The Ghost in the Machine (37 page)

 

 

But there is a second process involved which may have the opposite effect:
the process of identification may lead to the arousal of
vicarious
emotions
. When Mrs. Smith is 'sharing Mrs. Brown's sorrow', the process
of
sharing
(the first process) instantly leads to the second: the
experience of
sorrow
. But the second process may also be the feeling of
anxiety or anger. You commiserate with young Oliver Twist; as a result
you feel like strangling Fagin with your own hands. The sharing is a
self-transcending, cathartic experience. But it may act as a vehicle for
anger -- anger as a vicarious emotion, experienced on behalf of another,
but genuinely felt.

 

 

The anger felt at the machinations of the perfidious villain on the
screen -- whom Mexican audiences have been known to riddle with bullets
-- is genuine anger. When we watch a thriller, we develop the physical
symptoms of acute anxiety -- palpitations, tense muscles, sudden
jumps of alarm. Here, then, is the paradox -- and the predicament.
We have seen, on the one hand, that the self-transcending impulses of
projection, participation, identification inhibit self-assertion,
purge us of our selfish worries and desires. But on the other hand,
the process of identification may
stimulate
the surge of anger,
fear and vengefulness -- which, although experienced
on behalf of
another person
, nevertheless express themselves in the well-known
adreno-toxic symptoms. The physiological mechanisms that enter into
action are essentially the same whether the threat or offence is directed
at oneself or the person or group with whom one identifies. They are
self-assertive, although the self has momentarily changed its address --
by being, for instance, projected into the guileless hero on the screen;
or the local soccer team; or into 'my country, right or wrong'.

 

 

Art is a school of self-transcendence; but so is a patriotic rally, a
voodoo session, a war dance. It is a triumph of the imaginative powers
of our minds that we are capable of shedding tears over the death of
an Anna Karenina who only exists as printer's ink on paper, or as a
shadow on a screen. The illusions of the stage are ultimately derived
from sympathetic magic -- from the partial identification of spectator,
actor, and the god or hero whom he impersonates. But this magic is
highly sublimated; the process of identification is tentative, partial,
a momentary suspension of disbelief; it does not impair the critical
faculties, does not undermine personal identity. But the voodoo session
or Nuremberg rally does just that. The films shown by the Ministry of
Truth in Orwell's
Nineteen Eighty-Four
aim at regressing the
audience to a primitive level, and trigger off orgies of collective
hatred. The spectators, nevertheless, are experiencing vicarious emotions
of an unselfish kind; a righteous indignation whose manifestations are
the more savage because it is impersonal, self-transcending and can be
indulged in with a clean conscience.

 

 

Thus the glory and the tragedy of the human condition
both derive
from our powers of self-transcendence
. It is a power which can be
harnessed to creative or destructive purpose; it is equally capable of
turning us into artists or killers, but more likely into killers. It can
restrain selfish impulses, but also arouse violent emotions experienced
on behalf of the entity with whom the identificatory rapport has been
established. Injustices, or pretended injustices, inflicted on that
entity are likely to generate more fanatical behaviour than the sting
of a personal insult. Jenkins' ear may have become a comic cliché,
but at the time it was a major contributary cause for the declaration of
war on Spain. The execution of Nurse Edith Louisa Cavell in World War I
caused more spontaneous indignation against Teutonic brutality than the
mass executions of Jews in World War II. It is easy to identify oneself
with a heroic Red Cross nurse, whereas persecuted Jews may arouse pity,
but not impulses of identification.

 

 

 

Hierarchic Awareness

 

 

The mechanism which I have discussed self-transcendence serving as an
instrument, or vehicle, for emotions of the opposite class finds its
most disastrous expression in group psychology.

 

 

I have repeatedly stressed that the selfish impulses of man constitute
a much lesser historic danger than his integrative tendencies. To put
it in the simplest way: the individual who indulges in an excess of
aggressive self-assertiveness incurs the penalties of society -- he
outlaws himself, he contracts out of the hierarchy. The true believer,
on the other hand, becomes more closely knit
into it
; he enters the
womb of his church, or party, or whatever the social holon to which
he surrenders his identity. For identification in this primitive form
always entails a certain impairment of individuality, an abdication of the
critical faculties and of personal responsibility. The priest is the good
shepherd of his flock, but we also use the same metaphor in a derogatory
way when we speak of the masses following a demagogue, like sheep;
both expressions, one approving, one pejorative, express the same truth.

 

 

This leads us back to the essential difference between primitive
identification
, resulting in a homogeneous flock, and mature forms
of
integration
in a social hierarchy. In a well-balanced hierarchy,
the individual retains his character as a social holon, a part-whole,
who
qua
whole, enjoys autonomy within the limits of the restraints
imposed by the interests of the community. He remains an individual whole
in his own right, and is even expected to assert his holistic character
by originality, initiative, and above all, personal responsibility. The
same criteria of value apply to the larger social holons -- professional
groups, trade unions, social classes -- on the higher echelons of the
hierarchy. They are expected to display the virtues implied in the Janus
principle: to be self-regulating autonomous wholes, but also conform
to national -- or international -- interests. An ideal society of this
kind could be said to possess 'hierarchic awareness', where every holon
on every level is conscious both of its rights as a whole and its duties
as a part.

 

 

However, the phenomena usually designated by the terms 'group mentality'
or 'psychology of the masses' (
Massenpsychologie
) reflect
a fundamentally different attitude. It is based -- to say it once
more -- not on integrated interaction, but on
identificatory
rapport. Integration in a social hierarchy preserves the personal
identity and responsibility of its holons; identification, while it lasts,
implies a partial or total surrender of both.

 

 

We have seen that this surrender can take varied forms, some beneficial,
some harmful. In mystic or aesthetic entrancement, the self dissolves
in the oceanic feeling; one of the French expressions for the orgasm is
la petite mort
; if passion is blind, true love blurs the view; a visit
to the theatre is an escape from the self. Self-transcendence always
entails a surrender; but the amount and quality of the sacrifice depends
on the degree of sublimation and the nature of the outlets. In the more
sinister phenomena of mass psychology, sublimation is minimal and all
the outlets are
gleichgeschaltet
-- aligned in a single direction.

 

 

 

Induction and Hypnosis

 

 

Among the harmless manifestations of group psychology are such trivial
phenomena as infectious laughter, infectious yawning, infectious
fainting. The infection, say in a girl's classroom or dormitory, seems
to be transmitted by some subtle germ which fills the air, or by a kind
of mutual induction: 'Whenever I looked at Sally Anne or Sally Anne at
me, we started giggling again, we couldn't stop it. In the end we all
got hysterical.' Not only adolescent girls, but guardsmen lined up on
parade, too, are prone to such phenomena: one six-footer happens to
faint, and others topple over like ninepins. At revivalist meetings,
and the like occasiom, the symptoms are more lively: once the first
devotee has started to holler, jump, quake or spin, others are seized by
an irresistible urge to follow suit. The next step leads to more uncanny
manifestations: the tarantula dancers of the Dark Ages, the collective
hallucinations of the nuns of Loudun rolling on the floor in the
embrace of obscene devils; the lynching crowds of all races and
denominations; the revelries on Hanging Days at Newgate; the jolly
French
commères
turned into drooling
tricoteuses
;
and, by way of contrast, the rigidly disciplined, ritualised Nuremberg
rallies and Red Square parades. Or, for another contrast, the hordes of
screaming teenage Bacchantae mobbing Pop-stars, and the leering teen-age
Narcissi coiffured like cockroaches.

 

 

All these phenomena -- some harmless, some sinister, some grotesque --
have one basic element in common: the people participating in them have to
some extent surrendered their independent individualities, become more or
less de-personalised; while their impulses have to the same extent become
synchronised, aligned in the same direction like magnetised filings of
iron. The force which binds them together is variously called 'social
infection', 'mutual induction', 'collective hysteria', 'mass hypnosis',
etc.; the common element of all is identification with the group at the
price of relinquishing part of one's personal identity. Immersion in
the group mind is a kind of poor man's self-transcendence.

 

 

It has also been compared by Freud and others to a semi-hypnotic, or
quasi-hypnotic, state.

 

 

 

The hypnotic state is easy to demonstrate, but difficult to define or
explain. That, and the uncanny powers it confers on the hypnotist, may
be the main reason why it has for so long been treated with scepticism
and distrust by Western science -- whereas in tribal societies, and in
the advanced civilisations of the East, it was used for both benevolent
and malevolent purposes. Mesmer produced spectacular cures with its
help, but he had no idea how it worked; his spurious explanations in
terms of animal magnetism, combined with showmanship, brought hypnotism
into further disrepute. In the course of the nineteenth century several
eminent English surgeons carried out major operations painlessly under
hypnosis, but their reports met with scepticism and hostility. Orthodox
medicine refused to accept the reality of a phenomenon which could easily
be demonstrated, and even for a while became a parlour game. Prejudice
wore down only gradually; Charcot and his school in France, and Freud
in his early period, produced hypnotic phenomena as a matter of routine,
and used them as a therapeutical tool. But it was the Scottish physician
James Baird who, in 1841 coined the word 'hypnotism', which sounded a
little more respectable than the earlier terms -- mesmerism, magnetism,
or sonmambulism.* At present, qualified medical hypnotists are employed
in growing numbers by dental surgeons in lieu of anaesthetists, and
the use of hypnotism in childbirth, psychotherapy and dermatology has
become commonplace. So much so that we are apt to forget to wonder how
it works. For, as already said, it is a phenomenon easy to produce but
difficult to explain -- particularly in terms of flat-earth psychology.

 

* The last expression was coined by the Marquis Chastenay de Puysegur,
a follower of Mesmer, who had noticed that his patients when in
trance seemed to move and act like sleep-walkers.

 

An explanation, or at least description, as good as any other was given
half a century ago by Kretschmer: 'In the hypnotic state the functions
of the ego seem to be suspended, except those which communicate with the
hypnotiser as though through a narrow slit in a screen.' [11] The slit
focusses the beam of the hypnotic rapport. The rest of the hypnotised
subject's world is screened off or blurred.

 

 

A more recent description by an Oxford experimental psychologist,
Dr. Oswald, leads to essentially similar conclusions:

 

The human hypnotic trance [as distinct from cataleptic states
induced in animals] has a name that grew out of a resemblance to
sleep-walking. The human hypnotic trance is not a state of sleep. Nor,
let it be emphasised, is it a state of unconsciousness. . . . It is
not possible to categorise it in a manner that would be universally
acceptable. It remains a very definite puzzle. It is certainly a
state of inertia, but only in respect of spontaneous actions. In
response to the hypnotist's commands, vigorous activity may ensue
without disrupting the trance, or destroying the rapport. It is this
rapport that is so characteristic. The hypnotised individual's own
initiative is subservient to that of the hypnotist. Alternatives to
that which the hypnotist suggests simply do not seem to arise. If
you ask your friend to go and shut the door he may quietly do so, or
he may comment that, since he sees no reason for you to be so idle,
you might as well go and do it yourself. The hypnotised person just
gets on and does it. [12]

 

Lastly,
Drever's Dictionary of Psychology
: 'Hypnosis: artificially
induced state, similar in many respects to sleep, but specially
characterised by exaggerated suggestibility, and the continuance of
contact or rapport with the operator.' [13]

 

 

Freud in his book on
Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego
took the hypnotic state as his starting point. He regarded hypnotiser
and hypnotised as a 'group formation of two', and thought that the
hypnotic trance provided the clue to 'the profound alteration in
the mental activities of individuals subjected to the influence of a
group'. [14] Indeed, the 'hypnotic effect' of prophets and demagogues
on their 'spellbound' followers has become so much of a cliché that
one tends to overlook its literal, pathological relevance. Le Bon's
classic analysis of the mentality of the heroic, murderous mobs of the
French Revolution (which Freud and others took as their text) remains as
true as it was a century and a half ago. As in the hypnotised subject,
so in the individual subjected to the influence of the crowd, personal
initiative is relinquished in favour of the leader and 'the functions
of the ego seem to be suspended', except those which are 'in rapport
with the operator'. This entails a state of mental inertia, a mild
form of somnambulism or 'spellboundness' which, however, may at any
moment burst into violent activity at the leader's command. Crowds tend
to behave in a 'fanatical' (or 'heroic'), that is, single-minded way,
because the individual differences between its members are temporarily
suspended, their critical faculties anaesthetised; the whole mass
is thus intellectually reduced to a primitive common denominator,
a level of communication which all can share: single-mindedness must
be simple-minded. But at the same time, the emotional dynamism of the
crowd is enhanced by mutual induction between its members, and by the
fact that the slits in the screen -- or blinkers -- are all aligned in
the same direction. It is a kind of resonance effect, which makes the
members of the crowd feel that they are part of an irresistible power;
moreover, of a power which