conflicts failed to make concessions to p reven t t h e m ; the concessions t h a t have been m a d e have not decreased the danger as m u c h as might have been expected. T h u s sickened by the negat ive results of wha t seems to them a fut i le and dangerous sent imental i ty , political par t ies are everywhere com-pet ing for d ic ta torship and nat ions for a p reponderance in arms. W a r s and revolut ions remain a s tanding menace and periodically recur, in spite of a b u n d a n t proof t ha t nei ther of them pays . T h e uti l i tarians, there-fore, were wrong. M a n , collectively considered, is, no t a rational egoist intell igently pursu ing his self-interest; he is m u c h more like the homicidal man iac who uses his intelligence to j u s t i f y (or rat ionalize) a periodic lust for blood.

Th is conclusion, to which the im-par t ia l sociologist mus t come, is con-firmed by psychoanalyt ical research. T h e modern pathologist has discov-ered elements in our species t ha t pre-clude him f rom describing us as ra t ional or indeed as wholly sane. T h e isolated individual m a y seem reason-able enough, b u t his la tent madness is periodically man i fes t in his behavior as a member of a group; for the h u m a n group is liable to the eruption of char-acters exact ly paralleled by the symp-

toms of t he paranoiac . T h e typical pa rano iac suffers f rom delusions of persecut ion a n d m a y become homi-cidal if he is no t res t ra ined . H e imag-ines he has been in ju red or th rea tened where no in jur ies or t h r e a t s exist ; he imagines false causes for the in jur ies he has ac tua l ly sus ta ined, i m p u t i n g to the de l ibera te malevolence of o the r s w h a t is due to accident or to his own neglect . H e therefore feels qu i t e jus -tified in ha t ing his supposed ene-mies in r e tu rn , in conspiring against t h e m and in t ak ing t he offensive measures he believes necessary to his self-defense. H e behaves, in fac t , ex-ac t ly like an aggressive and uncom-promis ing na t ion , ever j ea lous of its pres t ige and r eady to declare war on the s l ightest provocat ion , or a political p a r t y , over-sensi t ive /to t h e real or imagined gr ievances of i ts member s and a lways d reaming of a revolut ion to secure i ts ends.

T h e basic mechanism of pa rano ia is ' p r o j e c t i o n : ' t he malevolence, which the sufferer sees in o thers , is really in himself , b u t he disowns it and impu tes it to someone else ins tead . I n t he same way , even t he best of us somet imes i m p u t e to o thers the emot ions we repress. T h e old view t h a t we are all born no rma l (with, a t mos t , the germs of f u t u r e troubles) and t h a t some of us become insane has been reversed. T o t he mode rn psychologist , we are all born m a d and some of us grow sane. T h u s ' p ro topa rano i a , ' like the original f o rms o f - o t h e r insanit ies, is normal in t he child. I n the ear ly per iod, he can tolerate no d i sappoin t -m e n t ; f rus t r a t ion tends to m a k e h im as savage as a hungry wolf. B u t his h a t e is incompat ib le wi th his need for love, so t h a t he disowns and ' p r o j e c t s ' i t , and develops a phobia of some ani-

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mal instead. Few, if a n y children, ent i rely escape phobias of this kind. A t some period or o the r in their lives, which m a y be long or shor t , they are terrified of being lef t a lone; they feel, however m u c h their reason m a y re-assure them, t he presence of the tiger under the bed. T h e existence of a paranoiac phobia of some sort is gua ran t eed b y their necessi ty to pro-j e c t their own aggressiveness.

In the process of outgrowing his phobia the child t ends to ident i fy him-self wi th the an imal he is a f ra id of. H e tries to m a s t e r his anx ie ty by develop-ing a f resh aggressiveness to deal wi th t he aggressiveness he ha s projected. I r emember a child of two who refused absolute ly to go nea r a certain tree-s t u m p on the g r o u n d t h a t it was, or a t least conta ined , a lion. B u t in a few days he began to p r e t e n d t h a t he was himself a lion a n d , a f t e r a l i t t le prac-tice in th is new role, acquired suffi-cient courage to growl a t the lion in the t ree s t u m p a n d finally to a t tack it ou t r igh t . T h e adu l t pa rano iac never outgrows, or regresses to , this menta l level. H e first d isowns a n d projects the lion (i.e., t he homicidal tendencies) within himself a n d then feels just if ied in reabsorbing i t in o rder to deal with an imagined danger i n ' the external World.

II

T h e savage preserves the insanities of childhood in s imple and easily recognizable forms . H e is perpetual ly h a u n t e d by devils in an imal or human shape and he p r e t ends to be a devil in order to chase t h e m f r o m his camp. T h e mechanism is t he same, and the psychological an thropologis t has no difficulty in recognizing in the devils the personificat ion of t he savage 's own

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repressed desires; t hey are lecherous and cannibalist ic and form a-reposi-tory for all t h a t migh t otherwise dis-r u p t the g roup . Moreover , the savage is often suspicious and hostile towards strangers, w h o m he tends to ident i fy wi th devils, and this a t t i tude , r a the r t han economic necessity, would a p -pear to be responsible for his t r ibal feuds.

The pa rano iac relics in the civilized individual are less easy to de tec t ; b u t the difference between us and the savage is n o t so flattering as we sup-pose. Our t h o u g h t appears more ra-tional, b u t th is is somet imes only be-cause we h a v e t aken more trouble to cover u p our t racks ; we rat ionalize our actions, inven t ing motives we approve whenever they are really determined by mot ives we disown. W e have d iscarded the theory t h a t just ice should be re t r ibut ive . B u t most of us secret ly rejoice in the p u n -ishment of criminals—especially those who commit robbe ry wi th violence, or who are cruel to children or dogs— and would be r a the r disappointed if they were painlessly reformed in-s tead; for t he cr iminal is a convenient object on to w h o m to projec t our own sadism, which we then feel just i f ied in readopt ing as our a t t i t u d e towards him. We h a v e ceased to believe in and to hate t he devil or to burn his sup-posed allies, b u t m o s t of us have our pet aversion a n d are a t least less tol-e ran t and s y m p a t h e t i c towards others than we should be if we never pro-jec ted u p o n t h e m the defects t h a t in ourselves we mos t dislike.

T h e civilized individual , so long as he remains an individual , would never-theless pass m u s t e r as k indly and compara t ive ly sane. B u t he carries within h im all t he b ru ta l i ty of t he

CARNAGES AND KINGS

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jungle , which he mus t continually repress. M a n y people—among them of ten those whose external behavior is mos t mi ld—are dimly conscious of the struggle, of t he unrelaxed effort to keep themselves in hand . T o these a th rea t of war m a y come as a positive relief. A t least t h e y have an out le t for their unconscious ha te . T h e y project upon the enemy their repressed ag-gression a n d in a typically paranoiac m a n n e r a t t r i b u t e to him every evil t h a t is normal ly l a t e n t in themselves. T h e n they can feel just if ied in admi t -t ing their own aggressiveness as neces-sary to self-defense. Soon others con-t rac t the same disease, for of all emotions suspicion and ha t red are perhaps the m o s t contagious; there is little check u p o n t he delusion when it is widely held. T h u s a war-fever m a y spread like wildfire through a whole na t ion and depr ive it of all capaci ty to j u d g e the issues on their meri ts .

Dur ing the ear ly stages of a war , the whole people seem possessed by an ex t raord inary elation. I t is not only t h a t they h a v e an outlet for their archaic aggressiveness; there is also a freer out le t for their love. Wi th in the group, all discord seems, to disappear ; i t has been d ive r t ed to the enemy and has m a d e room for a spirit of com-radeship and m u t u a l loyalty which is sometimes a lmost ecstatic. War brings ou t w h a t civilized people regard as good as well as w h a t is bad. Bu t the individual ' s sense of loyal ty to the group usurps t he funct ions of his con-science and just i f ies acts t ha t he would condemn as cr iminal if he were alone.

T h u s m a n is an aggressive animal wi th a sl ightly paranoiac s t ra in; and since even his loyalties are par t ly founded upon a common hate , h u m a n society tends to split into mutua l ly

an tagonis t ic groups . T h e an tagonism s ta r t s on p u r e suspicion or, if there is a real cause, i ts impor tance is enor-mous ly exaggera ted . B u t suspicion soon breeds offensive act ions to wipe off i m a g i n a r y insul ts , or because of a supposed - necessi ty for self-defense. W h a t was originally a delusional cause of conflict t ends to become real.

W e are all famil iar wi th those ver t i -cal a n d hor izonta l cleavages in society t h a t give rise to an tagonisms between na t ions or classes and end in war or revolut ion . B u t even where t he g roup enmit ies h a v e a less tragic ou t come they can be ext remely inimical to progress. So long as the a t t i t u d e of pa rano iac suspicion, wi th which na-t ions or classes regard each o the r , cont inues to cloud deba te , no quest ion can be considered solely on i ts mer i ts . W i t h . t h e technical knowledge now a t our disposal we ought to a t t a i n a s t a n d a r d of p rosper i ty far in excess of the d r e a m s of earlier u topis t s ; b u t the gap be tween the potent ia l and the ac tua l r ema ins immense. T h e eco-nomic p rob lem of d is t r ibut ion m a y be difficult . I t m a y no t be easy to devise a cur rency sys tem by which incomes will be a lways sufficient to pu rchase eve ry th ing t h a t can and should be m a d e , nor to a d j u s t m a r k e t s be tween na t ions to the i r m u t u a l benefi t . B u t if such ques t ions could be f reed f rom na t iona l or p a r t y bias far more prog-ress would cer ta in ly be m a d e .

Moreove r , we owe to the paranoiac s t ra in in our n a t u r e a cer ta in emo-tional s t u p i d i t y which makes us over-look t he n a t u r a l a n d of ten avoidable cause of our misfor tunes . T o the p r imi t ive m a n , t he l ightning is t he t h u n d e r b o l t of J o v e and the ea r th -q u a k e the uneasy st irr ings of some T i t a n ; no ca l ami ty occurs b u t by t he

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act of some will, either human or satanic. Since, therefore, he attributes the drought to the anger of the rain spirit, instead of damming up his rivers he sacrifices a taboo breaker or an incarnation of his god. His so-called cultured descendant may know that the winds, the sea, and the earth behave in accordance with the equa-tions of physics; but he still nearly, always attributes his social misfor-tunes to the malevolence of others. In this he is, of course, often to some extent correct. But the paranoiac strain within him biases his,judg-ment. He therefore tends to neglect such material factors as the currency system and concentrates his spleen on a human enemy, who in all prob-, ability is suffering, with the same stupidity, from the same trouble as. himself.

ILL

To be fair to man we must admit that his vices are to some extent a by-product of his virtues. If the child had no need of love he would not dis-own his hate towards his family, which thwarts as well as cares for him, and project it upon fictitious lions and wolves. If the savage had no need for companionship with the larger family of his tribe, he would murder his fel-lows upon the least provocation in-stead of projecting his aggressiveness upon devils and strangers. And if all adult Europeans were wholly mis-anthropic, they would never cooperate for war.

Man's paranoiac disposition may even be explained on Darwinian lines. In order to survive the struggle for existence, it was necessary for him to be both gregarious and aggressive. Without his paranoiac capacity for

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projection, these incompatible char-acteristics could hardly have been combined so well. Thus what to a logician must be judged as a rational defect was in no small measure re-sponsible for the preeminence of man among the animals and perhaps also for that of the white races among men. But evolution failed to bless the human group with a superb capacity to fight without at the same time cursing it with an inner necessity to do so even when there is nothing to be gained. Other species have owed their rise to characters that, under changed conditions, have brought about their fall. Natural selection operates with conditions as they are; it has no pre-vision and .cannot be blamed if its past , favors now impede our further rise.

Having diagnosed, if only super-ficially, some of the psychological impediments to the emergence of the Golden Age, it is natural to consider whether there are any therapeutic measures to recommend. Is the bur-den of our repressed aggressiveness too great for us permanently to.bear, and are we doomed from time to time to lose.our individuality in paranoiac groups in order to find an explosive outlet for our hate in war? Or can the aggressiveness be diverted into more useful channels? Can it be prevented, or cured?

To Freud, if I interpret him cor-rectly, human aggressiveness is in-evitable; if its external manifestations are repressed it only turns inwards and gives rise to the suicidal impulses of depression. But the external mani-festations are not necessarily homi-cidal. Savages hate devils as well as strangers, and if the revival - of a medieval credulity were possible, man-

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kind might yet be united in a common detestation of the Powers of Darkness. Even in our present irreligious age, animistic conceptions still influence our feelings and, where they do not impede our thoughts as well, may form the basis of useful sublimations;-thus scientists and engineers find in their contest with nature a Prome-thean outlet for their repressed ag-gressiveness. Possibly, as Professor Flugel has suggested, this outlet will become more general with the growth of education, until mankind is united in a common effort to master this diabolic world, which seems so ruth-lessly indifferent to the sorrows it inflicts. But if aggressiveness is in-destructible, it is likely to be long before humanity finds in the mere inanimate a sufficient object for its hate.

Some of Freud's disciples are more optimistic. To them aggression is not so much an autonomous impulse as a reaction to frustration, so that it could be, at least theoretically, re-duced. At first sight this view, is encouraging to those who believe that strife can be prevented by domestic or international concessions. Never-theless the results of a merely benevo-lent legislation or diplomacy are disappointing. Hardly is the tension eased at one point than it reappears elsewhere. At best the danger is post-poned rather than abolished. Simi-larly in the individual paranoiac if one set of suspicions is allayed by mere, reassurance, another set soon develops in its place.

The psychoanalytic explanation of the partial failure of liberal conces-sions is that they only remove the conscious causes of group-aggressive-ness, leaving the unconscious ones

untouched. The conscious causes, such', as, in the domestic, sphere, inequalities of wealth and, in the international, sphere, the existence of alienated populations, derive a great part of their psychological importance from unconscious associations with infantile frustrations that have been forgotten. So long, therefore, as the aggressive-ness resulting from these remains, it will augment the irritation evoked by any conscious cause and tend to find new rationalized outlets whenever the old ones are removed. Thus groups are apt to behave like cantankerous children who are never satisfied with what they ask for, because . these things are only symbols of the objects of an unconscious wish.

If the aggressiveness of nations is partly determined by the frustrations of the nursery, it would seem worth while for pacifists to devote some of their efforts to decreasing educational restraints. But the traumatic frustra-tions of infancy cannot be avoided altogether. The fury of the baby in his tantrums is alternately projected and introjected, growing stronger at each rotation of the" vicious circle, until he has peopled his world with, or become possessed of, devils which may plague him all his life—even though they are unconscious. If so, he will be free from depression only when he can project them upon an external enemy, and he will therefore be likely to become an active member of some paranoiac group. The probability of character-ological accidents of this kind could probably be reduced by greater tol-erance to children, but only to a limited extent.

Though early traumatic experiences cannot be prevented altogether, much could be done to remedy their more

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serious effects. To do this on a scale. large enough to guarantee the sanity of nations would involve providing some sort of psychoanalytic help for. all children who were in need of it. To suggest that psychoanalysts should, be provided for every child who was neurotic may, seem fantastic—for per-haps all children at least pass through a neurotic phase; but in the middle ages it would have seemed fantastic to suggest that teachers should be-provided for every. child who could not read. At. present psychoanalysts are rare; but their science is barely forty years old. In another half-, century educational committees may have begun to appoint them to deal with the mental hygiene of their

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schools. At first only those children who display some obvious" intellectual inhibition or emotional defect will be treated. But once the scope has ex-tended so far, it will almost certainly grow wider until every-child is helped to understand and to outgrow those early fears on which the irrational hatreds of the world are ultimately based. Before this happens, our civi-lization may perish, destroyed by the warring groups, and what enlighten-ment the present age has won may be stamped out by the superstitions that thrive in a barbaric culture. But if it manages somehow to survive a few more centuries, it may have learnt to protect itself, for all time, against the danger of collapse.

I I . T H E PSYCHOLOGY OF C O N S T I T U T I O N A L M O N A R C H Y

By E R N E S T J O N E S

From the New Statesman and Nation, London Independent Weekly of the Left

W H 'HAT renders the problem of government so very difficult is man's constantly double attitude towards it, the fact that his attitude is . always a mixture of two contradictory sets of wishes. On the one hand, he has very deep motives for wishing to be ruled. Feeling unequal to the task of con-trolling either his own or his neighbor's impulses, and longing to shift the responsibility for so doing, he demands some authority who shall shoulder the main part of this burden. On the other hand, as soon as the restrictions of authority are felt to be oppressive, he is impelled to protest and clamor for freedom. In an Ordered society these two sets of impulses have to be coordinated, though in a constantly fluctuating rather than in any static

form. At times either set may become predominant. When a people's sense of helplessness, of inferiority arising from guiltiness, becomes unbearable, there arises a passionate clamor, for a ' strong' dictatorial government, whether of the autocratic or socialistic variety; while, when a thwarting of personal initiative is felt to be intol-erable, there is a call for revolution which may attain a murderous in-tensity.

Modern psychology well recognizes that these shifting attitudes in. the outer world .mirror the.constant con-flict and instability in man's inner nature, the to and fro surges between the expressing and the restraining of his fundamental impulses. It is noteworthy that each side of the con-

t

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