3HUVRQDOLW\DQGWKH&XOWXUDO&RQVWUXFWLRQRI6RFLHW\ 'DYLG.-RUGDQ0DUF-6ZDUW]
3XEOLVKHGE\7KH8QLYHUVLW\RI$ODEDPD3UHVV
'DYLG.-RUGDQDQG0DUF-6ZDUW] 3HUVRQDOLW\DQGWKH&XOWXUDO&RQVWUXFWLRQRI6RFLHW\ 7XVFDORRVD 7KH8QLYHUVLW\RI$ODEDPD3UHVV 3URMHFW086( :HE0DUKWWS PXVHMKXHGX
For additional information about this book http://muse.jhu.edu/books/9780817384081
Access provided by New York University (1 Jun 2015 20:45 GMT)
16 Whatever Happened to the Other Eye? F. G. B A I LEY
~
"With affection beaming in one eye and calculation shining out of the other." -a description of Mrs. Todgers in Charles Dickens's Martin Chuzzlewit Erikson (1963:329), speaking of Hitler's Oedipal troubles, remarks, "But it obviously takes much more than an individual complex to make a successful revolutionary." This essay, which is not about revolutionaries but about the reasons that some leaders are transformed into gods, follows Erikson's implicit suggestion and explores certain explanations which lie outside the universal truths of psychoanalysis. NUMENIFICATION
One definition of religion asserts, among other things, that "the core variable" is a belief in "superhuman beings." In the present chapter I will use this definition (Spiro 1966b:94) to explore one type of relationship between leaders and their followers. My analysis will focus upon the image of the leader which is conveyed to the mass of his followers. Consideration of his standing with his entourage, who know him in the round, raises other issues, and I will address that relationship only as it is necessary to do so. All leaders present themselves, in varying degrees, as being superior to their followers. Indeed, this is a matter of definition, for a leader who excelled those whom he led in no way whatsoever would not be a leader.
347
F. G. Bailey The image presented may include attributes which belong in the domain of the superhuman. This attribute-being superhuman-is indeed a variable. It may be symbolized, at one somewhat crass extreme, in acts of physical prowess. Theodore Roosevelt enjoyed flexing his muscles in public. Dom Mintoff, the Maltese leader, used to take his entourage swimming in the Mediterranean, and it was considered foolish to reach the finishing line before him. Bravery, endurance, or determination may also form part of the image. De Gaulle, that massive target for assassination, did not hesitate to go among crowds. Failure of nerve, as with Edward Kennedy, is a disqualification. Churchill was said (falsely, according to the memoirs of his physician) to have the gift of instant sleep (the catnap) and so could work for hours beyond the normal human capacity. The drowsy Senator Hayakawa was labeled incompetent. Chairman Mao, at a time of life when others need a wheelchair, was photographed bobbing down the Yangtse in a marathon feat of buoyancy. These examples reflect the superhuman only metaphorically. But there are sometimes more explicitly religious features. A leader's image usually includes a quality which transcends reason. It is coded in a variety of words: luck, destiny, flair, genius, or, in the prosaic phrases of selection boards, "leadership quality." This is how General Montgomery made the point: "I hold that a Commander-in-Chief of great armies in the field must have an inner conviction which, though founded closely on reason, transcends reason" (Montgomery of Alamein 1961:51). In other words, while ordinary mortals must calculate their way toward a decision and find themselves blocked when the complexity of the situation defies computation, a true leader is gifted with a mystical quality-intuition-which gives him "inner conviction" and enables him to make difficult decisions in a manner denied to the common man. A faith in one's own (or anyone's) superhuman capacity is, reasonably to my mind, deemed religious. But a third category of image satisfies more commonplace notions of what constitutes religion. With varying degrees of directness, political and military leaders may present themselves in a manner that connotes mystical power. Many parade asceticism: Montgomery himself, Franco, de Gaulle, Nasser, and above all Gandhi. In addition, they, and others whose style of life was far from ascetic-for example, Churchillshow theIIlselves to be inspired by a vision, a transcending goal against which all else is measured and the rightness of which is never doubted: Nkrumah and Pan-Africanism, de Gaulle and the glory of France, Churchill and the destiny of Britain to win the war and to rule its Empire. They are "true believers." Finally-in the ultimate category-there are leaders who themselves are presented as divinities. Gandhi, despite his promulgated humility,
Whatever Happened to the Other Eye? found that status almost thrust upon him. Nkrumah manufactured it, especially in the closing period of his rule; he was known as the "Redeemer." Augustus Caesar was proclaimed a god, becoming, like his great-uncle before him and all his successors, part of the pantheon officially recognized by the Roman state. These examples show that a belief by followers in the superhuman attributes of leaders is indeed, as Spiro pointed out, a variable. What varies is the leader's reputation for being able to transcend the limit of human capacities (especially reason). Obviously this variable is not, in any objective way, an attribute of the individual, as is height or girth. Rather it refers to the attitudes ofthe leader's followers and their varying disposition to abandon rationality and to refrain from demands for accountability to have a blind faith in the leader's capacities. This-the leader's charisma-is a variable, and I assume that it can be manipulated. The act of manipulation is "numenification." It differs from charisma, which Weber (1978:241) defined as "a certain quality of an individual personality by virtue of which he is considered extraordinary and treated as endowed with supernatural, superhuman, or at least specifically exceptional powers or qualities." Numenification, however, is not a "quality" but a strategy, a method for creating or enhancing charisma. It should be possible to predict the level of numenification by identifying appropriate contexts. NEEDS AND THE FAILURE OF NERVE
The first context is a purported universal feature of human nature. We all have a tendency, when we are frightened, to surrender ourselves to a protector. This is the Leviathan of Hobbes, "that mortal god, to which we owe under the immortal God, our peace and defence" (1946:112; emphasis in the original). The alternative, in those famous phrases, is the "war of everyman against everyman" and a life that is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short" (1946:82). Others, less pessimistic and more prosaic, transform the "natural condition of mankind" into a stress variable. Weber (1978:1111; emphasis in the original) implies that it is a stress variable when he writes, "All extraordinary needs, that is, those which transcend the sphere of everyday economic routines, have always been satisfied ... on a charismatic basis." An elegant description of "extraordinary need" is provided by Gilbert Murray (1951:119). He calls it "failure of nerve." Comparing the writing of classical Athens with that which emerged in the Christian period, he explains,
349
F. G. Bailey There is a change in the whole relation of the writer to the world about him. The new quality is . . . a rise of asceticism, of mysticism, in a sense, of pessimism; a loss of self-confidence, of hope in this life and of faith in a normal human effort; a despair of patient enquiry, a cry for infallible revelation; and indifference to the welfare of the state, a conversion of the soul to God. The outcome, Gilbert Murray says, is the rise of asceticism and mysticism, the desire for an "infallible revelation" and "conversion of the soul to God." I suggest that the feelings that cause these beliefs ("a loss of self-confidence . . . and of faith in normal human effort; a despair of patient enquiry") may also lead to the emergence and acceptance of a leader who is expected literally or figuratively to work miracles. This hypothesis, that the strategy of numenification is made possible by a general failure of nerve, deserves one simple positive illustration before its limitations are discussed. Germany after the First World War suffered a decade and a half of political and economic chaos. Parliamentary institutions were threatened by extremists on both the Right and the Left. Violence and intrigue replaced debate, and politicians backed by private armies were no more effective than their more constitutionally minded colleagues at bringing about order and security. Then came the depression and further evidence of institutional incapacity to cope with the nation's problems. All of these factors, so it is said, produced that failure of nerve which made possible not only the seizure of power by Hitler but also the quite extravagant cult of leadership which flourished in Germany down to the end ofthe Second World War (Fest 1975). But there are difficulties with this argument. First, one need not search far to find instances which point in the other direction: there can be a failure of nerve and no deified leadership. Germany, at the end of the Second World War, had been invaded and conquered, its cities and its industries destroyed, civilians and soldiers alike dying in great numbers. Expectations had been shattered, and institutions which had recently brought spectacular success now had produced a cataclysmic disaster. But as everyone knows, fifteen years later (matching the decade and a half between 1918 and Hitler's assumption of power) the Germans had a car in every garage, an immensely muscular currency, and a growing say in European affairs, and-this is the point-a reasonably robust form of representative government which virtually excluded the cult of personalities (apart from exemplifications ofbourgeois respectability, as in the case of Konrad Adenauer) and certainly did not seek legitimacy through that mystique of leadership which buttressed Hitler. How does one explain this outcome? Ifthe "failure of nerve" hypothesis
350
Whatever Happened to the Other Eye? is correct-if failure of nerve is a sufficient condition for numenificationnothing of the kind should have happened in Germany after the Second World War. Apart from problems with particular examples, this hypothesis is inadequate in other respects. It does not explain why failure of nerve should encourage numenification rather than, for example, merely the search for personal salvation described by Gilbert Murray or, alternatively, the frontier situation described by the phrase "every man his own protector." Nor does it address the alternative favored by Thomas Hobbes, that centralized authority alone, accepted rationally by "covenant" and without the trappings of mysticism, could remedy failure of nerve. Such considerations bring our inquiry to another level. The "failure of nerve" hypothesis might rest too much on the assumption that people in general are rational: we devise institutions, we see whether they are satisfying our needs, and we discard them for something better when they fail. These needs are not only those of biological continuation; they include also subtler things, such as the need for self-respect, for a sense of identity, or for an assurance that by and large the world is a predictable place. "Failure of nerve" in fact, refers not only or even mainly to starvation or other physical suffering but rather to the emotional stress which arises when one realizes that one cannot comprehend and therefore cannot control one's situation. Since the dependent variable (susceptibility to numenification) is exactly the level of emotional attachment to a leader (the suspension by the followers of their rational and critical faculties), then perhaps one should look for the independent variable also in the field of nonrational motivation. One way of doing so is to invoke yet another need: that for affiliation in its extreme form of total dependency. Of course, merely to say that one gives oneself over blindly to the guidance of another because of a need for dependency is to explain nothing. But if one derives the dependency (or whatever other psychological need or drive is in question) from childhood experiences, then one has not a tautology but a causal explanation (Spiro 1967:76-80). The tendency to personalize one's world (ofwhich susceptibility to numenification is an instance) remains present in the psyche, because one's early experiences were with persons and not with institutions; and when one is reduced to the condition of a child-helplessness-then one is reduced to the childhood solution, which is blind dependency on a parent or parental substitute (Freud 1927). This reasoning brings us a step forward. It explains (partly) why numenification centers upon the person of leaders rather than upon institutional engineering and experiment. It also explains why the frontier solution-every man for himself-is inappropriate, because it would not satisfy the need for simple affiliation, let alone dependency. But it does not
35 1
F. G. Bailey explain why the outcome should not be only a purely religious "conversion of the soul to God." That would eminently meet the dependency need without the numenification of any human leader. The hypothesis is open also to other objections. It cannot deal with variations in an individual at different times or even (assuming standardized patterns of socialization) within cultures. While differences in socialization undoubtedly help to explain different adult reactions to situations of stress (in this case different propensities to accept numenification), they seem unlikely by themselves to account for different reactions by the same individual in different situations. If childhood experiences alone tell the story, then a given individual should remain constant in his or her reactions to stress (Shweder 1979:272-275). Reactions vary, as the "failure of nerve~~ hypothesis suggests, according to the level of stress. To proceed further, one must ask what stress means and how it comes to vary. "NORMAL HUMAN EFFORT"
The word "stress" may refer to physical suffering, to pain or hunger or exhaustion. It may also signify anguish: for example, guilt or grief. Gilbert Murray~s "failure of nerve" clearly indicates mental anguish but not any specific emotion attached to a particular event-like fear arising from an illness or remorse over a wickedness or grief at a bereavement. Rather it suggests a generalized anxiety aroused by anticipated incapacity to protect oneself from harm. It is, as he puts it "a loss of self-confidence ... , of faith in normal human effort" (1951:119). The phrase "normal human effort" makes certain assumptions about what is normal in a polity. The features of a normal polity turn out to be (as one might expect from Gilbert Murray) characteristic of a rationally ordered liberal democracy. Such a polity (idealized) has three main tendencies. First an effort is made to disperse power rather than to concentrate it. Second, there is an assumption that those citizens who are given a measure of power to participate in the direction of their own lives will not only exercise that power responsibly but will also more willingly serve the public interest (Le., they are not "indifferent to the welfare of the state"). They are active citizens, ready to serve, evaluate, and criticize. Third, institutional safeguards ensure that those entrusted to command are held accountable and cannot be corrupted into authoritarianism. The entire apparatus of such a polity rests upon an unquestioning faith that people are moved more strongly by reason than by emotion and that reason, debate, and compromise can deal with all problems, including practical problems requiring action. There are, it assumes, no questions for which
352
Whatever Happened to the Other Eye? reason will not provide an answer, and therefore every question has a right answer, and if those concerned cannot agree upon what is to be done, then someone's reasoning must be at fault. Manifestly, this assumption is mistaken. Reason alone will not resolve a debate between antagonists who cannot accept a common axiom from which to begin the argument. Pure reason cannot solve a conflict of interests. Furthermore, even when a common axiomatic foundation is accepted, the situation may be so complicated and so beyond computation that reason cannot be used to provide an answer. But since it is in the nature of some practical problems not to wait, decisions must be taken by means other than reasoning. These means include voting, consultation with oracles, or-the solution which concerns us herethe abandonment of the ordinary man or woman's right to share in power (by offering an opinion on what is to be done) and the handing over of the problem to a leader who will make the decision and take the action. Such abnegation of one's right to exercise reason, coupled with an implied admission of one's incapacity to do so effectively, is not in itself an irrational act. If reason cannot supply the decision, then spin a coin: otherwise Buridan dies of starvation between the equidistant hamburger joints. The institution of the Roman dictatorship, with the six-month time limit, is a rational solution to the problem of the temporary failure of participatory government, and many political systems contain such devices for meeting a crisis. But such actions, although rational, do not further the cause of rationality inasmuch as they deny the main axiom that all problems yield to collective discussion and reasoning. The argument, moreover, takes no account of the passions. Like the Roman consul appointing a dictator to meet a particular emergency, people in general, it seems to imply, look objectively at their surroundings, assess their present experience in relation to their hopes or expectations or memories, and decide that there is nothing for it but to hand over the problems and let the dictator solve them. That course of action works well enough (at least in legal theory) for Greek tyrants or Roman dictators or the Defence of the Realm Act in Britain or a State of Emergency in India. But in all these instances the decision is taken by one person or by a select few; it is not taken by the average person-on-the-street. Figuring out and rationally accepting his or her own incapacities and "covenant" for a leader is, to my mind, a thoroughly idealized and implausible description of such a person's activity. He is moved by impulse and panic. In any case, the notion will not explain why, during periods of stress, the leader is sometimes elevated to the company of the superhuman and sometimes not. Furthermore, while it is perfectly rational to recognize one's own limitations or the institutional limitations of participatory democracy (it has difficulties in taking timely action) and hand over power to one person who can do the job, it is not at
353
F. G. Bailey all rational to believe that he or she is endowed with superhuman capacities and can work miracles. So where do people learn such irrationality? An answer is to be found partly in the dispositions that come from childhood experiences and affect behavior in conditions of stress. The rest of the answer is that leaders, through rhetoric and manipulation, encourage irrationality. The proposition is very simple. Other things being equal, numenification increases when a leader sees an advantage in increasing it and can do so. The other source of discontent, apart from the failure (or obsolescence) of a vision, is mundane incompetence-failure to deliver what was promised. Third World countries which won independence after the Second World War, especially when there had been a long struggle, seem to have been especially susceptible to this visionary disenchantment. Independence turned out not to be the millennium. The problems faced by their leadersraising the standard of living, combating corruption, containing factionalism, and so forth-lack the millenarian charm of a freedom fight. They are internally divisive because, whatever the outcome, some people will be losers. Third, they are likely to drive matters down to that point where existing institutions, including existing leadership, are exposed to a failure of nerve. Since there is no vision to move the mass, to raise their readiness for service and self-sacrifice and to stifle their propensity to grumble and withdraw, then, raising the level of numenification is a sensible tactic for a leader who thinks he is failing to "deliver the goods" and who intends to remain in power. The conscious use of this tactic suggests that leaders hold a view of human nature which in general accords with the "failure of nerve" theory. When the level of anxiety rises, people succumb to a state of unquestioning dependency. But it must not be the "failure of nerve" contemplated by Gilbert Murray, in which each man finds his individual comfort in devoted allegiance to one or another of a variety of gods or cult leaders. The propensity to worship must be focused upon the one leader, and failure of nerve must be stopped short of the point at which inert meditation replaces a desire to serve. In other words, if the leader is to stay in power, he must make sure that the anxiety is controlled and focused. The technique for doing so is (1) to render the mundane failings less visible by inhibiting rationality, and (2) to provide an explanation for those failings which cannot be concealed. The messages must be simple, direct, and asserted rather than argued. The appeal is to the heart and not the head, and it is designed to inhibit analytic and critical faculties. "National Socialist ideology is to be a Sacred foundation. It is not to be degraded by detailed explanation" (quoted in Erikson 1963:343). Second, the messages concern persons, not structures or processes. If the issue is corruption, for example, then there will be no 354
Whatever Happened to the Other Eye? diagnostic analysis of the organization of government to discover what makes corruption possible and no reasoned program of suggested remedies but only a straightforward indictment of those said to be responsible-privileged classes, neocolonists, immigrant businessmen, or anyone else. Third, the withdrawal from the complexity of the real world may also be achieved by staging political dramas to demonstrate that virtue (namely the leader) is victorious, while virtue's enemies are defeated and punished. Plots and conspiracies are discovered, and the conspirators are named and exterminated. The leader's victory proves, in an agreeably conclusive way, that he or she has superhuman qualities. The hunting down of traitors, like one kind of theatrical performance, diverts attention from the frustrations and deprivations of everyday life. It also provides someone on whom to pin the blame. Of course, there is likely to be a reckoning. This tactic is, so to speak, addictive, and it is difficult to stabilize, let alone reverse, once it has been started. It has a tendency to eliminate other types of following and does not permit accommodation and a judicious balance in the pattern of loyalties and incentives. Second, the tactic is based upon an unrealistic assumption that an abnormal level of dependency can be maintained indefinitely in a sufficiently large segment of the population, the level of adulation being high enough to shut out either the experience of deprivation or the connection between that experience and the incompetence of the leader. The tactic, pushed to the extreme, implies that the testing of reality can be postponed sine die. Are we arguing, then, that to raise the level of numenification is to act irrationally, in contradiction to what was said earlier? I think not: it 'is perfectly rational for someone intent on holding or gaining power to use other people's propensity for irrational behavior. To raise the level of numenification is no more irrational than to treat a disease with particular medication, although it is known to have dangerous side effects. Nevertheless it must also be said that raising the level of numenification does involve two strands of irrationality. First it may close off commentary and criticism from the entourage, and no leader is in fact superhuman enough to do without them. Second, in certain cases one suspects that the leader, taken in by his own image, forgets that God helps mostly those who help themselves. The leader then departs entirely from the habits of pragmatic thought which led him in the first place to manipulate the level of numenification. RELIGION AND LEADERSHIP
Religion, including that version which emerges in charisma and which is exploited in numenification, consists of illusions with a limited future. I do not mean that it will in the long run yield to logic and science. Even if
355
F. G. Bailey Weber (1948:155) is correct in perceiving a gradual Entzauberung of the world, the terminal point of that process is unthinkable, for the illusionbeliefs placed beyond empirical testing and values held as ends in themselves-is a psychological necessity (and a logical requirement). I refer rather to the short run and to a continuing contrariety between emotion and prudent calculation. What is emotionally gratifying is not necessarily practically useful or even healthy. So the values and beliefs, from time to time, are rubbed hard against reality, and their shape is changed. Much the same can be said about a leader. Leaders must nourish in others the illusion that they are gifted with superhuman talents. As may be remarked (especially by the French, ,vho are given to talking in this way), the question is one of "personification, significance, authenticity," and the process is one of "mythical incarnation" (Lacouture 1970:11). But at the same time leaders must be practical and must cope with the real world: that is, while they and their entourages must do their best not to destroy the illusions which for others are a psychological necessity, at the same time they themselves must penetrate beyond these illusions to the real world. They have the difficult task of ensuring that the reality never gets so far out of line that it cannot be represented as conforming with the illusion. Failures must be concealed or, if not, at least satisfactorily explained. Leaders who rely increasingly on charisma run the risk of being caught in a kind of positive feedback: the more they struggle, the tighter become the bonds. N umenification has the effect of inhibiting rationality in the followers. On the good side this effect helps to conceal from them the leader's failings and inadequacies. But at the same time it raises their expectations: they look for miracles. As Weber (1978:1114) puts it, "his divine mission must prove itself by bringing well-being to his faithful followers; if they do not fare well, he obviously is not the god-sent master" (emphasis in the original). Given everyone's inability to perform miracles, and given also the failure often to run even a reasonably tidy administration because all the messianic expectations hinder necessary routine work, there is a temptation to intensify the numenification. The problem with charisma is not only that it must be routinized when the time comes to hand control over to noncharismatic successors but also that such a leader, long before that time, may drown himself in a sea of messianic fantasy. It seems clear that in the last resort the controlling factor is being able to bring to the followers a sufficient level of "well-being." But the well-being is not a simple material matter offood, shelter, and safety, as Weber's words might suggest. Material well-being is offset against psychological and spiritual well-being-a sense of identity, a vision and a purpose in life, and so on-which in turn is compounded with devotion for the leader. Certainly
Whatever Happened to the Other Eye? that devotion will to a point compensate for material discomforts and may be the main source of spiritual comfort. For this reason charisma is indispensable. It would not make sense for a leader, perceiving the dangers of all-consuming numenification, to eschew any charismatic presentation whatsoever. Indeed I have argued that it is impossible to do so and still be a leader. There are, however, some strategies for controlling the situation. One is for leaders to insist on their human qualities from time to time and to bring off the supreme trick of identification in which the masses see the leader not only as an ideal above them but simultaneously as one of them and an ideal. Then, the leader is both a comrade and a commander. Castro seems to have been successful at that (Lacouture 1970:25). Public confessions of failure and offers to step downCastro has made them, and so did Nasser-reflect this strategy and are symbolic denials of godlike capacities. This is a fraternal form of charisma rather than a paternal one. The other strategy is manifestly paternal. It is to routinize the charisma by subjecting the devotees to the discipline and order of organized worship. Such organizations, although their proclaimed reason for existence is the adoration of some divinity, are very rational and follow the rules of orderly bureaucratic behavior. They domesticate the excesses of devotees, eliminating especially demands for a quick miraculous fix of whatever has broken down. Miracles become part of history: success today comes from hard work and good planning. This routinization leaves room for the leader to work in the real world. An example is the public worship of the Roman emperors as gods. My discussion in this essay has continually alternated between reason and the emotions. My object has been to show that behavior (in this case, dependency) which is based on an illusion and is an emotional necessity can itself be, in part at least, the product of calculation and design. In other words, not only is there a method in using other people"s madness; the madness itself is also in part a product of that method.
NOTE I am grateful to Fitz John Poole, Mary K. Olsen, and the editors of this volume for their constructive comments. An expanded version of this essay is to be found in Bailey 1988.
357
3XEOLVKHGE\7KH8QLYHUVLW\RI$ODEDPD3UHVV
'DYLG.-RUGDQDQG0DUF-6ZDUW] 3HUVRQDOLW\DQGWKH&XOWXUDO&RQVWUXFWLRQRI6RFLHW\ 7XVFDORRVD 7KH8QLYHUVLW\RI$ODEDPD3UHVV 3URMHFW086( :HE0DUKWWS PXVHMKXHGX
For additional information about this book http://muse.jhu.edu/books/9780817384081
Access provided by New York University (1 Jun 2015 20:45 GMT)
16 Whatever Happened to the Other Eye? F. G. B A I LEY
~
"With affection beaming in one eye and calculation shining out of the other." -a description of Mrs. Todgers in Charles Dickens's Martin Chuzzlewit Erikson (1963:329), speaking of Hitler's Oedipal troubles, remarks, "But it obviously takes much more than an individual complex to make a successful revolutionary." This essay, which is not about revolutionaries but about the reasons that some leaders are transformed into gods, follows Erikson's implicit suggestion and explores certain explanations which lie outside the universal truths of psychoanalysis. NUMENIFICATION
One definition of religion asserts, among other things, that "the core variable" is a belief in "superhuman beings." In the present chapter I will use this definition (Spiro 1966b:94) to explore one type of relationship between leaders and their followers. My analysis will focus upon the image of the leader which is conveyed to the mass of his followers. Consideration of his standing with his entourage, who know him in the round, raises other issues, and I will address that relationship only as it is necessary to do so. All leaders present themselves, in varying degrees, as being superior to their followers. Indeed, this is a matter of definition, for a leader who excelled those whom he led in no way whatsoever would not be a leader.
347
F. G. Bailey The image presented may include attributes which belong in the domain of the superhuman. This attribute-being superhuman-is indeed a variable. It may be symbolized, at one somewhat crass extreme, in acts of physical prowess. Theodore Roosevelt enjoyed flexing his muscles in public. Dom Mintoff, the Maltese leader, used to take his entourage swimming in the Mediterranean, and it was considered foolish to reach the finishing line before him. Bravery, endurance, or determination may also form part of the image. De Gaulle, that massive target for assassination, did not hesitate to go among crowds. Failure of nerve, as with Edward Kennedy, is a disqualification. Churchill was said (falsely, according to the memoirs of his physician) to have the gift of instant sleep (the catnap) and so could work for hours beyond the normal human capacity. The drowsy Senator Hayakawa was labeled incompetent. Chairman Mao, at a time of life when others need a wheelchair, was photographed bobbing down the Yangtse in a marathon feat of buoyancy. These examples reflect the superhuman only metaphorically. But there are sometimes more explicitly religious features. A leader's image usually includes a quality which transcends reason. It is coded in a variety of words: luck, destiny, flair, genius, or, in the prosaic phrases of selection boards, "leadership quality." This is how General Montgomery made the point: "I hold that a Commander-in-Chief of great armies in the field must have an inner conviction which, though founded closely on reason, transcends reason" (Montgomery of Alamein 1961:51). In other words, while ordinary mortals must calculate their way toward a decision and find themselves blocked when the complexity of the situation defies computation, a true leader is gifted with a mystical quality-intuition-which gives him "inner conviction" and enables him to make difficult decisions in a manner denied to the common man. A faith in one's own (or anyone's) superhuman capacity is, reasonably to my mind, deemed religious. But a third category of image satisfies more commonplace notions of what constitutes religion. With varying degrees of directness, political and military leaders may present themselves in a manner that connotes mystical power. Many parade asceticism: Montgomery himself, Franco, de Gaulle, Nasser, and above all Gandhi. In addition, they, and others whose style of life was far from ascetic-for example, Churchillshow theIIlselves to be inspired by a vision, a transcending goal against which all else is measured and the rightness of which is never doubted: Nkrumah and Pan-Africanism, de Gaulle and the glory of France, Churchill and the destiny of Britain to win the war and to rule its Empire. They are "true believers." Finally-in the ultimate category-there are leaders who themselves are presented as divinities. Gandhi, despite his promulgated humility,
Whatever Happened to the Other Eye? found that status almost thrust upon him. Nkrumah manufactured it, especially in the closing period of his rule; he was known as the "Redeemer." Augustus Caesar was proclaimed a god, becoming, like his great-uncle before him and all his successors, part of the pantheon officially recognized by the Roman state. These examples show that a belief by followers in the superhuman attributes of leaders is indeed, as Spiro pointed out, a variable. What varies is the leader's reputation for being able to transcend the limit of human capacities (especially reason). Obviously this variable is not, in any objective way, an attribute of the individual, as is height or girth. Rather it refers to the attitudes ofthe leader's followers and their varying disposition to abandon rationality and to refrain from demands for accountability to have a blind faith in the leader's capacities. This-the leader's charisma-is a variable, and I assume that it can be manipulated. The act of manipulation is "numenification." It differs from charisma, which Weber (1978:241) defined as "a certain quality of an individual personality by virtue of which he is considered extraordinary and treated as endowed with supernatural, superhuman, or at least specifically exceptional powers or qualities." Numenification, however, is not a "quality" but a strategy, a method for creating or enhancing charisma. It should be possible to predict the level of numenification by identifying appropriate contexts. NEEDS AND THE FAILURE OF NERVE
The first context is a purported universal feature of human nature. We all have a tendency, when we are frightened, to surrender ourselves to a protector. This is the Leviathan of Hobbes, "that mortal god, to which we owe under the immortal God, our peace and defence" (1946:112; emphasis in the original). The alternative, in those famous phrases, is the "war of everyman against everyman" and a life that is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short" (1946:82). Others, less pessimistic and more prosaic, transform the "natural condition of mankind" into a stress variable. Weber (1978:1111; emphasis in the original) implies that it is a stress variable when he writes, "All extraordinary needs, that is, those which transcend the sphere of everyday economic routines, have always been satisfied ... on a charismatic basis." An elegant description of "extraordinary need" is provided by Gilbert Murray (1951:119). He calls it "failure of nerve." Comparing the writing of classical Athens with that which emerged in the Christian period, he explains,
349
F. G. Bailey There is a change in the whole relation of the writer to the world about him. The new quality is . . . a rise of asceticism, of mysticism, in a sense, of pessimism; a loss of self-confidence, of hope in this life and of faith in a normal human effort; a despair of patient enquiry, a cry for infallible revelation; and indifference to the welfare of the state, a conversion of the soul to God. The outcome, Gilbert Murray says, is the rise of asceticism and mysticism, the desire for an "infallible revelation" and "conversion of the soul to God." I suggest that the feelings that cause these beliefs ("a loss of self-confidence . . . and of faith in normal human effort; a despair of patient enquiry") may also lead to the emergence and acceptance of a leader who is expected literally or figuratively to work miracles. This hypothesis, that the strategy of numenification is made possible by a general failure of nerve, deserves one simple positive illustration before its limitations are discussed. Germany after the First World War suffered a decade and a half of political and economic chaos. Parliamentary institutions were threatened by extremists on both the Right and the Left. Violence and intrigue replaced debate, and politicians backed by private armies were no more effective than their more constitutionally minded colleagues at bringing about order and security. Then came the depression and further evidence of institutional incapacity to cope with the nation's problems. All of these factors, so it is said, produced that failure of nerve which made possible not only the seizure of power by Hitler but also the quite extravagant cult of leadership which flourished in Germany down to the end ofthe Second World War (Fest 1975). But there are difficulties with this argument. First, one need not search far to find instances which point in the other direction: there can be a failure of nerve and no deified leadership. Germany, at the end of the Second World War, had been invaded and conquered, its cities and its industries destroyed, civilians and soldiers alike dying in great numbers. Expectations had been shattered, and institutions which had recently brought spectacular success now had produced a cataclysmic disaster. But as everyone knows, fifteen years later (matching the decade and a half between 1918 and Hitler's assumption of power) the Germans had a car in every garage, an immensely muscular currency, and a growing say in European affairs, and-this is the point-a reasonably robust form of representative government which virtually excluded the cult of personalities (apart from exemplifications ofbourgeois respectability, as in the case of Konrad Adenauer) and certainly did not seek legitimacy through that mystique of leadership which buttressed Hitler. How does one explain this outcome? Ifthe "failure of nerve" hypothesis
350
Whatever Happened to the Other Eye? is correct-if failure of nerve is a sufficient condition for numenificationnothing of the kind should have happened in Germany after the Second World War. Apart from problems with particular examples, this hypothesis is inadequate in other respects. It does not explain why failure of nerve should encourage numenification rather than, for example, merely the search for personal salvation described by Gilbert Murray or, alternatively, the frontier situation described by the phrase "every man his own protector." Nor does it address the alternative favored by Thomas Hobbes, that centralized authority alone, accepted rationally by "covenant" and without the trappings of mysticism, could remedy failure of nerve. Such considerations bring our inquiry to another level. The "failure of nerve" hypothesis might rest too much on the assumption that people in general are rational: we devise institutions, we see whether they are satisfying our needs, and we discard them for something better when they fail. These needs are not only those of biological continuation; they include also subtler things, such as the need for self-respect, for a sense of identity, or for an assurance that by and large the world is a predictable place. "Failure of nerve" in fact, refers not only or even mainly to starvation or other physical suffering but rather to the emotional stress which arises when one realizes that one cannot comprehend and therefore cannot control one's situation. Since the dependent variable (susceptibility to numenification) is exactly the level of emotional attachment to a leader (the suspension by the followers of their rational and critical faculties), then perhaps one should look for the independent variable also in the field of nonrational motivation. One way of doing so is to invoke yet another need: that for affiliation in its extreme form of total dependency. Of course, merely to say that one gives oneself over blindly to the guidance of another because of a need for dependency is to explain nothing. But if one derives the dependency (or whatever other psychological need or drive is in question) from childhood experiences, then one has not a tautology but a causal explanation (Spiro 1967:76-80). The tendency to personalize one's world (ofwhich susceptibility to numenification is an instance) remains present in the psyche, because one's early experiences were with persons and not with institutions; and when one is reduced to the condition of a child-helplessness-then one is reduced to the childhood solution, which is blind dependency on a parent or parental substitute (Freud 1927). This reasoning brings us a step forward. It explains (partly) why numenification centers upon the person of leaders rather than upon institutional engineering and experiment. It also explains why the frontier solution-every man for himself-is inappropriate, because it would not satisfy the need for simple affiliation, let alone dependency. But it does not
35 1
F. G. Bailey explain why the outcome should not be only a purely religious "conversion of the soul to God." That would eminently meet the dependency need without the numenification of any human leader. The hypothesis is open also to other objections. It cannot deal with variations in an individual at different times or even (assuming standardized patterns of socialization) within cultures. While differences in socialization undoubtedly help to explain different adult reactions to situations of stress (in this case different propensities to accept numenification), they seem unlikely by themselves to account for different reactions by the same individual in different situations. If childhood experiences alone tell the story, then a given individual should remain constant in his or her reactions to stress (Shweder 1979:272-275). Reactions vary, as the "failure of nerve~~ hypothesis suggests, according to the level of stress. To proceed further, one must ask what stress means and how it comes to vary. "NORMAL HUMAN EFFORT"
The word "stress" may refer to physical suffering, to pain or hunger or exhaustion. It may also signify anguish: for example, guilt or grief. Gilbert Murray~s "failure of nerve" clearly indicates mental anguish but not any specific emotion attached to a particular event-like fear arising from an illness or remorse over a wickedness or grief at a bereavement. Rather it suggests a generalized anxiety aroused by anticipated incapacity to protect oneself from harm. It is, as he puts it "a loss of self-confidence ... , of faith in normal human effort" (1951:119). The phrase "normal human effort" makes certain assumptions about what is normal in a polity. The features of a normal polity turn out to be (as one might expect from Gilbert Murray) characteristic of a rationally ordered liberal democracy. Such a polity (idealized) has three main tendencies. First an effort is made to disperse power rather than to concentrate it. Second, there is an assumption that those citizens who are given a measure of power to participate in the direction of their own lives will not only exercise that power responsibly but will also more willingly serve the public interest (Le., they are not "indifferent to the welfare of the state"). They are active citizens, ready to serve, evaluate, and criticize. Third, institutional safeguards ensure that those entrusted to command are held accountable and cannot be corrupted into authoritarianism. The entire apparatus of such a polity rests upon an unquestioning faith that people are moved more strongly by reason than by emotion and that reason, debate, and compromise can deal with all problems, including practical problems requiring action. There are, it assumes, no questions for which
352
Whatever Happened to the Other Eye? reason will not provide an answer, and therefore every question has a right answer, and if those concerned cannot agree upon what is to be done, then someone's reasoning must be at fault. Manifestly, this assumption is mistaken. Reason alone will not resolve a debate between antagonists who cannot accept a common axiom from which to begin the argument. Pure reason cannot solve a conflict of interests. Furthermore, even when a common axiomatic foundation is accepted, the situation may be so complicated and so beyond computation that reason cannot be used to provide an answer. But since it is in the nature of some practical problems not to wait, decisions must be taken by means other than reasoning. These means include voting, consultation with oracles, or-the solution which concerns us herethe abandonment of the ordinary man or woman's right to share in power (by offering an opinion on what is to be done) and the handing over of the problem to a leader who will make the decision and take the action. Such abnegation of one's right to exercise reason, coupled with an implied admission of one's incapacity to do so effectively, is not in itself an irrational act. If reason cannot supply the decision, then spin a coin: otherwise Buridan dies of starvation between the equidistant hamburger joints. The institution of the Roman dictatorship, with the six-month time limit, is a rational solution to the problem of the temporary failure of participatory government, and many political systems contain such devices for meeting a crisis. But such actions, although rational, do not further the cause of rationality inasmuch as they deny the main axiom that all problems yield to collective discussion and reasoning. The argument, moreover, takes no account of the passions. Like the Roman consul appointing a dictator to meet a particular emergency, people in general, it seems to imply, look objectively at their surroundings, assess their present experience in relation to their hopes or expectations or memories, and decide that there is nothing for it but to hand over the problems and let the dictator solve them. That course of action works well enough (at least in legal theory) for Greek tyrants or Roman dictators or the Defence of the Realm Act in Britain or a State of Emergency in India. But in all these instances the decision is taken by one person or by a select few; it is not taken by the average person-on-the-street. Figuring out and rationally accepting his or her own incapacities and "covenant" for a leader is, to my mind, a thoroughly idealized and implausible description of such a person's activity. He is moved by impulse and panic. In any case, the notion will not explain why, during periods of stress, the leader is sometimes elevated to the company of the superhuman and sometimes not. Furthermore, while it is perfectly rational to recognize one's own limitations or the institutional limitations of participatory democracy (it has difficulties in taking timely action) and hand over power to one person who can do the job, it is not at
353
F. G. Bailey all rational to believe that he or she is endowed with superhuman capacities and can work miracles. So where do people learn such irrationality? An answer is to be found partly in the dispositions that come from childhood experiences and affect behavior in conditions of stress. The rest of the answer is that leaders, through rhetoric and manipulation, encourage irrationality. The proposition is very simple. Other things being equal, numenification increases when a leader sees an advantage in increasing it and can do so. The other source of discontent, apart from the failure (or obsolescence) of a vision, is mundane incompetence-failure to deliver what was promised. Third World countries which won independence after the Second World War, especially when there had been a long struggle, seem to have been especially susceptible to this visionary disenchantment. Independence turned out not to be the millennium. The problems faced by their leadersraising the standard of living, combating corruption, containing factionalism, and so forth-lack the millenarian charm of a freedom fight. They are internally divisive because, whatever the outcome, some people will be losers. Third, they are likely to drive matters down to that point where existing institutions, including existing leadership, are exposed to a failure of nerve. Since there is no vision to move the mass, to raise their readiness for service and self-sacrifice and to stifle their propensity to grumble and withdraw, then, raising the level of numenification is a sensible tactic for a leader who thinks he is failing to "deliver the goods" and who intends to remain in power. The conscious use of this tactic suggests that leaders hold a view of human nature which in general accords with the "failure of nerve" theory. When the level of anxiety rises, people succumb to a state of unquestioning dependency. But it must not be the "failure of nerve" contemplated by Gilbert Murray, in which each man finds his individual comfort in devoted allegiance to one or another of a variety of gods or cult leaders. The propensity to worship must be focused upon the one leader, and failure of nerve must be stopped short of the point at which inert meditation replaces a desire to serve. In other words, if the leader is to stay in power, he must make sure that the anxiety is controlled and focused. The technique for doing so is (1) to render the mundane failings less visible by inhibiting rationality, and (2) to provide an explanation for those failings which cannot be concealed. The messages must be simple, direct, and asserted rather than argued. The appeal is to the heart and not the head, and it is designed to inhibit analytic and critical faculties. "National Socialist ideology is to be a Sacred foundation. It is not to be degraded by detailed explanation" (quoted in Erikson 1963:343). Second, the messages concern persons, not structures or processes. If the issue is corruption, for example, then there will be no 354
Whatever Happened to the Other Eye? diagnostic analysis of the organization of government to discover what makes corruption possible and no reasoned program of suggested remedies but only a straightforward indictment of those said to be responsible-privileged classes, neocolonists, immigrant businessmen, or anyone else. Third, the withdrawal from the complexity of the real world may also be achieved by staging political dramas to demonstrate that virtue (namely the leader) is victorious, while virtue's enemies are defeated and punished. Plots and conspiracies are discovered, and the conspirators are named and exterminated. The leader's victory proves, in an agreeably conclusive way, that he or she has superhuman qualities. The hunting down of traitors, like one kind of theatrical performance, diverts attention from the frustrations and deprivations of everyday life. It also provides someone on whom to pin the blame. Of course, there is likely to be a reckoning. This tactic is, so to speak, addictive, and it is difficult to stabilize, let alone reverse, once it has been started. It has a tendency to eliminate other types of following and does not permit accommodation and a judicious balance in the pattern of loyalties and incentives. Second, the tactic is based upon an unrealistic assumption that an abnormal level of dependency can be maintained indefinitely in a sufficiently large segment of the population, the level of adulation being high enough to shut out either the experience of deprivation or the connection between that experience and the incompetence of the leader. The tactic, pushed to the extreme, implies that the testing of reality can be postponed sine die. Are we arguing, then, that to raise the level of numenification is to act irrationally, in contradiction to what was said earlier? I think not: it 'is perfectly rational for someone intent on holding or gaining power to use other people's propensity for irrational behavior. To raise the level of numenification is no more irrational than to treat a disease with particular medication, although it is known to have dangerous side effects. Nevertheless it must also be said that raising the level of numenification does involve two strands of irrationality. First it may close off commentary and criticism from the entourage, and no leader is in fact superhuman enough to do without them. Second, in certain cases one suspects that the leader, taken in by his own image, forgets that God helps mostly those who help themselves. The leader then departs entirely from the habits of pragmatic thought which led him in the first place to manipulate the level of numenification. RELIGION AND LEADERSHIP
Religion, including that version which emerges in charisma and which is exploited in numenification, consists of illusions with a limited future. I do not mean that it will in the long run yield to logic and science. Even if
355
F. G. Bailey Weber (1948:155) is correct in perceiving a gradual Entzauberung of the world, the terminal point of that process is unthinkable, for the illusionbeliefs placed beyond empirical testing and values held as ends in themselves-is a psychological necessity (and a logical requirement). I refer rather to the short run and to a continuing contrariety between emotion and prudent calculation. What is emotionally gratifying is not necessarily practically useful or even healthy. So the values and beliefs, from time to time, are rubbed hard against reality, and their shape is changed. Much the same can be said about a leader. Leaders must nourish in others the illusion that they are gifted with superhuman talents. As may be remarked (especially by the French, ,vho are given to talking in this way), the question is one of "personification, significance, authenticity," and the process is one of "mythical incarnation" (Lacouture 1970:11). But at the same time leaders must be practical and must cope with the real world: that is, while they and their entourages must do their best not to destroy the illusions which for others are a psychological necessity, at the same time they themselves must penetrate beyond these illusions to the real world. They have the difficult task of ensuring that the reality never gets so far out of line that it cannot be represented as conforming with the illusion. Failures must be concealed or, if not, at least satisfactorily explained. Leaders who rely increasingly on charisma run the risk of being caught in a kind of positive feedback: the more they struggle, the tighter become the bonds. N umenification has the effect of inhibiting rationality in the followers. On the good side this effect helps to conceal from them the leader's failings and inadequacies. But at the same time it raises their expectations: they look for miracles. As Weber (1978:1114) puts it, "his divine mission must prove itself by bringing well-being to his faithful followers; if they do not fare well, he obviously is not the god-sent master" (emphasis in the original). Given everyone's inability to perform miracles, and given also the failure often to run even a reasonably tidy administration because all the messianic expectations hinder necessary routine work, there is a temptation to intensify the numenification. The problem with charisma is not only that it must be routinized when the time comes to hand control over to noncharismatic successors but also that such a leader, long before that time, may drown himself in a sea of messianic fantasy. It seems clear that in the last resort the controlling factor is being able to bring to the followers a sufficient level of "well-being." But the well-being is not a simple material matter offood, shelter, and safety, as Weber's words might suggest. Material well-being is offset against psychological and spiritual well-being-a sense of identity, a vision and a purpose in life, and so on-which in turn is compounded with devotion for the leader. Certainly
Whatever Happened to the Other Eye? that devotion will to a point compensate for material discomforts and may be the main source of spiritual comfort. For this reason charisma is indispensable. It would not make sense for a leader, perceiving the dangers of all-consuming numenification, to eschew any charismatic presentation whatsoever. Indeed I have argued that it is impossible to do so and still be a leader. There are, however, some strategies for controlling the situation. One is for leaders to insist on their human qualities from time to time and to bring off the supreme trick of identification in which the masses see the leader not only as an ideal above them but simultaneously as one of them and an ideal. Then, the leader is both a comrade and a commander. Castro seems to have been successful at that (Lacouture 1970:25). Public confessions of failure and offers to step downCastro has made them, and so did Nasser-reflect this strategy and are symbolic denials of godlike capacities. This is a fraternal form of charisma rather than a paternal one. The other strategy is manifestly paternal. It is to routinize the charisma by subjecting the devotees to the discipline and order of organized worship. Such organizations, although their proclaimed reason for existence is the adoration of some divinity, are very rational and follow the rules of orderly bureaucratic behavior. They domesticate the excesses of devotees, eliminating especially demands for a quick miraculous fix of whatever has broken down. Miracles become part of history: success today comes from hard work and good planning. This routinization leaves room for the leader to work in the real world. An example is the public worship of the Roman emperors as gods. My discussion in this essay has continually alternated between reason and the emotions. My object has been to show that behavior (in this case, dependency) which is based on an illusion and is an emotional necessity can itself be, in part at least, the product of calculation and design. In other words, not only is there a method in using other people"s madness; the madness itself is also in part a product of that method.
NOTE I am grateful to Fitz John Poole, Mary K. Olsen, and the editors of this volume for their constructive comments. An expanded version of this essay is to be found in Bailey 1988.
357
