Article archive / January 1, 2016
Originally published: . Volume 7, No. 1. Source pages: 2.
I treated myself to a classic text by Hans Eysenck, The Psychology of Politics. The 1963 edition arrived from the library at the University of London, along with the sweet smell of old pages–notes of vanilla and almonds––caused by the breakdown of chemicals in the paper. A potent olfactory prime: I’m transported to the eternal halls of knowledge and wisdom and universal truths. That’s something we don’t get from our Kindle readers.
And of course Dr. Eysenck does not disappoint. While some of the information is dated, his process of reasoning, with the elegant blending of theory, psychometrics, and analysis, combined with crystal clear and honest writing, shows us exactly his thinking process.
Eysenck was a controversial figure. I met him in the 1970s at a dinner hosted by the Louisiana Psychological Association held on a riverboat that cruised along the shore at New Orleans, before the annual convention. Dr. Ralph Dreger had coaxed Eysenck to Louisiana, back in the days when LSU and LPA were still connected.
Except for a slightly impish look to him, as if he thought everything was just a bit amusing, Eysenck seemed normal. He should have had ray beams shooting out of his forehead. He was the most cited psychologist of his lifetime, one of the most prolific, and definitely one of the most courageous. The next day he explained research on how smoking was not a sufficient cause for cancer, and how personality contributed.
We might say that the Force was strong in Eysenck. In his autobiography, Rebel with a Cause, he wrote, "I always felt that a scientist owes the world only one thing, and that is the truth as he sees it. If the truth contradicts deeply held beliefs, that is too bad.”
I was thankful to find that he had written a book on politics, because I needed competent help in this area. Of course I had learned a great deal from my community psychology professor, Don Glad––there was no way not to learn from Don because if you resisted learning you found your face rubbed in it, like it or not––and my organizational
professor, Irv Lane, and also from all the colleagues along the way in my business consulting work.
But now I see that all of this was exceptionally tidy. A walk in the group dynamics park compared to politics.
From my worm’s eye view, since the passage of Act 251, I have come to that place in life where being regularly astonished and sometimes appalled leads me to conclude that I know a lot less than I thought I knew about what is truly relevant in large, complex, unmanaged social systems. That “mass psychology,” the term Bertrand Russell used when he warned that the topic had been “quite unduly neglected” yet was intimately connected to our future survival, is obscure.
We all struggle when in our groups. We often work at the wrong level of abstraction, we shy away from conflicts, we are arrogant, and we talk to ourselves––Novelist Doris Lessing said, “It is one of the paradoxes of our time that ideas capable of transforming our societies, full of insights about how the human animal actually behaves and thinks, are often presented in unreadable language.” It seems we do have a ways to go.
I would be incorrect to say that we have not made progress in our community––we have made wonderful progress. We are more cooperative, more respectful of subgroup differences, and the information flow seems much better.
But I am also convinced, now more than ever, in the value of the individual, rather than the group. I find myself growing cautious and suspicious of groups, but not so with individuals. Just look at the achievements last year, and the years before that.
There is the innovation, the spark of genius, the passion that seems most pure. There is the force.
Eysenck dedicated his Politics, “To Gary – in the hope that he will grow up in a society more interested in psychology than politics.” That seems a fine idea. May the force be with you in 2016.
This article is part of a historical newspaper archive. Read the original issue for its original layout, photographs and graphics.