016.txt

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produce his unpleasant behavior. [1] But the leftist is
too far gone for that. His feelings of inferiority are so
ingrained that he cannot conceive of himself as
individually strong and valuable. Hence the collectivism
of the leftist. He can feel strong only as a member of a
large organization or a mass movement with which he
identifies himself.

20. Notice the masochistic tendency of leftist tactics.
Leftists protest by lying down in front of vehicles, they
intentionally provoke police or racists to abuse them,
etc. These tactics may often be effective, but many
leftists use them not as a means to an end but because
they PREFER masochistic tactics. Self-hatred is a leftist
trait.

21. Leftists may claim that their activism is motivated
by compassion or by moral principles, and moral principle
does play a role for the leftist of the oversocialized
type. But compassion and moral principle cannot be the
main motives for leftist activism. Hostility is too
prominent a component of leftist behavior; so is the
drive for power. Moreover, much leftist behavior is not
rationally calculated to be of benefit to the people whom
the leftists claim to be trying to help. For example, if
one believes that affirmative action is good for black
people, does it make sense to demand affirmative action
in hostile or dogmatic terms? Obviously it would be more
productive to take a diplomatic and conciliatory approach
that would make at least verbal and symbolic concessions
to white people who think that affirmative action
discriminates against them. But leftist activists do not
take such an approach because it would not satisfy their
emotional needs. Helping black people is not their real
goal. Instead, race problems serve as an excuse for them
to express their own hostility and frustrated need for
power. In doing so they actually harm black people,
because the activists' hostile attitude toward the white
majority tends to intensify race hatred.

22. If our society had no social problems at all, the
leftists would have to INVENT problems in order to
provide themselves with an excuse for making a fuss.

23. We emphasize that the foregoing does not pretend to
be an accurate description of everyone who might be
considered a leftist. It is only a rough indication of a
general tendency of leftism.


OVERSOCIALIZATION

24. Psychologists use the term "socialization" to
designate the process by which children are trained to
think and act as society demands. A person is said to be
well socialized if he believes in and obeys the moral
code of his society and fits in well as a functioning   
part of that society. It may seem senseless to say that
many leftists are over-socialized, since the leftist is
perceived as a rebel. Nevertheless, the position can be
defended. Many leftists are not such rebels as they seem.

25. The moral code of our society is so demanding that no
one can think, feel and act in a completely moral way.
For example, we are not supposed to hate anyone, yet
almost everyone hates somebody at some time or other,
whether he admits it to himself or not. Some people are
so highly socialized that the attempt to think, feel and
act morally imposes a severe burden on them. In order to
avoid feelings of guilt, they continually have to deceive
themselves about their own motives and find moral
explanations for feelings and actions that in reality
have a nonmoral origin. We use the term "oversocialized"
to describe such people. [2]

26. Oversocialization can lead to low self-esteem, a
sense of powerlessness, defeatism, guilt, etc. One of the
most important means by which our society socializes
children is by making them feel ashamed of behavior or
speech that is contrary to society's expectations. If
this is overdone, or if a particular child is especially
susceptible to such feelings, he ends by feeling ashamed
of HIMSELF. Moreover the thought and the behavior of the
oversocialized person are more restricted by society's
expectations than are those of the lightly socialized
person. The majority of people engage in a significant
amount of naughty behavior. They lie, they commit petty
thefts, they break traffic laws, they goof off at work,
they hate someone, they say spiteful things or they use
some underhanded trick to get ahead of the other guy. The
oversocialized person cannot do these things, or if he
does do them he generates in himself a sense of shame and
self-hatred. The oversocialized person cannot even
experience, without guilt, thoughts or feelings that are
contrary to the accepted morality; he cannot think
"unclean" thoughts. And socialization is not just a
matter of morality; we are socialized to conform to many
norms of behavior that do not fall under the heading of
morality. Thus the oversocialized person is kept on a
psychological leash and spends his life running on rails
that society has laid down for him. In many
oversocialized people this results in a sense of
constraint and powerlessness that can be a severe
hardship. We suggest that oversocialization is among the
more serious cruelties that human being inflict on one
another.

27. We argue that a very important and influential
segment of the modern left is oversocialized and that
their oversocialization is of great importance in
determining the direction of modern leftism. Leftists of
the oversocialized type tend to be intellectuals or
members of the upper-middle class. Notice that university
intellectuals [3] constitute the most highly socialized
segment of our society and also the most leftwing
segment.

28. The leftist of the oversocialized type tries to get
off his psychological leash and assert his autonomy by
rebelling. But usually he is not strong enough to rebel
against the most basic values of society. Generally
speaking, the goals of today's leftists are NOT in
conflict with the accepted morality. On the contrary, the
left takes an accepted moral principle, adopts it as its
own, and then accuses mainstream society of violating
that principle. Examples: racial equality, equality of
the sexes, helping poor people, peace as opposed to war,
nonviolence generally, freedom of expression, kindness to
animals. More fundamentally, the duty of the individual
to serve society and the duty of society to take care of
the individual. All these have been deeply rooted values
of our society (or at least of its middle and upper
classes [4] for a long time. These values are explicitly
or implicitly expressed or presupposed in most of the
material presented to us by the mainstream communications
media and the educational system. Leftists, especially
those of the oversocialized type, usually do not rebel
against these principles but justify their hostility to
society by claiming (with some degree of truth) that
society is not living up to these principles.

29. Here is an illustration of the way in which the
oversocialized leftist shows his real attachment to the
conventional attitudes of our society while pretending to
be in rebellion aginst it. Many leftists push for
affirmative action, for moving black people into
high-prestige jobs, for improved education in black
schools and more money for such schools; the way of life
of the black "underclass" they regard as a social
disgrace. They want to integrate the black man into the
system, make him a business executive, a lawyer, a
scientist just like upper-middle-class white people. The
leftists will reply that the last thing they want is to
make the black man into a copy of the white man; instead,
they want to preserve African American culture. But in
what does this preservation of African American culture
consist? It can hardly consist in anything more than
eating black-style food, listening to black-style music,
wearing black-style clothing and going to a black-style
church or mosque. In other words, it can express itself
only in superficial matters. In all ESSENTIAL respects
most leftists of the oversocialized type want to make the
black man conform to white, middle-class ideals. They
want to make him study technical subjects, become an
executive or a scientist, spend his life climbing the
status ladder to prove that black people are as good as
white. They want to make black fathers "responsible,"
they want black gangs to become nonviolent, etc. But
these are exactly the values of the industrial-
technological system. The system couldn't care less what
kind of music a man listens to, what kind of clothes he
wears or what religion he believes in as long as he
studies in school, holds a respectable job, climbs the
status ladder, is a "responsible" parent, is nonviolent
and so forth. In effect, however much he may deny it, the
oversocialized leftist wants to integrate the black man
into the system and make him adopt its values.

30. We certainly do not claim that leftists, even of the
oversocialized type, NEVER rebel against the fundamental
values of our society. Clearly they sometimes do. Some
oversocialized leftists have gone so far as to rebel
against one of modern society's most important principles
by engaging in physical violence. By their own account,
violence is for them a form of "liberation." In other
words, by committing violence they break through the
psychological restraints that have been trained into
them. Because they are oversocialized these restraints
have been more confining for them than for others; hence
their need to break free of them. But they usually
justify their rebellion in terms of mainstream values. If
they engage in violence they claim to be fighting against
racism or the like.

31. We realize that many objections could be raised to
the foregoing thumbnail sketch of leftist psychology. The
real situation is complex, and anything like a complete
description of it would take several volumes even if the
necessary data were available. We claim only to have
indicated very roughly the two most important tendencies
in the psychology of modern leftism.

32. The problems of the leftist are indicative of the
problems of our society as a whole. Low self-esteem,
depressive tendencies and defeatism are not restricted to
the left. Though they are especially noticeable in the
left, they are widespread in our society. And today's
society tries to socialize us to a greater extent than
any previous society. We are even told by experts how to
eat, how to exercise, how to make love, how to raise our
kids and so forth.


THE POWER PROCESS

33. Human beings have a need (probably based in biology)
for something that we will call the "power process." This
is closely related to the need for power (which is widely
recognized) but is not quite the same thing. The power
process has four elements. The three most clear-cut of
these we call goal, effort and attainment of goal.
(Everyone needs to have goals whose attainment requires
effort, and needs to succeed in attaining at least some
of his goals.) The fourth element is more difficult to
define and may not be necessary for everyone. We call it
autonomy and will discuss it later (paragraphs 42-44).

34. Consider the hypothetical case of a man who can have
anything he wants just by wishing for it. Such a man has
power, but he will develop serious psychological
problems. At first he will have a lot of fun, but by and
by he will become acutely bored and demoralized.
Eventually he may become clinically depressed. History
shows that leisured aristocracies tend to become
decadent. This is not true of fighting aristocracies that
have to struggle to maintain their power. But leisured,
secure aristocracies that have no need to exert
themselves usually become bored, hedonistic and
demoralized, even though they have power. This shows that
power is not enough. One must have goals toward which to
exercise one's power.

35. Everyone has goals; if nothing else, to obtain the
physical necessities of life: food, water and whatever
clothing and shelter are made necessary by the climate.
But the leisured aristocrat obtains these things without
effort. Hence his boredom and demoralization.

36. Nonattainment of important goals results in death if
the goals are physical necessities, and in frustration if
nonattainment of the goals is compatible with survival.
Consistent failure to attain goals throughout life
results in defeatism, low self-esteem or depression.

37. Thus, in order to avoid serious psychological
problems, a human being needs goals whose attainment
requires effort, and he must have a reasonable rate of
success in attaining his goals.

SURROGATE ACTIVITIES

38. But not every leisured aristocrat becomes bored and
demoralized. For example, the emperor Hirohito, instead
of sinking into decadent hedonism, devoted himself to
marine biology, a field in which he became distinguished.
When people do not have to exert themselves to satisfy