How some political ideologies depend on the self-induced selflessness of their members. Here is Arendt in The Origins of Totalitarianism speaking of both Nazism and Communism:
“How little the masses were driven by the famous instinct for self-preservation … . The fanaticism of members of totalitarian movements, so clearly different in quality from the greatest loyalty of members of ordinary parties, is produced by the lack of self-interest of masses who are quite prepared to sacrifice themselves.”[1]
I’m reminded of Michel Foucault’s discussion of the French Communist Party in the 1950s, as a split emerged between those willing to question the Soviet line and those who willed themselves into continued blind following:
“Being obliged to stand behind a fact that was totally beyond credibility … was part of that exercise of the ‘dissolution of the self,’ of the quest for a way to be ‘other’.”[2]
Foucault, along with Derrida, drifted from the Party, but large numbers of otherwise intelligent people performed the self-stultification necessary to remain within it.
Another former fellow-traveler from that era, Richard Crossman, argued that it was precisely Communism’s demand for spiritual and material self-sacrifice that many converts found appealing.[3]
Such comments are a clear challenge for psychological egoism, but the interesting question to me is the difference in moral psychology between those who (a) are selfless in the sense of failing to pursue their interests and thus letting themselves slip away or simply not develop, and (b) who actively deny, submerge, and even go to war against themselves in order actively to promote some other being or collectivity.
Sources: [1] Hannah Arendt, Chapter 11 of The Origins of Totalitarianism, emphasis added. An online version is here.
[2] Michel Foucault, quoted in Richard Miller, The Passion of Michel Foucault (Harvard University Press, 1993), p. 58, emphasis added. [3] Richard Crossman, editor, The God that Failed (New York and Evanston: Harper Colophon, 1963 [1949]), p. 6. The sculpture is Alberto Giacometti’s Walking Man (1960); the image is from here.
Related: Heidegger, Foucault, and Derrida, in the Philosophers, Explained series:
For those of us who aren’t philosophers or psychologists, the answer to these sorts of things, based on observation of self and others, is simple and obvious: of course psychological egoism is the silliest thing ever. Our consciousness, the thing each of us refers to as “me,” and our rational brain is mostly just along for the ride and is pretty much at the mercy and command of the lower brain which is where the real “me” resides. In many, many situations, that lower brain does things that are clearly not rational: love, sex, various acts under stress, overeating, chemical dependency, etc.
So sometimes the lower brain does stuff that looks self-preserving and sometimes self-sacrificing.
This is not an example of selflessness, it is an example of the normal human need for assistance in defining ourselves. Communism (and other totalitarian ideologies) fill the human need for self-definition that forms part of the need for religion. Ask an observant Jew why he conforms to a 4000-year-old list of bivouac regulations, and he’ll tell you (if I might paraphrase heavily) it’s because the effort constantly reminds him he’s a Jew. A Communist following the party line does so not because it’s reasonable, but because it defines him as a Communist.
Most religions are good enough to keep these defining behaviors confined to the “mostly harmless” category, whether it’s pretending that bread and grape juice are blood and flesh, prostrating oneself five times a day, wearing a beanie, etc. In this guise, they become simple ceremonies, reminders of one’s identity.
Communism and other totalitarianisms, through their enforced denial of any external check on man’s will (whether it be observed reality or the recognition of an ineffable deity–meaning a deity beyond the comprehension of the priests as well as the followers), commit the ancient sin of idolatry. And like the ancient idolaters, when the temple priests are given the absolute power to interpret even reality itself for their followers, human sacrifice is the near-inevitable result.
I like Neil’s comments because they are thoughtful and touch many iceberg tip-tops. I would argue that one major addiction to “mass movements” is a desire for civil order. During the upheavals in Weimar Germany, it was often said, “Germans don’t care if it’s Nazism or Marxism…they just want order.” Hence, the natural tendency of these movements to create momentary chaos, then unyielding “order.” I should also like to note that Marxism is international and Nazism is provincial. [I use these ideologies as a prime example] Both say, “Yield to the mass, the greater good, become a sheeplike in your obedience.” However, Marxism is founded on several lies: the overwhelming fact of history is NOT class struggle, people are not “everywhere in chains,” the needy do not come before the deserving, and, most emphatically, the Proletariat does not exist, but is created through the Marxist system as its ultimate lie. See the disintegration of the American “middle class” through policies of the Federal Reserve Bank. Let’s not forget that the Marxist Revolution was financed by a bank in Brooklyn, visited by Trotsky.
In contrast, the religious systems of Judaeo-Christian flavor offer the sheep-like believer a promise of normal values (no stealing, murder, adultery, &c) and possible life everlasting in a world where people don’t need a “dog eat dog” economic system. Treating your neighbor as you wish to be treated yourself is the ultimate form of moral and economic sense. But the individual must get his life-force from a higher power. A great order on Europe was conveyed in this manner during post-Roman times by the Church until the Enlightenment. Of course, its shortcomings stand out like cancerous pimples : the Inquisition, burning of “heretics”, wars between religious factions, denial of Scriptural information by keeping it within a priestly class [in fact, forbidden by Jesus]. The imperfections of man multiplied in human governments?
The natural egoism of humans is occluded by their need to live in society, and making room for others’ rights and possessions. When left alone, most groups adjust to a “normal” lifestyle, until the flag wavers come ranting!
“…those who actively deny, submerge, and even go to war against themselves in order actively to promote some other being or collectivity.”
This attitude seems to make more sense if you’re religious than if you’re Communist, because the religious are promised an afterlife.
I checked out the link to Chapter 11 of The Origins of Totalitarianism and was struck by this quote:
“People are threatened by Communist propaganda with missing the train of history, with remaining hopelessly behind their time, with spending their lives uselessly…”
It reminded me of something I had just heard a few days earlier:
“In the end, history is not kind to those who would deny Americans their basic economic security. Nobody remembers well those who stand in the way of America’s progress or our people. And that’s what the Affordable Care Act represents. As messy as it’s been sometimes, as contentious as it’s been sometimes, it is progress. It is making sure that we are not the only advanced country on Earth that doesn’t make sure everybody has basic health care.”
-President Barack Obama, April 1, 2014
Here’s the transcript of the full speech:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/04/01/remarks-president-affordable-care-act
It is important to recognize that anti-self doctrines succeeded on an often spectacular i.e. genocidal scale. The history of 20th century collectivism left and right was truly, to use psychologist’ Alice Miller’s term, “a war of annihilation against the self.”
The Obama quote is interesting. He and those of similar bent posit economic security and liberty as a conflicting zero-sum game – a proposition thoroughly belied by history e.g. the shambles Marxism made of every economy it was applied to.
“If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.”
― Samuel Adams