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 selection of these adult rôles to certain critical experiences in
individual development. But before we can proceed farther, 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 policeman has
appeared over Western Europe, and a history of the popular conception
of his rôle could be written around terms like “bobby,” “cop,” and
“_Schupo_.” Whatever differences in dress, manner, social position,
and common humanity are supposed to exist between a “civil servant,” a
“_Beamter_,” and a “_fonctionnaire_,” there are common lineaments in
the composite stereotype. A thick chapter in human experience could be
entitled “The Bureaucrat,” wherein would be recorded the innuendo of
popular comment on a necessary evil. The “legislator” is identifiable
through all the detailed contrasts between the “congressman,” the
“M.P.,” and the “M.d.R.”
The popular tongue is rich in expressions which fill out the
official cast of characters in the political drama by peopling the
public stage with figures whose traits are essentially irrelevant
to their office. There are men of ideas--“anarchist,” “socialist,”
“liberal,” “communist,” “conservative.” There are men of ideas and of
action--“reformer,” “revolutionary,” “martyr.” The history of American,
British, French, German, medieval, Graeco-Roman, and every civilization
could be written for the sake of showing 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 politics 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 “benevolent despot” of the eighteenth century, the “demagogue” of
Athenian democracy, the “prince” of the Italian Renaissance, 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[8]
has enriched social science is, it is to be hoped, the forerunner of
many elaborate studies. The traits and arts of political leaders have
been most systematically handled by Aristotle, Machiavelli, Robert
Michels, Christensen, and Charles E. Merriam.[9]
These typologies, whether popular or scientific, possess several
features in common. They may converge to what is practically the same
picture. When W. B. Munro described the “reformer,” he filled out the
popular image which arose in the American mind at a certain phase
of American political evolution.[10] 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.[11] The means employed in encompassing
political objectives christen 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 public 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 ceremony. The leanness of the
“fanatical agitator” figured in the popular mind long before Kretschmer
gave it his scientific blessing.[12]
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 “leader” keeps a stable nucleus of meaning
for the description of a social rôle among widely separated peoples in
widely separated periods.
Popular and scientific conceptions are at one in that they may present
developmental and not merely descriptive implications. The notion of
a lean and bitter agitator is not entirely a static, cross-sectional
description of a fortuitous juxtaposition of traits, but a hypothesis
that bodily irritations operate dynamically to foster the selection of
forms of activity which enable the individual to give rather free vent
to his animosities.
Both popular and scientific types may be taken as objects of study
to determine the factors in their formation. The popular idea of a
“reformer” in America bears a certain photographic resemblance to
actual personalities who figured as public advocates of restrictive
laws. It is possible to study the process by which the stereotype of
the lean and spinsterly kill-joy arose, and to see why it persisted.
Every body politic has its gallery of political mummers, and
political history needs to be rewritten to explain the unique and
the typical qualities of these popularly conceived rôles. Stuart A.
Rice has developed a technique for the identification of contemporary
stereotypes of this kind.[13] Rice took photographs of a senator, a
bolshevik, and a bootlegger, and after obliterating the names asked
various test groups to tell what designation best fitted each picture.
By examining the erroneous identifications, it became possible to
detect the mental pattern popularly associated with the class name.
An interesting contribution to social science would be the detailed
examination of the factors affecting the rise and fall of those
political typologies which have been seriously proposed by scholars.
The exaggerated picture of the omnipotent leader drawn by Carlyle no
doubt had something to do with Carlyle’s sexual impotence and his
compensatory idealization of the potent; but the popularity which this
exaggeration enjoyed among certain classes of English society was due
to the dislocation of older economic institutions and the rise of
threatening collective ideologies. The new business enterpriser felt
the intoxicating vanity of the self-made man, and the decayed landlords
felt the necessity of individualistic protests against the age of
cities and machines.
Suppose we examine in more detail the intellectual structure of
scientific political types. This requires special attention to the two
terms involved, the “political” and the “types.” Two ways of defining
the “political” are current in social science. I will speak of them as
the “institutional” and the “functional” methods of definition. Within
any community there are many patterns of activity whose form and whose
magnitude may be singled out for study. There is the production and
distribution of material goods and services; the main patterns by which
these operations proceed can be called the economic institutions of the
community. There is the settlement of disputes, and the defense and
extension of interests which are believed to be collective; these are
the political or governmental institutions of the community. In the
same way religious, charitable, and a host of other institutions may be
discerned.
These institutionally derived categories fall short of clarity and
comprehensiveness. Some social processes occur within the framework
of every institutional process. Thus the settlement of disputes is
a prominent characteristic of government as we know it; but it is
not, and never has been, and cannot by the nature of things be, a
monopoly of government when government is defined as an institutional
division of social labor. No institution ever quite monopolizes the
function which it most distinctively exercises. But this need not
lead to confusion. When the settlement of disputes is a prominent
function of one group in society, and there is no other group which
participates in the same function in the same degree, there is no
hesitation in deciding to call the first group the “governors” and to
call the patterns according to which they are selected and operate the
“political or governmental” institutions of the community. If there is
a rival adjuster of differences, the distinction is by no means clear,
as when the “church,” “business,” and the “state” are rivals. Perhaps
the governors can be identified by finding who it is who handles the
coercion employed in defending or extending communal enterprises,
though this criterion may from time to time fail to differentiate.
But, on the whole, these doubts are marginal doubts. Ordinarily it is
possible to find a division of labor and a set of sentiments which
can be called the “government of the state.” The marginal instances
call attention to the fact to which allusion has been made, the
fact that no “institutional” process quite monopolizes the function
which it most distinctively exercises. It is therefore advisable to
describe communal processes by two sets of terms, one of which refers
to “institutions” and the other to “functions” which are found within
the various institutional frameworks. Much of the literature of
social science consists in terminological quibbles about the “proper”
words to use in this institutional or functional sense, often without
appreciating the essential nature of the matter at issue. It is, of
course, of the highest importance to understand the difference, and of
minor importance to agree upon the words with which to describe the
distinction.
From what has been said, it is clear that a word like “political” may
be given an “institutional” or a “functional” meaning in a particular
context, and that--and this is the most important consequence--any
contribution to the understanding of the “institutional” process is a
contribution to the understanding of the wider “functional” process,
and the reverse. In this resides the unity of the social sciences. The
apparent disunity arises from the differences in starting-point of
particular inquiries. One begins with a series of phenomena which are
selected from a single institutional process, and another begins with
a series of phenomena which are selected from several institutional
processes according to some functional conception.
This unity of destination and disunity of starting-point is abundantly
manifested in the scientific study of human behavior. The specialist
on some phase of the political process, institutionally conceived,
who is asked to classify the types of political behavior, devises
his categories on the basis of the institutional processes which he
knew best. It would be possible, were it worth the effort, to pass in
review the typologies which have been propounded from time to time
by specialists in executive organization, public administration,
judicial administration, legislation, political parties, propaganda
and conspirative organizations, political revolution, nationalism,
imperialism, interstate methods of adjustment (war, diplomacy,
conference, adjudication, mediation, arbitration), and all the other
topics in political science.
At first glance, the functional method of defining political types
would seem to lead to even greater congeries of categories than the
institutional method. From the functional standpoint politics is found
wherever, to use the older terminology, “wills” are in conflict. This
implies that intensely political manifestations in society are not
confined to government officials and parties, but to banking houses,
manufacturing enterprises, distributing services, ecclesiastical
organizations, fraternal associations, and professional societies.
It is probable that the most aggressive, power-lusting individuals
in modern society find their way into business, and stay out of the
legislature, the courts, the civil service, and the diplomatic service.
If this be true, the student of political personalities will find the
most interesting objects of study in J. P. Morgan and Company, in the
United States Steel Corporation, and among the clerical or educational
or medical politicians.
It follows from what has been said that the study of politicians who
are chosen from a single institutional process makes a contribution
to the general study of politicians in every institutional process,
and that the conscious abstraction of categories until they are
comprehensive opens a wider range of exact comparison. This may
eventuate in an actual simplification of some fundamental conceptions.
Of course, institutional processes differ in the scope which they give
to certain human drives. Today the church offers less opportunity for
the use of physical violence than it did in the sixteenth century, and
very much less opportunity than the police force, the private detective
agency, or the political gang.
The advantages of comprehensiveness and possible simplification have
been sacrificed by the political scientists of the schools because
they have conceived their task in too narrow a spirit. They have
been slow in studying the manifestations of human nature in politics
because they have been saturated with sectarian pride in legal and
philosophical distinctions; or they have checked their theories with
their coats, and plunged into technical work. A body of theory which
interacts fruitfully with philosophy, law, and technology is still very
poorly developed. The formal sociological systems have been sacked for
“premises” but neglected for hypotheses. (Witness the exploitation of
the concept of “solidarity” in recent juridical theory.) The task of
the hour is the development of a realistic analysis of the political in
relation to the social process, and this depends upon the invention of
abstract conceptions and upon the prosecution of empirical research.
It is precisely this missing body of theory and practice which Graham
Wallas undertook to supply in England and which Charles E. Merriam
has been foremost in encouraging in the United States. It is the
deficiency which led Catlin to propose to substitute what I would
call the “functional” for the “institutional” definition of the field
of political science.[14] This necessarily implies a new respect for
the possibilities of using the ingenious suggestions to be found in
the sociological systematists, a new curiosity about diverse ways of
approaching events, and a new sympathy for parallels to institutional
phenomena.
Various obscurities can be removed if we generalize our terms
from the narrowly institutional to the broadly functional plane.
Terms like “statesman” and “despot” were minted of the metal of
political experience in communities where the high road to power was
governmental. It is true that in Athens it was difficult to draw very
sharp lines between governmental and other forms of communal activity,
on account of the intimate interlacing of all institutional processes.
Nevertheless, terms like “statesman” and “despot” came to refer to
forms of political activity in a narrowly institutional sense, and such
is their connotation today.
But this connotation requires generalization and revision. The road to
power in our civilization is by no means an exclusively governmental
highway, for technical implements have scattered authority and created
an industrial feudality. The directors of large corporations have to
make decisions which are far more important for the daily happiness of
mankind than most of the decisions of governments. Since government is
so largely the agent of corporations, the government is hardly master
in its own house.
The concept of the statesman has long carried the implication that
anyone who exercises social power outside the government is in hot
pursuit of an exclusively private advantage. Is this any longer
tenable? Is there not such a thing as the “institutionalization of
business” which arises when a given enterprise plans to operate
indefinitely and is thus forced to calculate its interests over long
periods of time? One of the major elements in this calculation is the
necessity of taking precautions against a withdrawal of favor on the
part of the community at large. This is the core of the political way
of thinking, and assimilates the policy of aggregations of private
power to that of the state which is guided by statesmen. It is timely,
therefore, to disentangle the concept of statesmanship from its
historical association with a single institution.
Some of the many senses in which the “politician” is used may be
disposed of by drawing a clean distinction between the “business
man” and the “politician.” The business man may be defined as one
who pursues a private advantage with little regard for conceptions
of public right. The politician, in the here-selected “best” sense
of the word, uses persuasion on behalf of his conception of public
right. The politician pursues a genuine integration of interests in
the community; the business man is satisfied with a compromise among
competing private interests. The importance to political theory of the
distinction between integration and compromise has quite properly been
stressed by Mary L. Follett.[15] An integration of interests is the
solution of a conflict in such a way that neither “party” recognizes
that so much has been won and so much has been lost in the outcome.
It represents a reinterpretation of the situation in a sense which
renders the old line of battle, the older definition of interest,
irrelevant. It is illustrated when a wage controversy is disposed of by
the decision to try to divide the advantages of economies in production
which may be brought about through new co-operative procedures. The
essence of the contrast between integration and compromise is that
between a synthesis and a trade. The politician is a discoverer of
inclusive advantages, and the business man is a higgler for special
advantages. Whether, as Adam Smith said, an invisible hand shapes a
social synthesis from the general pursuit of private profit, we do
not have to decide upon here. The contrast is between the conscious
objectives of the individuals concerned. It should be observed that
politicians are not limited to government and that business men are not
limited to private ventures. The “boss” is one form of the business
man in government; the director of a large private concern may be a
politician in the sense used here.[16]
Having drawn a necessary distinction between the institutional and the
functional meaning of the “political,” we are in a position to discuss
the “type” concept. A “type” is a relation, and we may classify types
according to the relations chosen. Political types may be set up on a
three-fold basis: by specifying a nuclear relation, a co-relation, and
a developmental relation.
What is meant by the choice of a nuclear relation may be illustrated
by the concept of the _Machtmensch_ as elaborated by Eduard Spranger
in his _Lebensformen_. Spranger, the distinguished educational
psychologist of the University of Berlin, has developed a morphology
of personality on an original basis. Dilthey, it will be recalled,
ushered in the modern era of typological inquiry in his famous address
before the Berlin Academy of Science.[17] Dilthey selected forms of
distinguished cultural activity and posited trait-constellations
to fit. By the process of abstracting from many concrete fields of
achievement, he finally built up his description of the sensual,
heroic, and contemplative types. Most eminent political figures
naturally fall in the second category. Spranger’s approach has much in
common with that of Dilthey. He proceeds on the hypothesis that all
possible valuational dispositions are shared by all men. By inspecting
human culture, Spranger comes to the conclusion that six distinctive
cultural fields have materialized six valuational dispositions in
man. Thus the cultural activities having to do with wealth production
correspond to the economic value tendency. Science corresponds to the
theoretical, art to the aesthetic, religion to the religious, the state
to the power tendency, and society to the love tendency. Spranger goes
on to deduce the attributes of each personality in which one value
tendency predominates, and traces out the implications for each field
of activity of the predominance of this tendency. Thus the political
man is the one whose principal value is the pursuit of power. The
essence of power is understood to be the capacity, and usually the
will, to impose one’s own values as permanent or transitory motives
upon others. The political man in science tends to substitute rhetoric
for truth and to use ideas as forces (in the sense of Fouillée). In
economics the political man tends to reach his ends by diplomacy and
negotiation, by intimidation or violence, or by other political means.
In art the political motive leads to efforts to impress by flamboyant
decorative display. In social life the political motive, with its
forcible urge toward self-aggrandizement, must usually disguise itself
in fostering the interests of some collectivity. The god of the
political man in religion is a god of might who requires mighty men to
serve him.
In developing his image of the _homo politicus_, Spranger is
fully aware that his “pure” type seldom exists. The bold, frank
aggrandizement of self is rarely tolerated in society, for “the
greatest power manifests itself as collective power,” and the man
who cherishes power must achieve some measure of socialization or
he is outlawed. Although in principle no warm-hearted lover of his
fellow-men, he must keep his contempt to himself or feign expansive
sentiments of group loyalty. Indeed, self-deception is perhaps the
rule, for the political personality with a strong artistic component
possesses a florid imagination which dramatizes his personal history
and subordinates all reality to ambitious plans. It seems to me that
Spranger does not sufficiently stress this aspect of the political man,
this large capacity for playing the impostor upon himself and others.
The gist of Spranger’s generalization of the political man is
schematically expressible in terms of desire-method-success. The
political man desires to control the motives of others; his method may
vary from violence to wheedling; his success in securing recognition in
some community must be tangible. These are the nuclear relations which
are essential to the type definition.
Naturally there are a number of necessary annotations to be made on
this formula. Sometimes the man with a thirst for power is unable to
indulge and quench his thirst, for his physical and social equipment
may be too meager. And how are we to appraise results? _Wer regiert
denn?_ Power over others is partially exercised by every living being;
but in any hierarchy of the powerful, some are on the lowest tier, if
current social criteria be applied. The bedridden, complaining wreck
may be of no significance except as a burden upon the care of a single
nurse. Accepting the current values of society, such an individual
would be on the very bottom of the heap. And yet, as Alfred Adler
has so often insisted as to make the point peculiarly his own, the
hysteric may use his symptoms to win a high degree of submission from
his immediate environment, and this may be all that he cares about. And
some of those who give up the visible struggle for social influence may
retire to distil their bile into poisoned darts against the pursuit
of external pomp, and secure reputation and eminence by embodying the
results in sparkling rhetoric.
The man who runs his village may become more acutely aware that he does
not run the county; and when he runs the county, that he does not run
the province; and so on up the ladder. His appurtenances of power may
be deferred to by those about him, yet his own soul may smart with
the shackles of a larger slavery. Thus, Spranger is right in saying
that, when one succeeds in penetrating the psychology of the search
for power, it becomes comprehensible that he whose nature is bound
up in the pursuit of authority is most keenly sensible to the limits
of his own freedom, and consequently suffers so keenly from nothing
else in life than his own subordination. Sensing this, the Stoics long
ago contended that the essence of liberty is the self-sufficiency
which makes no demands on others. Ascendancy involves dependence,
a reciprocal relationship which has been exhaustively described
by Simmel.[18] But there are some who combine easy success with
indifference. These are no doubt recruited from among those who have
natural suggestive power to certain groups--they possess the _charisma_
of Max Weber.[19]
Allowing for these annotations, the nucleus of Spranger’s thinking may
be repeated. The _homo politicus_ is characterized by the following
relationship between desire, method, and success: desire to control
the motives of others; methods varying from violence to wheedling; and
success in securing communal recognition.
Spranger’s subtle comments in elaborating this simple, central
conception are among the most valuable in the literature of society.
Starting from bold simplifications, he succeeds in formulating pictures
which give richer meaning to the details of political life in all
the institutional processes of culture. Of course the literature of
political science is full of types which are described as Spranger
has described the political man. Michels and Merriam have listed the
qualities which they find in political leaders as a class. Conway has
propounded his familiar trichotomy: crowd-compellers, crowd-exponents,
and crowd-representatives. The possibility of defining types according
to the reactionary, conservative, liberal, or radical nature of the
opinions championed has often been discussed.[20]
The scheme which will be employed in presenting case materials stresses
the capacity of political personalities to play rôles which are either
specialized or composite. Hobbes was a theorist and an agitating
pamphleteer; he is scarcely thinkable as an agitating orator and
organizer like Garrison. The “pure-type” agitator is represented by
the Old Testament prophets. Bodin combined a memorable contribution to
political theory with the arduous duties of a successful administrator.
Masaryk won his spurs in philosophy, sociology, cultural history,
agitation, and organization. Numberless are those who have shown
excellent organizing ability but who have been innocent of theoretical
interests or of agitating power. Some political assassins and tyrants
have enjoyed the use of violence as a _ding an sich_. The central
point in deciding where to place a political figure is to discover
the form of activity which means the most to him, and to modify the
classification according to his success in combining this with other
rôles. Marx wanted to impress himself upon mankind, certainly; and he
craved the skill of a Lassalle, who could step on the platform and
dominate the turbulent emotions of the crowd. But more: Marx wanted
unreserved admiration for the products of his mind. He toiled through
years of isolation and poverty to make his assertions impregnable. It
was more important to attain theoretical completeness than to modify
his technique of social intercourse. Lassalle was the composite leader
who could woo an audience, organize activities all over Germany, write
excellent books, and win a place for himself in many circles of life.
Marx was the limited specialist who had to exact submission to the
assertions of his mind, come what may.
Table I brings out the distinction between specialized and composite
types.
TABLE I
Political Rôles
Administrator Agitator Theorist
_Specialized types_:
Hoover *
Old Testament prophets *
Marx *
_Composite types_:
Cobden * *
Bodin * *
Lenin * * *
Other combinations may be indicated. By adding a fourth column for
those who resort to violence, the schematic possibilities are enlarged.
Most theorists have been agitators in some measure, and it is often
a matter of taste whether emphasis is to be placed on one or the
other feature of their activity. Characteristically, the theorists
have sought to appeal to the sentiments of their contemporaries by
pamphleteering or by the direction of their speculative interests to
immediate ends. Hobbes and Rousseau were shut off from oratory and
organization, but no small part of their writing was intended to add
fuel to the flames around them. Such men as Tom Paine are able to
strike off excellent formulations of political theory in the heat of
the fray.
So far we have been discussing types which are distinguished according
to some nuclear relation among a few variables. The characteristic
mode of elaborating such a type is to imagine a host of situations in
which the type may be found, and to describe the resulting picture.
This is the elaboration of the preliminary sketch on the basis of
sophisticated experience with social life. For these impressionist
methods it is possible to substitute a more formal procedure. Having
chosen a central primary relation, is it possible to find, by
reference to specific instances, the relative frequency with which
other traits are associated with the nuclear ones. The starting-point
may be either institutional or functional, of course: those who are
“judges,” “legislators,” or “bosses” may be investigated, or those who
are “statesmen,” “conciliators,” or “administrators.” We have already
had occasion to stress the point that institutional definitions and
functional definitions do not precisely coincide, although either is a
valid point of departure for research.
The result of the formal procedure outlined is to define
“co-relational” (correlational) types. A recent monograph by Fritz
Giese may be used to illustrate the possibilities.[21] This is a
statistical treatment of the data available in the German _Who’s Who_
of 1914. After Giese had eliminated those who were included on account
of their hereditary position only, he had over ten thousand names
left. He then distinguished thirty-three varieties of activity, which
were grouped into the five major categories of art, social science,
physical science, technology, and practical life. He also classified
his subjects into those who were honored because of high-grade but
essentially routine professional accomplishment, those who enriched
their field of activity by some creative contribution, and those whose
creativeness was unrestricted to their occupational field. The three
types were the skilful, the productive, and the freely creative.
Since the individual is not confined to one field of activity, the
following scheme of connections was built up to show the relation
between the person and the form of activity: (_a_) income source (the
person regards a particular field as a “bread and butter” occupation);
(_b_) successive activity field (the individual has deserted one field
for another); (_c_) field of simultaneous double-production; (_d_)
recreational activity. The relation of a person to a field of activity
may show a splitting of his personality or a compensatory function.
When a politician consciously decides to play golf or to collect
pictures to relieve his mind from exclusive political preoccupations,
he is realizing a compensatory value in this chosen field. When he
finds himself impelled to try to live a double life of scientific
investigation and political propaganda, he is exhibiting major, and
contrasting, tendencies in his personality (splitting). Sometimes the
tie between fields of activity which the same individual exploits is
factual similarity, as when a politician becomes a literary man to the
extent of writing the political history of a period. Sometimes the
connection is a functional relationship, in that the same biopsychic
dispositions are to be assumed to operate. Thus, business promotion and
politics are intimately allied; sculpture and politics are not.
Giese’s detailed analysis showed that those engaged in politics reveal
the most heterogeneous affiliations and backgrounds. He raised the
question whether it was proper to think of a distinctive functional
gift which would characterize all those in political positions. When
compared with art, especially architecture, and engineering, the
heterogeneity of the political population is very evident. Indeed,
the manifold connections of politically active persons with other
fields suggest that political life depends upon very widely dispersed
capacities of human nature, as does teaching, history writing, and
journalism. But there is one important exception which is clearly
brought out by the figures. This was a group of politicians who
rose from humble circumstances and devoted themselves assiduously
to organization and agitation. They offer a sharp contrast to those
for whom political life was a sport, hobby, or honorary distinction.
For the organizing and agitating group we may postulate a functional
disposition of some kind.
The results show how the institutional approach to a problem may
eventuate in the isolation of one group which very probably coincides
closely with a functional group in other institutional activities.
Some of the agitating and organizing people weren’t yet in politics at
the time the 1914 census was made, and some of them were so busy with
private organizations that they never made the formal transition to
politics in the institutional sense.
Another conclusion which bears on the same point is Giese’s discovery
that those who were freely creative in politics had much more in common
with those who were freely creative in other fields than they had
with those who were merely productive in their own. Giese’s method of
classifying his freely creative group is too ambiguous to justify one
in considering his conclusion of more than suggestive value, but it is
possible that he has isolated a functionally homogeneous group which
cuts across all institutional lines.
Some of the studies of political personalities have carried the
quantitative method far enough to substitute scales for rank orders
at various points. Various reaction tests have been used in the hope
of discovering constant differences among those who play different
political rôles. Henry T. Moore undertook to decide whether there is
such a thing as a temperamental predisposition toward conservatism or
radicalism. He defined radicalism as “an attitude favorable to sweeping
changes in social institutions, especially changes along lines opposed
to class interest,” and classified the opinion expressions of students
according to the degree of radicalism or conservatism indicated. He
then applied a series of reaction tests to the students and reached the
following conclusion:
Our evidence so far as it goes points to some innate basis of
difference. This basis does not seem to be the level of general
intelligence or of emotional stability, nor in any general
superiority or inferiority in learning or attention, but in such
specific factors as greater speed of reaction, ease of breaking
habits, readiness to make snap judgments, and independence in the
face of majority influence. The last of these differences is the
one most clearly indicated.... If one man is by nature more keyed
up for speed and flexibility, and the other is more designed for
regularity of function, we can hardly expect that government of the
hyperkinetic by the phlegmatic and for the phlegmatic can fail to
develop periods of stress and strain.[22]
Floyd Allport classified students into typical and atypical members of
the community, discovering whether they took up prevalent or minority
positions on various political questions. He then applied a battery of
tests to the students and found that certain traits of the atypical
(whether the opinions were “radical” or “conservative”) proved to be
homogeneous. Thus, not only do the “extremes” meet, but also those
who hold minority positions along a hypothetical continuum of opinion
distribution.[23]
W. H. Cowley, at the instigation of Charles E. Merriam and L. L.
Thurstone, undertook to compare leaders in chosen situations. He used
twenty-eight tests of such traits as aggressiveness, self-confidence,
intelligence, emotional stability, and speed of reaction. While his
tests were differentiating within the same group between leaders and
followers, he reports that they did not distinguish between leaders as
a class and followers as a class. He thus felt justified in denying
that leadership is a universal trait of particular persons, and
criticized efforts to itemize “traits of leadership.”[24] Further
applications of the blanket-test technique are under way.[25]
Gilbert J. Rich opened out a new field of investigation when he
studied certain complex physiological and biochemical variables among
leaders and followers. He measured the hydrogen-ion concentration of
the saliva, the acidity of the urine, alkali reserve of the blood,
and creatinine excretion of the urine. The least excitable subjects
showed the most acid saliva and the most acid urine. The rating of the
subjects was open to criticism, and was obviously much less refined
than the biochemical techniques employed.[26]
The types which we have just been considering show more than a
cross-sectional picture of the adult personality. They have made the
transition from itemizing the instantaneous pictures to the selection
of features of the immediate picture which show how the type has come
to be. They are thus more than co-relational types; they have made
some progress toward developmental types. When Giese found the group
of political personalities of humble origin and persistent organizing
and agitating activity, he postulated a common dynamic of development,
a homogeneous functional disposition toward this sort of thing. Moore
wanted to extricate the formative influence of temperamental reactive
sets, and the other investigators have likewise sought to ascertain
developmental factors in the production of the adult picture of traits
and interests.
Almost every nuclear and co-relational type carries developmental
implications. The terms which are used to characterize motives
have dynamic, genetic, formative coronas of meaning which, vaguely
though they may be sketched, are emphatically present. When Michels
says that a “Catonian strength of conviction” is one mark of the
political leader, it is implied that if one pushed his inquiry into
the adolescence, childhood, and even infancy of the individual that
this ruling characteristic would be visible. Of course, Michels
does not himself develop these implications; it is doubtful if he
has tried to find the early analogues of the trait which he called
“Cantonian strength of conviction” on the adult level. But the dynamic
penumbra of the term can lead empirical investigators to scrutinize
the behavior of children from a new point of view. Many of the terms
which are used to describe adult traits are no doubt unpredictable
from the less differentiated traits of infancy, childhood, and youth.
But the growth of full-blown developmental types requires the sifting
and refinement of terms until they are adequate to the description
of sequences of growth. Developmental types will describe a set
of terminal, adult reactions, and relate them to those critical
experiences in the antecedent life of the individual which dispose
him to set up such a mode of dealing with the world. Developmental
types will not only include the subjective account of the history of
the personality but will embrace the objective factors which were
co-operating to produce the patterns described.
The notion of a developmental type may be illustrated by examining
the place which is assigned to the political man in the chief modern
characterological systems. Hans Apfelbach has used five dimensions for
the description of characters. Each one is described as a gamut between
two polar opposites, and a sixth pair of polar opposites is introduced
into the system. The scheme is indicated in Table II.
This gives a formal range of sixty-four types of character formation
without allowing for subtle variations in quantity. The first
combination which Apfelbach specifies is, symbolically, ABCDEF. This is
a very masculine, sadistic, hyperemotional, moral, intellectually keen,
and upright character. Among men this is the type of the organizers,
politicians, the great preachers, generals, dictators, and the like.
Among women, this is the type of the organizer of every description,
especially the political or patriotic enthusiast, like Joan of Arc.
It should be observed that the terms “masculine” and “feminine” are
not used in a mutually exclusive sense. Carrying on the tradition of
Weininger and Fliess, these terms are employed to designate traits
which may be present in different proportions in the same person.[27]
TABLE II
Dimension Polar Elements
Sexuality Masculine A
Feminine a
Psychomotility Psychosadistic B
Psychomasochistic b
Emotionality Hyperemotional C
Hypo-emotional c
Morality Moral D
Immoral d
Intellectuality Superior E
(specialized) Inferior e
Accessory elements Altruistic F
Egotistic f
The political man appears in Jung’s system at various intersections of
his underlying scheme. The essential cleavage in Jung’s classification
is between those whose psychic energy (libido) flows outward
toward objects (extraversion) and those whose libido flows inward
(introversion). The former enter into full affective relations with
the world around; the latter are mainly focused on their private
interpretations of experience. In addition to these fundamental dynamic
relationships, Jung sub-classifies with reference to our fundamental
psychological functions: thinking, feeling, sensation, intuition. These
functions may operate against one another consciously or unconsciously.
So, when thinking predominates in consciousness, feeling is repressed;
and the reverse. Intuition is understood to be a kind of instinctive
comprehension, a function peculiarly dependent upon the unconscious.
According to the predominance of one or another of these basic
functions, Jung constructs four special types of extraversion and
introversion.
Certain conspicuous political types belong to Jung’s category of
extraverted thinkers. These individuals try to bring their whole
life-activity into relation with intellectual conclusions, which
in the last resort are always oriented by objective data, whether
objective facts or generally valid ideas. By his formula are good and
evil measured: all is wrong that contradicts it, and all is right
that corresponds to it; all is accidental that is neutral toward it.
Just as the extraverted thinking type subordinates himself to his
formula, he seeks to subordinate all others to it, as a manifestation
of a universal inspiration. His moral code forbids him to tolerate
exceptions, and he would bend all to suit the scheme. “One really
should” or “one must” figure largely in his program. If the formula is
wide enough, Jung remarks that the extraverted thinker may figure as a
reformer, a ventilator of public wrongs, and a propagandist. But the
more rigid his formula, the more likely he is to grow into a grumbler,
a crafty reasoner, and a self-righteous critic.
Many politicians answer to the general description which Jung gives
of the extraverted, intuitive type. The intuitive is unattracted by
the established values; he is drawn to the possible rather than to
the actual. He seizes hold of new objects and ways of doing things
with eager intensity, only to abandon them cold-bloodedly, when
their implications become obvious. The irresistible magnet of the
rising sun fires his imagination and guides his activity. For the
risen sun and the setting sun there is no enthusiasm, no special
hostility, only indifference. Here is the facile promoter, who senses
the dawning future and speeds from project to project, bored with
routine and detail after projects have been accepted and the blueprints
finished.[28]
The types of Apfelbach and Jung are based upon a small number of
reactive mechanisms which are supposed to influence in different degree
the growth of the personality. These “mechanism” types may contain
many useful leads, but the methodological problem in isolating these
hypothetical mechanisms is unsettled. A “stable” reaction in adulthood
may be far from stable when viewed at successive growth periods. These
“mechanism” types seem to encourage endless classificatory ventures
at the expense of detailed reporting of life-histories. For reasons
which have been set forth, subjective histories are of the greatest
importance to social science; and any excessive interest in “mechanism”
which minimizes the importance of elaborate individual records is to be
deplored. Jung and Apfelbach say very little about the principal epochs
of individual development, and distract attention from the career as a
whole, as this career is structuralized in successive phases.
Before outlining our developmental conception of the _homo politicus_,
we return to the work of Freud, for his method has enabled him to
keep close to the subjective sequence and to use classificatory terms
in relation to the successive phases of impulse organization in the
developing personality.