NARCISSUS AND THE FACELESS MAN

 Reflections on Individuality and Conformity

William Urban

 

Monmouth College

Monmouth, Illinois

Second edition 2003

Copyright 1984

William L. Urban

Monmouth College

Monmouth, Illinois

61462

Acknowledgements

 This book was written with the aid of the National Endowment for the Humanities. In 1982 and 1983 Monmouth College was the recipient of an NEH grant for Curriculum Development to produce a group of interdepartmental humanities courses for senior students. These courses were to stress values rather than facts, concepts rather than data.

This project was a natural outgrowth of the direction that Monmouth College had been taking since early 1979. New impetus came from President Bruce Haywood, who as part of his British military service immediately after World War Two had interviewed Nazi educators and been appalled that intelligent and highly trained people could justify horrible crimes on the grounds that they were only acting in the interest of science; when he emigrated to America, he saw in small liberal arts colleges the best place possible for the morally-grounded education that he believed was necessary in our ever more technologically-based culture. Impressed by the courses already proposed to emphasize liberal arts throughout the typical student’s entire undergraduate experience, he argued the new curriculum should be more than value centered―it should stress desirable values. Assisting the faculty in the formation of the new courses were Dean William Amy and Professor Huston Smith from Syracuse University.

My particular course was later renamed “The New Individual” because the registrar’s shorthand “Narc and Fac Man” made little sense. “Narcissus and the Faceless Man” was the outgrowth of years of thinking; it was the only Issues and Ideas course (originally Thought and Belief, a rather better description of the original intent, since it does not reduce religious belief to a secular phenomenon) to be adopted by other faculty members. Many of my ideas came from two Summer Seminar projects of the National Endowment for the Humanities, one in 1977 at Brown University directed by Tony Molho, the other in 1981 at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill directed by Aldo Scaglione. Also, inspiration came from the faculty of Monmouth College, who not only contributed ideas, but also allowed me to teach practically whatever I wanted―every field of history, and also humanities, classics, and even modern foreign language. At another school I might have been confined within a specialty in my department and never have had the opportunity to do the reading which provided other ideas, all of which constituted the impetus for this book. I wish to thank especially my colleagues Nelson Hart and Stafford Weeks, Bruce Haywood and Bill Amy, and Marshall Morris of the University of Puerto Rico, for their comments and criticism.

For typing the manuscript for the second edition, I wish to acknowledge the work of the departmental secretary, Rita Schwass, and my student assistants.

Extensive revisions were made during my Sabbatical during the spring semester of 2003.

      

Introduction

 The greatest problem of the twentieth century has been the unraveling of traditional social ties. Rapid industrialization and technological change have brought every developed country greater health and wealth,^[1] but this (like everything in life) has come at a cost―to the environment, to established institutions, to traditional ways of making a living. But most of all to revered social ties.^[2] Compare today’s family, today’s churches, today’s businesses to those of 1900; it does not matter where the comparison is made―America, Europe, Asia, and Africa have all undergone essentially the same process of change. Only the extent of the change differs among the various cultures of the world―the crisis of disintegrating traditional social ties is a universal phenomenon. In the place of traditional values politicians have only been able to offer nationalism, a concept that combines industrial goals and mass education to produce a homogeneous people that can be easily organized and directed. This nationalism has produced external and internal wars of terrible ferocity: external wars against competing national states and internal wars against those minorities that differ significantly from the projected national type. The appearance of the national states is therefore partly to blame for this deterioration of civilized values, for wherever national states are created there is the subsequent appearance of nationalism, industrialization, and social change. Recognizing the problem, of course, does not resolve it (despite the academic tendency to equate “understanding” with action), and there is no turning back this part of our history. But understanding is essential to guessing which actions might be effective. (And politics has more guessing to it than science, no matter what experts tell us; “chaos theory” partly explains this truism.)

How did traditional ties unravel? One answer is that, as rural folk moved into the city, they learned that people did not share as had been done in the village (or as was supposed to be done, but did not always happen), and they certainly could not count on neighbors to realize when they needed help. Running water and toilets were inadequate substitutions for social ties, and loneliness emphasized the fact that every aspect of life, from courtship to death, involved more individual responsibility than before. The initial impulse in the face of the collapse of accepted rural values was “each man for himself.”^[3] The opportunities for making wealth often combined with smug feelings of superiority over those who lacked the skills, daring, health and stamina to succeed; and, indeed, there were always some who wanted to blame others or the economic and social system for their personal failures. The selfish individualism of nineteenth-century capitalism devolved into hedonism, Dadaism and nihilism; and the more complicated society of late twentieth century America replicated those concepts under new names. The product of almost a century of looking out for oneself, to hell with everyone else, I’ve got mine, Jack, and screw-you has produced a lonely figure that I relate to the mythological self-centered Narcissus.

The classical myth told of a handsome youth who broke the heart of the nymph, Echo, by ignoring her. Nemesis, asked to punish him appropriately, decreed that he should fall hopelessly in love with the next creature he saw. As it happened, he looked into a pool of water and saw his own reflection. Narcissus died staring longingly at his own image and thus became an important figure for our understanding of recent times, when it seems that many people think only of themselves, dying a spiritual death of isolation and loneliness.

This is not our only contemporary problem, of course. At the same time that our familiar social base has broken apart, our society has sought new arrangements that gave promise of stopping the slide into narcissistic individualism. By and large this has been a very unsatisfactory process. The most determined efforts to organize all members of society into a cooperative system have failed the most drastically: Fascism, Nazism, Bolshevism. Not all efforts to remake mankind have been so extreme, but these political movements produced the most extreme versions of a conformist personality. Even where the conformism is less directed by the political leadership, as in the United States, the power of movies, radio, ads, fads and social peers is so powerful that even non-conformism is highly conformist. The product of mass culture is what I call the Faceless Man.

What does it mean for a person to look at himself and see nothing more than the product of modern advertising or the squalor of mass poverty? Many people on our planet have swayed this way and that between insipidity and desperation for many years, some seeking meaning in life, others seeking life itself. The enemy of this mass man is always identified not as a specific person necessarily, but as individualism, selfishness, and non-conformity in themselves.^[4] Often half-educated people see these traits only as aspects of capitalism, elitism, atheism, anti-social behavior, or mere boorishness. For the conformist mass man, that which is good is that which the majority of people do, or that which will benefit the majority. The wishes of the individual come later, if at all. The faceless man is not new in this world. What is new is the pressure that mass communication and modern law enforcement can bring to bear on those who wish to dissent.

Every culture in the world has been torn between these undesirable extreme positions, extremes that unfortunately complement each other. This is the paradox of modern times: that narcissism and conformism feed on each other. As one becomes stronger, so does the other. Inevitably, society, which cannot function well when dominated by extremists, suffers. This is a confirmation of the truth of Greek warnings against hubris (the insolent disregard of moral law and restraint) and Roman admonitions to follow a path of moderation. Apparently only narcissistic personalities are able to sway multitudes into abandoning their individual opinions, to bend to the combination of persuasion and terror, and commit some of the most terrible mass crimes of human history. That has been a guiding thread through twentieth century history: armies marching off joyfully in 1914 to end up in trenches, barbed wire, and poison gas; civil wars in China, Vietnam and Cambodia, Russia and Spain marked by brutal atrocities and horrible reprisals; a fascist dictatorship in Italy and militarists in Japan who invaded Ethiopia and Manchuria, carrying modern imperialism to its illogical extreme, preparing the way for more armed aggression; the Nazi nightmare that brought us World War Two and extermination camps; the Bolshevik dictatorship that produced Stalinist purge trials, the destruction of entire classes of people, and the Gulag Archipelago; and, most recently, the Taliban regime recreating an imagined medieval religious utopia. In less devastating ways other narcissists followed the fads of the day, mimicking exactly the clothes and the words of actors, singers, and popular figures, conforming even to the attitudes of self-styled “non-conformist.” That has been the popular history of our past century: the flapper era, gangbusters, hoboes, join the marines, hippies, flower children, drop-outs, and drug addicts. In short, these groups have been as conformist as the most loyal party member of the more dangerous political organizations. Only their uniforms were different and they did not salute as they obeyed.

In the late nineteenth century western citizenries had come to believe that their civilization had triumphed over the horrors of the past, especially war. There was evidence to the contrary, but still the bloodshed of August 1914 came as a shock. There was worse to come: this did not prove to be the short, heroic combat that everyone predicted, but a prolonged agony which not only slaughtered so many young men, but also consumed the accumulated wealth of decades past and the promised production of years to come. Nor did peace bring an end to the suffering. Extremist behavior became more acute during the 1920s.^[5] Not only had the horror of the World War destroyed faith in moderation and traditions, but both the narcissists and the faceless men were reacting to an unprecedented expansion of communications. For the first time in human history, millions of people could read, could listen, and even see one event simultaneously; they could be angered, moved, encouraged and frightened at one time. Moreover, specialists in the field of mass communication knew how to use their new tools effectively. The Nazi propaganda minister Goebbels was the master of the faceless man in Germany, the advertising men of Madison Avenue the manipulators of the American narcissist.

Even in the 1930s the majority of mankind did not participate very greatly in either of the extreme positions. Italians could take Mussolini as a joke, and even Californians (the ultimate stereotype of the narcissist) could live day to day without trying to imitate Hollywood stars. However, the political extremes were louder than the middle and they were much more visible. Moreover, they were committed, dedicated, and ruthless. Those in the political and social middle did not have a consistent philosophy to defend, and they were not organized. So the political extremes triumphed more and more frequently, until finally they burned away in World War Two.

By and large mankind has never lived so well as the decades following the Second World War. There has been unmatched prosperity and unimagined progress in the world of science and economics. Even the worst evils of the immediate past―Hitlerism and Stalinism―passed away, along with diseases such as smallpox, polio and (briefly) malaria. That is not to say that the world was perfect, for it was far from all it could be; nor that all danger was past, for throughout the Cold War we had the capacity to destroy in hours what all the war machines of 1914-1918 and 1939-1945 could never have achieved. But that danger somehow passed us by. The late twentieth century will be remembered as a golden age, and so might ensuing decades, if only we can find a sure and middle ground between the narcissists and the faceless men.

The problem of the extremes is still with us. We armed ourselves against the Soviet Union because of a well-founded fear that Stalinism was still alive and well and that the Soviet leaders would make us into a nation of faceless men. The Soviet Union armed itself against us partly because of a fear that individualistic capitalism will make the Russians into narcissists. While these reflections might be true, at least to some extent, it would be inaccurate to intimate that every problem is a reflection of political power blocs. Every nation has its groups that would suppress individualism and require its citizens to conform to its values; every nation has its narcissists who think of nothing but the latest movie, the newest dance, alcoholic beverages, sex, and drugs. Every nation has its terrorist problem, its drug crisis, its gangs and gangsters. Hunger and disease, illiteracy and poverty exist widely. Many people still live under political or religious tyranny, and more people live in regions of political anarchy than was true at any time in the twentieth century.

Despite all this, we should not despair. There is a practical middle ground. In the past it was possible for a person to be an individual and still recognize civic duties and responsibilities. In the present most people still sense that there is a middle ground, but act as if it is constantly shifting underneath their feet. This is a frightening experience. We must learn to recognize this terrain and to see why we have come to perceive it as more unsteady and changing than it really is.

This is where the study of history proves its worth. Only history can give us a perspective on where an individual or a society is. Only by knowing the past and simultaneously looking at the present can we see trends and patterns; only by knowing the past can we escape the dread fear that all is unknown and unknowable, that we are experiencing everything for the first time and that no wisdom is available to help understand anything.

This method is thus very different from the theoretical approaches used by Jűrgen Habermas and John Rawls. Apparently the pragmatism of John Dewey has had its influence on me: if an argument cannot be followed by the man in the street, it is not a very useful argument. Or, if not the man and woman in the street, then at least the average liberal arts student. Perhaps even the average faculty member.

This book is intended to look at the historical background of modern social disintegration and the subsequent rise of narcissism and extreme conformism; also, to look at the tradition of pessimism that has risen in this century. The thesis is not pessimistic. Rather it is optimistic in the extreme. It says that if we can understand why we behave as we do, if we can recognize the ideas that move us, then we can control our behavior and form our society in ways more amenable to the human spirit.

 

William Urban, 2003

Lee L. Morgan Professor of History

Monmouth College

Monmouth, Illinois

 

 

PART ONE

Chapter One

 The Loss of Faith in the Future

The Tradition of Pessimism

 There are only three ways to view the future: that things will get better, that things will not change, and that things will get worse. The first is the traditional optimism characteristic of Americans, the second the wisdom of the world-weary oppressed peoples, and the latter the pessimism of European intellectuals that has been recently transplanted to our shores. The last of these is of the greatest interest, because it has become deeply embedded in intellectual circles.

The tradition of pessimism is so deeply ingrained in our Judeo-Christian heritage that it has become even part of our most secular views of the world. According to the Hebrew Scriptures Adam and Eve were without sin until they ate the fruit of knowledge; afterwards each generation of human beings became more evil; and periodically God called down His wrath on either mankind as a whole or on those who ignored their special responsibility to obey his commands. The Greeks believed that the Ages of Gold and of Silver were followed by the eras of Bronze and Iron, each epoch being less glorious and virtuous than the preceding one, until at last they reached the miserable level of classical times. Christianity combined the two great cultural and philosophical systems in such a way that the Golden Age and the Garden of Eden were represented by the Apostles and the Church Fathers, with each succeeding generation having less and less to say. This was partly Christ-like humility (Anselm said that we can see farther than our predecessors only because we sit on their shoulders), partly awareness of the barbarism of the times, and partly―but perhaps most importantly―an expectation that the approaching Second Coming would occur when the mankind was again ready for destruction, as it was in the time of Noah. Hence, in order for the Second Coming of Christ to take place as predicted, each generation had to be worse than the one that had gone before, until the end, when human wickedness would stir God’s righteous anger into action.

One finds this attitude everywhere. Most commonly it appears in the denunciation of education: “Students do not work as hard today as when I went to school, they are not as polite, and their music is no longer civilized.” Since the people who say this were criticized by their parents in the same tone, the conclusion must be that at some point in the distant past everyone was able to read, write, and master mathematics, that they dressed in a conventional manner and listened to their parents’ music. Unfortunately, historians have never been able to locate this time of total perfection.

The most common form of denunciation refers to crime: “When I was a child, we never locked a door.” To be sure, there were times and places when this was true; there are, even today, places where it is true. It is a commonplace in rural communities. When everyone knows everyone, each assumes responsibility for looking after one’s neighbors in ways that makes it difficult for thieves to operate. The world today, however, is overwhelmingly urban, and it is becoming even more so. The more people there are, the more difficult it is to keep track of individuals; the opportunities there are for criminals to blend into the background of faceless men.

The darkest form of pessimism is perhaps found among environmentalists, who tend to see the potential dire consequences of every technological change. Since environmental degradation is often connected with population growth, activists tend to share strong views on issues that link the two (birth control, abortion, animal rights, vegetarianism and globalization). This makes them easily parodied by their opponents; they sullenly return the favor (humor is hard to combine with a belief that the end of the world is nigh). Readers of New Yorker cartoons will easily recognize both stereotypes.

It is not important to document the existence of pessimism further. It is merely necessary to remind ourselves that it exists, and in pervasive ways, even among college students, whose fully cognizant memories barely go back past their high school years, when everything was better. 

The Tradition of Optimism 

One of the characteristics that separate the modern era from the medieval is the partial abandonment of the pessimistic tradition. This hopeful lookout began in the Renaissance and reached its zenith in nineteenth-century liberalism. In a very real sense these eras are one and the same, for although the Renaissance was characterized by the appearance of new attitudes toward art, music, and learning, it was the nineteenth century’s rediscovery of the Renaissance that made it so important to us as a model for individuals and for society. Two historians of that era in particular “created” the Renaissance we know today, and historians ever since have quarreled about the accuracy of their ideas. The first was Jules Michelet, the French popular historian who invented the term Renaissance (rebirth) and described the classical origins of its thought and culture. The second was Jakob Burckhardt, the Swiss historian who emphasized that the Renaissance was important for the rediscovery of the individual and the effort to create the perfect man (the “Renaissance Man,” the humanist, the “all around man”). ^[6]           

The Renaissance itself had embodied its ideals in a system of education that stressed an understanding of the world and of mankind through the study of literature and nature. The educators of the nineteenth century thus were prepared to revive the original ideals, and under the influence of Michelet and Burckhardt they again sought to make their students into Renaissance men. The most successful schools of this tradition were in England, described at their best in Tom Brown’s School Days. Later it was said that England’s wars were won on the playing fields of Eton, the most famous of the boarding schools. What was really meant was that the English system of education produced the kind of men who could conquer, govern, and defend an Empire. This Empire, moreover, was so attractive that, like the Roman Empire, even those brought into it unwillingly were ready to perpetuate not only its values, but even its occasionally comic affectations. English became the world language, to the eternal frustration of European intellectuals who believe that God is a Frenchman.

A second source of optimism was the Enlightenment, and it was overwhelming French in origin and attitude. The Enlightenment appeared in the eighteenth century after the religious wars had spent their fury. As educated men and women were persuaded that it was futile to organize the world on the basis of divinely-inspired rules, they sought to use reason and rationality to eliminate outdated customs and ideas. In particular they disliked narrow-minded religion and the strict rules that priests and pastors promulgated, for those seemed more suited to preserve priestly power than to serve the good of the congregations. In any case, the rules interfered with freedom of thought and made the improvement of society difficult. A fundamental dispute thus arose, with secular agitators presenting an optimistic view of the possible future, and religious propagandists decrying every suggestion for change as a move away from old-fashioned, trusted, proven morality. The modern controversies between secularism and fundamentalism of all varieties can be traced easily to this era, with the secularists generally using satire and humor effectively to undermine the position of the ecclesiastics. Voltaire was the most famous writer of this secularist tradition, but the American world contributed men like Ambrose Bierce, Mark Twain, and H. L. Mencken.^[7]

The third source of optimism was the economic success of the industrial era. People could see that year by year life was getting better, and they could not imagine any end to this progress, though at times they expressed dissatisfaction with the rapidity of change and the unequal distribution of the new wealth being created. Still, it was hard to be unhappy with electric lighting and flush toilets.

All of these traditions came together in America, where they joined with something new―a new country, with new traditions, establishing itself on lands formerly only lightly settled by peoples who were reluctant to make the social changes necessary to defend their patrimony. Whether the Frontier Theory is true or not, that concept does serve to explain certain aspects of the American spirit. When settlement outran government services, communities had to improvise these for themselves, thus creating a self-confident can-do attitude that expressed itself in new social attitudes and individual initiatives. An abundance of land made it possible for many Americans to work for themselves, a development which created a labor shortage; wages then went up, so that individuals who saved their money and worked hard could later become self-sufficient. This had a great impact on class structure on the frontier: nobody could become extremely rich, for no one could afford to hire many farm workers (thus some began to import slaves, who could not quit their jobs and begin to work for themselves); nobody except a slave needed to be poor unless physically or mentally handicapped. America became a land with fewer class divisions and restrictions than Europe.

     As Americans moved inland, they were unable to obtain the products of Europe or keep abreast of European fashions; therefore, they began to develop their own products and customs, which were more egalitarian with each generation. The need to find a substitute for human labor led to the development of many small labor-saving devices and a tinkering tradition that further added to American self-confidence and self-esteem. Lastly, the religious traditions of the frontier developed in the absence of a state church, so that in worship, too, every man was responsible for himself. By the nineteenth century American self-sufficiency, optimism and pride were proverbial. In their own minds, Americans were God’s chosen people, the finest and freest in the world.

Although critics of the frontier theory have been able to demonstrate that many of its original formulations are incorrect or overstated, no competing theory offers a better explanation of many characteristics of the American personality. Moreover, so many Americans believe in the frontier theory (even if they do not recognize it as the source of their ideas), that one can explain their attitudes toward politics only by referring to it. Presidents Johnson and Reagan were able to communicate to their fellow Americans a set of ideals that Europeans found comprehensible only when described as “cowboy diplomacy.” Modern historians use parts of the frontier theory to explain American optimism (David Potter in People of Plenty) and willingness to innovate (Jensen’s modernization theory). Whatever its origin, American optimism was so overwhelming that few of the pessimistic European ideologies of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries took root here. America was the land of the future, and alien pessimistic ideas had nothing to contribute. 

Modern Pessimism in Europe 

The industrial revolution had brought not only visions of a better future, but also more drastic economic cycles, the destruction of old occupations, the impoverishment of small farmers and artisans, and the flight of the unemployed to the factories and slums of the cities. The disillusionment of the masses and of sensitive onlookers led to the development of socialist movements. The unifying aspect of socialism is the intent to organize society in a fair and humane manner. Traditional economic philosophers, however, were skeptical that any such reorganization would be either easy or possible.

Some economists followed the thought of Thomas Malthus, a cleric in Ireland, who postulated that prosperity would cause population to increase; that, in turn, would encourage the cultivation of marginal lands until the exhaustion of the soil or bad weather produced starvation; at that time people would die in sufficient numbers that the marginal lands did not need to be worked; then prosperity would return, briefly. This was a very gloomy picture of the future, and, to make it worse, these economists said authoritatively that little could be done to prevent the economic cycles and the terrible hardships that accompanied them.^[8]

Still others were Social Darwinists. Following the generally-accepted guidelines of evolution, Herbert Spencer set forth the doctrine of the Survival of the Fittest. Naturally, those who flourished were by definition the fittest, and any effort to restructure society and redistribute the economic rewards was a violation of natural law. If the poor starved, that was a natural and therefore just process. It was unfortunate that many must suffer and some die, but that was the law of nature.

The socialists rejected such views. They combined Enlightenment rationality and outrage with Christian sympathy and charity to describe a society of equal citizens sharing in the work and rewards. Some socialists sought to achieve this utopian society peacefully; they emphasized government and voluntary actions to promote education, health and welfare. Others were devout Christians and Jews who believed that their religious values were best expressed in society through socialist programs. As a result, by the end of the century, many European voters had taken socialist criticisms to heart; working successfully on the guilty consciences of the well-to-do, where possible socialists and their friends organized political movements to win elections and take control of the government legally.

Other socialists, however, concluded that the property of the rich could be shared only after it was seized by force; they organized conspiracies to prepare for a general revolution. A handful of anarchists, who made socialist principles into an unprecedented demand for individual freedom, sought to bring down their allegedly repressive society by assassination and terror. Looking upon what seemed to be a perversion of otherwise admirable attitudes, the upper and middle classes of the fin de siécle responded with grotesque inappropriateness. Repression was widely used on the continent, using secret police and censorship to quiet the radical; suspicion was more common and less official, with the public becoming reluctant to entertain even the most reasonable proposals. As a result, more socialists came to believe that the radicals had to be right, that only violent change would resolve the contradictions and cruelty of modern society. Eventually the general public lost interest. On the one hand people became devoted to pleasure and entertainment, a life of frivolity well-known to us through Offenbach and the can-can; on the other hand it became caught up a militaristic nationalism that thinking people could see would lead inevitably to a catastrophe for western civilization.

Against this background of trouble we can see the outline of intellectual thought of the time. Johann Gottlieb Fichte suggested a new form of national state would supervise all economic activities and control the cycles of boom and bust. Marx had predicted the collapse of capitalism and the triumph of a socialism that would evolve into communism; as he grew older Marx abandoned hopes for peaceful transfer of monopolists’ resources to the proletariat in favor of organizing a conspiratorial elite that would seize them. Nietzsche proposed moving beyond such questions by adopting a new morality that abandoned the Judeo-Christian heritage.^[9] This was also the great era of imperialism, when nothing seemed impossible for Europeans. Arrogance and pride characterized the expression of national feeling in almost every state; those emotions were inflamed by the rapid industrialization, but they also often combined with feelings of inferiority and fear. Intellectual society was schizophrenic―at one time seeing no limit to European creativeness and conquest, at another seeing imminent destruction from within and without.

In short, this was a troubled generation. It was both optimistic and pessimistic, and the constant swing from one emotion to the other was exhausting and exciting at once. Consequently, moderate opinions could generate only a small following among intellectuals; only predictions of impending catastrophe or prospects of Utopia were applauded.

The writings of Oswald Spengler, a noted German philosopher-historian, offered both a warning of danger and hope for the distant future; and consequently they were greeted with loud applause when they appeared just before the outbreak of the First World War. In a thick volume entitled The Decline of the West, he proclaimed the approaching end of the present civilization and the birth of a new order. He postulated that history repeats three great cycles of civilizations. First there is the Apollonarian era, best represented by Ancient Greece, which emphasizes ideals and pure thought. A Greek statue, for example, represented a god-like ideal person, one that served as a model to a less than perfect but improvable mankind. Second comes the Faustian civilization, which stresses power, action and accomplishment. In history this was best represented by Rome. In Roman art one can see realism, individualism, and cruelty. The last stage is the Magian, a time of religious experience, mysticism, and drugs. As the name indicates, it was first represented historically by the Near East, and is identified with magic and the supernatural. The Middle Ages was such a society, and it was succeeded by the Renaissance, which was essentially Apollonarian.

Spengler said that the nineteenth century industrial society was a Faustian civilization in its last stage. As capital became more important that creative energy, the stockbrokers had become the rulers of society; and though their certificates of stock may have replaced the machine as the symbol of the reality of power, the time was approaching when a Caesar would arise, take control, and inaugurate a new era. The will to power of the Caesar would prevail. As the Faustian state failed, as it must, a Magian era would follow.

The First World War and its aftermath seemed to confirm Spengler’s prophesies. Mussolini, Stalin, Hitler, Franco and a host of minor dictators brought an end to the hopes of classical liberals for a future with political and economic democracy. How much Spengler contributed to this is impossible to measure, but since many read his statement that the individual could only work for change in the direction of historical necessity, surely some of them abandoned their faith in democracy just when the fragile post-war democracies of Europe most needed the committed support of every citizen. It may be that Spengler contributed to what was later called a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The 1914-1918 war itself was a terrible blow to western civilization, with its millions of dead, more millions wounded, and many more lives ruined or disappointed. Material losses can hardly be calculated either; at the least the work of a generation past was lost and that of a future generation sacrificed as well. Moreover, though the triumph of German militarism would have been terrible, the victory of the Allies was hardly better―Russia left to the Bolsheviks, Italy to the Fascists, and ultimately Germany to the Nazis.

Theologians reacted by abandoning their nineteenth-century belief in the perfectibility of mankind. In the wake of the war Karl Barth popularized the almost forgotten theologian, Kierkegaard, and stressed anew our fundamental sinfulness. In effect, Barth despaired of any significant improvement of mankind as a whole; the war had uncovered the horrors hidden inside the soul of a western civilization which had been covered over by a century of peace: now we could see how greatly we stand in need of God’s grace. In this he furthered that intellectual cry of despair called Existentialism which reached its greatest audience two decades later through the works of Kafka and Sartre. Theirs was a despair without God, without the hope of ultimate salvation. Existentialism has its roots in Kierkegaard's statement that “existence precedes essence,” that is, just as the universe was chaos before it took form, so human life is without structure or meaning until we each give it form and significance; this form and significance will be highly personal and subjective; and, lastly, whatever we create subjectively will not last―it will return to nothingness and chaos. Paul Tillich could take this existential philosophy to form the basis of a new relationship between individual man and God, but most existentialists were agnostics who saw little purpose to our continuing to strive, to work, to sacrifice ourselves for others. This philosophy was not a constructive one for the unstable and weak democracies that had been created out of the fallen empires of Europe.

Democracy received yet another unintended blow in 1922 with the publication of The Revolt of the Masses by the Spanish philosopher Jose Ortega y Gasset. He was specifically attacking contemporary Fascism, which he saw as the offspring of liberal democracy and technocracy. The civilized world of the educated man was being destroyed, he said, by the new barbarians, whose joy in mediocrity was matched only by the emptiness of their souls. Ortega y Gasset called for a united Europe that would find purposeful tasks that brought out the best in men. Not empty technology, he said (for he considered narrowly-trained scientists the worst of the barbarians), but freedom and joy in struggle and accomplishment would be the salvation of a troubled Europe. Unfortunately, of his many wise words and insights, the reading public remembered principally those in his title.

Moreover, fascists (and of many non-fascists in the artistic communities, especially those coming from the Futurist movement) delighted in breaking the rules of civilized behavior. If someone important thought them barbarians, so much the better. When Mussolini told the crowds he did not have plans, he just acted, and he “didn’t give a damn!” (Actually, a little more colorfully: non me fregga!). The crowd roared its approval. Ortega y Gasset seemed to have put his finger on the problem that faced the individual in the twentieth century. Even his fascist enemies agreed on the nature of the problem, but their solution was the opposite of his: the abandonment of civilized values, the ridicule of rationalism, and the application of force and violence.

The triumph of Hitler and Stalin, with the subsequent introduction of terror as government policy, seemed to confirm every denial of optimism that was uttered during the Great Depression and the crises that led to the Second World War. All this had its impact on America, too. 

Pessimism Comes to America 

There were few thorough-going pessimists in nineteenth century America. To be sure, there were those who thought that American society was hopelessly materialist, that democracy would inevitably lead to mediocrity, that “inferior” immigrants would swamp the native stock, or that native racism would lead to social or civil war. But they could not maintain their arguments long in face of the obvious social and economic progress that was achieved during our westward expansion. Frederick Jackson Turner introduced a cautionary note in his Frontier Thesis, indicating that Americans had developed their primary characteristics as a result of having access to cheap land on the frontier, and after 1890 that land was no longer available to settlement. But Americans did not even stop to ponder his message. We were too busy with the Gay Nineties.

The high point of American optimism was reached in the years between 1898 and 1917. Americans were self-assured in their belief that they and their democratic system could not only be so perfected as to eliminate domestic problems, but also to correct the errors of all mankind. Democracy was the way to the future, and capitalism guided by a benevolent upper class was the vehicle.

The war against Spain expressed those attitudes well. The intent was to free Cuba of tyrannical and backward foreign oppressors. American good will would replace Spanish cruelty; American businessmen, Spanish overseers; and Protestant missionaries, Roman Catholic priests. In addition, Cuba would become politically independent as quickly as democratic institutions could be established. The swiftness and decisiveness of the war seemed to confirm that God blessed the enterprise. ^[10]

Few foresaw that Americans had no magic wand that could transform Cuba instantly, and many were therefore disappointed in the slow progress of the island’s population in advancing toward utopia. The same disappointment was met in dealing with Puerto Ricans and Philippinos, who became a part of the American empire because Congress in the declaration of war had not thought to mention them specifically in the statement that America sought no territory for itself.

Still, this so-called progressive era was accustomed to encountering problems on the road to perfection. If it had been unwise to acquire colonies, that could hardly be undone now; surely Americans could managed those lands more properly than native strongmen would―and if necessary, troops would be sent to Haiti and Central America, even to Mexico, to defend democracy and capitalism. It was indeed subsequently found necessary to intervene to secure a canal in Panama for the Navy and American businessmen. Then troops were dispatched against petty dictators and radical revolutionaries; with a mixture of good motives and bad, American marines were constantly involved in Latin America from the presidency of Teddy Roosevelt to that of F.D.R.

The culmination of the policy of establishing democracy was the American entry into the First World War. Known to Americans as the “War to End All Wars” and “the War to Protect Democracy,” it ended in bitter disappointment: Wilson could neither put through his Fourteen Points nor persuade Americans to join his League of Nations. Americans, disappointed and now somewhat cynical, took refuge in an isolationism and a pacifism that were at once a statement of American perfectionist dreams and a rejection of efforts to make foreigners behave morally.

The defining phrase was “American Exceptionalism.” Americans had found a proper way of life for Americans, but it could not easily be exported. Nor could it easily be copied. The American Way of Life may not have been easy to define, but it was no less real for all of that; and it was in danger from immigrants and the temptations of world power. Americans, therefore, withdrew so completely from the effort to make the world better that the economic collapse of the Great Depression and the outbreak of the Second World War were made more or less inevitable.

American optimism reached its low point just before World War Two, when the Great Depression began to seem incurable. However, the Crash of 1929 and the subsequent Great Depression were not mortal blows to American optimism. Somehow we got through it. Franklin Delano Roosevelt put our attitude into words, saying, “All we have to fear is fear itself.” He gave leadership to a nation that had come to doubt itself. Even those many who hated him (and he was hated as passionately as he was loved) found in him a symbol they could respond to. ^[11] Consequently, it was not until the end of the Second World War that a well-thought-out philosophy of pessimism found a home in America.

One reason that Americans were not fundamentally pessimistic in this era was that we lacked a philosopher of despair. Our rejection of foreign models was almost universal. Not even the many varieties of Marxist thought had significant impact on us. Then, in the 1940s a few intellectuals found a typically American analysis of our situation, complete with data and graphs, in a work by a Yale professor, Pitrium Sorokin. It was also typically American in its basic optimism.

The philosophy of Sorokin relied heavily on Oswald Spengler for its concepts, but without the heavy sense of doom pervasive in the Decline of the West. For Sorokin, whose 1943 Crisis of our Age was widely read, the great trial was already over―not something terrible and vague in the future. He postulated three types of culture: the ideational, the idealistic, and the sensate. We were in the last stage of the sensate culture, with its dualism that “told of peace while waging war; urging cooperation while competing vigorously,” and its chaotic syncretism that made popular “musical styles ranging from classical to popular to blues to jazz” (to use one of his favorite examples).

Sorokin documented the types of culture that characterized various eras by cataloguing works of art, literature, advances in technology, and so forth, indicating in columns what percentage of society’s efforts were put into various activities. His superficially scientific approach demonstrated clearly the secular, sensual nature of modern society. That was no endorsement of its values.

For Sorokin there was a consolation that the future would be better than the present, if only people would act to change their morality, transform their values, and reverse the decline in civilized manners. The future belonged to the ascetics and the saints, who would conquer the last resistance of the nihilists and hedonists. The people of the sensate culture would turn to God, become more understanding of the role of the Absolute in the world, and thereby establish a new and better culture: “The road that leads not to death but to the further realization of man’s unique creative mission on this planet.”

Sorokin’s book was only a momentary sensation. By 1950 it was clear that Americans were on the way to a greater Sensate Culture, not away from it. He had miscalculated, apparently, and his punishment was in being ignored, then forgotten.

The next half decade was filled with more frightening visions of the present and the future. The most enduring portrayals came from Great Britain―1984 and Animal Farm, from the pen of the one-time communist, George Orwell, whose experience in Spain during the Civil wars revealed to him the total hypocrisy of Stalinism. The first book described the anti-Utopia of a society continually at war, with all industry and all news media in the hands of a totalitarian state personified by “Big Brother.” The official party required the educated person to commit every moment of time and every emotion to the war effort, to the development of a unified society, and to the destruction of internal and external enemies. Not only was news controlled, but history was continually rewritten to confirm the party’s eternal wisdom. Words were given new meanings, and the language was being restructured so that the complex thought of free men would henceforth be impossible. The ultimate enemy was the emotion of Love, which the Anti-Sex League sought to combat with slogans, party rallies and propaganda. Orwell’s society seemed so plausible after the Hitler and Stalin eras, so possible in view of the rapidity of technological advance, and so predictable in the Cold War rhetoric of contemporary politicians, that 1984 became a code word for the undesirable but perhaps inevitable future.

Animal Farm was a more sophisticated parody, and for that reason perhaps made less impression on American readers. Drawing on English history and the Russian Revolution, Orwell presented a revolution on a farm where the animals thenceforth held power. Ultimately the pigs took control, and through the slogan “All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others,” he depicted the betrayal of the revolutionary goals by the new rulers. Orwell’s pessimism was fundamental: the revolution will leave everyone even worse off that he is at present. Everyone, that is, except the pigs.

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley depicted a more pleasant but ultimately more soulless anti-Utopia. Drugs, gene-manipulation, and the removal of every source of frustration created a cattle-like society in which individual thought, passionate love, daring, courage, and creativeness could not exist. A strong readership for this book has been maintained because in so many ways Huxley’s vision of a society pursuing chemical happiness, free sex, and sensual entertainment seems to be coming true.

Almost at the same moment, a vitriolic denunciation of American mores appeared in Phillip Wylie’s A Generation of Vipers. Wylie had insights into the appearance of Nazism and Communism, but he was remembered for his attacks on Motherhood and Apple Pie. “Momism” became a byword for the overprotective, selfish domination of society by frustrated women. Unable to achieve anything themselves, the women of America effectively suppressed their menfolk so that they, too, could achieve little. In fact, nothing in contemporary America pleased Wylie; and his opinions were widely shared.

A reaction was to be expected. Someone had to be responsible for the decline in standards, for America’s troubles. With the beginning of the Cold War, Americans began to realize that external dangers had not disappeared with the fascists, and many began to wonder if America’s internal problems were not connected with the external threat. War in Korea and the Russian detonation of an atomic bomb suddenly rocked Americans out of their post-war tranquility. It was discovered that spies had passed on atomic secrets to Stalin, and it was presumed that other agents were still at work. Senator Joseph McCarthy outlined a fearful plot against American institutions that set off a nation-wide Red Hunt. This far overshadowed earlier American panics such as those which inspired the Alien and Sedition Acts under John Adams and the sedition trials and deportations of the 1919-1920 Red Scare. “McCarthyism” became a frightening phenomenon―the combination of fear, hatred, and patriotism that led past the bounds of rationality to the persecution of individuals for past or present political beliefs; and the definition of “communist” was always rather vague, so that non-communists with non-conformist ideas usually suffered more than did the secret agents of a world conspiracy.

The communists were real, however, as the archives of the KGB revealed in the 1990s, but most, like Alger Hiss, were removed from positions of power before the Cold War began.^[12] The communists in Hollywood, whose propaganda consisted largely of making the bankers, railroads and large ranchers the villains in B-westerns, saw themselves as martyrs to a noble cause and accused those who pointed them out as the traitors (of their friends, rather than of their nation), successfully stigmatizing them as tattle-tales (while those who informed on employers or the government were called whistle-blowers).^[13] Emotions ran high on both side, and neither side shrank from hyperbole.

It was in this atmosphere, in 1951, that Hannah Arendt published what many considered a classic study, the Origins of Totalitarianism. Although it is not a book that has aged well―it is wordy, loosely organized, and its central theme of a steadily growing system of terror has proved to be too strongly stated―it had a great impact on intellectuals.

Her theory of totalitarianism resembled the novels of Franz Kafka: nightmare-like situations in which the helpless individual awaits a terrible but unknown fate, a fate which he deserves for committing some crime of which he is unaware. She described the inefficient but ruthless police state that destroys not only the enemies of the new regime, but also the neutral populace and even its own supporters. The system of terror fragments society, breaking down all organizations―social groups, churches, political parties, and even the family. Only questioning obedience and a belief in the rightness of party decisions give an individual the faintest hope of physical survival. Most notable in this system, the concentration camps are more concerned with breaking the will of the individual than in destroying opposition (otherwise extermination camps would be preferable). In short, the goal of the totalitarian state was the transformation of the human character. Anything was permitted in order to achieve this transformation.

Hannah Arendt also had other significant insights into the Hitler and Stalin eras. The most important was encompassed in the phrase, “the banality of evil.” The ultimate truth of the totalitarian system was not that exceptionally evil men had triumphed over good men. It was that after the opening stages, when armed revolutionaries had won the struggle, the bureaucrats of the all-powerful state would be perfectly ordinary people who had risen to high position by their willingness to conform; these people would manage terror in much the same way  they would operate any other business or government office. Inspired by fear and the necessity to avoid all critical thinking, guided in policy by orders, decrees and routine, and separated by mounds of paper from the atrocities of the concentration and extermination camps, a very normal man could issue the most horrible orders, then go home to his family and pets. An ordinary human being, like Adolf Eichmann (responsible for the arrest and transportation of the Jews to Nazi extermination camps), was therefore all the more frightful because anyone could have done the same terrible deeds. As the English poet wrote: “There, but for the Grace of God, go I.” 

The Temporary Triumph of Pessimism 

From the examples mentioned in the foregoing section one might assume that American optimism had received deadly blows in the late 40s and early 50s, but in fact American society rebounded strongly and resumed its traditional rosy view of the world. American armies had won World War Two, losing only a few early naval battles against the Japanese and one North African tank battle against the Germans; every other major engagement was an American victory; and now American armies stood ready to defend democracy around the globe.^[14]

This aspect of American optimism must not be overlooked: As a policy America embarked upon the replacement of fascist institutions by democratic ones. Though the way was hard, the means were found―War Crimes Trials, the Berlin Airlift, restructuring schools and courts, protecting minority political parties, and the freedom of the press and of speech. The former enemies―Germany, Japan, Italy―became models of social and industrial success. Americans were naturally proud of this achievement, and one can easily understand why the assumption was so widely held that Americans could do the same everywhere in the world.

At the same time, of course, the Soviet Union was advancing very rapidly on all fronts. For many years it seemed as though communism might indeed triumph, and perhaps this feeling of eventual victory was as important to the Soviets as the threat of massive retaliation in restraining their armies in those years when they possessed an immense advantage in tanks, planes and manpower.

America met the challenge of Sputnik (in 1957 the Russians launched the first artificial earth satellite) and in 1969 landed the first men on the moon. The Civil Rights Movement, after advancing so slowly for decades, made significant breakthroughs in legislation and public acceptance. Social legislation reached its high point in 1964 with President Johnston’s ambitious War on Poverty. Consequently, it was only slowly that Americans realized that not everything was possible.

A small number of students had come to this conclusion earlier―the academic imitators of the “hippies.” But they had been far outnumbered by the “silent generation” and the growing number of activists who sought to remake the nation along the lines of its professed ideals.

The disillusion that came in the late Sixties and early Seventies can be summarized in one word: ‘Nam. It was in Vietnam that Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon took up the challenge of defending democracy, ending poverty and illiteracy, and creating a model of America in the Far East. Since democracy was not even established, much less defended, and since relocation camps and black markets were much more in evidence than land redistribution programs or the growth of a sound economy, and―most important―since the Vietnamese did not respond enthusiastically to the presence of an American army, a growing number of Americans began to question the wisdom sending a half-million Americans to fight in swamps and jungles against an enemy who hardly seemed to need the aid he received from the Soviet Union and China. Moreover, an invasion of North Vietnam (the only way to stop the infiltration of troops and war materiel into South Vietnam) promised either to become a repetition of our Korean experience or to escalate into World War Three. Therefore, the presidents conducted a limited war, using air power to a degree unimagined even in World War Two. The war was too complicated to be summarized in a few lines here, but it is important to remember that the public became both disillusioned and divided over it. Both the right and left wings of public opinion disliked the way the war was fought (the former wanting victory, the latter to get out), and in a general sense both extremes considered that it was the wrong war in the wrong place. The real enemy was the Soviet Union, Red China, or poverty, or nationalism, or our own paranoia, depending on who was making the analysis. Yet three American presidents, one after another, made the war the most important issue of their administrations, and the last two discovered that they could not travel freely or speak to the public without encountering massive protest demonstrations.

In this same tumultuous era came the Bay of Pigs, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the assassinations of President Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King, Jr., the riots in Detroit, Newark, Watts, and Miami, and the scandals associated with the Watergate break-in. Also, there were economic troubles, especially a “stagflation” (simultaneous inflation and a stagnant economy) that economists had said was impossible. Americans had become dependent on foreign oil and were shocked by the OPEC boycott in 1973. Lastly, there was the fear of thermonuclear war, an exchange of hydrogen bombs that would perhaps destroy mankind itself; at the least western civilization as we know it would suffer terribly.

The immediate result of this troubled era was a deep spirit of pessimism that fell across the nation. Youths who were persuaded that every endeavor was futile took refuge in alcohol, drugs, and religious cults. “Turn on, tune in, and drop out” was one popular slogan of the era. Other youths turned to a neo-Marxian radicalism called “the New Left.”^[15] A few even became political terrorists, believing that random acts of violence would bring the entire rotten structure of society down.^[16]

Even those who did not literally Adrop out” often took refuge in an intensely personal escape through materialism, hedonism, or religion. There were other highly individualistic resolutions of the problem―to involve oneself in sports, travel, or in sex. To ignore others, to ignore problems, to avoid thoughts about the future: this was the spiritual “dropping out” of the times.

Subsequently, in 1975, the social commentators Peter Martin and Tom Wolfe minted two phrases that seemed to offer insights into the contemporary scene: “narcissism” and the “Me Generation.” The second of the two phrases had the wider currency; it seemed to explain not only the decline in good manners and concern for others, but also such phenomena as “self-improvement,” “mind-expanding drugs,” and “gamesmanship”. The nation was shocked when an entire New York neighborhood listened to the cries of a girl being raped without anyone calling the police; but the shock went deeper when it was realized that there was a nation-wide attitude of non-involvement. The idealism of the Peace Corps era was gone, and the volunteer army could not fill its ranks. Women were demonstrating for equal rights with a vigor that seemed to say that they did not want to be “ladies”. “Assertiveness training” became an excuse for boorishness. The so-called Youth Culture rejected much that was traditional, while often wearing costumes that harkened back to earlier generations. The first phrase, “narcissism,” had deeper intellectual meaning. It had first been defined by Sigmund Freud as the psychological state of a person incapable of caring for others, a person who thinks only of himself. The narcissistic personality, in the psychological sense, encompasses both the charming personality who exploits others for his own benefit and the psychopath who refuses to recognize any legal or moral restrictions on his behavior.

It was social historian Christopher Lasch who made the most effective use of the term “narcissism.” His 1979 book, The Culture of Narcissism, sought to explain the moral crisis, the feeling of pessimism and despair, and numerous other apparent social problems in neo-Marxian terms. He said that America was in the last days of the culture of competitive individualism. Capitalism was dying. And good riddance.

As Lasch saw the problem, modern capitalist society brings out and reinforces narcissistic traits in everyone, especially through advertising that encourages consumption; but also through bureaucratic dependence, which effectively limits freedom. Dissatisfied individuals, treated as numbers and not as human beings, retreat back into a selfish search for personal fulfillment: travel, sports, sex, and drugs. Only by abolishing capitalism, he says, can a new society be created that allows the full development of each individual person.

Lasch’s criticisms of American society are so fundamental that they bear discussing no matter what one thinks of his conceptual framework. Why, for example, have American sports been so heavily emphasized in recent years? Why do we so honor “personalities” who have no claims to fame except being well-known? Why are there no more heroes? Why is there so much pessimism about the future?

Lasch’s answer to the last question is an interesting one: There is no interest in the future (not even a belief that there will be one past the era of the hydrogen bomb), because there is no interest in the past. Only a culture that realizes how the present is part of a continuum, that the past bears importantly on today, can even conceive of a future. American culture has played down the role of history in the education of youth and in explaining current events. We are now paying the price for that policy. The first step to a better future is a better understanding of the past.

This concept has had great importance in the preparation of this book. If we are to deal with the pessimistic attitude that appears in America about once a generation, we must first look at the history of western thought that has created the European tradition of pessimism and America’s occasionally embracing it.

Essential to this is the definition of some basic concepts related to our concepts of individuality and conformity: What is normal? What is abnormal? We must grapple with those concepts before we can analyze our present spiritual crisis. Only when our ideas about the role of the individual in a society are clearer can we move into a discussion of whether our society is progressing in a natural or unnatural direction.

It will help to remember that we are not the first to be concerned about American culture. In fact, we may learn a great deal about ourselves by reading a book written about a very different America long ago.

 

Alexis de Tocqueville

A young French nobleman who visited the United States in 1831 made some of the most insightful and stimulating observations about American life and customs ever put on paper. His analysis of Democracy in America gave grounds for both optimism and pessimism, in that certain characteristics of democracy that led toward conformity, dullness, and perhaps even toward tyranny, were offset by other characteristics and national institutions. American life, he predicted, would be a perpetual contest between these mutually hostile tendencies. He wrote: “I know of no country in which there is as little independence of mind and real freedom of discussion as in America.” What he meant was the “Tyranny of the Majority” would suppress minority thought by the force of public opinion; dissenters would be shunned, shut out, and banned from society. Offsetting this was the fact that America had no great military organization, no natural enemies of consequence, no great financial crises, no heavy taxes, and no large cities. Hence, America had no significant controversies.

These observations have been the point of departure for many discussions of conformism in America. Without question they will continue to spark controversy in our era. Our situation has changed greatly in the century and a half since de Tocqueville wrote, but his remarks about national character seem surprisingly fresh and valid.

If national habits can be changed, as de Tocqueville says that American customs were changed by democracy, then we have grounds for both optimism and pessimism. We can make of our society what we want, but we must be careful about making fundamental changes in our system. Institutional changes may cause less desirable character traits to develop that leave our institutions without a proper foundation in the attitudes and customs of the American people.

                                                        

Chapter Two

 Individuality, Normality, and Abnormality

Heredity

 We recognize that people differ from one another, but we only rarely recognize how much people differ. We tend to say, “we are all alike under the skin,” and we emphasize our essential equality because we have learned through hard lessons what occurs when we stress the natural superiority of some people and groups over others. Nevertheless, people are different―culturally, psychologically, and physically. To note these differences is not to make value judgments about them―although, in practical affairs, we may be obliged to do so. Avoid it anyway. What we must recognize is that such differences are not random happenstance: each variation has proven its usefulness in assuring the survival of the species or a society. Therefore, each variation has an intrinsic worth.

The differences in culture are self-evident. We have all encountered culture-shock in some form. Similarly, we have observed that some people are outgoing and some are shy, some are trusting and some not; moreover, we recognize that physical beauty, artistic talent, and athletic ability are not equally distributed. We seldom take a detailed look at these variations; though a few may stare, they usually see only that which is most superficial.

It is interesting in a study of individuality and conformity to realize that not only are we sufficiently alike that we can be studied as a biological species (as in medicine), but also that we are so different that specialists are needed for treating our eyes, teeth, feet, and every other physical organ, and still other specialists are needed to deal with our unresolved psychological disorders. As we study uniqueness, we develop certain ideas of what is “normal,” that is, we see that a majority of unique characteristics fall within a middle range, and so we can call extreme cases “abnormal.” While keeping this definition of “normality” in mind, we should recognize that within its range exist vast differences that make each of us completely individual and unique.

It is broadly known that no two sets of identical fingerprints have been found, or identical DNA, and we recognize differences in athletic ability. The two major explanations for these: first, that God created each individual unique so that he could fulfill his part of a divine plan, and secondly, that the process of evolution requires that each individual creature differ slightly from every other of its species so that a gene pool of sufficient size exists for meeting the various emergencies of struggle, disease, and sexual selection―the individuals who survive will pass on their superior characteristics to future generations.

Examples of the degree to which individual body parts may differ usually surprise us. Stomachs can vary in size greatly, some being six times the capacity of others, and the location may vary by as much as eight inches. Livers are so unique to each mammal that ancient priests and shamans used to take them from sacrificial victims to foretell the future, reading the various bumps and knobs as significant signs. There are eleven different patterns for the extensor muscle of the human index finger, and eight different patterns of tendons running to the back of the hand. That explains why some people can throw a curve ball better than others.

Blood types apparently vary among people as a response to the challenges of specific climates. Heat and disease present problems met by one blood group or another better than others, yet not so uniformly that an entire population becomes a single blood group. A well-known example of a blood-linked characteristic is sickle-cell anemia. In Africa the sickle-cell trait is helpful in combating malaria; thus, Blacks who have the trait survive and Whites, none of whom have the trait, die. Thus, tropical Africa is completely Black and in many parts of the Caribbean the Black population has thrived better than the White immigrants. When Blacks come to the temperate climates, however, the sickle-cell trait is not useful, for the trait also produces a large number of congenital anemia victims who die young after a lifetime of suffering. In a temperate climate like that of North America, the benefits do not balance off the disadvantages.

In a similar manner, individuals and groups react differently to drugs. Alcohol can make some individuals intoxicated at 0.05% of fluid content (in effect, a very small alcoholic beverage) and others are not affected at 0.4% (meaning they almost never become intoxicated). Sometimes the effect of a drug is complicated by other factors. For example, men and women often have unequal reactions to alcohol because of their differing body weights; if a 120 lb. woman drinks as much as a 180 lb. man, she is likely to become intoxicated well before he does.

Reactions to drugs vary so widely that many can be safely taken only under a doctor’s guidance, and even then complications can arise. Illegal drugs, which often vary widely in strength and purity, are therefore highly dangerous. The degree of addiction, too, varies greatly among individuals. Some people are resistant to a degree, others quickly become dependent. All of us are affected by the high cost of illegal drugs, because few addicts can supply their habit by legal means; some users obtain money by selling drugs to others, and like good entrepreneurs, they have to persuade non-users to try their wares, knowing that some will become addicted; some turn to crime, and others to prostitution.

Mental ability varies as widely as physical ability, and authorities are not completely in agreement how it should be measured. Clearly, linguistic and mathematical abilities are distinct, and for the purpose of college admission further special abilities in social studies and general science are tested. However, every specialist is aware that test results reflect not only native ability, but also the past experience in the home and school (what games were played, how the parents talked to the children, how much homework was demanded), health (was the student at the proper weight, had he been ill, did he eat well on the day of tests), weather (high or low pressure, cold or cold day, rain or shine) and, of course, the motivation to do well. It has been suggested that these tests are too narrow, that perhaps we should also develop tests for how we relate to object and to ideas, for how we work with people, and for our dexterity and strength. Only then can we make judgments about the capabilities of an individual on the basis of standardized tests.

The conclusion of this rapid survey of our biological inheritance is that, when looking at individuals, it is often hard to say what “normal” is. If we list any ten physical criteria for normality, the chances are 1 in 2 that any individual will be in the mid 50% range for each criteria. The odds that any of us will be in the mid 50% range for all ten criteria are only 1 in 1024.

Common sense tells us that this statistic is misleading. In practice we assume that most people are normal. Only when a physical characteristic varies from the norm extremely do we call it abnormal. And to be abnormal is not the same as being deviant.

If we cannot always describe what “normal” is, we have even more difficulty in telling what “deviant” is. The best we can say is that “deviant” is a strongly defined and disapproved difference from what is perceived as normal in one culture (but not necessarily in others―fatness may be normal among one group, deviant in another).

We often determine what normality is by first defining deviance. Thus, normality can be defined as that middle ground between deviances.

 

Deviance as a Cultural Norm

Deviance is a cultural term. A hunchback may be an abnormality, but he is not blamed by his society for his infirmity, whereas a drunkard is held responsible for his deviance. A leper may be excluded from society, but only because his illness is considered contagious and very dangerous. In contrast, a criminal is held responsible and is not only excluded from society, but also punished. Generally, deviance refers only to behavior for which a person can be held responsible.

Law is the instrument of society for determining deviant behavior and for punishing it. This definition may be too simple, for the law is not designed merely to detect and try lawbreakers; the law also has the symbolic function of establishing the norms of behavior and publicly affirming the values of society.

The legal norms of society are invariably set higher than customary behavior, so that they are a standard or ideal that reflects the goals of the community. Consequently, norms are not always followed closely by law enforcement officers, who have sufficiently important matters to deal with that they overlook minor infractions. For example, we set a speed limit that is considered safe for all the roads of a region. Any individual violating this speed limit may be arrested, but unless the limit is exceeded in a flagrant or dangerous manner, the violators are usually disregarded. However, there may be a “crackdown” on enforcement after a bad accident or when a general feeling emerges that too many people are speeding too often. This is a public affirmation of values that can be made only by catching and punishing violators. Thus, the “criminal” is a necessary part of the system of establishing norms. Also, as this example shows, actions that are legal at one time and place (or illegal but not thought of as criminal) may be both illegal and criminal at another. Jaywalking is an illegal activity that most of us commit from time to time without considering ourselves criminals, however unwise it may be at the moment, however bad an example it is for children, and despite our knowing that the law specifically forbids crossing the street in the middle of a block.^[17]

The criminal’s response to his arrest often determines how society and the police handle the matter. A reckless driver who acknowledges his fault and promises to do better is generally let off with a fine and a warning, while a young and defiant lawbreaker could be classified as delinquent. A mentally ill person or a drunk is usually considered sick. The cynical lawbreaker is the hardest to deal with, for he will use every means available to outwit the enforcement of the law and or to turn the law to his personal advantage, using the letter of the law to evade the intend of the law. Police often classify these people as hard core criminals.

All forms of deviance undergo change: we modify our laws. What was illegal at one time may be required in another. For example, segregation was formerly enforced by law, whereas today the law even requires the hiring of a certain percentage of the work force from the minority group whenever a court rules that segregation still exists in practice.  

Crime as Deviance 

The history of law enforcement demonstrates the widely differing perception of how society must deal with deviants. In the Middle Ages crime was considered the same as sin. Since sins were conveniently divided into categories already, it was possible to determine which were venal and which were mortal; punishment for mortal sins had to be harsh even though they might appear to be minor violations of customary and written law. To give the people of the medieval era credit, however, one must remember that imprisonment was impractical and that only the rich could afford to pay fines; therefore, flogging, hanging, beheading, and similar punishments were the only available alternatives to exile (sending the criminals elsewhere for others to worry about).

The reintroduction of Roman law brought back the use of imprisonment and an effort to use the labor of the prisoners for the benefit of society. Also, there was perhaps more understanding that first offenders deserved a second chance; this attitude not exactly unknown in the Middle Ages, when occasionally an offender would be released if a local woman volunteered to marry him and see to his reformation. (A famous Frisian pirate captured by Bremen citizens said that he’d rather die first; and he did!)

It was Cesare di Beccaria who founded modern criminology by the publications of On Crimes and Punishments in 1764. A product of the Enlightenment era, he discussed his subject in purely rational terms: 1) a crime was an act against specific individuals, and the criminal must be punished only for his actions; 2) the punishment for specific acts must be specified beforehand; 3) the punishment must fit the crime; 4) the rights of the accused must be protected by legal process; and 5) the punishment must be swift. The ideas of this Neapolitan philosopher were eventually adopted everywhere in the western world.

The science of criminology advanced quickly in the nineteenth century. Jeremy Bentham, the founder of Utilitarian philosophy (“the greatest good for the greatest number”), emphasized learning the origin of criminal behavior and then eliminating its causes. He believed that men reacted to two principles: pleasure and pain. Society, he said, should make legal behavior pleasurable and illegal behavior painful.

At the same time the new science of statistics was undermining Bentham’s theory of free will. When accurate records were kept, the crime rate proved to be relatively constant, no matter how the law was enforced. Similarly, the number of vehicle accidents and suicides varied little from year to year. Explaining this phenomenon was difficult. Eventually a number of determinist schools of philosophy arose.

Some determinists believed that crime originated in poverty. Hence, crime was inevitable, since poverty could not be eliminated in the foreseeable future. Karl Marx said that poverty, and therefore crime, were inherent in capitalism. Therefore, he said, the high crime rate simply proved that capitalism was morally bankrupt. In the interest of society it was necessary that the entire economic system be overthrown and a new one introduced that would eliminate poverty. Marx predicted that within a generation or two of the introduction of communism, poverty and crime would both disappear.

Others looked at the physical and mental characteristics. Cesare Lombroso said that he could identify a “criminal type” at sight as a throwback to pre-human species. If this were true, then police would not need to inquire deeply into an individual’s guilt or innocence: his physical appearance would indicate whether he was a danger to society or not. Out of the pursuit of this pseudo-science came phrenology (the study of the skull), then fingerprinting, and finally DNA. The first was a scientific dead-end, but the second and third are vital to modern criminology. Although phrenology was discredited (among all but a few modern fortune-tellers) the hope of identifying criminals before their careers had begun was not abandoned; the police and the public simply turned their attention from individuals to entire groups who were believed to be essentially criminal: Englishmen looked on Italians with suspicion, American Whites mistrusted Blacks, and everyone condemned gypsies out of hand.^[18]

The weak part of the determinist argument was always this: why were not all poor people criminals? The implication of the discovery that most poor people were honest and some rich people were common criminals was so obvious that ultimately most determinist arguments were rejected by all but cranks and racists. Criminal law had to apply to individuals who were judged on the basis of provable illegal actions.

Deliberate crime for profit and pleasure is more a problem in America than in other advanced industrial nations. Why this should be in a country with a high standard of living and reasonable opportunities for personal advancement is not easy to answer, but surely the rapid change in the economy and in society is partly to blame. In that sense, crime is a part of the process of modernization. Many countries of the world have noted this and have attempted to moderate social dislocation by the introduction of socialism. The degree to which this has been successful is still disputed.

Daniel Bell writes that “crime is a Coney Island mirror, caricaturing the morals and manners of a society.” The criminal is a distorted picture of what we all want to be―cowboy, frontiersman, businessman, athlete, policeman. He can use guile or violence, he gets his own way, he is feared and respected, and he has money. His struggle against society and the law puts him in the role of Robin Hood and Jesse James. Moreover, he often provides needed services to society: opportunities for gambling and sex, cheap second-hand items for sale, and employment for the youthful and untrained. Lastly, the criminal can rise out of his environment into an honest trade or profession―the bootlegger becomes the manager of a liquor store, the con man a salesman, the thug a professional athlete.

Organized crime in America is a model of big business: it has, reputedly, a board of directors, a chairman, lawyers, and numerous contacts in government and legal business. It provides a variety of services demanded by society and is especially well entrenched in the popular pastime of gambling. Moreover, it often aids in law enforcement, keeping potential competition in check. Lastly, it diversifies, taking over new enterprises, both legal and illegal, merging them into previous programs in ways calculated to reduce expenses and increase profits. In one way organized crime has been even more successful than other business enterprises. That is in its labor relations. When it deals with a union, it strives to control it completely, then loots the pension funds at the same time it makes “sweetheart” deals with industry.

The Mafia was able to thrive only because it provided services that many Americans really wanted. At first the organization did not extend past local groups of gangsters in the protection racket, in prostitution, and in petty gambling; and as long as it confined its activities to the slums, the American middle class did not care. The German, Irish, Jewish, and Italian mobsters might quarrel among themselves for domination of their ethnic markets, but they were unable to become “big-time” until the First World War brought in Prohibition.

The Prohibition era (1917-1933) made possible the growth and development of the Mafia. Beer and wine were the beverages of the immigrant Germans and Italians, just as whiskey was the drink of the Irish. Of the competing groups, the Irish had the immediate upper hand, thanks to their political connections and three-quarters of a century of experience in America; however, the Irish and Jews were on their way to middle-class respectability, while the Italians were confined to the slums and low-paying jobs. Thus, “Machine-gun Kelly” lost out to “Scarface” Al Capone. The Sicilian Mafia had the advantage of centuries of struggle against foreign occupation, during which time the code of silence and revenge strengthened the family ties that were part of the administrative directorate of the crime syndicate. Italian immigrants had just learned how to prosper in America when the 18^th amendment and the Volstead Act came in. Outrageous violence and bribery eliminated competition and law enforcement, giving the Mafia an enormously profitable monopoly. Godfathers made millions in the liquor business. (They did not often live long, but they died rich; and everybody sent flowers at the funeral.)

The end of Prohibition required a shift of Mafia activities into other activities. Big-time gambling and labor racketeering had their turn, followed by drugs and stock manipulation. As the generation changed, so did Mafia approaches to competition. More and more, the organization took on the trappings of legitimate business. Apparently the sons and grandsons of the old “dons” saw less need to risk jail or murder, when they could remain among the wealthiest people in America and stay almost entirely within the law. Operating legitimate business and using terror, arson, and bribery only when necessary to discourage competition has proven very profitable.

A similar view can be taken of gangs. Gangs apparently form spontaneously, but with the support of part of the adult community. They offer protection to their members, provide opportunities for employment and a way of spending leisure time, and they give status to otherwise unskilled youths. Some adults benefit directly from their activities―they buy their stolen items and sell them motorcycles, alcohol, and drugs; others benefit indirectly by their control of neighborhood youth and their keeping away “outsiders” who might threaten the status quo. In this way ethnic pride and racism can be expressed through gang activity.

Public opinion is generally more negative toward gangs than toward organized crime because youths generally lack discipline and experience, so that gang violence tends to be more irrational and even more brutal than Mafia activity. The retired couple in a small apartment do not worry about gangsters beating them to a pulp outside the grocery store, but they know of friends who have been mugged by teenage thugs for a couple of dollars. This negative aspect of gangs is a prominent part of the short-run hedonism and maliciousness of the unemployed teenager out of parents’ control. The conformity among gang members assures that the anti-social acts of the leaders will be emulated by the followers, especially those younger members with ambition to lead the gang at some future date. The police can break up the gang temporarily by arresting the leaders, but the only guaranteed cure of gang behavior seems to growing up; once past adolescence, the would-be mobster either goes straight or becomes a professional criminal.

Ultimately, control of youth gangs is a matter for the community, because the police are ineffective when not backed by public opinion, by a strong family structure, and the support of the business and religious communities. When boys have homework, music lessons, practice for sports, and jobs, they have no time to spend in gangs.

The professional thief is a special case for law enforcement. What really separates the small number of professionals from the large number of amateurs is the degree of specialization. Planning a crime, dispersing the loot, and the “fixing” of cases when an arrest occurs requires an intelligence and training not found in the ordinary prison. Professional thieves generally have the kinds of skills that would make them successful in legal occupations, and therefore the average thief of normal or low normal intelligence would be well advised to seek training in a legal skill like plumbing or selling used cars, where manual dexterity and smoothness in talking are also appreciated.

Non-professional thieves are characterized by a randomness that indicate how little they know of their intended occupation. Their thefts tend to be almost spontaneous, with little scouting of the victim or location, no arrangements to sell whatever is stolen, and no contacts in houses of prostitution, gambling dens, and cabarets to provide guides for potential victims, or disposal of stolen goods, and no influence with the police and courts. They tend to be unfortunate, mildly anti-social misfits who inevitably end in prison because they are so unskilled and careless, not to say often stupid, too. In contrast, professional thieves are rarely caught and even more rarely prosecuted successfully.

In many ways the female equivalent of the thief is the prostitute. The crime is different (and there are female thieves as well as male prostitutes), but the personalities of the professionals and non-professionals are rather similar. The early home life of the prostitute is usually unhappy, so that the young girl seeks to escape; eventually she discovers that she can use sex to obtain money that will give her freedom. From that point on, the successful professional learns how to operate in a dangerous and competitive business. She becomes a mistress or a madame, learns how to dress and behave properly, how to make contacts, and how to handle money. Except for brushes with law and public disapproval, she will often thrive. The unsuccessful prostitute is really a non-professional; she does not understand her business well enough to make her own way. She is dominated by her pimp, filled with fear or guilt, and often has a severe drug or alcohol dependency. The money may be good for a short period, but all can see that the career is short, dangerous, and disagreeable. In the end she will lose her looks and her health. If adaptable, she will find work at long hours and low pay; if not adaptable, she will land in some institution for the destitute or insane. In short, it is a life of anxiety, with many more losers than winners.

In the cases of both the thief and the prostitute, their professions would be impossible without otherwise decent people being willing to buy their services. The consumer who buys television sets and jewelry at prices too low to be true may well be subsidizing a thief, and the men who patronize prostitutes are having a narcissistic experience at the cost of providing material support for an oppressive way of life. Thus, once again, the blame for crime must be shared by society in general, just as the cost of crime must be. 

Sexual Deviance 

To raise the issue of prostitution is to bring up also the entire question of sexual norms. Probably no other area of human activity shows such a divergence of norms and behavior, of ideals and of perversions, of implied understanding and demonstrated ignorance as the realm of sex. What is said (or nor said) and what is done vary greatly, and our ignorance about behavior is immense.

It was only in the late nineteenth century that the first studies into sexual behavior were made. Havelock Ellis published in 1887 his Studies into the Psychology of Sex. Immediately the books were banned by the censors. Sigmund Freud made discussion of sex possible, though only in intellectual circles, and the popular interpretation of his theories was that sex dominates our lives. This seemed to be confirmed in 1948 when Alfred Kinsey published a scholarly volume entitled Sexual Behavior in the Human Male. That book was expected to have small sales, but to Kinsey’s surprise it made the best seller-list. He had expected little public interest because the book contained chiefly statistical summaries of thousands of interviews he had conducted over a period of years. However, he had used a bold new interviewing technique: when asking questions, he never said, “do you”?” but instead said, “how often”“ or “when”?” The results showed a far greater variety of sexual behavior than anticipated, indicated an almost universal use of masturbation, and demonstrated that the lines between heterosexuality and homosexuality were far from clearly defined. Similar results were shown in his 1953 Sexual Behavior in the Human Female. The floodgates were now open, and book after book appeared, describing human sexual activity in every aspect.^[19]

Novelists had long been pushing at the defenses of censorship. Now censorship, too, was disappearing for books, films, and magazines. The only limit seemed to be one of imagination.

What became very clear was that it was no longer easy to describe universal norms of behavior. Conservatives were outraged at the licentiousness and argued against the sex education that was being introduced into the schools, against short dresses, and rock music. Later they were even to be more upset as women’s liberation and gay rights became issues of the day. Liberals were not always thrilled, either, because all too soon there were problems with child pornography, with entire city centers being taken over by sex shows, and by increases in rape and other forms of sexual violence. Nevertheless, few people wanted to return to the days of ignorance and repression.^[20] 

Sexual Liberation 

What was happening in America and most of the western world was called the “sexual revolution.” The nineteenth century standard established by the combination of Puritanism and Victorianism was crumbling. It was no longer accepted that women married for love, then worked at home their entire lives for their husband and family. By 1920 women had the right to vote, and in World War Two many entered the labor market; in the 1960s the family with two wage earners was becoming common. Women began demanding equality in pay and treatment, in opportunity and status; and soon the sexual double standard (men were allowed extensive freedom, but women should not even be interested) was under attack.

The liberation of women had long been under discussion. Certainly the 1848 conference at Seneca Falls was a landmark along the load, and the success of the temperance movement demonstrated the power of women. What was not expected in the 1960s was the simultaneous liberation efforts of homosexuals.

If there was ever a problem of human behavior that was little understood, it was homosexuality. A variety of theories (upbringing, early sexual contacts, reaction against role models, biology, neurotic reaction, mental instability, imbalance of glands, unusual living situations like the military or prison) came forth, with an accompaniment of Old Testament condemnations and a fear that one’s own children would be seduced.

What had made homosexual life so unhappy in the past was the constant fear of discovery and the subsequent loss of employment, friends, and family. Homosexuals were subject to blackmail, to harassment, and even to prison. Perhaps consequently, some homosexual behavior was bizarre by any standard, involving pain and degradation. When the repression lifted rather suddenly, society learned for the first time how widespread homosexual behavior was, and many people saw some of the more unhappy results of the centuries of repression. Gay bars may not be places to take the children yet, but neither are many other adult establishments.^[21]

If one looks back to 1942, one can get some sense of perspective on this matter. Phillip Wylie, in A Generation of Vipers, asked “why are we unchaste?” He answered that, first of all, we never were very chaste; people have never tried to be. Secondly, people have lost their religious fears, and they have come to discover that the old system of taboos was product “of diseased minds, of toadies, and of cheats.” Lastly, the danger of pregnancy or disease was practically eliminated for the well informed. He concluded: “One thing is sure. The pulpit cannot beat prophylaxis. It failed to beat even golf.”

The rule of thumb that all revolutions go to extremes was certainly borne out in the 1990s. Gay liberation went to gay pride, then to demands for recognition of gay marriages. Feminism went through several stages of ever increasing radicalism, until at last it seemed as though only women who could do without men altogether were really authentic feminists. This brought about a form of Thermidorian Reaction.^[22] When working class women perceived that the academic feminist elite resembled ever more a lesbian dating society, they declared that they, at least, were not feminists.

On the whole, however, the demands of gays and feminists were widely accepted. Equal pay for equal work, and respect for the individual person as an individual became both law and everyday practice. Bigots remained, but usually they remained, in reversal of the former situation, in the closet.

                     Individuality and Society

 If anything in this world is certain, it is the variety of possibilities inherent in the human being. From the whorls on the fingertips to the whirls in the imagination, no two individuals are alike. Twins who seem perfectly identical at first glance turn out to have very different personalities; and people we have known for years may suddenly demonstrate new interests and talents. The person who was shy at fifteen may be an effective salesperson at thirty, a politician at fifty. That is what makes reunions so much fun to attend: to see who has changed and how.

We need to see that we are individuals, that our physical being and our personality are unique in this world. There is, literally, no one else quite like us. We can emphasize or minimize the obvious differences between ourselves and others; we can develop our talents or ignore them. The choices are ours. What we need is the wisdom to determine what the likely results of our choices will be, and the cou