No More Learning

The high-scoring parole officer, M109, is reminiscent of F340A in so far as his support for some kind of government interference is authoritarian rather than favorable to any restrictions on the anarchy of free enterprise or to rational planning for the sake of all. (Cf. quotations on pp. 676, 679. )
Those who are outspokenly set against government controls again com- prise both low and high scorers. Here, of course, the low scorers are particu- lar! y interesting.
The already quoted M711, an "easy going" low scorer, is opposed to state interference simply because he feels a fascist potential in it, apparently un~ aware of the progressive function this interference had under Roosevelt:
(Government control? ) "I don't. There, again, that could be a road to a fascist state eventually. Certain controls would have to be exercised. "
In spite of his leftist ideology this man shows symptoms of a confusion which may make him the prey of pseudoprogressive slogans of fascist propa- ganda: it is the same man who justifies his anti-union attitude with the spuri- ous assertion that Hitler was in favor of unions.
M2o4, another low scorer, a young man of the Psychiatric Clinic group, suffering from anxiety neurosis, calls himself a socialist and feels that the New Deal was too conservative, but states, nevertheless:
The government should not be completely in control of everything. Favors something like the Scandinavian system: CCF, full employment, labor government, favors cooperatives. "I think it will come that way in this country. Government control can be run wrong. Instead we should preserve individual freedom and work through education. "
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To sum up: the low scorers' criticism of government interference is based on the traditional idea of freedom, the fear of an authoritarian abolition of democratic institutions and an individualistic way of living. This makes for a potential resistance against any attempts at a planned economy. There is a possibility that a good many traditional values of American democratism and liberalism, if naively maintained within the setup of today's society, may radically change their objective functions without the subjects even being aware of it. In an era in which "rugged individualism" actually has resulted in far-reaching social control, all the ideals concomitant with an uncritical individualistic concept of liberty may simply serve to play into the hands of the most powerful groups.
The statements against government control of our high scorers are of a? completely different kind. To them, unionism, New Dealism, government control are all the same, the rule of those who should not rule. Here resent- ment of government interference is fused with the "no pity for the poor" complex.
The San Quentin "tough guy," M664b:
(Political trends today? ) "Well, the way it's agoing now, I think it's a detriment to our country. (How do you mean that? ) I think a person should earn a living instead of expecting the government to give it to him. I don't believe in this New Deal and I don't believe in labor running the country. . . . If a man can't make a profit in his business, he'll close it down. . . . "
The San Quentin murderer, M651a, who is serving a life sentence, is set against government interference, his point of view being that of the business- man who talks "common sense. "
(What about government controls over business? ) "No, I believe in free enter- prise. I believe that business should be able to conduct their own business, except during the war we had to have ceiling prices. . . . But competitive business makes low prices. . . . "
It may be noted that the feeling, even of the high scorers, with regard to government control as such, though it represents to them the hated New Deal, does not seem to be as "violent" as their anti-unionism. This may be partly due to the authoritarian undercurrent which, somehow, makes them respect, to a certain extent, any strong government, even if it is built on lines different from their own, partly from the rational insight into the necessity of some government interference. Many of our interviews were conducted during or shortly after the war, at a time when it was obvious that nothing
could be achieved without government control, and it is this fact to which reference is frequently made, mostly as a qualification of the rejection of government control. This, however, certainly depends largely on the situa- tion, and if interviews should be conducted today, the picture would very probably be different.
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There is one particular issue which deserves some attention in this con- nection, the attitude of our subjects toward monopolism. On the one hand, monopolies are the outgrowth of free enterprise, the consummation of rugged individualism; on the other hand, they tend to assume that kind of noncompetitive control which is rejected when exercised by the government. Probably no "public opinion" concerning monopoly has crystallized so far, mainly because much fewer people are aware of the anonymous and objec- tive power of big combines than are aware of official legal measures of the state. However, a few examples may illustrate how the problem of insti- tutionalized superbusiness is reflected in the minds of some of our subjects.
M IIJ, a conventional but nonfascistic fraternity man, who scores low on
E and F but high on PEC, is set against "this Marxian stuff," but nevertheless,
"Big business should be controlled when it gets too large. In some fields, like Jtransponation, power, etc. , large-scale organization is necessary. The main thing
1
I there is to prevent monopoly, and to have limitations on profits. "
The unresolved contradiction between this man's strongly antisocialist and equally outspoken antimonopoly attitudes, is in all probability charac- teristic of a very large section of the population. In practice, it amounts to an artificial "holding up" of economic developmental tendencies, rather than to a clear-cut economic concept. Those layers of the European middle class which were finally enlisted by fascism were also not infrequently set, in ideology, against the big combines.
Mzz8, a low-scoring man of the University Extension Testing Class, sees the problem but is still so deeply imbued with traditional economic concepts that he is prevented from following his logic to its conclusions.
"The emphasis now is on 'free enterprise,' but that often results in monopoly, the big concerns squeezing the little guys to death. There is too much of a gap between the rich and the poor. People climb up by pushing others down, with no regulation. For this reason, government should have more influence economically, whether or not it goes as far as socialism. "
The same man criticizes Wallace for being "too impractical. " One cannot escape the impression that monopolism is used as a vague negative formula but that very few subjects are actually aware of the impact of monopoliza- tion on their lives. The union issue, in particular, plays a much bigger role in over-all ideology.
3. POLITICAL ISSUES CLOSE TO THE SUBJECTS
It has been pointed out in the early part of this chapter that political con- fusion and ignorance, and the gap between surface ideology and concrete reactions, are partly due to the fact that the political sphere, even today, seems to most Americans too far away from their own experiences and their
. .
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own pressing interests. Here we go briefly into a discussion of some political and economic topics of the interview schedule which, for imaginary or actual reasons, are closer to the hearts of our subjects, in order to form at least an impression on how they behave with regard to these matters, and whether their behavior differs markedly from that in the field of "high politics. "
First, an illustration of what may be called "imaginary closeness. " Our interview schedule contained at least one question which was, in the middle of its realistic surroundings, of a "projective" nature. It was concerned with the $z5,ooo income limit. Neither is this question a pressing political issue nor could many of our interviewees be expected to have any immediate personal interest in limitations of income on such a high level. The answers to this question, which would deserve a thoroughgoing analysis of its own, are indicative of an element of the American dream much more than of political attitudes. There were exceedingly few among our subjects who wanted to accept such an income limitation. The utmost concession they made was the acknowledgment that one can live on this amount. The pre- vailing view, however, was that, in a free country, every person should be allowed. to earn as much as he can, notwithstanding the fact that the chance to make as much today has become largely illusory. It is as if the American kind of utopia was still much more that of the shoeshine boy who becomes a railroad king, than that of a world without poverty. The dream of unre- stricted happiness has found its refuge, one might almost say its sole refuge, in the somewhat infantile fantasy of infinite wealth to be gathered by the individual. It goes without saying that this dream works in favor of the status quo; that the identification of the individual with the tycoon, in terms of the chance to become one himself, helps to perpetuate big business control.
Among those subjects who are outspokenly in favor of the income limit is the San Quentin check-writer, M664C, a high-scoring man, so full of fury and envy against everything that he does not even like the wealthy.
(What about $zs,ooo limit on salaries? ) "What the hell is that for? That's no more than fair; hell, that's too much money anyway. "
The apparent radicalism of this man can be appreciated only if one recol- lects that it is he who is outraged by the idea of feeding starving countries. The very widespread feeling of our subjects on the $z5,ooo income limit can be summed up in the eager plea of M62zA, of the San Quentin Group,
a low scorer on E and F but a high scorer on PEC.
"They shouldn't do that. If a man has the ability, more power to him. "
The next few topics are characteristic of the aforementioned tendency of our subjects to become more rational and "progressive" as soon as institutions or measures of a supposedly "socialistic" nature, from which the individual feels he can draw immediate benefits, are brought into the discussion. OPA and health insurance are examples.
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Our interviews seem to show that OPA, also a "bureaucratic" agency of government interference, is very generally accepted. Here are a few exam- ples, picked at random:
Again M621A:
(OPA? ) "I think it's done a very wonderful thing in this country. May have gone too far, e. g. , in the housing situation in San Diego. " (Subject thinks the OPA should have solved the housing situation. )
One of the few exceptions is the wealthy Los Angeles couple, 5031 and 5032, who are "disgusted and fed up with the New Deal, priorities, and all this damn red tape created by OPA. "
Most others are in favor of OPA, sometimes, however, with a certain strain of punitiveness, such as the San Quentin low scorer, M627, already quoted:
"Well, the OPA is doing a good job if they control this black market. "
This comes out most strongly in the interview of the San Quentin high
scorer M658, the man who wants to abolish labor unions.
"If (the OP A) had an iron glove underneath their kid gloves, be all right. They
fine a guy $wo-for making $wo,ooo. "
The general appreciation of OPA is the more interesting since this insti- tution has been under constant newspaper attacks for many years. But here the advantages, particularly with regard to the housing situation, are so obvi- ous that ideological invectives apparently lose some of their impact on the population. To demand the abolition of OPA because of the "damn red tape" in Washington may mean that one has no roof over one's head.
Something similar holds true of health insurance. High and low scorers, with very few exceptions, concur in its appreciation. M656A, a high scorer of the San Quentin Group, serving a term for second-degree murder, after having stated that a person can live on $2s,ooo a year but should be allowed to make what he is capable of making, and who certainly cannot be called a socialist, answers to the question about public health insurance, "I'm for it. "
The above quoted easy-going, low-scoring man, M711, is enthusiastic: "Public health insurance? Unqualifiedly yes . . . important as almost any meas-
ure of ideal society. "
Finally, our attention should be directed toward an economic area which is of the utmost importance for the formative processes of fascism. This is taxes. It is perhaps the point at which pent-up social fury is most freely given vent. With the high scorers, this fury is never directed overtly against basic con- ditions but has nevertheless the undertone of desired violent action. The man who bangs his fist on the table and complains about heavy taxation is a "natural candidate" for totalitarian movements. Not only are taxes associated with a supposedly spendthrift democratic government giving away millions to idlers and bureaucrats, but it is the very point where people feel, to put it
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in the words of one of oui subjects, that this world does not really belong to the people. Here they feel immediately that they are required to make sacrifices for which they do not get any visible returns, just as one of our subjects complains that he cannot see what he can get out of the war. The indirect advantages each individual may draw from taxes paid are obscure to him. He can only see that he has to give something without getting anything back, and this, in itself, seems to contradict the concept of exchange upon which the free market idea of liberalism is built. However, the extraordinary amount of libido attached to the complex of taxes, even in a boom period, such as the years when our subjects were interviewed, seems to confirm the hypothesis that it draws on deeper sources of the personality as much as on the surface resentment of being deprived of a considerable part of one's income without visible advantages to the individual. The rage against the rational tax system is an explosion of the irrational hatred against the irrational taxation of the individual by society. The Nazis knew very well how to exploit the complex of the "taxpayer's money. " They went so far as to grant, during the first years of their rule, a kind of tax amnesty, publicized by Goering. When they had to resort to heavier taxation than ever before they camouflaged it most skilfully as charity, voluntary donations, and so forth, and collected large amounts of money by illegal threats, rather than by offi- cial tax legislation.
Here are a few examples of the antitaxation complex:
The high-scoring man, M 105, who is violently anti-Semitic and associated with the "lunatic fringe," says:
"It is the taxpayer's money that has been put into South America; other countries will think we are fools. "
M345, a radar engineer of the Extension Testing Class, who scores middle onE, low on F, but high on PEC, believes:
(What about government control of business? ) "It has gotten to the point where it is requiring too much of the citizens' tax money and time. "
Again, the taxpayer's complex is not limited to high scorers. The low- scoring man, Mzz6, the deviate case of a conformist, conventional conserva- tive definitely opposed to prejudice, strongly identified with his father, accepts his Republican views:
". . . also because businessmen generally don't like the taxes. "
In case of a new economic crisis, where unemployment would necessitate high taxation of people whose incomes have shrunk, this complex would un- doubtedly play an exceptionally dangerous role. The threat is the more seri- ous since, in such a situation, a government which would not impose taxes would fail, while one which would take steps in this direction would invari-
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ably antagonize the very same group from which totalitarian movements most likely draw their support.
4. FOREIGN POLICY AND RUSSIA
Lack of information on the part of our subjects prevails, even more than anywhere else, in the area of foreign politics. There are usually rather vague and misty ideas about international conflicts, interspersed with morsels of information on some individual topics with which the subjects either happen to be familiar or to which they have taken a fancy. The general mood is one of disappointment, anxiety, and vague discontent, as symbolically epitomized by the medium-scoring woman, F340B: "Seems we haven't got any foreign policy. "
This may easily be a mere echo of newspaper statements frequently made at the time of the study by columnists such as Walter Lippman and Dorothy Thompson. Repeating them transforms the feeling of insecurity and dis- orientation of many of our subjects into the semblance of critical superiority. More than in any other political sphere, our subjects live "from hand to mouth" in the area of international affairs.
There is a striking lack of a sense of proportion, of balanced judgment, considering the importance or unimportance of topics of foreign politics.
One illustration, stemming from the "easy going" low scorer M7zz:
(Major problems facing country? ) "Hard question to answer . . . Perhaps the main one is how we're going to fit in with the rest of the world. . . . I'm a little concerned about what we seem to be doing in China. . . . If we are a carrier of the torch of the Four Freedoms, I think we are a little inconsistent in our maneuver- ings in China and Indonesia. "
This statement seems to be a "day residue" of continuous newspaper read- ing rather than the expression of autonomous thinking. Yet it should be noted that it remains within the anti-imperialist frame of reference of the low scorer.
The symbol of political uneasiness is the atom bomb which is dreaded everywhere. The stand taken toward the atom bomb seems to differentiate the high from the low scorers. As is to be expected, also for psychological reasons, the high scorers are all out for secrecy. Here, as elsewhere, "they want to keep what we have. "
M662A, the San Quentin "tough guy," high on all scales:
(Threats to present form of government? ) "Atom bomb. If these other countries get it, they're going to use it on us and we're going to have to look out for Russia. . . . I'm for Russia, but . . . I think sooner or later we're going to go to war with them. "
As to the prospect of a devastating war, this man seems to take a fatalistic view as if it were a natural catastrophe rather than something dependent on
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humans. This is in keeping with our clinical knowledge of the male high scorers' psychological passivity (cf. p. 575).
The low scorers either want to outlaw the atom bomb or to make the secret public:
M627, the alcoholic sex-offender, low onE and PEC but high on F:
(Major problems facing this country? ) "Well, I think this atom bomb. (Solu- tion? ) . . .
Well, it ought to be outlawed and money appropriated to see if we can't use that power for good. "
F515, the "genuine liberal" who is to be discussed in detail in Chapter XIX (p. 782), pleads for international atomic control:
"Truman doesn't want ~o give away the secret of the atom bomb-1 think he should. It's already out anyway. "
Although the over-all ideology is fear of war, the high scorer's attitude indicates that, while deeming war inevitable, they have some underlying sympathy for war-making, such as that found in the Los Angeles high-scoring radio writer 5003 characterized as highly neurotic:
As for the world state, he expects anything at the present time. "Why shouldn't we have further wars? W e are animals and have animal instincts and Darwin showed us it is the survival of the fittest. I'd like to believe in the spiritual brotherhood of men, but it's the strong man who wins. "
This kind of phrasing, "why shouldn't we have further wars," is indicative of his agreement with the idea, in spite of his talk of spiritual brotherhood. The use that is often made of the Darwinian slogan of the survival of the fit- test in order to rationalize crude aggressiveness, may be significant of the fascist potential within American "naturalism," although it is supposedly linked to progressive ideals and enlightenment.
5009, a p-year-old teaching principal in a small California town, who scores high on all scales, rationalizes his belief in a forthcoming war dif- ferently:
He expects no warless world and thinks that the next war will be with Russia. "The United States has always ranged itself against dictatorship. "
While he shows the typical high scorers' attitude-psychologically linked to cynicism and contempt for man-of regarding war as unavoidable, he justifies a policy which actually may lead to war with a democratic ideal: the stand to be taken against dictatorships.
A third aspect of subscribing to the war idea comes up in the interview of the aforementioned 5031, a wealthy building contractor. He
feels that perhaps we had better go to war with Russia now and get it over with.
Here the high scorer's typical cynicism, a fusion of contempt for man, exag- gerated down-to-earthness, and underlying destructiveness, is allowed
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uncensored expression. Whereas in the sphere of private morale such psycho- logical urges are held at bay by the acceptance of more or less convention- alized humane standards, they are let loose in the sphere of international politics where there seems to be as little of a collective superego as there is of a truly powerful supranational control agency.
The all-too-ready assumption that war cannot be abolished-which, accord- ing to this man, could be hoped for only if military men ran the UNO-is, fused with the administrative, quasi-technical, idea that one "should get it over with" as soon as possible, that Russia should be taken care of. War and peace become matters of technological expediency. The political conse- quence of this way of thinking is self-explanatory.
As with many other political topics, attitude toward Russia, whether for or against, does not by itself differentiate with any sharpness between high and low scorers. There is, first, a kind of "pseudo-low" attitude toward Russia. It falls in line with the general admiration of power in high scorers and is positive only as far as Russian military successes are concerned. It turns into hostility where Russian strength is presented as potentially dangerous. This happens with the San Quentin inmate M62zA, who scores low onE and F but high on PEC. He expresses his true anti-Russian feelings by means of personalization:
(Major problems facing country today? ) "I think Russia. . . . (Subject fears a war with Russia sooner or later over the atom bomb. ) Russia wants control of territory in China, so do the United States and England. (What do you dislike most about Russia? ) Well, a little bit too aggressive. Of course, they've done some won- derful things. Five year plan, educated themselves. (What good things about Russia? ) Lots of stamina to stand up under hardship. (Objections? ) I met quite a few Russians. Don't like them, because they seem to be overbearing. (How do you mean? ) They like to have their own way. . . . (Subject met the Russians he has been exposed to in Shanghai, chiefly Russian merchants. ) They really believe in 'taking' you. They are not very clean . . . I didn't have any very definite ideas before. "
It may be noted how close this man's attitude toward the Russians comes to certain anti-Semitic stereotypes. However, he has nothing against the Jews; as a matter of fact his wife is Jewish. In this case anti-Russianism may be a phenomenon of displacement.
" However, there is also a "genuine" low scorer's negative attitude against Russia, based on aversion to totalitarianism. Here, the Psychiatric Clinic pa- tient M204, suffering from anxiety neurosis, a moderate socialist and militant pacifist, with low scores on all scales, fits in:
He is a little skeptical about the Soviet Union, disapproving of their totalitarian methods, but being interested in "their interesting experiment. "
Another example is Mpo, a liberal of the Extension Testing Class with an unusually low score, assistant manager for an advertising agency, whose
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cnt1c1sm touches upon formal democratism while at the same time he is repelled by the oligarchic aspects of Russian government:
(Your understanding of democracy? ) "Government of, for, and by the people. Government by majority, directed to its achieving good results for the people. May be a difference between Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia, in that sense, may be democracy in Russia. I don't think it necessarily takes our voting system, although I like (democratic voting). . . . (You are critical of Soviet Russia? ) I don't like the concentration of political power in so few hands. "
Sometimes this kind of critique assumes, with low scorers, the aspect of disagreement with American communists because of their wholesale endorse- ment of Russian politics.
M203, a teacher, "liberal but not radical," with low scores on all scales:
"It is good to have intelligent, liberal leadership, rather than radical leadership, which would be bad. (Example? ) Well, like the communists in this country: they are not intelligent, they are too radical, and there is too much line which is deter- mined by Russia. For instance, Roosevelt was less rigid and learned more by his mistakes. "
It should be noted that this man is an outspoken antifascist who finds it "disgraceful that Bilbo should be in Congress. "
As to the pro-Russian attitude found among low scorers, it cannot be overlooked that it has sometimes a somewhat mechanical outlook. Here the element of stereotypy comes clearly to the fore in low scorers. As an example M713A may serve. He is a young veteran, studying landscape archi- tecture, whose scores are all low.
(How do you feel about Soviet Russia? ) "A very wonderful experiment. ? . . I believe that if left alone will be the greatest power in a few years. (Disagreement with the communists' line? ) Just in the matter of approach. Their approach is a little too violent, though I can see the reason for that. . . . I think we ought to approach it a little more gradually. . . . If went into communism would just be like the army. ? ? ? Maybe take a hundred years-we are working gradually to- ward it. "
It is a question whether the idea of a gradual development is compatible with the theory of dialectical materialism officially accepted in Russia, or whether it is indicative of a dubious element in the subject's appreciation
of the "wonderful experiment. " It should be noted that the idea of socialism
as an "experiment" stems from the vernacular of middle-class "common sense" and it tends to replace the traditional socialist concept of class struggle with the image of a kind of joint, unanimous venture-as if society as a whole,
as it is today, were ready to try socialism regardless of the influence of existing property relations. This pattern of thinking is at least inconsistent , with the very same social theory to which our subject seems to subscribe. \ Anyway, he, like any of our other subjects, goes little into matters orJ
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Marxian doctrine or of specific Russian issues, but c. ontents himself with rather a summary positive stand.
Arid then there is the idea of the "greatest power. " That this idea is not exceptional among low scorers, in other words, that a positive stand toward Russia may have something to do with the Russian successes on the battle- fields and in international competition, rather than with the system, is cor- roborated by the San Quentin inmate M6z9, who scores low onE and F but. high on PEC, the man who does not believe in any real utopia:
"Well, Russia is undoubtedly one of the most powerful nations in the world today. They've risen to power in the last few years and made more progress than any other country. "
Our general impression concerning our subjects' attitude towards Russia may be summed up as follows. ~ the vast majority of Americans, the very existence of the Soviet Union constitutes a source of continuous uneasiness. The emergence and survival of a system that has done away with free enter- prise seems to them a threat to the basic tenets of the culture of this coun- try, to the "American way," by the mere fact that it has shattered the belief in liberal economy and liberal political organization as a "natural" eternal phenomenon which excludes any other rational form of society. On the other hand, the success of Russia, particularly her performance during the war, appeals strongly to the American belief that values can be tested by the outcome, by whether they "work"-which is a profoundly liberalistic idea by itse~The way our subjects cope with this inconsistency of evaluation differentiates between high and low scorers. To the former, the Soviet Union, incompatible with their frame of reference, should be done away with as the extreme expression of the "foreign," of what is also in a psychological sense "strange," more than anything else. Even the fact that Russia has proved successful in some respects is put into the service of this fantasy: frequently, Russian power is exaggerated, with a highly ambivalent l! ~dertone com-:_, parable to the stereotypes about "Jewish world power. " To the low scorerll Russia is rarely Ips "strange"-an attitude which has doubtless some basis in reality. But theyj try to master this sense of strangenes0in a different way,~by taking an objecnve attitude of "appreciation," coriibining understanding with detachment and a dash of superiority. When they express more out- spoken sympathies for the Soviet Union, they do so by implicitly translating Russian phenomena into ideas more familiar to Americans, often by present- ing the Russian system as something more harmless and "democratic" than it is, as a kind of pioneering venture somehow reminiscent of our own tradi- tion. Yet indices of a certain inner aloofness are rarely missing. The low scorers' pro-Russian sympathies seem to be of a somewhat indirect nature, either by rigid acceptance of an extraneous "ticket" or by identification based on theoretical thinking and moral reflections rather than on an imme-
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diate feeling that this is "my" cause. (Their appraisal of Russia frequently assumes an air of hesitant, benevolent expectancy-let us see how they will manage. This contains both an element of authentic rationality and the po- tential of their swinging against Russia under the cover of handy rationaliza- tions if pressure of public opinion should urge such a chang~
5. COMMUNISM
The complex, Russia, is closely associated with the complex of communism in the minds of our subjects. This is all ? the more the case since communism has ceased to be in the public mind an entirely new form of society, based on a complete break in the economic setup, and has become bluntly identified with the Russian government and Russian influence on interna- tional politics. Hardly any reference to the basic issue of nationalization of the means of production as a part of the communist program has been found in our sample-a negative result which is significant enough with regard to the historical dynamics to which the concept of communism has been sub- jected during the -last two decades.
Among the high scorers the only feature of the old idea that seems to have survived is the "bogy" of communism. The more the latter concept is emptied of any specific content, the more it is being transformed into a receptacle for all kinds of hostile projections, many of them on an infantile level somehow reminiscent of the presentation of evil forces in comic strips. Practically all features of "high" thinking are absorbed by this imagery. The vagueness of the notion of communism, which makes it an unknown and inscrutable quan- tity, may even contribute to the negative affects attached to it.
Among the crudest expressions of these feelings is that of our insect toxi- cologist M zo8, by whom the problem of communism is stated in terms of plain ethnocentrism:
(Why is he against communism? ) "Well, it is foreign. Socialism, o. k. -you re- spect a man who is a socialist but a communist comes from a foreign country and he has no business here. "
Fzzz, who scores high onE, middle on F, and low on PEC, is a young girl who wants to become a diplomat because she is "mad at England and Rus- sia. " Her idea of communism has an involuntarily parodistic ring:
(Political outgroups? ) "Fascists and communists. I don't like the totalitarian ideas of the fascists, the centralization of the communists. In Russia nothing is private, everything goes to one man. They have violent ways of doing things. "
To the mind of this woman, the idea of political dictatorship has turned into the bogy of a kind of economic supra-individualism, just as if Stalin claimed ownership of her typewriter.
By a similarly irrational twist another high scorer, lvf664B, an uneducated
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and unintelligent sex offender of the San Quentin group, with high scores on all scales, simply associates communism with the danger of war:
"If labor keeps getting more power, we'll be like Russia. That's what causes wars. "
The complete irrationality, not to say idiocy, of the last three examples shows what vast psychological resources fascist propaganda can rely. on when denouncing a more or less imaginary communism without taking the
,trouble to discuss any real political or economic issues. ' ~If representatives of this attitude enter upon any argumentation at all, it is, the last examples indicate, centered in the facile, though not completely spurious identification of communism and fascism which displaces hostility
against the defeated enemy upon the foe to be.
Low scorers are not immune in this respect. Thus the low-scoring student-
minister M910 is of the following opinion:
(How do you feel about R? ssia's government? ) "I think there is very little dif- ference between fascism and communism as it's practiced in Russia. The 1936 Constitution is a marvelous document. I think it's five hundred years ahead of our Constitution because it guarantees social rights instead of individual rights but when man hasn't any rights except as a member of the Communist Party. . . . I think it's capitalistic. . . . (What is the nature of your objections to Russia? ) Well, first of all, I think it was Russia that carried the ball in entering this veto power into the UNO which I think will be the death of the thing right now. . . . Russia has got the things right where she wants them. We think we're the leaders but we fool ourselves. . . . " (Subject objects strongly to deceitful diplomacy. )
High scorers who make less intellectual effort simply find communism not individualistic enough. The standard phraseology they employ contrasts nicely with the belief in spiritual independence which they profess. We quote as an example Fzo6, a high scorer of the Public Speaking Class group, a young teacher:
(Political outgroups? ) "Communists have some good ideas but I don't think too much of them. They don't give the individuals enough mind of their own. "
Sometimes the identification of communism and fascism is accompanied by paranoid twists in the Elders of Zion style. M345, our radar field engi- neer:
(What do you think of the P. A. C. ? ) "Never found any definite information on the C. I. O. . . . but . . . C. I. O. seems the agency to turn international, certainly has got all the earmarks, not because of being labor union, but just because of the way they compare. " (Subject compares communism to Hitler in Mein Kampf, telling exactly what planned to do and how, and then doing it. ) "C. I.