Although the 'internalization' and 'internal consummation' of emotive drives are triggered by acts of imagination, they have their physiological concomitants in visceral and glandular processes, and are as 'real' as the muscular activities of 'external' or overt behaviour. The memory of a French thee-star meal can be sufficient to re-activate one's gastric juices.
The more sublimated the drive (i.e., the closer the coordination between the higher, cortical, and the lower, visceral levels of the hierarchy) the more it is amenable to internalization. This sounds rather abstract, but consider two players in a chess competition facing each other across the board. The simplest way of defeating the opponent is to club him over the head. A player may occasionally experience this urge (particularly if this opponent is Bobby Fischer), but he will never seriously entertain the idea: the competitive drive can express itself only according to the 'rules of the game'. Instead of resorting to violence, the player visualizes in his imagination the possibilities of deriving an advantage from his next move, and this mental activity provides him with a series of pleasurable anticipatory, partial satisfactions, even if in the end victory is not achieved. Hence the sporting pleasure in competitive games, regardless -- up to a point -- of the final outcome. Stevenson saw deeper than Freud when he wrote that to travel hopefully is better than to arrive.
Romantic lovers have always been aware of this. Longing is a bitter-sweet emotion with painful and pleasurable components. Sometimes the imagined presence of the beloved person can be more gratifying than the real one. Emotions have a many-coloured spectrum of components, each with its own hedonic tone. To ask whether to love is pleasurable or not is as meaningless as to ask whether a Rembrandt painting is bright or dark.
We can now turn to the third source of ambivalence in our emotions. The first, we remember, was the biological origin of the drive, the second the pleasure-unpleasure tone attached to it, the third is the polarity of self-assertion versus self-transcendence which is manifested in all our emotions.
Take love first -- an ill-defined but heady cocktail of emotions with countless variations. (Sexual, platonic, parental, oedipal, narcissistic, patriotic, botanistic, canine-directed or feline-orientated, as the textbooks would say.) But whatever its target and method of wooing, there is always present an element of self-transcending devotion in varying proportions. In sexual relationships, domination and aggression are blended with empathy and identification; the outcome ranges from rape to platonic worship. Parental love reflects, on the one hand, a biological bond with 'one's own flesh and blood' which transcends the boundaries of the self; while domineering fathers and over-protective mothers are classic examples of self-assertiveness. Less obvious is the fact that even hunger, an apparently simple and straightforward biological drive, can contain a self-transcending component. Everyday experience tells us that appetite is enhanced by congenial company and surroundings. On a less trivial level, ritual commensality is intimately related to magic and religion among primitive people. By partaking of the flesh of the sacrificed animal, man or god, a process of transubstantiation takes place; the virtues of the victim are ingested and a kind of mystic communion is established which includes all who participated in the rite. Transmitted through the Orphic mystery cult, the tradition of sharing the slain god's flesh and blood, entered in a symbolic guise into the rites of Christianity. To the devout, Holy Communion is the supreme experience of self-transcendence; and no blasphemy is intended by pointing to the continuous tradition which connects ritual feeding with transubstantiation as a means of breaking down the ego's boundaries.
Other echoes of this ancient communion survive in such rites as baptismal and funeral meals, symbolic offerings of bread and salt, or the blood-brother ceremony among some Arab tribes, performed by drinking a few drops of the elected brother's blood.
We can only conclude that even while eating, man does not live by bread alone: that even the apparently simplest act of self-preservation may contain an element of self-transcendence.
And vice versa, such admirably altruistic pursuits as caring for the sick or poor, protecting animals against cruelty, serving on committees and joining protest marches, can serve as wonderful outlets for bossy self-assertion, even if unconscious. Professional do-gooders, charity tigresses, hospital matrons, missionaries and social workers are indispensable to society, and to inquire into their motives, often hidden to themselves, would be ungrateful and churlish.
3
Thus leaving apart the extremes of blind rage and mystic trance at opposite ends of the spectrum, all our emotional states show combinations of the two basic tendencies: one reflecting the individual holon's wholeness, the other his partness, with a mutually restraining influence on one another. But it may also happen that the integrative tendency, instead of restraining its antagonist, acts as a trigger or catalyst for it. We shall discuss in Chapter IV the disastrous consequences of self-transcending identification of the individual with the group-mind, its leaders, slogans and beliefs. For the moment we shall turn to the happier aspects of the self-same catalysing process, when it serves to generate the magic of illusion in art.
How does the process work? Let us consider a simple situation with only two people involved: Mrs A. and her friend, Mrs B. whose little daughter has recently been killed in an accident. Mrs A. sheds tears of sympathy, participating in Mrs B.'s sorrow, partially identifying herself with her friend by an act of empathy, projection or introjection -- whatever you like to call it. The same might happen if the 'other person' is merely a heroine on the screen or in the pages of a novel.
But it is essential to distinguish here between two distinct emotional processes involved in the event, although they combine in the lived experience. The first is the spontaneous act of identification itself, characterized by the fact that Mrs A. has for the moment more or less forgotten her own existence by participating in the experiences of another person, real or imagined. This is clearly a self-transcending and cathartic experience; while it lasts, Mrs A. is prevented from thinking of her own worries, jealousies and grudges against her husband. In other words, the process of identification temporarily inhibits the self-assertive tendencies.
But now we come to the second process which may have the opposite effect. The act of identification may lead to the arousal of vicarious emotions experienced, as it were, on the other person's behalf. In Mrs A.'s case the vicarious emotion was one of sadness and bereavement. But it can also be anxiety or anger. You commiserate with Desdemona; as a result, the perfidy of Iago makes your blood boil. The anxiety which grips the spectator of a Hitchcock thriller, though vicarious, is physiologically real, accompanied by palpitations, increased pulse rate, sudden jumps of alarm. And the anger aroused by the ruthless gangster on the screen -- which Mexican audiences have occasionally riddled with bullets -- is real anger, marked by a flow of adrenalin. Here, then, is the core of the paradox, which is basic to the understanding of both the delusions of History -- and the illusions of Art. Both derive from man's nature as a belief-accepting animal (as Waddington called it). Both require a -- temporary or permanent -- suspension of disbelief.
To recapitulate: we are faced with a process in two steps. At the first step, the self-transcending impulses of projection, participation, identification inhibit the self-assertive tendencies, purge us of the dross of our self-centred worries and desires. This leads to the second step: the process of loving identification may stimulate -- or trigger off -- the surge of hatred, fear, vengefulness, which, though experienced on behalf of another person, or group of persons, nevertheless increases the pulse rate. The physiological processes which these vicarious emotions activate are essentially the same whether the threat or insult is directed at oneself or at the person or group with whom one identifies. They belong to the self-assertive category, although the self has momentarily changed its address -- by being, for instance, projected into the guileless heroine on the stage; or the local soccer team; or 'my country, right or wrong'.
<
br /> It is a triumph of the imaginative powers of the human mind that we are capable of shedding tears over the death of Anna Karenina, who only exists as printer's ink on paper, or as a shadow on the screen. Children and primitive audiences who, forgetting the present, completely accept the reality of events on the stage, are experiencing a kind of hypnotic trance, with its ultimate origin in the sympathetic magic practised in primitive cultures, where the masked dancer becomes identified with the god or demon he mimes, and the carved idol is invested with divine powers. At a more advanced stage of cultural sophistication we are still capable of perceiving Laurence Olivier as himself and as Prince Hamlet of Denmark at one and the same time, and of manufacturing large quantities of adrenalin to provide him with the required vigour to fight his adversaries. It is the same magic at work, but in a more sublimated form: the process of identification (of spectator via actor with the hero) is transitory and partial, confined to certain climactic moments, a suspension of disbelief which does not entirely abolish the critical faculties or undermine personal identity.
Art is a school of self-transcendence. So is a voodoo session or a Nazi rally. But our responses to the various forms of illusion created by art have undergone a process of sublimation on the road from childhood to maturity and from the worship of icons to their aesthetic appreciation. No comparable process of sublimation can be observed in those forms of behaviour where the urge towards self-transcendence finds its expression in social and political group-formation. In this respect, the stage on which the tragedies of history are played is still populated by heroes and villains, and the vicarious emotions which they arouse are still capable of turning the peaceful audience into homicidal fanatics. This may serve as an illustration of the ambiguous role played by the integrative tendency in man -- which may manifest itself in primitive forms of identification, as distinct from mature integration. Social history is dominated by the former, the history of art by the latter.
IV
AD MAJOREM GLORIAM . . .
1
The theoretical considerations outlined in previous chapters enable us to take a closer look at the human predicament.
From the dawn of civilization, there has never been a shortage of inspired reformers. Hebrew prophets, Greek philosophers, Chinese sages, Indian mystics, Christian saints, French humanists, English utilitarians, German moralists, American pragmatists, Hindu pacifists, have denounced wars and violence and appealed to man's better nature, without success. As already suggested, the reason for this failure must be sought in the reformer's mistaken interpretation of the causes which compelled man to make such a disaster of his history, prevented him from learning the lessons of the past, and which now puts his survival in question. The basic fallacy consists in putting all the blame on man's selfishness, greed and alleged destructiveness; that is to say, on the self-assertive tendency of the individual. Nothing could be farther from the truth, as both the historical and psychological evidence indicate.
No historian would deny that the part played by crimes committed for personal motives is very small compared to the vast populations slaughtered in unselfish loyalty to a jealous god, king, country, or political system. The crimes of Caligula shrink to insignificance compared to the havoc wrought by Torquemada. The number of people killed by robbers, highwaymen, gangsters and other asocial elements is negligible compared to the masses cheerfully slain in the name of the true religion, the righteous cause. Heretics were tortured and burned alive not in anger but in sorrow, for the good of their immortal souls. The Russian and Chinese purges were represented as operations of social hygiene, to prepare mankind for the golden age of the classless society. The gas chambers and crematoria worked towards the advent of a different type of millennium. To say it once more: throughout hnman history, the ravages caused by excesses of individual self-assertion are quantitatively negligible compared to the numbers slain ad majorem gloriam out of a self-transcending devotion to a flag, a leader, a religious faith or political conviction. Man has always been prepared not only to kill, but also to die for good, bad, or completely hare-brained causes. What can be a more valid proof for the reality of the urge towards self-transcendence?
Thus the historical record confronts us with the paradox that the tragedy of man originates not in his aggressiveness but in his devotion to transpersonal ideals; not in an excess of individual self-assertiveness but in a malfunction of the integrative tendencies in our species. I think it was Pascal who said: man is neither angel nor devil, but when he tries to act the angel he turns into a devil.
But how did this paradox arise?
2
Let us remember that in the basic polarity underlying all phenomena of life, the self-assertive tendency of a holon is the dynamic expression of its 'wholeness', the integrative tendency the expression of its 'partness', i.e., its subordination to a larger whole on the next higher level of the holarchy. In a well-balanced society both tendencies play a constructive part in maintaining the equilibrium. Thus a certain amount of self-assertiveness -- 'rugged individualism', ambition, competitiveness -- is indispensable in a dynamic society; without it there could be no social or cultural progress. John Donne's 'holy discontent' is an essential motivating force in the social reformer, the artist and thinker. Only when the balance is disturbed for one reason or another does the self-assertive tendency of the individual manifest its destructive potential and tend to assert itself to the detriment of society. Most civilizations, primitive or advanced, have been by and large quite successful in coping with such contingencies.
However, the vagaries of the integrative tendency, which in our view are mainly responsible for man's predicament, are less obvious and more complex. One pathogenic factor I have already alluded to: the human infant is subjected to a longer period of helplessness and total dependence on the adults who rear it than the young of any other species. This protracted experience may be at the root of the adult's ready submission to authority, and his quasi-hypnotic suggestibility by doctrines and ethical commandments -- his urge to belong, to identify himself with a group or its system of beliefs.
Freud taught that moral conscience -- the super-ego -- is the residue of identification with the parents, particularly with the father; that parts of their personalities and moral attitudes are 'introjected' -- quasi-cemented into the growing child's unconscious mental structure. One does not have to go that far, and accept that the mature adult's moral conscience is 'nothing but' the product of this psychic transplantation, to realize nevertheless that it plays an important part in the immature adult's psychic make-up -- and in our present context we are mainly concerned with emotionally immature adults, whose integrative tendency, 'the need to belong', manifests itself in infantile or otherwise aberrant ways.
We can distinguish three overlapping factors in these pathogenic manifestations of the integrative tendency: submission to the authority of a father-substitute; unqualified identification with a social group; uncritical acceptance of its belief-system. All three are reflected in the gory annals of our history.
The first has, since Freud, become such a commonplace that it needs only a brief mention. The leader who incorporates the father-image may be a saint or a demagogue, a sage or a maniac. What qualities make a leader does not concern us here, but obviously he must appeal to some common denominators in the masses under his sway, and the commonest of denominators is infantile submission to authority.
The leader-follower relationship can embrace a whole nation, as in the case of the Hitler cult; or a small sect of devotees; or be confined to a duet as in the hypnotic rapport, on the psychotherapist's couch, or in the Father Confessor's curtained box. The common element is the act of surrender.
When we turn to the second and third factors mentioned above -- the unqualified identification of an individual with a social group and its system of beliefs -- we again have a wide variety of social aggregations which can be designated as 'groups', and described in terms of 'group-mentality' or Massenp
sychologie. But this branch of psychology tended to concentrate its attention on extreme forms of group behaviour such as the outbreaks of mass-hysteria in the Middle Ages, or Le Bon's classic studies of the behaviour of the heroic and murderous mobs unleashed by the French Revolution (which Freud and others took as their text). This tendency to focus attention on the dramatic manifestations of mass-psychology made them overlook the more general principles underlying group mentality and its dominant influence on human history, past and present. For one thing, a person need not be physically present in a crowd to be affected by the group-mind; emotive identification with a nation, Church or political movement can be quite effective without physical contact. One can be a victim of group-fanaticism even in the privacy of one's bathroom.
Janus: A Summing Up Page 9
