Lasswell Harold D. The Political Writings of Harold D. Lasswell
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A
NEW
TECHNIQUE OF THINKING
31
amount
of
logical reflection in
the world, and the set
com-
plaint
is that people
somehow or another
manage
to
think
very
clumsily. In spite of our best
efforts to
disseminate
logicality,
people
are
always "letting
their prejudices run
away
with
them," even when they have
a
baggage
of good
intentions.
The stock alibi
for the failure of the schools to
improve
the character of
thinking among those who
hold
positions
of power is
that the human
mind
offers
a
perverse opacity
to
the rays of reason.
Somehow or other our training
doesn't take; but
this is attributed not
to
the
deficiencies of
logic but
to
the resistances
to
it.
All this is reminiscent of
the
reply
of the
Christian
to
the taunt that Christianity has
failed. He
says
that Christianity isn't
to
blame, but the
lack of it.
The logicians
say that
the
cure of bad
logic is
more and better
logic. If
the
human mind refuses to
be
educated,
that's just
too bad.
Our
thesis is
that our
faith
in logic is misplaced. Exclu-
sive emphasis
upon
logic
(even
where logic is adroitly
used)
incapacitates rather than fits the mind
to
function as
a
fit instrument of reality adjustment.
The
supposition
that
emotional
aberrations are
to be
con-
quered
by heroic
doses
of logical thinking
is
a
mistake.
The absence
of effective logic
is
a
symptom of
a
disease
which logic cannot itself cure.
We have been misled
by
supposing that the mind can rely upon
a
single technique
of
operation when
this isolated
technique has serious lim-
itations.
A totally different technique of thinking
is needed
to get
on
with the
task of ridding the mind of
the
distorting
results
of unseen compulsions. Since
our schools have
found no place
for the
cultivation of this additional tech-
nique
of thinking, our judges
and administrators
and
32
PSYCHOPATHOLOGY AND
POLITICS
policy-makers are turned loose
on
the world armed with
faith in logic
and
incapable of making their minds safe for
logic. Logical thinking is
but one of the
special
methods
of
using
the
mind,
and
cannot itself achieve
an
adequate
inspection
of
reality
because it
is
unable to achieve
self-
knowledge
without the aid of other
forms
of
thinking.
The technique
of free-fantasy offers many points of con-
trast
with logical thinking.
It is unguided rather than
guided association. From
a
given starting-point,
no effort
is bent toward the exclusion
of the trivial, the trite, the em«
barrassing, the filthy, the nonsensical.
The mind is
permit-
ted to
run hither
and yon. It is hospitable
to
everything
which germinates in the
mind, and is subject only
to
the
effort
to
steer clear of the molds of logical thinking. There
is no
specific definition
of an
objective,
and no intermittent
intervention in the flow of material
to
register its pertinence
or
impertinence
to
this rather specific objective.
Free-fantasy
is not to be
confused with free word
associ-
ations which begin with simple stimulus words
and end
when the
first few words which
pop
into the mind
are put
down.
Free-fantasy is not
a
momentary relaxation of selec-
tive
criticism,
but
prolonged emancipation from logical
fetters.
Free-fantasy
differs from the ordinary
daydream,
the
night dream, and the
visions which
arise in sleeping or
waking by
the circumstance that it is embarked
upon
with
the
vague, generalized
purpose
of
rendering
available new
subject
matter for logical thought. The frequent interven-
tions which
characterize logical procedures are
suspended,
the
better
to
serve the
ultimate purposes
of
reality
adjust-
ment.
Daydreaming which is not used
for this
general pur-
pose
does not
represent
a
technique
for using
the
mind.
The ultimate
paradox of logical
thinking
is
that it is
A NEW
TECHNIQUE
OF
THINKING 33
self-destroying
when it
is
too
sedulously cultivated. It
asserts
its own
prerogatives
by
clamping
down
certain re-
strictive
frames of
reference upon the activity of the
mind,
and
presently
ends in impoverishing the
activity which it
purports to guide into
creative channels.
It
becomes
intol-
erant
of the
immediate, unanalyzed,
primitive abundance
of the mind, and by so
doing destroys its own source.
More
seriously, too,
for the mind
which is engaged
with
social life,
logical procedures exclude from the mind the
most
important data about the self. Directed thinking,
whether about
the self or something else
as an
object,
is
impatient of the seemingly trivial,
and
this impatience
with
the seemingly trivial is
the rationally
acceptable
guise in
which
the
impulse
to avoid rigorous self-scrutiny gets
itself
accepted.
The mind which
is freely fantasying
produces
distasteful
evidence of the facts
about the self which
the
socialized
self wants
to
avoid.
This is why free-fantasy
is
not
learned
by rote, but
achieved
through trying
experi-
ences,
usually under prolonged supervision.
There
are
wide individual differences
in acquiring
the
technique of free-fantasy. Logical controls
are
often so
gradually released
that progress
is almost imperceptible
for several weeks of daily contact with
a
psychoanalytic
interviewer. Frequently, of course,
the
logical
controls
fall
away
quite rapidly, and the
exposure of the underlying
preoccupations
proceeds
apace. Freud
developed
the tech-
nique, and
drills his
subjects,
largely
in relation
to
their
dreams, but this is in no sense its
exclusive application.
The purpose
of
the psychoanalytic
interview is
not
served
if
the patient is merely relieved of
a
few
annoying symp-
toms; its purpose is
to
equip him with
a
means of handling
his mind which will
enable
him
to go
it alone.
In develop-
ing
the free-fantasy
procedure, Freud
added
a
powerful
34 PSYCHOPATHOLOGY AND POLITICS
tool to
the repertory of
those who would
use
their mind
with some
hope of
disentangling
themselves from the com-
pulsive
domination of many vestigial remains of their "pri-
vate"
histories.
It
is quite
possible
to
train people
to
use the
free-fantasy
method
with considerable
success and to
outfit them
with
a
device
which they
can use
in the
ordinary
problems of
professional and private life.^ The instances which I
shall
presently adduce are
from the fantasies which were pro-
duced by a
judge in the course of
a
series of
interviews
which he
undertook after his curiosity
about
the method
had
been aroused
by
the
therapeutic treatment
of
a
mem-
ber
of his family. Any specific allusions
are
disguised.
One day
the judge commented
at the
beginning
of the
interview that
a
certain attorney irritated him in some un-
explained way.
He
found himself
acutely conscious of his
own prejudice against the man, and in trying
to
deal fair-
ly with him often leaned
over
backward
and showed
him
an embarrassing
favoritism
in sustaining his objections.
There
was
always
a
struggle
to
hold
the balance even.
This seemed to indicate the conspicuous operation
of some
unrecognized
set
of motives
in
relation
to
this
particular
individual. The judge, who was already partly
skilled in
the use
of free-fantasy,
began to
report
whatever came
into his mind
at
the mention of the attorney, without re-
gard to
logic or scruple.
"Cigar
smoke
.... black cigar
....
vile
and
pungent
and stuffy .... corridor
....
courtroom
....,"
and
so on and on.
The
word
"cor-
ridor" reappeared several times
in the course of his
asso-
ciations,
and
the interviewer initiated
a
new chain
by using
the word
as a
stimulus. After some time, there
came
up
a
*
The training should, of course,
be conducted
by a
specialist
alert to his
responsibilities.
A NEW
TECHNIQUE OF THINKING 35
vivid
memory
of
an
incident in the corridor of
the law
school
v^here the judge had
studied.
A fellow-student,
who
was a
man with
a
great reputation as a
promising
mind,
dropped
cigar ashes by
accident on the judge's
overcoat.
The
judge
remembered
his angry impulse to "sock" the of-
fender,
an
impulse which he
instantly
subdued, and
that he
accepted the
apology, which seemed to end the
incident.
Associations were
continued
to
find why the brilliant rival
had so
incensed the judge, and the
trail led
back to
certain
incidents
and
reveries in early adolescence, but this mate-
rial is not relevant here. The
connection
of
his hostility
toward his former rival with the attorney before
him
was
due to one of the attorney's
mannerisms, which recalled the
way
the student
had
flecked
ashes
off^ the end of his cigar.
When this tie was
exposed,
the
compulsive
animosity and
the overcompensatory reactions disappeared from
the atti-
tude of the judge in relation
to
the attorney.
Another illustrative
detail may be taken almost
at
ran-
dom
from
the record.
On
one occasion the
judge began to
enumerate
the
three principal
alternatives which lay before
him in deciding
a
pending
case. He remembered two of
them
but
hesitated several seconds
before the third
came
into
his mind.
This led him
to
remember
that he had
often
casually noticed that this third possibility
seemed
to
elude
him,
although
on reflection he felt that it deserved
as
much
attention
as the other two. He
began spontaneously
to
relax
and report everything
that crossed his mind,
and
produced
a
long string of
catch
phrases
from law and politics like
"freedom of contract," "life,
liberty,
and pursuit of hap-
piness,"
"freedom of
speech and assembly."
He
presently
noted that
a
picture was forming
of one of his old law-
school classrooms.
He
felt
that someone was
just
about to
speak to
him,
and had
to
resist the temptation
to
turn
36
PSYCHOPATHOLOGY AND POLITICS
around.
Then there
came across his
mind
a
long series of
incidents
in
which
one of
his law
professors was the prin-
cipal
figure. This teacher was
reputed
to possess
a
master-
mind and
a
caustic tongue; and the
judge,
though
he had
always wanted to
make
a
great impression
on him, had met
with no particular success. The professor had
a
habit of
using
his
most
ironic tone of voice when he
spoke
of "this
freedom
of contract."
Now it happened that the
attorney
who was arguing for alternative
No. 3
before the court pro-
nounced the word "freedom" with unction. This aroused
in the judge's
mind the ironic tone
of the old
professor's
voice,
and this in turn brought
back
the
rather
humiliating
failure he had been in his efforts
to
impress the professor.
He now
exhibited
a
tendency
to
repress everything connect-
ed
with the
episode, including
the attorney's argument.
The
world
about
us is much richer
in meanings than we
consciously see.
These
meanings are
continually cutting
across our
ostensible criteria
of judgment,
and
compulsive-
ly
distorting the operations of the mind
whose quest for an
objective view of
reality
is consciously quite sincere.
Good
intentions are not
enough
to widen the sphere of self-mas-
tery.
There
must be
a
special technique
for the sake of ex-
posing
the hidden meanings which
operate
to
bind
and
crip-
ple
the processes of logical thought. With
practice one
may
wield the tool of
free-fantasy
with such ruthless
hon-
esty
that relevant material comes
very
quickly
to the focus
of attention
which
we
call
"waking consciousness."
It would be
possible
to
fill
many volumes with illustra-
tions of the
hitherto unseen meanings which
have been dis-
covered
by men and
women
who have learned to use the
free-fantasy technique. They have often been able to find
how and
why their emotions tended
to be aroused
favorably
or
unfavorably toward individuals of their own or the
op-
A NEW
TECHNIQUE OF
THINKING
37
posite sex
who
exhibited
certain
traits, and to
understand
why they
tended
to
choose
certain
secretaries, to
sponsor
certain proteges, and to be
impressed by
certain witnesses
and
attorneys.
They have
been able to
inspect
the phrase-
ology
of law,
politics, and
culture, and
to
extricate them-
selves
from many of
the
logically
irrelevant private mean-
ings
which they
read into
it.
Freud
developed
the
technique
of free-fantasy well over
a
quarter
of
a
century ago,
but it is
still beyond the pale
of
the
schools. Our
professional and graduate
schools make
no
effort to readjust
their methods to
fit the minds of future
men of
authority
for self-knowledge.
The sententious
ad-
monitions
to "know thyself" are
no adequate substitute for
special discipline in
the ways of self-understanding.
We
have
tried
to
cure
the failures of logical
training
by
homeopathic doses
of
sermonizing,
rather than
by
the dis-
cipline
of supplementary
techniques
of
using
the
mind.
The
mind
is
a
fit instrument of reality testing when both
blades
are
sharpened—
those
of
logic and
free-fantasy. Until this
fundamental
proposition is adequately
comprehended, the
professional
training
of
our judges, administrators,
and
theorists
will continue to
furnish
discipline in
self-decep-
tion
rather than
self-analysis.
CHAPTER IV
THE CRITERIA
OF POLITICAL
TYPES
The free-fantasy
method of
exploring
the mind is of very
general application
to
the problems
of life. In particular
we are
interested
in examining the results
of its use for the
purpose of laying bare the
natural history of personality
growth and
differentiation.
All sorts of politicians
are met
with
in
society, and our special
task is to
relate the
selec-
tion of these adult roles
to
certain critical experiences in
individual development. But before we
can
proceed far-
ther,
we need
to
examine the
nature
of
the
criteria which
are
currently
used in
identifying
various
political
types.
The
popular
speech of every state and neighborhood
swarms
with names for varieties of political behavior and
types of
politicians. The
study of
political differences may
very well
begin
by
sifting
the
common vocabulary. Some
of the
popular images are
derived from
experience with
government officials.
Within
the
last
hundred years the
po-
liceman
has appeared over
Western
Europe,
and
a
history
of the popular conception
of
his role could be written
around
terms like
"bobby," "cop," and
"Schupo.^'
What-
ever
differences in
dress,
manner, social position, and com-
mon
humanity
are supposed to exist
between
a
"civil serv-
ant," a
^'Beamter/' and
a
'"
fonctionnaire,"
there are com-
mon lineaments in the composite
stereotype. A
thick
chap-
ter in human experience could
be
entitled "The Bureau-
crat," wherein would be recorded
the innuendo of popular
comment on
a necessary evil. The "legislator" is identifi-
38
THE CRITERIA OF POLITICAL
TYPES
39
able
through all
the
detailed contrasts between the
"con-
gressman," the "M.P.," and the "M.d.R."
The
popular tongue is rich in expressions
which fdl out
the
official
cast
of characters in the political
drama by peo-
pling the public stage with figures whose traits are essen-
tially
irrelevant
to
their office.
There are men of ideas
—
"anarchist," "socialist," "liberal," "communist,", "con-
servative."
There
are
men of ideas
and of action
—
"re-
former,"
"revolutionary," "martyr."
The history of Amer-
ican, British,
French,
German, medieval, Graeco-Roman,
and
every civilization could
be
written for the sake of show-
ing
how the carriers of public
power figured
in
the eyes
of the
various groups within
and
without
the
culture.
This profusion of
types
in the
popular firmament of poli-
tics is
supplemented
by
the
types
which
have been isolated
by
serious
students of culture, who
have sought to impose
order
upon the life of
the
past.
Among the
political forms
which
have been described by the historians, the "benevo-
lent despot" of the eighteenth century, the "demagogue" of
Athenian democracy,
the "prince" of the Italian Renais-
sance, and the "despot" of the oriental empires spring
at
once to mind.
The masterly sketch
of the evolution of the
public
official
with
which Max Weber^ has enriched social
science is,
it is
to be hoped,
the forerunner
of many
elabo-
rate
studies. The traits and arts of political leaders have
been most
systematically handled by
Aristotle,
Machia-
velli, Robert Michels, Christensen,
and Charles E. Mer-
riam.^
These
typologies, whether popular
or scientific, possess
*
"Politik als
Beruf,"
in
Gesammelte
Schriften.
'
I summarized some of this literature in "Types
of
Political Personali-
ties," Proceedings
of
the American Sociological
Society, 1927.
Reprinted in
Personality and the
Group
(edited
by
Burgess).
40
PSYCHOPATHOLOGY AND
POLITICS
several features in common. They
may
converge
to what
is practically the same picture. When
W.
B.
Munro de-
scribed the "reformer,"
he
filled
out
the popular
image
which
arose in
the
American mind
at
a
certain phase of
American political evolution.^
Practically every scientific
conception is
a
refinement
and
generalization
of some
term
in general circulation, though with local connotations.
The scientific and the popular typologies may include
the same kinds of fact as their
starting-points.
The fact
of
supposed
political conviction
gave
rise
to
the "liberal,"
but
it is
a
far cry from the rather shadowy lines of the
popular
image to
the finely
wrought lineaments of Ruggiero.* The
means
employed in encompassing
political objectives
chris-
ten
the "lobbyist,"
"propagandist," and
"agitator." The
idea that private motives
are not
merged in public motives
is carried in "renegade,"
"sorehead," and "tyrant."
The
idea
that private motives have
been
firmly fused into pub-
lic
purposes
is
one connotation of
the "martyr." The fact
of
informal
ascendancy is celebrated in the "boss." In the
"bureaucrat" it is
implied that the office has molded the
man, and that the office
tends
to attract
those especially
likely
to develop
such qualities. The Western European
idea of
a
judge almost necessarily refers
to
a
functionary
who
carries certain paraphernalia
and
proceeds with cere-
mony.
The
leanness of the "fanatical agitator" figured
in
the
popular mind long before Kretschmer
gave
it his scien-
tific
blessing.^
Both popular
and
scientific conceptions range from the
particular to the
general. The British
"election agent"
is
closely
bound to
a
recent,
special social setting.
The
"lead-
'
Personality in
Politics.
*
The
History
of
European Liberalism.
'
Physique
and
Character, chap.
xiii.