Today, we are faced with a serious challenge to the continuation of what Jacob
Bronowski called "The Ascent of Man".
'Knowledge is not a loose-leaf notebook of facts. Above all it is a responsibility
for the integrity of what we are, primarily of what we are as ethical creatures.
You cannot possibly maintain that informed integrity if you let other people
run the world for you while you yourself continue to live out of a rag bag
of morals that come from past beliefs. That is really crucial today' (1973,
There exist in the world all manner of political, religious, and social movements
which have as their main objective the imposition of their view of reality,
their particular version of the truth. Often the object is control over an ever-increasing
base of followers. They swallow large numbers of people, if their ambitions
are realized, in proselytizing campaigns designed to play on the common fears
of the masses. They observe that people are afraid, claim to know why they are
afraid, and they offer a solution designed to allay these fears. They are certain
they have the key to peace, salvation, safety, and contentment, what Lifton
calls "sacred science" (1961/1989, p. VIII).
Although the glaring example of this kind of structure is Germany during the
Nazi years, it is by no means the only one. Eastern Europe under the Soviets,
Iran under Khomeini, or Kampuchia under Pol Pot are but a few others. It is
possible to define nationless entities as well; for example the religio-politification
of fundamentalist movements such as the Shiite extremists, the Jews for Jesus,
the Black Muslims of Louis Farrakhan. Those that also bear close observation
are Jerry Falwell and former Moral Majority (or Liberty Foundation), and Pat
Robertson, the creator of the Christian Broadcasting Network and the Christiam
Some movement leaders, such as Farrakhan, Hitler, and Khomeini, define an enemy
who must be destroyed, an enemy defined as the source of primordial evil (Lester,
1985, p. 11). Others, like Stalin, Falwell and Robertson, see the evil in ideas
and life-styles and initially attempt conversion. In either case these movements
begin out of moral imperative and change once they achieve power and control.
Goodness is an early posture. Later goodness is transformed into destruction
as amply demonstrated by the Jonestown example. The struggle for power is one
thing, but its attainment and subsequent applications quite another. Initially
the identification of both problems and their solutions is oversimplified, thus
offering the follower a quick answer to the existential dilemma created by questions
such as where did I come from, why am I here, and where am I going. People are
offered oversimplified answers that dispel fear created by doubt and uncertainty
created by internal psychological conflict and external social forces. This
has become particularly dangerous in the 20th century because of sophisticated
communication technology and increasing expertise of the psycho-social sciences.
One way these forces operate is by discouraging critical thinking and moral
speculation in favor of a prepackaged imagery and doctrine designed to create
impressions rather than reveal substance, to capture people's hearts rather
than stimulate their minds. Polarization and overzealous fundamentalism, whether
derived from movements that are religious, social, or political, right or left,
radical or reactionary, psychoanalytic or humanistic, Christian, Muslim, or
Jewish, can grip us with a particular intensity. Perhaps it is not yet time
for alarm, but surely we must learn to recognize leaders with autocratic tendencies
before they attain power, before it is too late.
George Steiner asked what are "the internal relations between the structures
of the inhuman and the surrounding, contemporary matrix of high civilization...?"(Steiner,1971,
p. 29). What is our relationship as highly civilized people to autocratic structures
we see springing forth like mushrooms through an asphalt road? And what is the
attraction, the pull, to either lead or be led into these structures, indeed,
to stand and watch them form without doing anything?
"Art, intellectual pursuits, the development of the natural sciences, many
branches of scholarship flourished in close spatial, temporal proximity to
massacre and the death camps. It is the structure and meaning of that proximity
that must be looked at. Why did humanistic traditions and models of conduct
prove so fragile a barrier against political bestiality?" (Steiner, 1971,
Comparing extreme historical occurrences of this process with current examples
might give us insight into similar tendencies and thus ward off further catastrophe.
However, a word of caution about labeling others as Nazis or Fascists or Communists
is in order; these terms have often been overused and applied incorrectly. The
questions we need to consider include the following: How do leaders and followers
form a "movement" that eventually oppresses others, and what is the relationship
between them? What do the rest of the people, the bystanders and others, do
about it? What happens when resisters emerge or when people are enslaved?
English (1979) addresses the relationship between Master and Slave (Follower),
by describing a kind of psychological symbiosis formed from mutually complimentary
"defensive existential positions".
"These are first experienced by the six-month-old child at the point of burgeoning
individuation, away from the euphoric connection to mother. Such despair gets
forgotten but tends to... re-surface... at certain critical stages... classically
at the two to three year old period..." although "it threatens to surface
at other times under conditions of stress (p. 90). During the two to three
stage the basic existential position is formed and "There ensue numerous overt
and covert power struggles between the child and her principal caretakers,
following which she settles on one of the two existential positions. [I'm
OK, You're Not OK, (+,-), or I'm not OK, You are OK, (-,+).] She chooses the
one which seems the most effective to ward off despair" (p. 91-92).
These existential positions form the basis for substitute feelings and their
corresponding behaviors, a construct known in transactional analysis as rackets.
The Master, in English's construct, relates to the world using rackets underpinned
by the defensive existential position (+,-) The Follower, relates from the defensive
(-,+). English's investigation focuses on this relationship between the person
who leads and the one who joins and follows. Together they create a structure,
a movement,than can have as its aim making the world over in its own image.
It seems all one needs in order to avoid being seduced by some movement is an
ability to recognize the early moves in the symbiotic relationship, Master/Slave.
To describe this relationship is task enough, to be sure, yet one wonders about
the social medium in which this relationship is allowed to flourish. What of
those individuals outside the core relationship such as the Bystanders? There
are more of them than exist within the autocratic structure growing in their
midst. As Lillian Hellman said (1939, Act III), 'There are people who eat the
earth and eat all the people on it, like in the Bible with the locusts. And
other people who stand around and watch them eat it.'
English described the Masters and their Slaves as types, involved in a series
of third-degree transactional games where neither is capable of dealing with
underlying emotions and therefore lacks a solid sense of self. A change in English's
designation is would clear up confusion: Master/Slave to Master/Follower, this
because a distinction between Followers and Slaves is imperative. (Actually,
Master and Follower combine to enslave others.) In addition, there appears to
be another type, Bystander, and three roles: Source of Evil, Slave, and
Resister. The reason for this distinction is that types choose their positions
while roles are force people into the drama as unwilling players or out of necessity.
Type also implies, to varying degrees, a quantity of psychosocial pathology
not extant in either Source, Slave, or Resister.
Masters cook the meal, eat at will, and are typically charismatic leaders, absolutist
in nature, who claim insight into revealed truth, be it religious, political,
or social. How they identify evil is a necessary part of their ideology and
one which distinguishes between two subtypes: the Converting Master and the
Enslaving Master. Converting Masters declare that evil manifests itself in what
people believe and do. Enslaving Masters see evil as inherent in what people
are, with no hope of change. Master types typically emerge from small groups
we can call, after Canetti, identify as Crowd Crystals (1984, p. 73). They will
be discussed below. Masters are typically sadistic, using Fromm's description
as "aiming at unrestricted power over another person more or less mixed with
destructiveness" (1976, p. 221).
Followers want to be eaten and need the master in order to feel
protected and safe. The Master's identification of evil and the permission to
destroy it allow Followers to give vent to aggressive and destructive impulses
that, to some extent, exist in most people. Followers are usually recruited
from the discontented and the frightened. Some love the Master to the point
of sacrificing their lives to protect and deify him or her. Others are pragmatic
and follow not from love or belief, but from fear of scarcity, exclusion, or
death. Both are quite prone to crowd formation and are, according to Fromm,
typically masochistic in character, aiming "at dissolving themselves in an overwhelmingly
strong power in order to participate in its strength and glory" (1976, p. 221).
Bystanders watch others eat and are initially outside the development
of Master/Follower. Only some Bystanders allow themselves to be aware of the
development of Master/Follower systems, and even fewer recognize the ultimate
significance of what they are witnessing. Often Bystanders are converted and
become followers, others feign conversion in order to avoid persecution.
Source of Evil: People so-identified by the Master are seen as
poison for which there may, or may not be, an antidote. This function can be
either primordial or surrogate. A distinction is made between
people who are evil and people who are under the evil's influence. A group of
people seen as a manifestation of primordial evil are dehumanized,
that is, made into beasts or insects, and marked for destruction e.g., the Jews
and the Gypsies during WW II, the Armenians during WW I. If political, religious,
or social beliefs are identified as evil then the people who believe in them
are seen as a surrogate evil and can save themselves by converting.
For example, Communists in Germany could save themselves by joining the Nazi
Party or, in the Soviet Union,Communists could be redeemed by believing in Marx
and Lenin and renouncing their bourgeois lives. Sometimes surrogate evil
status is a transitional. For if people in this category persist in resisting
conversion, their status can be reduced to that primordial evil.
Slaves seen as an inferior breed, subhuman e.g. are dehumanized,
reduced to sub-human status and ultimately reduced to refuse, e.g. the Poles
and Slavs during WW II. or. They are used by the Master as food, to do his or
her bidding against their will. They are used in the form of forced labor, and
are trapped, concentrated, and automatized by psychological and physical brutality.
Slaves often fail to foresee the final outcome until it is too late, denial
in the face of subhumanization being so human a mechanism.
To summarize, the distinction between Slaves and Source of Evil can be illustrated
in the Nazi example: Jews and Gypsies were dehumanized and marked for
extinction, Poles, Russians, and others were subhumanized, and marked
for slave labor.
Resisters choose to blow up the restaurant. They fight to remove
the Master from power, and failing that, destroy him or her, if possible. Occasionally
they see the Master as the Source of Evil and therefore poisonous. Often Master
personalities pose as Resisters who, after they attain power, emerge as Masters
themselves. However, authentic Resisters act in order to establish a version
THE CROWD CRYSTAL
The Crowd Crystal (Canetti, 1984, p. 73) is formed by Master personalities,
and an occasional Follower. A Crystal consists of probably no more than a hundred
people in national systems and often considerably less in social and religious
ones; they can be as small as three or four people. From within the Crystal
the most talented and charismatic individual emerges as the Master of Masters.
This small entity forms the basic structure of the Crowd, writes the organizational
script, and has similar properties to actual crystals. "The environment of a
particular atom in a crystal has a certain arrangement, and if you look at the
same kind of an atom at another place farther along, you will find one whose
surroundings are exactly the same... the pattern is repeated over and over again..."(Feynman,
1960, p. 30-1). Within the Crystal each individual becomes, as much as possible,
a replication of the Chosen One. These lieutenants also love the Master because
he or she allows them to bask in reflected glory. With a resulting burst of
energy they, in turn, enhance the Master's power, thus creating the reciprocal
attachment so necessary for the formation of this particular kind of psycho-political
symbiosis. They appear and reappear before the masses in some kind of consistent
way, continually garnering more followers who are symbiotically attached to
them personally and, simultaneously, to the Master.
The Crystal itself remains small and creates a rigid hierarchy extending beyond
itself in order to duplicate the posture, psychology, and ideological stance
of the Master. For example almost everyone within Hitler's private army, the
SS, was a replica and extension of Der F hrer. Mini-f hrers existed in a carefully
arranged hierarchy from the top to close to the very bottom. The head of the
SS was Reichsf hrer Himmler. Under him were the equivalents of four-star generals,
the Oberstgruppenf hrers, below were colonels or Standartenf hrers, captains
or Haupsturmf hrers, sergeants or Oberscharf hrers; the operations officer
in a concentration camp was called the Lagerf hrer... By contrast, the regular
Germany Army, the Wehrmacht, had no such designations; a four star general was
traditionally Generaloberst, a captain, Hauptmann, a sergeant, Feldwebel.
Crowd crystals must maintain constancy in order to beget crowds, and it is important
that they project an image that can be taken in at a glance. Images of Hitler
with G ering, Goebbels, Himmler, and Hess, administering blood oaths in the
forest, or the familiar sight of the Soviet Premier and Politburo members on
the May Day Kremlin wall come to mind. Crystals of lesser degree in the U.S.A.
include Farrakhan on stage, complete with bodyguards and lieutenants, or some
version of large group awareness training or LGAT like est or one of its offshoots,
such as Transformation Technologies, the Forum (Singer, 1995 p. 42), with their
Boards strategizing how to take his word to the world. Crystal unity is more
important than size.
Perls' metaphor for all "growth disorders" is the "Blue Baby" (1969, p. 22).
Such infants cannot oxygenate their own blood properly and additional temporary,
outside support is necessary. Similarly in the Master-Follower symbiosis individuation
is not possible, even though it is implicitly promised because help is a threat
to permanent dependence. Tragedy appears inevitable.
The Master, oversimplifies complex existential questions without epistemological
consideration. That is, the nature of knowledge remains unquestioned. How the
Master knows what he or she knows is not at issue; observations and conclusions
about life are presented, more or less, as a fait accompli, with the attitude
and demeanor of an absolutely certain person. He is by English's definition,
oversure(1979, p. 90), that is, positive that his or her view of reality
is accurate and brooks no rebuttal. Persons of this type:
"relate everything to a single, central vision, one system, more or less
articulate, in terms of which they understand, think and feel-a single, universal
organizing principle in terms of which alone, all that they are and say has
significance" (Berlin, 1984, p. 22).
Since fear forms the basis for the Master's relationship with Followers and
fear also neutralizes many Bystanders, Masters present themselves to the world
as having the answer, the way, the solution to all the people's fears. This
process is highlighted in Col. Dorf's speech from the film "Man In The Glass
Booth" (Film, Shaw/Anhalt, 1974)
"Let me speak to you of our F hrer... [...] He, who answered our German
need, he who rescued us from our most terrible fears, he who made us believe
in ourselves.[...] To whom did he appeal? To the people. [...] Why? Why did
we love him? Because we were afraid, and we knew he was afraid. We did not
know what he feared, but he did, and he told us, and because we loved him,
we believed him. The Jews! [...] It was marvelous to know, finally, what frightened
us; to have it all go away so easily. And therefore to end his fear and our
fear, we had to destroy them. That was the need he satisfied in us. That is
why he became our good and wise Father. That is why we loved him. [...] While
he lived, Germany lived, and the people demanded it. We never denied him [...]
This marvelous Father, to tell us what we are afraid of and to tell us how
to get rid of our fears forever, for anytime, anywhere, anyplace. That is
whom we will love. That is for whom we will kill and in killing we would live
and be cleansed of fear!"
Initially the Master seems to be a caring, nurturing, and encouraging parent
to his or her Followers, a magical helper with an answer to all problems, a
source of safety and protection. During the early and intermediate stages of
the relationship Followers do indeed feel safe and even self-sufficient. However,
it is an illusion based on false premises. Ultimately the result is not self
sufficiency, but a relationship in which nothing is done to encourage the independence
of the "child", who is instead, kept in a needy state. To use English's description,
the relationship is "like eating devitaminzed food. This only exacerbates the
hunger all the more, like drug addiction which falsely seems to energize while
inducing starvation." (1979. p. 92)
The Master induces dependency in the Followers by reinforcing frustration, by
heightening fears and insecurities, by generalizing them to include a large
target population and then by inviting Followers to become immersed in a glorious
and powerful force greater than themselves. Hitler wrote:
"What they want is the victory of the stronger and the annihilation or the
unconditional surrender of the weaker."(1940, p. 469)
He also said:
"Like a woman... who will submit to the strong man rather than dominate the
weakling, thus the masses love the ruler rather than the suppliant, and inwardly
they are far more satisfied by a doctrine that tolerates no rival than by
the grant of liberal freedom.; they often feel at a loss what to do with it,
and even easily feel themselves deserted. They neither realize the impudence
with which they are spiritually terrorized, nor the outrageous curtailment
of their human liberties for in no way does the delusion of this doctrine
dawn on them." (1940, p. 56)
Without Followers there is no power and without power there is no change and
therefore no hope, a feeling always directed towards a utopian or demi-utopian,
future either of this earth or in eternity. As children are afraid, so too,
are adults, and they are, therefore, malleable and easily manipulated into service
for the cause. Usually Masters, reactionary or radical, vilify the present and
rail against the moderates and conservatives who would preserve it, or against
the liberals who would change it. They attempt to either convert these outsiders
or, failing that, define them as contributing to the problems.
Types of Masters and the Identification of Evil
A major factor in allaying people's fears is the identification of an enemy,
either human or ideological, although not just any one will do. A source that
is somehow related to the idea of evil must be found that helps create the special
feeling necessary for the formation of a closed crowd of Followers. Canetti
"The closed crowd renounces growth and puts the stress on permanence. The first
thing to be noticed about it is that it has a boundary... The boundary prevents
disorderly increase, but it also makes it more difficult for the crowd to disperse
and so postpones its dissolution." (1984, p. 17)
The Enslaving Master [Fig. 1] defines a specific group of people as the source
of primordial evil. This causes rapid formation of the "Baiting Crowd" which:
"...forms with reference to a quickly attainable goal. The goal is known
and clearly marked, and is also near. This crowd is out for killing and it
knows whom it wants to kill... One important reason for the rapid growth...
is that there is no risk involved... because the crowd have immense superiority
on their side... A murder shared with many others, which is not only safe
and permitted, but indeed recommended, is irresistible to the great majority
of men. (Canetti, 1984, p. 49)
Black Muslim Minister Louis Farrakhan's October 1985 rally in Madison Square
Garden serves as a particularly salient example of how the Ideological Enslaving
Master accomplishes identification of a human source of evil. He presented himself
as the voice of holy truth whom the Jews are determined to silence.
'Somebody has to come to separate God from Satan, master and slave, oppressor
and oppressed, so they can see each other and then go to war to see who is
going to rule...' Who are those who support me? The righteous! You have been
deprived of justice, and if God sends a deliverer, will the oppressor love
him?' "he asked his audience."
'No!' "the crowd thundered."
'Are the Jews who are angry with me righteous people?'
'Jesus had controversy with the Jews. Farrakhan has a controversy with the
Jews. Jesus was hated by Jews. Farrakhan is hated by Jews. Jesus was scourged
by Jews in their temple. Farrakhan is scourged by Jews in their synagogues.
Did Jesus care for the oppressed?'
(...and later he shouted)
'Who were the enemies of Jesus?'
'Jews, Jews, Jews' "the crowd roared." (Lester, 1985, p. 12)
For Kahane in Israel, this identified evil was Arabs; for Khomeini it was Western
civilization; for Hitler and Louis Farrakhan, the Jews. Identifying the evil
group or object is necessary for the Enslaving Master because it cements his
or her relationship the Followers. In the beginning it even helps to neutralize
Bystanders by creating the belief that it is others who are in danger. This
was described poignantly in a statement attributed to Martin Niemoeller, a German
theologian who wound up in a concentration camp:
"In Germany they came first for the communists, and I didn't speak up because
I wasn't a communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because
I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak
up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics and
I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by
that time there was no one left to speak up." (Bartlett's, 1980, p. 824)
Ideological Converting Masters need a source of evil as well, but in a different
sense. They don't necessarily focus on a particular group, but on an idea or
concept, such as a political philosophy or a historical tradition. For Falwell,
Robertson, and other ministers of the Christian right wing, it is secular humanism
(Lester, 1985, p. 11); for the Communists, it is bourgeois Capitalism and Fascism.
A Converting Master attempts to change the minds of those who do not agree with
his or her view of the world. Robertson and Lenin, in this sense, are much different
than Farrakhan and Hitler. The latter never accept into their midst, nor forgive,
the source of evil because they see it as primordial, i.e., fundamental, primitive
and irrevocable, thus requiring annihilation. The former seek merely a commonplace
evil, one that is changeable. If one gives up evil ways and believes as they
do, one can be accepted into the fold. The evil is temporal rather than permanent,
convertible rather than irrevocable, surrogate rather than primordial.
In either case a marriage is made between Masters and Followers and before looking
more closely at them, additional criteria are needed to distinguish between
various autocratic systems, between the dictatorship of Ideological Masters
and certain others. One could postulate a principle of the required scapegoat,
in order to identify various forms, such as between systems like Somoza and
Ortega in Nicaragua, between Czar Nicholas and Lenin, or Batista and Castro.
Dictators like Somoza, the Czar, and Batista are despots perpetuating the interests
of a small, privileged few. They possess no vision of the world as a better
place. They do not believe in History with a capital H. In contrast, those like
Ortega, Lenin, Castro, also Hitler, The Rev James Jones and Khomeini, create
or adhere to a rigidly defined ideology, either complete and comprehensive as
with Marxist-Leninism or incomplete like Hitler's or Farrakhan's. These ideologies
are utopian in nature, promising heavenly or earthly salvation through, among
other things, the elimination of the source of evil. It is the quick and easy
identification of this evil, ideologically, if only incompletely, justified,
and the offering of a solution which engenders the love between Master and Follower,
so needed by both to create and sustain symbiosis. Unlike Ideological Masters,
despotic rulers do not need love from their followers, just fear, loyalty, and
obedience. These differences are necessary for differentiating Despotic dictators
and Ideological Masters, regardless of whether the latter are Enslaving or Converting.
Although both despots and ideologues use autocratic dictatorship as the basis
of their power, Ideological Masters must have a special mission. For example
Hitler fashioned himself the genius sent to the German people and Farrakhan
believes he is the only one who can save Black America, indeed his ritual and
rhetorical allusions even imply a holy status. Likewise fundamentalist Christianity
or Islam, and revolutionary Communism are seen by Masters and Followers as the
only right paths. Erik Hoffer named this process deification (1951, p. 138)
and it can apparently be either secular or religious. For example, from the
same Farrakhan Madison Square Garden speech:
"They called him the Devil. They call me the devil. When Jesus raised Lazarus
from the dead and fed the 5000 [the miracle of loaves and fishes], it was
then that the authorities began to attack him. I am resurrecting the minds
of black people from the dead, and they attack Farrakhan." (Lester, p. 12)
Existential positions ,Complementary roles, and Crowd formation
Returning for a closer look at the marriage between Masters and Followers, the
Master has to maintain the status of a powerful deity who can produce what both
perceive as utopia or, if not that, at least have the vision to enhance the
quality of Followers' lives. As I said before, neither really grows within the
marriage. They each say, "I'm OK, You're OK", but there are hidden conditions:
that the Followers continue to see the Master as more OK, and that the Followers
obey the Masters every command. Neither really change their original life positions.
Rather, they repress and act them out, symbolically at first and later more
overtly. This is accomplished by extruding the not OK elements and projecting
them onto the source of evil [Fig. 1]. The ostensibly new positions now appear
as "I'm OK, You're OK, THEY Are Not OK". Before this the crowd do not exist
as such, but now they achieve the illusion of true equality through, the "crowd
discharge" and through "true conversion": "The only way for equality within
the group to continue, thus insuring its life, is through a true `conversion'
where men give up their old associations and form new ones. These crowds are
usually limited in number and are rigidly controlled by an arbitrary set of
rules."(Canetti, 1984, p. 17, p. 18).
The effort then, is to forcibly repress the "Not OK" feelings while simultaneously
creating the illusion of being rid of them. It is at this moment that the crowd
forms; when I and You become WE. "It is for the sake of this blessed moment,
when no-one is greater or better than another, that people become a crowd."
(Canetti, 1984, p. 18)
And that this moment requires extrusion of unwanted feelings, a meaningful object
is found which typifies the inner, hidden sense of self, preferably one with
historical antecedents. The more the crowd oppress the scapegoat by making him
a reflection of its own sense of weakness, the stronger it feels. In this respect,
Farrakhan's remarks at the Garden rally are particularly illustrative.
"I am your last chance, too, Jews. (The audience laughed loudly and long).
The scriptures charge your people with killing the prophets of God. (Farrakhan
contended that God had not made the Jewish people pay for such deeds. However
if something happens to him, then God will make the Jews pay for all the prophets
killed from biblical times to the present.) You cannot say `never again' to
God because when God puts you in the oven "never again" don't mean a thing.
If you fool with me, you court death itself. I will not run from you; I will
run to you." (Lester, 1985, p. 12)
Another important aspect of Master/Follower complementarity is that the Master
is helpful/bossy in juxtaposition to the Follower's helpless/rebellious (English,
1979, p. 92). In the beginning the Master presents an image of wanting good
for the people and knowing how to perform acts which will make their lives better.
Initially the Master makes good on the promise to rescue the people from what
has become a mass helpless hysteria, thus gaining their unabashed loyalty. The
Berlin journalist Sebastian Haffner describes this phenomenon in Hitler's Germany:
"During the first six years of his twelve-year reign Hitler astonished friends
and enemies alike with a series of achievements which hardly anyone would
have thought him capable... It is these achievements which at the time confused
and inwardly disarmed his opponents [who were] in 1933 still a majority of
Germans - and which to this day gives him a certain secret prestige among
sections of the older generation." (1979, p. 25)
By 1938 (WW II started in Sept. 1939) the majority of the German people had
been won over by his achievements. They were either Followers or neutralized
Bystanders. He had come through on the promises he bragged about in his April
28, 1939 speech:
"I overcame chaos in Germany, restored order, enormously raised production
in all fields of our national economy... I succeeded in completely resettling
in useful production those seven million unemployed who so touched our hearts...
I have accomplished all of this... as one who 21 years ago was still an unknown
worker and soldier of my people, by my own efforts." (Haffner, 1979, p. 32-33)
Haffner speculates: "Had he created everything by his own efforts? Of course
he had had helpers and collaborators, but could one seriously maintain that
everything would have turned out the same without him? Could one therefore still
reject Hitler without rejecting all that he had accomplished, and, set against
those achievements, were not his unpleasant traits and misdeeds merely blemishes?"
This description of rescuing and its seductive effects bestows special status
on a person who eventually reduces everyone but a select few to the status of
children. How else could Hitler be the only one to achieve such marvels? It
assumes an inherent magical or devine power to make all the bad go away, to
make everything alright. For this to occur, helpless Followers must exhibit
complementary passive behaviors. A false sense of success is created, and the
underlying implications of actions such as the relinquishing of individual freedoms
are ignored. Only later will the toll be realized. The message is in the medium,
and yet it is ignored in favor of more immediate safety.
Eventually the Master becomes riddled with hubris, arrogance fed by initial
successes, and underlying hostility and need to control emerge. One might recall
Hitler's famous rages, those fits of pique and pouting, storming and screaming
at his subordinates that so typified later years of his regime. This behavior
is complemented by either conscious or unconscious rebellion by the Followers
manifested in either covert or overt behavior, in failed plans and even assassination
Followers are unsure to the Master's oversure, and therefore initially manifest
a depressed "what's the use" attitude sprinkled with anxiety; this in contrast
to the Master's oversure position of false hope. They seek quick answers and
simple solutions, thus complementing the Master's magical helper stance. They
are necessarily, Adapted Child to the Master's Controlling Parent, and social-level
Victim/ psychological-level Rebel to his complementary Rescuer/Persecutor. They
also exhibit a gullibility in contrast to the Master's exploitative perception
and, craving acceptance and belonging, are admiring, even adoring, in complement
to the Master's exhibitionism.
The Master manifests a sense of mission, demanding absolute obedience through
ideological indoctrination, and the Follower compliments with devotion. The
Master devours and feeds while the Follower craves belonging and incorporation
into a larger whole, in order to erase completely the experience of individual
separateness. (Hoffer, 1951, p. 62) The Master demands self sacrifice, and the
Followers will endure many hardships in order to maintain a safe and secure
symbiosis. (English, 1979, p. 93) The Master creates drama through ritual and
the astute application of ceremony, thus inducing the Followers' willingness
to die. Often this is accomplished by creating a theater of conflict in which
the Followers accept a specific role on stage, thereby enhancing identification
with the whole.
In this process the Master promotes an esthetic ideal, no matter how mundane,
that denies the reality of present and past values for the promise of the future.
Followers are all too ready to accept any ideal that reinforces their contempt
for the present and creates hope for the future. By corrupting the reality of
the present moment for his or her own ends, the Master invokes a kind of historical
myth and proposes a view that reveals the true nature of history, when in fact
this is an impossible claim. Since we are all interacting in the moment and
influencing each other in countless ways, it is impossible for anyone to claim
absolute knowledge of reality, much less to claim the power to control it (Chiaromonte,
1985, p. 25): in transactional terms, History as Controlling Parent. Even if
the voyage progresses, and temporary gains are achieved, the goal is illusory,
impossible to achieve within the context of a third degree behaviors based on
Under an Ideological Dictatorship, Followers become victims of the structure
of power and are turned into obedient instruments of the Master just above in
the pecking order. All have a tendency to relate to those above from (-,+) and
to those below from (+,-). The picture of the world is reduced to the blind
execution of orders. Good is only that which agrees with the authority-enforced
structure. Successful ideological indoctrination automatizes the total apparatus
of power, top to bottom, and anything that opposes it must be destroyed.(Kepinski,
1972, p. 246)
The largest group in the entire system is the Bystanders. Many of them become
Followers for pragmatic reasons, manifesting no "true belief". Some of them
opportunistically join the movement for personal advancement; they are often
in the (+,-) life position, although they do not qualify as Masters. Others
succumb to the pressure of being outside the current successful trend and join
the Followers from an (-,+) position. They are afraid and allow themselves to
be seduced by the illusion of safety. They join the movement and experience
it as love.
The largest group of Bystanders are passive and tacitly give their permission
by saying and doing nothing. It seems the only thing to do at the time. They
continue to remain outside, do not become Followers because of their of terror,
and are reactive. They tailor their actions to avoid being noticed. Curiously,
when despotic rulers are overthrown, many people still crave this anonymity,
thereby facilitating the rise of still another Master. For this reason, many
despotic dictators are replaced by other dictators, even though of a different
ideology. Passive Bystanders allow themselves to be defined as part of the Crowd,
for example the "Aryan Peoples". Their life positions seem to vary considerably,
but when they relate to the Master and his or her Followers it is from either
(+,-) or (-,+). Their contribution to crowd motion is considerable, and their
participation passive and directed by fear of survival. Actually they have more
power than they realize. For example, public protest was so strong in Germany
in 1939 that Hitler was forced to close the "Euthanasia" program, a secret project
to gas German citizens such as the mentally retarded, homosexuals, and the incurably
insane, who were labeled "defective".
An important aspect of keeping silent Bystanders passive is the selective use
of terror, either physical and psychological as with Hitler, Khomeini, and Stalin,
or exclusively psychological (threatening exclusion and alienation) as with
some fundamentalist religionists. This has the effect of neutralizing most Bystanders
who begin to feel like Mahmud Azari in Ryszard Kapuscinski's Shah:
"From then on I felt the fear. It would hit me at the most unexpected moments.
I was ashamed, but I couldn't deal with it. It began to disturb me profoundly.
I thought with horror that by carrying that fear inside me I'd voluntarily
become part of a system founded on fear. A terrible, yet indissoluble, relationship,
a sort of pathological symbiosis, had established itself between me and the
dictator." (1982, p. 94-95)
Resisters refuse to accept the symbiosis. Some are in a (+,+) life position
but are forced through circumstance to take a temporary (+,-) position and to
fight to overthrow the Master out of a sense of justice and freedom. Other resisters
may be (+,-) in their basic position and seek revenge and power. Often it is
not possible to distinguish between these two groups until after they have overthrown
the ruler, after which time it is quite clear who seeks justice and who wants
revenge and power. Resisters can come from any level, even from the Crowd Crystal.
Slaves are sought by the Master as a work force and as a symbol of strength
(the more slaves he has, the stronger he feels). When people are forced into
servitude they manifest (-,-). They are usually caught up in events beyond their
immediate control and cannot improve their condition. Usually the slave, if
previously free, experiences bondage as a nightmare.
"The basic features of a nightmare may be defined as: weirdness, helplessness,
mortal danger and automatization. These were also the four features predominant
in concentration camps." (Kepinski, 1972, p. 246)
One must rise above the subhumanizing effects of forced labor and retain a semblance
of moral dignity or there is little hope of survival. As Sterkowicz wrote, "It
is easy to be noble in favorable conditions, but much more difficult in articulo
mortis."( in Kepinski, 1972, p. 251) What become important are food and staying
alive or, as the Polish psychiatrist Kepinski noted, "eating and death." (1972,
He went on to say:
"...if one was to survive it was necessary, to some extent at least, to be
able to get away from the overpowering law of survival at all costs. Those
who completely succumbed to this law lost their human dignity and often with
that, all chances to survive. In order to survive in camp the most essential
human features were an ability to internally oppose everything that was going
on...with the help and friendship of fellow prisoners." (Kepinski, 1972, p.
The ever present fight for survival, our most primary biological urge, creates
a paradoxical situation which turns slaves into automatons, and it is precisely
this automatization that is responsible for their annihilation. Life is reduced
to the first biological law - "win or be defeated' and this contributes to the
brutalization of slave life, turning it into nothing more than a fight for survival.
Curiously, persecuted and persecutor are drawn into the devilish machine of
destruction: the Master and Followers, or surrogate Masters, because of their
ideological grandiosity, and the Slaves because they become crushed by the process.
Both adopt "win or be defeated" as their principal motto. The position is forced
by the existing biological danger on one side and a fictitious ideological one
on the other. One side cannot be human because automation of their life reduces
everything to a biological fight for survival, and the other because the automatism
of enforced and accepted ideology renders it impossible (Kepinski, 1972, p.
255-256). Many slaves eventually decide to give up life rather than become what
is required for survival. Still others are able to maintain the inner strength
necessary to prevail.
Additional differentiation between the types and roles can be made by combining
the transactional analysis concept of relative "OK'ness" with the action of
choice and then by relating these to who is seen as a Source of Salvation and
who as a Source of Misfortune. Masters and Followers choose their positions
actively and are seen as relatively OK, with the Master always more OK than
the OK followers. Bystanders are OK because they present no real or imagined
threat. Slaves are forced into the Not OK position by the Followers and the
Master, and are necessarily regarded as subhuman; they do not choose this position.
The most heavily attributed position, The Source of Evil, are regarded as not
even human and are therefore the most Not OK. The Master sees himself or herself
as a source of salvation, and the Followers agree. Both Master and Followers
see the Slaves and the Source of Evil as the reason for their misfortune. Because
they need at least someone below them, the potential Slaves also often attribute
their misfortune to the Source of Evil.
In conclusion, any disciplined explanation of these forces must rely on past
examples which reveal but a few frozen moments in time. The actual methods and
systems used to comprehend past events, what is seen in them, and what is made
of that, are subtle devices, superficial and desperate, as Isaiah Berlin said,
which I employ in order to conceal the chaos from myself.
We are incapable of grasping the enormous totality of even one event. The difficulty
of historical analysis contradicts our commonly held view that we are in control
of our destiny, that we can change ourselves and that given this transformation
we can then go out and change the world. Forces abound that change the fate
of nations as well as people: rain preventing Napoleon from using his mobile
artillery at Waterloo; the arrival of winter earlier than in a hundred years
before Hitler's forces at Moscow; a natural disaster; an economic depression;
a match carelessly thrown in a haystack; a shift in the wind; a baby's cry.
Many varied is chance, the fickle mover of people and nations. So it might be
that fate, in this sense, brings out the best and the worst. Given frightful
circumstances, are we capable of horrendous acts? Could Hitler have come to
power without the Great Depression of 1929? Could Khomeini have risen without
the the Shah and his terrible secret police, Savac? Would Louis Farrakhan continue
to have voice in a racially equal America?
Third degree Masters like these, emerge from the circumstances in which they
live. Given terrible conditions, terrible Masters can seize the moment, seduce
a desperate and frightened people, and commit terrible acts. In milder times
Masters are milder, and the need for a human source of evil is less likely to
surface. Masters and their Followers turn instead to more abstract evil and
to those who simply do not agree with them. In either case, the need to understand
these men and women is great, and our philosophies, faith, unifying theories
and science, meager. Nevertheless, it is important, whether thinking about nations
or our own organization, to understand that the only thing worse than not thinking
about these issues is not thinking about them enough.
Berlin, I. (1984). The Hedgehog and the fox. Russian thinkers. New York:
Bronowski, J. (1973). The ascent of man. Boston: Little, Brown & Co.
Canetti, E. (1984). Crowds and power. New York: Farrar Straus Giroux.
Chiaromonte, N. (1985). The paradox of history. Philadelphia: University
of Pennsylvania Press.
English, F. (1979). Talk... on receiving the Eric Berne memorial scientific
award. Transactional Analysis Journal, 9, 90-97.
Feynman, R. (1964). The Feynman lectures on physics (Vol. 2). Menlo Park:
Frank, J. (1985). Forward. In Chiaromante, Paradox of history (pp. xi-xvii).
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Fromm, E. (1976). Escape from freedom. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
Haffner, S. (1979). The meaning of hitler. New York: Macmillan.
Hellman, L. (1939). The little foxes. (Act III). In E. M. Beck, (Ed.),
Familiar quotations John Bartlett (15th ed.), (p. 863). Boston: LIttle,
Brown & Co.
Hitler, A. (1940). Mein Kampf, New York: Reynal & Hitchcock.
Hoffer, E. (1951). The true believer. New York: Harper and Row.
Kapuscinski, R. (1982). Shah of shahs. New York: Vintage Books.
Kepinski, A. (1972). A nightmare. Przeglad Lekarski Auschwitz. Warsaw:
International Auschwitz Committee.
Lester, J. (1985, October 28). The time has come; Farrakhan in the flesh. New
Lifton, R. J. (1989). Thought reform and the psychology of totalism: A study
of brainwashing in communist China (rev. ed.). Chapel Hill: The University
of North Carolina Press. (Original work published 1961).
Niemoeller, M. (attributed quotation). In E. M. Beck, (Ed.), Familiar quotations
John Bartlett (15th ed.), (p. 824). Boston: Little, Brown & Co.
Perls, F. (1969). Gestalt therapy verbatim. Lafayette, CA: Real People
Shaw, R. (original play), Anhalt, E. (screenplay). (1974).The man in the
Steiner, G. (1971). In bluebeard's castle. New Haven: Yale University