The
Herd Impulse, Democratization
and Evolutionary Psychology
‘By
THEODORE SCHROEDER
Cos Cob, Connecticut
Republished from
PSYCHE AND EROS
V. II (No. 5): 263-281
Sept.-Oct., 1921
BIBLIOGRAPHIES OF SCHROEDERIANA
1913
Partial bibliography of the writings of Theodore
Schroeder dealing largely with problems of religion,
of sex, and of freedom of speech. *
Free Speech league. (New York) April, 1913, 8p.,
84 titles.
1919
Authorship of the book of Mormon. Psychologic tests
of W. F. Prince, critically reviewed by Theodore
Schroeder *** to which is now added a bibliography
of Schroeder on Mormonism. Reprint [except bib-
liography]. American Journal of Psychology. (Wor-
cester, Mass.) XXX pp. 66-72. January, 1919. 18p.
Bibliography pp. 10-18, lists 65 titles, some of which
flºate material as by revision, republication or trans-
3.11011.
Sankey-Jones, Nancy Eleanor, 1862–
Theodore Schroeder on free speech, a bibliography
by Nancy E. Sankey-Jones. (New York) Free
speech league. 1919. 24p.
Lists I49 titles, some of which duplicate material by
republication or translation.
1920
Sankey-Jones, Nancy Eleanor, 1862–
Theodore Schroeder's use of the psychologic ap-
proach to problems of religion, law, criminology
and philosophy. A bibliography by Nancy E.
Sankey-Jones. (Cos Cob, Conn.) 1920, 16p.
Lists 75 titles, some of which duplicate material
because of revisions, republications or translations,
1921
Sankey-Jones, Nancy Eleanor, 1862–
A unique heathen, to which is now added: Theodore
Schroeder on the erotogenesis of religion. A bib-
liography “. * * Enlarged from the Freethinker,
London, April 17, 1921.
Lists 43 titles, mostly selected from the last list.
4.1-4, 424.2.2
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The Herd Impulse, Democratization and
Evolutionary Psychology
By Theodore Schroeder, New York
The purpose of this paper is to outline
the behavior of the herd impulse and of
the emotions as these express themselves
in those conflicting tendencies and be-
liefs which characterize what we call
“democracy.” A critical review of
some of the chief demands now being
made in the name of democracy, will
show that these are not the goal, nor
the essence, of the social order toward
which we are evolving. It will be shown
that they are only instruments to be
used in the attainment of the uncon-
scious real goal of the democratizing
process. That goal is the herd impulse
functioning at its best, under conditions
approximating a unification of the race.
This would mean the democratization
of service and of welfare. From this
avenue of approach, the process of de-
mocratization will be seen to be a con-
tinuous advance toward racial unity on
the part of the herd (with which we
identify ourselves) and an ever enlarg-
ing consciousness of the relations and be-
havior of the human animal, especially
in the psychic aspects of its social be-
havior. With this there will also be an
evolution in the psychic essence of our
identification with our herd.
Part of this recital will be an attempt
to coordinate and to unify the conflicting
views of democracy by means of an em-
phasis upon the neglected psycho-evolu-
tionary aspect of democratization. From
this viewpoint the conclusion will be
reached that the political machinery of
democracy must be supplemented, if not
supplanted, by a democratized and demo-
cratizing education. This will unques-
tionably accentuate individual differ-
ences, but it will also produce increased
intelligence and efficiency for a unified
endeavor to promote the collective wel-
fare. From this point of view all our
social maladjustments may be re-
garded as mere childish (unintelligent)
adaptations resulting from a perverted
herd impulse. The remedy for class
conflict and war will lie in minimizing
the emotional conflicts of the individ-
ual; for this must prove most important
means of reducing the tendency to group
conflict. Another important factor in
increasing human solidarity will be a
more conscious democratization of edu-
cation, as the only peaceful method of
promoting the democratization of every-
thing else. Only thus can we insure that
mutuality of understanding which is es-
sential to peaceful readjustments. In
such a viewpoint we may discover both
the desirability and the means to en-
lighten as well as increasingly to sat-
isfy the gregarious impulse and on ever
maturer evolutionary levels.
Temperament and Democracy
In opposition to the liberal-minded
hospitality to further democratization,
there are those whose conscious attitude,
owing to their fear-psychology, is op-
posed to further democratization. Even
263
264
PSYCHE AND EROS
though this spirit manifests itself on a
cultural level high above that of the
gangster, its desire for dominance, and
its mental processes, are as infantile or
childish as that of the gangster. In
popular parlance this is called the feudal-
minded or reactionary temperament, a
temperament that is so fearful and pes-
simistic about all democratic progress,
or experimentation, as to be willing to
fight to arrest it. People so minded
cannot take chances on neutralizing their
fears or on having them proved un-
founded by the establishment of new
and ever changing social conditions.
For this their fears are too intense, and
therefore the habitual must be main-
tained at any price. These persons fre-
quently manifest a violent resistance to
the further progress of democracy as well
as an extravagant glorification of as
much democracy as has been achieved.
Thus morbid or hyper-patriotism is of-
ten a psychologic accompaniment or
symptom of an unconscious (morbid)
fear-psychology. In the gangster fear-
psychology expresses itself in lawless vio-
lence. In a cultured infantilism it is a
feudal-mindedness which expresses itself
in legalized violence, to support political
reaction, militarism, and other forms of
medieval dominance. Lately we often
find in the United States, even affluent
reactionaries engaging in mob violence,
when their “superior intelligence” has
failed. The temperamental defense-re-
actions of the feudal-minded ones often
compel them to act as if they viewed
the established democratic forms and
ceremonials as a sort if static, sacred
and final political status. They cannot
easily achieve a mutual understanding
with a different herd or substantially
enlarge their understanding of an old one.
There is pride of exclusiveness and often
of ancestry, because of doubt of self-suf-
ficiency, for the making of adjustments
under new conditions. The passionate
aristocrat is passionate just because he
is in constant fear of being confronted
with proof of some inferiority. He can-
not take chances on having his bluff of
superiority “called” by the supposed in-
ferior.
The contrary temperament is relative-
ly unafraid and, therefore, more opti-
mistic about and hospitable to democratic
progress. For many persons this is but
a different working out, through con-
sciousness, of a subjective and sometimes
subconscious conflict between feelings of
inferiority and a neutralizing but delu-
sive feeling of grandeur. Where the re-
actionary secures this neutralization of
fear by attaching himself to a disap-
pearing aristocratic order, the emotional
type of liberal and radical secures the
same result by a more or less passionate
attachman to some anti-aristocratic
creed. Those whose creeds and associa-
tions are formed on the level of the con-
flict always tend to attach great emo-
tional values to them, that is, toward ab-
solutism. At its best the radical and
liberal minded attitude is approximately
free from the influence of emotional con-
flicts and these extravagant valuations
and absolutisms, and is conditioned by a
larger understanding of the relation and
behavior among things and persons. Here
the tendency is to hold democracy dis-
passionately, as something fluid, as a pro-
cess, as something ever in the making.
There is consequently little or no pas-
signate devotion to mere creeds, laws,
political forms or reforms, because an
understanding centres more around an
undertaking of, and an adjustment to the
HERD IMPULSE AND DEMOCRATIZATION
265
natural processes of evolution and around
the desire for its acceleration.
Some of these liberal individuals will
have been educated to place emphasis on
the psychologic aspect of our social re-
lations. Such persons are always hos-
pitable to endeavors to facilitate social
readjustment on higher levels of under-
standing and to the acceleration of the
process of democratization. The feudal
minded “democrats” on the contrary, are
in fact, or oftener only in their feelings
and their phantasies, the beneficiaries
and dependents and emotional defenders
of things as they are. According to the
intensity of their subjective conflicts and
their fears, these persons are compelled
to give a proportionately extravagant
overvaluation to the perpetuation of
things as they are. This fear-psychol-
ogy finds feeling-compensation in a de-
votion as passionate as their fears, and as
intense as their feeling of dependence up-
on maintaining the status quo. In the
blindness of their passions they find a
feeling of security only in avoiding change
at almost any price. Through their fear-
psychology they are incapacitated for
looking complacently forward to new
experiments in extending popular rule.
They resist further democratization with
feverish excitement and adequate force,
rather than adequate intelligence and
calm. Then they justify themselves as
best they can. In former times the fears
centered around the democratization of
religion and of political machinery. Now
these fears center around further democ-
ratization in the control and the fruits
of industry. This attitude is particular-
ly manifest whenever the demand for
further democratization comes from
those victims of present conditions, up-
on whose relative submergence depends
the “plutocrat's" feeling of superiority
and his enjoyment of actual aristocratic
privileges.
Evolution Toward Autocracy
Let us begin a brief survey of social
evolution by using our modern knowl-
edge of emotional mechanism in an ef-
fort to understand the past evolution
toward autocracy. The psychologic foun-
dation for feudalism was laid in the un-
conscious communism of primitive soci-
ety, when some persons of superior phys-
ical prowess or of cunning became the
natural leader. Many who have never
emancipated themselves from parental
authority readily adopt such a conspicu-
ous natural leader, as if he were an ideal-
ized self, through whom a relative exal-
tation might come by a humiliation of
the real autocrat of the family circle.
Becoming aware of his advantage, such
a natural leader acquires sufficient con-
scious self-restraint to impel him to in-
duce many others to acknowledge his
claim of superiority, and to support his
demand for special privileges as the
badge and the reward of that superiority
and leadership. Now his fellow-men,
admitted inferiors, readily attached to
the natural leader that homage and “in-
stinctive” reverence naturally accorded
by a conscious inferior to a masterful
person. Becoming emotionally exagger-
ated, this reverence for the wisdom and
prowess of an aged leader tends to some-
thing like ancestor-worship. From this
to a rule by divine right involves only
a new formulation of the extravagant
valuation of the conceded leader. The
rule by divine right becomes institution-
alized and hereditary, by the easy trans-
ference of the exaggerated valuation
from the naturally selected leader on to
his progeny or upon an artfully imposed
266
PSYCHE AND EROS
successor. So it was made easy for a
king to claim to be a literal God, a son
of God,” (Cassaubon (Meric) C. C.
Treatise concerning Enthusiasme
(1656.) p. 2.) or God's vicar to the
common people. This could be quite
honestly accomplished through the same
mental processes by which mystical pan-
theists make similar claims without any
political implications,” In our day an oc-
casional millionaire, by similar psycho-
logic infantilisms, has claimed that God
gave him wealth for the accomplishment
of the Divine Purpose.
As the Christian church began to per-
meate and control the destinies of ever-
enlarging, and continually-integrating
political groups, so finally the Pope came
to be the international, autocratic uni-
fier of the Christian world, and held
within himself the conceded claim of
supreme autocratic power, as the earthly
representative of God, the King of Kings,
and Sovereign of Sovereigns. All this
was the natural result of the psycho-
logic process of projecting upon the nat-
ural leader, the King, the Pope, or unto
the Heavens, a phantasmal, idealized,
and omnipotent, autocratic self. Thus
oppressed individuals, suffering from a
feeling of inferiority, secured for them-
selves a compensatory ideal (phantas-
..*Mis Majesties Royal Rights and Pre-
rogatives, Lond. 1680. Controversial let-
ter or the Grand Controversy concern-
ing the pretended Temporal authority
of Popes over the whole Earth and the
true sovereign of Kings within their own
Kingdom. London, 1674.
**Psychology of one Pantheist. Psy-
choanalytic Review 1921. Living Gods,
Azoth—3 (No. 4): 202:5; Oct., 1918.
mal) grandeur, in response to the emo-
tional need arising out of the childhood's
emotional conflicts and consequent feel-
ings of depression and of inferiority.
Perversion of the Herd-Impulse
The masses failing to understand
these emotional conflicts and the goal of
the herd-impulse, kings, priests and popes
came in the feeling of the crowd to oc-
cupy the status of a being or of an in-
stitution, functioning as a symbolic sat-
isfaction of the subconscious craving for
larger human solidarity. Kings and
priests were objects of devotion, as the
over-valued connecting link between the
self and the remoter fellow humans to-
wards whom the herd impulse pushes in
the quest for an object of dependence and
a source of strength. Thus the inferior
secures a phantasmal realization of larger
group solidarity, through a leader who is
functioning as a symbol, institutionalized
and idealized, for the achievement of
dependability and solidarity. In this
state of ignorance, mankind permitted
the herd-impulse to become attached to
minor group-symbols, instead of reach-
ing out more consciously toward an un-
derstanding of, and reliance upon, the
larger human relationship and interde-
pendencies. Because of this emotional
acceptance of a phantasmal and symbolic
substitute in the place of a more con-
scious and more real human solidarity,
humanity was hindered from becoming
conscious of the true (natural) object
of the herd-impulse: the solidarity of
the race. In this way devotion to the
symbol grew into a devotion to the per-
son and the interests of priests, kings
and political leaders, and their slaves
fought for the perpetuation of their own
servitude. These leaders and other eco-
nomic exploiters, functioned as an equiv-
HERD IMPULSE AND DEMOCRATIZATION
267
alent or as a substitute for the material
and social self interests—a conception
that presents no difficulties if we have an
intelligent. view of ourselves as an in-
separable part of humanity.
To perpetuate aristocratic social and
economic privilege, there was then cre-
ated an artificial educational barrier
which makes impossible a mutuality of
understanding between the exploiter and
the exploited. Moral codes endowed
with exaggerated emotional valuations
became the tools by which the victims of
existing systems have had imposed on
them a fixation of interest at childish
levels. So the masters have always per-
petuated the slave system, with but slight
changes in the method and theory by
which exploitation is accomplished. The
victims of this system are always offered
a phantasmal grandeur as the neutraliz-
ing compensation for material disad-
vantages. So in the gross ignorance of
our own psychic processes and by a per-
version of “education,” we converted a
perfectly good humanizing herd-impulse
into one capable of the most savage re-
sentment toward all those fellow-hu-
mans who do not serve the personal inter-
ests of the same master. Baffled rage,
first engendered by our masters, is vent-
ed against the equally suppressed slaves
of a rival exploiter. So emotional de-
pendence and a loyalty to such individ-
uals as feudal lords, both spiritual and
temporal, became patriotism to the clan,
tribe, or nation, these being the slave
virtues always demanded by the masters.
By an easy transference of such child-
ish emotions, we may soon make a pas-
sionate virtue of loyalty to one's eco-
nomic class. The artful intensification
and perpetuation of these slave-virtues
now preclude that racial solidarity which
is the real goal of the herd impulse. Al-
ways these masters have served the crowd
as a delusional symbol of a unified race.
Thus instead of solidarity of the race,
we have only warring tribes and factions,
blindly following rivals in mass-exploi-
tation. The beneficiaries and victims of
this misplaced sentiment both demanded
and received verbal and ceremonial ex-
altation from and to each victim of these
slave virtues and slave illusions. This
homage from the least fortunate classes
is still very often given in the name of a
God-given morality and a sacred patri-
otic duty, well performed if accompanied
by “humble prostration of intellect.”
This perversion of the gregarious im-
pulse having become institutionalized, its
beneficiaries, being still too ignorant and
too fearful to see their own comfort in
greater racial unity, declare treasonable
those activities which promote the larg-
er and truer solidarity. To destroy a
human being who is an enemy to privi-
lege as a whole, or to destroy the up-
holders of a competitor for aristocratic
privilege, thus became a paramount slave
virtue, a solemn duty to God and coun-
try, to be glorified here and rewarded in
the hereafter.
Religious Duty to Patriotism
The decline of the theory of a di-
vine right in rulers did not carry
with it a decline in emotional valu-
ations nor a fundamental change in
the emotional habits of the human
animal. In the secularized state the
duty to God became the moral duty
of an equally morbid (infantile) pa"
triotism, and it was often equally
blind and passionate in its demands.
The distinction between a blind “in-
stinctive” patriotism and a mature
reflective patriotism, has not yet en-
268 PSYCHE AND EROS
tered the minds of our junkers or
feudal-minded “democrats.” The
childish emotional kind of patriotism
serves well enough those few domin-
ant ones who still profit at the ex-
pense of the democratizing process.
For the secularized mystics, “the vic-
ar of God” no longer properly sym-
bolizes the human family as the real
object of the herd impulse. The sec-
ularized intellectualization Sup-
planted the symbol of a phantasmal
God functioning through king or
pope and transferred the devotion
to “a ward heeler” or to a military
or political leader. The “religious”
gang has largely become a political
or military one. Instead of wars
for the glory of God we now war for
the profit of our employers. So we
still fight for our unconsciously made
feeling-choice between institutional-
ized systems of exploitation. With
a decline in our confidence in God
as a defense to our inferiority feel-
ing, we insist with equal desperation
on glorifying a supposed human sub-
stitute. Devotion to God became
nominally devotion to the state and
its pseudo-democratic forms and cer-
emonials. A theoretic abstract om-
nipotence in heaven is supplanted by
another theoretic and abstract infal-
lible omnipotence here, in the State.
In the process of concretizing the
State, the God of heaven has been
largely replaced by politician and
“plutocrat.” Divine law now has
credence only when enacted by the
legislature.
But, for all that, psychologically this
is progress because, after all, our de-
lusions of grandeur are now located
nearer home, and are therefore more
readily subject to being checked and cor-
rected by the material realities. But
meanwhile the ignorantly misplaced gre-
garious impulse, which once spent itself
in the persecution of religious heretics
who were demanding the democratiza-
tion of the Church-State, spends itself
with equal violence upon the economic
heretic who seeks to democratize the in-
dustrial State. Yet in this persecution
we are not so nearly unanimous as for-
merly.
Human conduct was always controll-
ed by immature passions instead of by
an understanding of the herd-impulse
and the means of its more intelligent
gratification. The race is still too blind
and too much in the throes of childhood's
emotional conflicts to see much of the
truth. With a larger understanding
will come the conviction that the only
sensible solution for all our social prob-
lems lies in democratized and democra-
tizing education rather than in violence,
lawless or legalized, or even in the sub-
stitute of “tricky” statesmanship, or in
the worship of democratic political forms
and ceremonials, such as voting.
The Herd Impulse and War
The organized “gang” of toughs is
but a crude and cruel defense against
the individual member's feeling of in-
feriority as to the manner of solving his
daily problems. “The primitive gang is
the earliest attempt of man to transcend
his own limitations toward the dimen-
sions of the race " * * The early phases
of the gang were religious.” This re-
mark by Mary Austin, an efficient ob-
server of the American Indian, is con-
firmed by some psychanalytic study of
incorrigibles. The leader is exalted by
his gang and so its members secure the
feeling of participation in his glory, and
HERD IMPULSE AND DEMOCRATIZATION
269
for this exaltation the gang is willing to
fight even to the death. The gang mem-
bers need the feeling of direct participa-
tion in the gang's success, because that
serves to neutralize their fears and their
feeling of inferiority. Rival gangsters
and international leaders make war upon
each other to satisfy an infantile vanity
and a morbid craving for possessions, ex-
pressed in terms of material competition.
Gangsters and world-war enthusiasts
applaud out of the necessities of their in-
feriority-aspiring conflict and by sado-
masochistic means. The gang- or herd-
impulse, when functioning at its best,
finds its warrant not so much in the
neutralizing of subconsciously condition-
ed fears, as in a mutual understanding of
the facts of the material and cultural
interdependence of the whole human
family. In the blindness of childhood
emotions, the knowledge of these larger
relationships and interdependencies are
excluded from consciousness. Other-
wise local and national “gangs” could
not be persuaded to enter upon a useless
slaughter.
The ultimate and perhaps unattain-
able goal of the herd-impulse is the uni-
fication of the whole race, not by politi-
cal forms or military prowess which can
create only a misleading appearance,
but through mutuality of understanding
which is to be promoted (if not accom-
plished) by the greater democratization
of education and of welfare. This will
eliminate an important objective stim-
ulus to fear and strife. In the mean-
time the gang spirit, when attached to
larger groups, such as nations and eco-
nomic classes, is equally anti-social in the
larger sense, even though the impulse to
cruelty is intellectualized and rational-
ized in terms of equality, morality, love
of family, or the will of God. Wars and
revolutions are only the convulsive man-
ifestations of the herd impulse, now per-
verted in part or at least intellectualized
in terms of economic fear. The fearful
individual finds an objective justification
for his fear and the resultant violence
in the established inequalities of educa-
tion and of welfare.
Thus national, religious, ethnic and
economic class hatreds and loyalties are
the immature or perverted impulsive
manifestations of an enlarged gang
spirit, which could be well developed in-
to an approximation of racial solidarity.
Group honor, pride, morality, loyalty
and patriotism are accepted as flattering
labels for the subjective aspects of the
malady, only because we still lack the
understanding to make efficient group-
ings according to the relative maturity
of our desires and mental processes.
When we have outgrown those emo-
tional conflicts which express them-
selves partly in violent distortions of the
herd impulse, the urge to fight will be
replaced by a more efficient, because
more mature, desire to conciliate througl
mutual service, free from those inequal-
ities which are the essence and product of
our present economic exploitation. When
we approach that evolutionary stage we
shall more and more seek to promote
mutuality of understanding. In larger
complex groups this can be expected
only after there is a much nearer ap-
proach to a democratized education
which must first minimize the inequa
ties in the development of our under-
standing. As a result of this the herd-
impulse will find more peaceful and
larger expression and more mature sat-
isfaction.
27o
PSYCHE AND EROS
Revolt of Slaves
In its subjective aspect revolt against
feudal slavery or chattle slavery was
only another manifestation of the emo-
tional conflict over the displaced pater-
nal authority. This conflict did not im-
pel the submerged classes to rebellion
until they were made class-conscious of
the great disparity in welfare between
the privileged and the enslaved. This
could come only when the disparity was
sufficiently conspicuous to become a mat-
ter of intense feeling and of conscious
thought. And so, too, efficient revolt
against a government by divine right,
or against political tyranny, occurred
only when the economic fruits were ob-
viously distributed in great disparity, i.
e., when the privileged few flaunted their
wealth with ostentatious waste, and
when conspicuous relative deprivation
was felt to be the common lot of the un-
fortunate many. Thus we come to see
that the maintenance of social distinc-
tions, based upon inequalities of welfare,
is an important condition for preventing
the herd-impulse from realizing that sol-
idarity which would promote the peace
of the world. As it was with the serfs
of the past, so it is psychologically now
with our wage workers.
Another violent revolution seems im-
minent the world over. Can we develop
a sufficient understanding of psycho-so-
cial processes, and a sufficient eagerness
to conform to the inevitable trend, as an
effective means of avoiding a world-
wide, bloody revolution? Humanity is
not yet accustomed to a psychologic ap-
proach to social problems. The actual
formulation of complaint has hitherto
dealt mainly with the legalistic forms
by means of which privileges were accu-
mulated and maintained. In the present
there are many more conscious demands
for the democratization of welfare. In
the future, as the psychologic approach
becomes more common, we shall more
and more stress the democratization of
our feelings and of our thinking, as the
better means of achieving the objective
goal of democratization. The unex-
pressed substance of that which pro-
moted the protest, and the revolt against
political institutions in the past, always
had a twofold aspect. In its objective
aspect it was expressed in terms of po-
litical and religious liberty and of eco-
nomic values and statute law. In its
subjective aspect it may be expressed in
terms of the herd-impulse as a means of
satisfying the more fundamental desire
for security, for a greater consciousness
of power. As the conflict for supreme
power within any particular State ap-
proached a condition of balanced forces,
it usually produced a compromise in the
form of some practical step which be-
came a new tool, capable of befng used
for the further democratization of ex-
isting institutions. The revolts against
government were but seldom waged di-
rectly and immediately to secure equal-
ity as regards material welfare. The
Russian revolution is probably the first
conspicuous exception.
Divine Right of Political Democracy
It may be helpful to our portrayal, to
recite briefly the conspicuous factors in
the evolution of modern social institu-
tions. First a few kings repudiated the
rule by divine right which had been
formerly claimed through the mediation
of the Pope. Thereafter, each of these
kings still claimed to rule by a divine
right, but as derived directly and im-
mediately from God. Enlarging the
number of autocrats receiving authority
". HERD IMPULSE AND DEMOCRATIZATION
271
directly from God supplied the first con-
scious step towards democratization.
Then probably most persons of influ-
ence hoped it would be the last step.
When Magma Charta was by force ex-
torted from King John, the privileges
and membership of a privileged class
were somewhat enlarged, but the serfs
were not benefited in the least. The
enlargement of legal rights was limited
to freemen. For all that, an important
step had been taken towards greater de-
mocracy. Doubtless its chief beneficiar-
ies again hoped that this would be the
last extension of legal equalities and
strenuously resisted any further demo-
cratization. Other long strides in the
direction of political democracy were
taken through the English revolutions
and the later accomplishment of a rela-
tive supremacy of the House of Com-
mons, which also became more and more
democratically representative. Again
conditions had been made more tolerable
for an enlarged group. Again some of
these beneficiaries gloried in the degree
of democracy that had been achieved and
perhaps shivered at the thought of still
further domocratization. Even now we
find among our American jurists those
who glorify Magna Charta, but care-
fully avoid the application of some of
its principles to all of the unfortunates
that come before the courts. From the
standpoint of their own social or econom-
ic group, there always appear to be ade-
quate moralistic reasons and very log-
ical justifications for precluding further
democratization.
The contest between those who possess
privileges and their relatively submerged
opponents was seldom calculated to pro-
mote a democracy of welfare, as such.
Oftener the real desire was for a change
in the personnel of those vested with au-
tocratic power and with aristocratic priv-
ileges. This contest between conflicting
aristocratic ambitions, held by competing
autocratic temperaments, usually result-
ed in a compromise which provided for
the wider distribution of political au-
thority. This is the essence of the de-
mocratization of the social tools for
larger and more democratic self-deter-
mination. Always the immediate pur-
pose was to supplant the tyrant, rather
than to destroy the tyranny. In the re-
sultant compromise, a little more liberty
and a little more democratization was
obtained because of a further diluting
of the governmental authority. The
early opponents of the divine right of
Kings made a claim of divine right in
themselves. “The voice of the people
is the voice of God,” they said. Hence
they argued that the divine right to rule
must come through the sanction of the
people, not through that of the pope,
nor even directly to the King himself.
However, a divine sanction was still
believed necessary. In the inevitable
compromise between contending auto-
cratic aspirants, others beside the prin-
cipal contestants became the beneficiaries,
by the concession of more diffused po-
litical authority.
Even now the feudal-minded among
us, those who see social life in a rela-
tively static setting, often frantically
glorify the degree of political democracy
that has been achieved, and with even
greater vigor resent the least enlarge-
ment of even the political machinery of
democracy. Many persons still deny
most earnestly the possibility and desir-
ability of the further democratization of
anything except the forms and ceremon-
ies by which our social institutions are
o
272
PSYCHE AND EROS
functioning. Many there are who still
want our constitution to recognize their
divinity. They demand that God and
their day of worship shall be recognized
in the constitution and laws and that we
thereby legally proclaim their own little
voice to be the voice of God. No real
democracy can ever prevail until the
great mass of humanity has outgrown
its feudal-mindedness.
In The Name of Democracy
If we ask our neighbors what they
mean by “democracy” a great variety
of answers and demands come forth. I
shall mention a few of the more import-
ant of these. Some Americans think of
English hereditary monarchy, even with
the heredity House of Lords, as exemp-
lifying a maximum of workable democ-
racy. Certainly before the war there
were many among us who would have
preferred such a monarchy here. A few
perfectly good “100 per cent Americans”
then insisted upon the superiority of the
Prussian system of discipline and ma-
chine-made patriotism. Now they seem
to repudiate its verbal formulations
while zealously, and in the name of de-
mocracy, promoting the establishment in
America of most of its essentials. Not
so long ago numerous American editors
did vehemently scold the Russians of
the first revolution for not contentedly
establishing a limited monarchy in Rus-
sia. Even now many hope for the re-
establishment of the monarchial form of
government. This preference is always
justified by the claim of a superior exec-
utive efficiency. Less feudal-minded
persons think less of effective regimenta-
tion than of cultural development. Some
intelligent democrats therefore find a
more satisfactory justification for polit-
ical democracy by ignoring the issue of
an enslaving business efficiency, to see if
there exists superior capacity for pro-
moting a further democratization espe-
cially through more character-maturing.
By this an evolutionary psychologist
may mean that that government is best
which most efficiently accelerates the de-
mocratization of the desires and of the
understanding of its citizens; that is, a
government which educates by and for
further democratization. A third group
wishes to enlarge the political aspects or
tools of democracy, by such devices as
the initiative, referendum and the recall.
A fourth group has just secured votes
for women as a means of perfecting the
political forms and a theoretic political
equality. Still others claim democracy
to be non-existent until the complete
separation of Church and State is made
a reality instead of being a mere legal
fiction. It was out of the demand for
a larger democracy in religion that po-
litical democracy had its birth as a by-
product. The feudal-minded opponents
of the divine right of kings exhibited
their own impulse toward omnipotence
and omniscience by still demanding the
acknowledgment that their own voice
is the voice of God.
A sixth group urges that there is no
real political democracy unless migratory
and alien laborers, as well as others,
are given an equal voice in the making
of the laws under which they are com-
pelled to work, especially the laws reg-
ulating wage determinants and the shop
conditions in the industries in which they
are exploited. Here democracy is made
to mean a larger share in economic and
industrial self-determination. Others
cannot feel toward aliens or unskilled
laborers as fellow humans, but have to-
ward them an attitude which expresses
HERD IMPULSE AND DEMOCRATIZATION
273
itself in the phrase: “mere animated ma-
chinery.” The members of this group
feel that such a demand for the larger
industrial self determination, on the part
of aliens, entitles them to deportation.
The intellectual justification is made that
these are enemies of a democracy. In
fact such persons may only be enemies to
the idea that our particular manifesta-
tions of democracy are the ultimate end
of democratic evolution. A seventh
group will tell you that there can be no
such thing as democracy until we have
a land value tax, by means of which the
community as a whole can exercise a
democratic ownership over the natural
resources of wealth, and especially of
the unearned increment of collective cre-
ation. An eighth group claims that the
essence of democracy lies in the public
ownership of public utilities. A ninth
group demands state-ownership of all
tools of production and of the means of
distribution. In other words, for many
of such performers democracy is a sort
of State capitalism. A tenth person will
tell you that democracy obtains only
where all means of production and dis-
tribution are collectively owned and de-
mocratically managed by those particular
persons who work with them. So, with-
out the intervention of the capitalist,
the individual or the State, the workers
would be enabled directly and immedi-
ately to insure to themselves the entire
product of their labor. In the latter con-
tentions a more conscious and more di-
rect effort toward the democratization
of welfare is apparent.
The Psychologic Approach
These conflicting ideas about demo-
cracy suggest the necessity for a view-
point which might synthesize all the dif-
ferent claims now being made in the
name of democracy. It is possible that
each claim presents some incomplete and
imperfect objective aspect of the herd-
impulse working (by subconsciously
conditioned choices) toward the ultimate
democratic goal; or perhaps these de-
mands represent a temporary resting
place or point of emphasis along the
road, or an added tool for reaching that
goal. If we cannot find the elements
of unification in these claims, as some-
thing inhering in their objective as-
pects, then perhaps a better un-
derstanding of their psychologic aspect
will afford us the desired element of uni-
fication. Likewise the larger understand-
ing of this psychologic approach may
supply the means for a better adjustment
of humans to one another and to nature's
social processes. We see that these con-
flicting claims express uncoordinated
wishes, that is, impulses functioning un-
der different conditions, at different
stages in the evolution of understanding
and of desire, in relation to democratic
development. In their objective aspects
they seem to be aimed at a great variety
of separate ends. Perhaps in their sub-
jective and subconscious tendency they
are all producing the same far-off result,
racial solidarity by and for democratized
welfare.
Synthesis in Psychology
It may also be, that in spite of the
general tenor of the reformatory demand,
each of these formulas only intellectual-
izes and generalizes a narrowly condi-
tioned personal interest, or one aspect of
an emotional conflict. Perhaps if we
will view these demands in the light of
a large evolutionary perspective and with
greater self understanding we may unite
them in a desire for the acceleration of
the progressive democratization of la-
274
PSYCHE AND EROS
bor, of education and of welfare. This
presents the humanistic and psychologic
viewpoint, which in its dynamic aspect
makes for the ultimate and perhaps un-
conscious and unattainable democratic
goal, namely, the elimination from adults
of parasitic infantilism, i. e., of feudal-
mindedness. So we may come to see the
desirability of approaching social prob-
lems not from the standpoint of political
forms or of social creeds but from the
viewpoint of an evolutionary psychology,
as a means of better understanding the
herd impulse. Thus we are led to edu-
cating the desire for greater democracy,
and instructing the intellect for the bet-
ter understanding of the relations and
behavior of humans. Thus we learn
how truly democratic desires can be real-
ized in actual practice. This is now
seen as a better means to the peaceful
achievement of further democratization.
This democratic attitude of mind I be-
lieve to be the unifying element that is
needed for a synthetic understanding of
the various theories, as a means to the
achievement of the fuller democratization
and a maturer satisfaction of the herd-
impulse.
Even a casual view of these and other
vital claims for enlarged democracy sug-
gests that these claims are mostly con-
cerned with political and legalistic
changes, as if they were ends in them-
selves. A more penetrating view makes
it apparent that all the foregoing de-
mands for an enlargement of political
power in the relatively submerged in-
dividuals are but more or less uncon-
scious means toward somewhat more de-
mocratization of labor, of education, or
of welfare. Further consideration of
the problem makes it clear that what is
most needed is the democratization of
our desires and of our understanding.
Practically all persons ignore the fact
that if feudal-mindedness had been out-
grown and there were approximate unity
in the demand for the democratization
of welfare, it could be approximately
realized, easily and peacefully, under
any governmental system or under or
without any political form. Economic
might in the hands of such enlightened
producers would be even more potent
than the direct action and economic
might of capitalists is now. When we
see this clearly enough, emphasis will
be placed upon education that tends to
unify and mature human ambitions and
not upon teaching direct action as that
is now successfully practiced by “big
business” and threatened by industrial
workers. When once that unified intel-
ligence exists, the possibility of success-
ful direct action will make its use unnec-
essary. Perhaps our over-emphasis on
the tools and methods of democratic po-
litical institutions and forms only means
that even the loudest shouters for demo- .
cracy are seldom ready for the actual
democratization of labor, education and
welfare. In consequence of this, refor-
mers and radicals so often spend more
energy in quarreling with each other
about the relative merits of their meth-
ods than they do in educating conserva-
tive people beyond the desire for aris-
tocratic privilege and its underlying need
for compensation against a feeling of in-
feriority.
From this psychological approach we can
view political creeds, forms and institu-
tions as mere symptoms of an unconscious
personal and social development, in a con-
flict over the democratization of human
desires, and of welfare At first these
manifestations have dealt quite con-
HERD IMPULSE AND DEMOCRATIZATION
275
sciously only with social forms and laws.
Lately they have come to deal a little
more consciously with the essentials of
human welfare, which are controlled
and unequally distributed under present
political forms and laws. It is believed
that soon this growth will all be seen as
manifestations of an unconscious push
toward the unification of the race,
through the democratization of educa-
tion, of service, and of welfare. Then
we may come to the realization that in its
psychologic. aspect democratization is a
growth toward a more and more con-
scious acceptance of, and desire for, the
democratization of socially useful labor
and of its fruits.
Those who have become most im-
pressed with this psychologic approach
to the problem of democratization will
now concern themselves only incidental-
ly with democratic creeds, forms and in-
stitutions. Adherence to these may serve
as a useful tool for an educative pur-
pose; or it may serve some other means
toward the realization of the ultimate
goal of democracy. Seeing these as rel-
atively static and attaching great emo-
tional value to them retard a wholesome
evolution toward the ultimate goal of the
democratizing process. Thus come wars
and violent revolutions. But always the
conscious background for all intelligent
democratic effort will be to educate (to
mature) the desires of all for a recon-
ciliation with the inevitable drift toward
the ultimate democratization of labor
and of welfare. But I feel that I must
leave at least a few more, even though
inadequate, hints of what may be meant
by this maturing of human desires, when
these are viewed from the standpoint of
an evolutionary psychology.
The Psychic Evolution
An infant is about the only human
that acts as if it were an omnipotent and
omniscient being. Unconsciously it
must act as such, because it has not be-
come adequately conscious of the limita-
tions of its own capacities. Many among
us never fully realize those limitations,
either in consciousness or in conduct.
That is, we never efficiently incorporate
that consciousness into our character,
as an efficient determinant for our au-
tomatic reactions to the rest of society.
These imperfectly matured ones retain
through life the infantile autocratic tem-
perament. If sufficiently impressed by
the realities of our situations, without,
consciously and contentedly integrating
them into our characters, we often strive
to get compensation for our inefficient
adjustment (for our inferiority) by at-
taching ourselves through religion to an
omniscient God in the sky. The secu-
larized mystic attaches himself emotion-
ally to an “omnipotent” government
through patriotism, or to a Kaiser, or
some vehement politician or feudal-
minded near-megalomanic type of polit-
ical leader. In pathological develop-
ment such persons become the de-social-
ized victims of a conflict which has for
its object the neutralizing of feelings
of inferiority, by means of compensating
delusions of grandeur. Short of the
pathologic stages of development these
are the divine-righters, the junkers, the
tories, and the reformers of the “big
stick” variety; also our absolutist moral-
ists for revenue. In short, these are the
feudal-minded, autocratic, “strong gov-
ernment” men of every nation. Often-
times this same temperament also ex-
presses itself in the absolutistic quality
276
PSYCHE AND EROS
of certain kinds of opposition to govern-
ment. All absolutists are much the same
in their psychology, whether they intel-
lectualize it as governmental autocrat
or radical revolutionist. The very in-
tensity of our emotional abhorrence of
an act only measures the intensity of our
internal conflict concerning it. This con-
flict in one of its aspects implies the un-
conscious admission of our own psycho-
logic nearness and attachment to that
which we vehemently abhor.” This is
the psychologic unity between seme of
our violent anarchists and our more vio-
lent lovers of law and order. They only
express different aspects of the same in-
ternal disequilibrium.
So we grow from the desire for wholly
unearned aristocratic privileges, through
privileges and aristocratic distinction
which are justified by misleading pre-
tenses of service or even glorified by a
boasted minimum of service, and maxi-
mum efficiency in parasitism. Further-
more these prerogatives are upheld, even
by the victims of undemocratic life and
education, because in their immaturity
it was easy to develop in them the
feudal-minded slave-virtues. Still later
comes the willingness to renounce all
material advantage, which renunciation
may be accompanied by the ambition to
excel in social service, while desiring
only an EQUAL share of the world's
goods in return. So we grow toward
the emancipation from our own infantile
standards of value and our autocratic de-
sires to an ever more democratic desire
to render more of the relatively imper-
sonal service. If not maintained on
the level of the emotional conflict, then
even this ideal of service will be free
from emotional or moral valuation. We
then accept this as the best means to
avoid the feudal-mindedness of those west-
ed with undemocratic powers, as well as
of those who seek forcibly to wrest it
from them for their own aggrandise-
ment, on the same immature, feudal-
minded level.
In so far as our desires mature, we
accept this desire for service into our
feelings as an automatically acting part
of our character, just as we accept the
fact of our limitations per se, as well as
those other more artificial limitations
which our human environment as yet in-
evitably imposes. More and more we
tend toward the conscious and comforta-
ble renunciation of the hysterical's joy in
a delusional grandeur, and of the infan-
tile pleasures of irresponsible aristocratic
privileges; even the undemocratic advan-
tages acquired through the use of demo-
cratic forms are no longer sought. From
wishing ostentatious waste, or even aes-
thetic indulgence, as a mark of our su-
periority, we become more content with
the simplest wholesomeness of living ac-
cording to ever more intelligent stand-
ards. Where formerly we might glory
in luxuriant idleness, we tend to become
ashamed of avoiding useful work. In-
stead of measuring life's success by the
extent of our ability to take from others
the fruit of their toil, we will measure
success by our own personal and relative
*For an illustration see: Matricide and
Maryolatry, Medico Legal Journal 36:
4-10. Jan. Faby, 1919 Also: Psychol-
ogy of an Ex-Kaiser, Call Magazine,
June 15, 1919. Suggest psychologic like-
ness of William Holenzollern and The-
odore Roosevelt. See also: Emotional
Conflict, Liberty and Authority, Psyche
and Eros (N. Y.) 2:12-24; Jan. Feb.
I92 I.
HERD IMPULSE AND DEMOCRATIZATION
277
over-contribution to social well-being.
First, these contributions are made at
the level of the physical necessities. In
the later evolutionary development of
our desire, and of our mental processes,
we may progress to a stage where our
more valuable contributions ever more
consciously and efficiently become a mat-
ter of accelerating the education of our-
selves and others toward a desire for the
complete democratization of labor and
of welfare.
So we grow from the unconscious lib-
erty of the most primitive people toward
a conscious and intelligently conditioned
democratic liberty, through an ever per-
fecting and maturing impersonality and
efficiency of human service.* At the later
stages of development we no longer de-
rive pleasure from applause. Some of
us know that this exalts us in our feel-
ings, chiefly because of the unconscious
relative abasement of those who do the
applauding. Having now got our
feelings and desires attuned to the demo-
cratic abolition of even the emotional
expression and appreciation of aristocratic
distinction, we will care only for self-
approval and can best secure that by our
cheerful maximum contribution to the
democratization of labor, of education
and of welfare. Here we secure the
highest satisfaction only in so far as we
are conscious of having functioned in
closest harmony with those of our de-
sires and mental processes which are the
most mature, and have functioned also
at a maximum of efficiency toward ac-
*See: Psychic Aspects of Social Evolu-
tion, Liberal Review, 2:1913, 16–21.
Partly reprinted as: Liberty through
Impersonal Service, Hillacre, Riverside,
Conn. 1915.
celerating their further development in
ourselves and in society. This will now
be done only by means of enlarging and
democratizing the human understanding
as to the relations and behavior among
things, including therein and emphasizing
our relations to other human animals.
By democratizing this intelligence, even-
tually we will make impossible even those
aristocratic privileges which are achieved
under democratic political forms, by
means of a cunning use of superior un-
derstanding.
So we live and grow, and cheerfully
accept, when it comes, the most com-
plete democratization of labor, of edu-
cation and of welfare, just as we accept
gravity or chemical affinity. We pro-
mote that end without the need of arm-
ies or the loss of millions of lives, either
in contending for or against autocracy
or democracy. When enough persons
desire a maturely conceived democratic
ideal they can and will secure it under
any form of government. Thus we
achieve a mature and new kind of au-
tocratic self-sufficiency. This is secured,
not by the abasement or exploitation of
others, but through a conscious accelera-
tion of an extreme maturing of our hu-
man desires toward the ultimate demo-
cratization of labor, education and wel-
fare. All this can be accomplished with-
out political creeds or formulas or legal-
ized violence, or even without a moral
concept.* When we understand the
behavior of electricity we need no “moral
law” to govern our relations to it. So
also when we adequately understand the
behavior of human energy operating in
the social organism, and can act in har-
T*See my: Determinism, Human Con-
duct and Fear Psychology, Psychoanalytic
Review, Oct. 1919.
278
PSYCHE AND EROS
mony therewith, we shall need no “mor-
al law” nor even statute law, to govern
our behavior toward one another. In
the meantime we sanctify our ignorance
and our interests in the name of “mo-
rality” or “law and order”, “patriotism”
or “duty to God,” to make it serve our
different ways of satisfying our relative
and varying childish cravings and im-
pulses.
All violent human conflicts are but
the imperfect adjustment and the un-
conscious working of a suppressed herd
instinct, the impulse that in its best as-
pects makes for human solidarity. Ac-
cording to our failures and inefficiencies
we feel the need for larger and more
agreeable human contacts. Beyond the
family comes the urge for some union
with larger and different groups. If
we fail to establish relations that are
comforting and reassuring, then many
tend to interpret their fears and failure
as evidence that those outside the circle
of their agreeable conscious relations are
enemies. So long as man is functioning
on the level of the emotional conflict,
if he seeks to propitiate their “enemies”
he probably manifests the slave virtues.
When this is no longer accompanied by
an adequate peace of mind he becomes
a rebel, and proceeds to fight the ”ene-
my”. When this repressed energy of the
emotional conflict can be directed into
channels of national or race hatred, then
the common people are tricked into be-
lieving that the chief enemy is beyond
the ethnic or national group. Loyalty
of some sort is the flattering label, to
conceal fear. Thus have come jew-bait-
ing, heresy hunting, negro-baiting, po-
groms, lynching, religious wars and final-
ly the world war. When the repressed
energy becomes attached to the political
or economic conditions of distress they
have tended in the past to produce rev-
olutions of violence, for a change of po-
litical forms or legal declarations of
right, and the establishment of new stan-
dards or theories for new class distinc-
tion. When the Bolsheviki hoisted over
the royal palace the sign, “Workers of
the World Unite”, they were perhaps for
the first time in history achieving a
worldwide attention to the claim that
economic privileges and distinction are
the objective factor for the painful re-
pression of the gregarious impulse. Also
for the first time in the history of revo-
lutions did these rebels incite to a world-
wide cooperation for the elimination of
privilege in welfare. However such
creedal demands do not necessarily sig-
nify the general existence of that psy-
chologic maturity which I deem an es-
sential condition for the actual realiza-
tion of the ultimate democratic goal.
In contrast with the past, we must treat
these demands as symptomatic of the
evolutionary trend.
The great human problem of the fu-
ture is: shall we have a world-wide
economic class war for the extinction of
privileged persons? Or, will we study
the psychologic problem involved in or-
der to find a solution by eliminating or
minimizing, not only privileges as such,
but the feudal mindedness which de-
mands them? Shall the benevolent herd
instinct be further repressed or exploited
so as to make inevitable a violent re-
volt and the extermination of a large
class of persons as the only means to pro-
mote even the appearance of democratic
unity? Or will the wholesome and neu-
tral expression of the herd-impulse to-
ward human solidarity be permitted be-
cause of increasing willingness to con-
HERD IMPULSE AND DEMOCRATIZATION
279
form to the democratizing process? Thus
I see the trend of our social evolution as
a movement toward an ever enlarging
human solidarity. In its objective as-
pects this will be somewhat like the ho-
mogeneity of the primitlve man's uncon-
scious communism. It differs objective-
ly in the greater scope and complexity
of our interdependence and relations. In
its subjective aspects the coming order
presents a much higher degree of con-
sciousness of the relations and behavior
of humans. It will have less of the in-
fantile unconscious sentimentalism and
will be founded more upon that under-
standing. The objective factors of ma-
terial disparity in our present capital-
istic aristocracies, will inevitably tend
to create international wars for the ex-
tension of privileges, and the enlarge-
ment of an infantile expression of the
last for power. In its other aspect this
emotionalism tends toward internal rev-
olutions for the destruction of privileges
and its childish distinction of aristocratic
rank. From the sorrows of war and
revolutions by violence, we may acquire
a desire to understand human, individual
impulses working in the mass. Out of
such an enlarged understanding may ul-
timately come the larger and more con-
scious solidarity of the human race, liv-
ing in peaceful unity, under a system
that slowly but surely approaches the
voluntary cooperation for the complet-
est possible democratization of education,
of labor and of welfare. Those possess-
ing a mature understanding will devote
themselves to promoting that state of
mind which sees war and revolutions of
violence as the natural penalties for in-
democracy of welfare. In its ideal and
perfect form this may never be attained,
but toward it we are ever impelled, by
the inescapable urge to grope for soli-
terference with the natural processes of
evolution toward a voluntary commu-
nism, or other method of promoting the
darity.
Differences of Herd Impulse
We must not overlook the fact that
there are different ways of manifesting
the herd impulse. The gregarious striv-
ing of an infant and those of a philoso-
pher would seldom be alike, either in
the concrete psychologic factors that go
to make up their desires, or in the ma-
terials and quality of the mental pro-
cesses which are involved.
There are among us many who now
seek the larger reconciliation on the
basis of a greater love. Those whose
sentimentalism finds formulation in
terms of religion, feel that the gospel of
Jesus can and must furnish the cement
for human solidarity. The secularized
mystic equally depends upon sentimental-
ism even though he scoffs at its religious
formulation. At bottom, even he often
counts upon emotions that are but little
enlightened. No matter how formulated,
all this kind of emotional striving for a
unification of the race is essentially im-
mature. It has its analogue in the in-
fantile or childish mode of striving for
union with the human environment.
Psychologically it often has factors of
identity with the emotional mechanism of
the mystic union with God, which is
psychologically like unto the intra-ut-
erine union with the mother-envelope.
Such unions depend quite exclusively
upon, at least, a temporary exclusion
from consciousness of all the factors that
actually constitute differences, and make
for strife.
There is another kind of unification
which to me seems to be more mature.
28o
PSYCHE AND EROS
Here there is also a factor of emotion-
alism just enough to enable one to un-
derstand the feelings of others who are
differently conditioned. In this maturer
striving for racial solidarity the emo-
tionalism is always subordinated, cor-
rected and checked by an ever enlarging
understanding of the behavior and re-
lations of humans. This understanding
at its best must exceed the outward and
visible factors of behavior, and so in-
clude the understanding of these visible
factors in relation to the present influ-
ence of the person's psychologic past;
and all this must be seen in its relation
to the future, the past and future being
seen in an inseparable union as parts of
the psychic aspects of our social evolu-
tion.
From this angle racial solidarity is no
longer seen as a mere emotional attach-
ment to remote humans. On the con-
trary, it is a relatively emotionless at-
titude or conduct, determined by a larger
understanding of the facts of our inter-
dependence, and a striving for unity
through a cheerful conformity to the
natural law of our social evolution,
toward ever more of democracy. Now,
instead of sentimentalizing, we seek to
democratize education and to educate for
an accelerated democratization. Thus
we will help others to get an adjustment
to the natural processes that will help
us toward the peaceful democratization
of welfare.
So we may strive to promote the larger
human solidarity through a larger mu-
tuality of understanding. Wherever we
find an extravagant emphasis upon the
unifying influence of human love we are
quite sure of the existence of a sup-
pressed and equally intense capacity for
hatred toward all that thwarts our ex-
uberance of love emotion, no matter how
much they may be at variance with a
common sense valuation of a given situa-
tion. In other words, so long as we are
functioning on the level of the emotional
conflict, love as a promotor of solidarity
always carries with it its correlate or
equal hate, as a factor that also makes
for disunion and strife. To the extent
that we love this, under proper stimu-
lus we must hate its opposite. This
danger is minimized as we subordinate
the passions to an enlarged mutuality
of understanding of the factors of mutual
dependence; that is by a relatively emo-
tionless concept of unity.
There is much evidence to support
the contention that our social institu-
tions and laws show that on the whole
humanity is functioning on the level of
the emotional conflict of childhood and
early adolescence. So long as we are
functioning on the level of the emotional
conflict, our desires and activities are
determined by our emotional past,
through subjective conditions. There-
fore they will always seem in conflict
with similarly conditioned desires of
others unless we can harbor the delusion
that our desires are somehow vicariously
perhaps, dominating the situation. When
we have attained freedom from the emo-
tional conflict and have achieved ap-
proximately the same understanding of
the relations and behavior in and among
humans, then a new kind of harmony
prevails. Now we achieve comfortable
adjustments to each other by means of a
mutuality of adjustment to natural law,
similarly understood. In the case un-
der consideration it will be a mutual
adjustment to the natural processes of
democratization. When individuals,
groups or nations, cheerfully subordinate
HERD IMPULSE AND DEMOCRATIZATION
281
their infantile cravings for omnipotence,
to the reign of natural law in the social
realm, equally and similarly understood,
then wars and conflicts become impos-
sible. Heretofore we have not under-
stood the behavior of human energy in
these matters, and the great world war
was the result. Now many of the vic-
tims of a feeling of inferiority seek to
achieve a compensatory feeling of im-
portance by identifying themselves with
the great slaughter, and by glorifying
some aspects of it. Of course some of
the hysterical type of opponents of war
may play the same psychologic trick
upon themselves. This will be a better
world to live in when all these emotion-
alisms (these loves as well as hates) are
outgrown and the democratization of
welfare has been at least approximately
achieved, through a larger understand-
Ing.


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