Contents of No. 12

February 1962

Who are the anarchists? The anarchist personality The Freedom readership survey Who will be the anarchists? Reflections on mass media Cover by

Tony Gibson

Tristram Shandy

Martin Small

Rufus Segar

33 35 50 57 60

Other issues of ANARCHY:

No. 1. Alex Comfort on Sex-and-Violence, Nicolas Walter on the New Wave, and articles on education, opportunity, and Galbraith. No. 2. A symposium on Workers' Control,

No. 3. What does anarchism mean today?, and articles on Africa, the 'Long Revolution* and exceptional children.

No. 4. George Molnar on conflicting strains in anarchism, Colin Ward on the breakdown of institutions.

No. 5. A symposium on the Spanish Revolution of 1936.

No. 6. Anarchy and Cinema: articles on Vigo, Bunuel and Flaherty. Two experimental film-makers discuss their work.

No. 7. A symposium on Adventure Playgrounds. No. 8. Anarchists and Fabians, Kenneth Maddock on action anthropology, Reg Wright on erosion inside capitalism, Nicolas Walter on Orwell. No. 9. A symposium on Prison.

10. Alan Sillitoe's Key to the Door, Colin Maclnnes on crime,

stus John on Utopia, Committee of 100 seminar on industry and

rs* control. The World of Paul Goodman, and articles on education by Paul

man, Harold Drasdo and A. S. Neill.

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33

Every class of society has furnished recruits to the anarchist cause. Men of learning, peasants, labourers, journalists, architects, shop assistants, clerks, working-men, men of letters, business men, professors, manufacturers, barristers, persons of means, artisans, engineers, and Government employees of every discription, are to be found in the ranks of the party.

When men of the most divergent origin, born in different regions of the globe, belonging to different classes of society, brought up in different religions, and exercising different professions, unite in accepting the same theories, it is to be expected that they will have many mental qualities in common, the result of a similar brain formation; for it should be unnecessary to prove that the partisans of any particular doctrine offer kindred psychological characteristics.

—A. HAMON: "The Psychology of the Anarchist", 1894.

Who are

the anarchists ?

The first attempt to answer this question is an allegedly scientific fashion was made by the founder of modern criminology Cesare Lombroso who spent years looking for the common characteristics or stigmata of the "criminal type". He was richly rewarded when he examined 100 anarchists arrested in Turin on May Day, 1890, for he found that "34 per cent possessed the criminal type of face, as compared with 43 per cent among ordinary criminals of the prison at Turin." From studying photographs of Chicago anarchists, he found 40 per cent to be of the criminal type, "seventeen out of forty-three having disagreeable peculiarities of the face". He published his findings in his book Gli Anarchici, having discovered that "along with degenerate peculiarities of physique the anarchist is still further accursed with mental traits, characteristics common to criminals and to the insane, and possessing these traits by heredity."

Lombroso's idea of the existence of a criminal type has long since been abandoned by criminologists, though it still lives in folk-lore, to bedevil all attempts to change society's attitude to its deviant members. For all we know, perhaps his stereotype of the anarchist is still current too. A few years after his enquiry a French sociological writer, A. Hamon, who, though he had anarchist sympathies, claimed to write "from a purely scientific standpoint, and without party bias", sought in his study of The Psychology of the Anarchist to find "the causes which predispose the individual to accept the anarchist doctrine.''

His method was to put to a number of anarchists the question "How and why are you an anarchist?" and to sort out the answers, noting the age, education and occupation of the respondents, according to the "mental characteristics" they were alleged to reveal. He concluded that

The typical anarchist may be described as a man imbued with the spirit of revolt in one or several of its phases (the spirit of combativeness, of inquiry, of criticism, of innovation), endowed with a deep love of liberty, and with a strong leaning to individualism, and possessed of an insatiable curiosity and a keen desire to acquire knowledge. These mental qualities are accompanied by a warm affection for his fellow creatures, a highly developed moral sensibility, a profound sense of justice, a sense of logic, and strong combative tendencies.

This flattering testimonial is in sharp contrast with the next "scientific" appraisal of the anarchists, that of Kolnoi, who, in Psychoanalysis and Sociology made a highly speculative application of Freudian concepts to anarchism, which he explained in terms of regression to infantile emotional states. A more recent Freudian thinker, Alix Strachey, in The Unconscious Motives of War, takes the view that it is other people's regression which makes "the establishment of an anarchical society" impossible, because each individual needs the regressive group mentality which the State evokes in him, because it allays his "anxiety and sense of guilt by giving him back an omnipotent, protesting father."

Yet another entertaining generalisation about the nature of anarchists comes from Sir Alexander Gray who declares that "Anarchists are a race of highly intelligent and imaginative children, who nevertheless can scarcely be trusted to look after themselves outside the nursery pen."

It is something of an anti-climax to turn from speculation dressed up as science, to the two investigations reported in this issue of Anarchy. The first is a study, using the methods of experimental psychology, of the personality of anarchists. The second is a survey, by means of a postal questionnaire, of the readership of an anarchist newspaper. The limitations of both methods are described in the reports. Readers may be disappointed that nothing more exciting was established, but they can be assured that, within the limitations referred to (in particular the fact that both sample populations are self-selected minorities), these two investigations, unlike their precursors, provide facts.

What neither investigation tells us of course, is the answer to the question "Who were the anarchists?"—we do not learn whether the anarchists of the past had the same psychological or social characteristics as those of today. Nor have we any grounds for drawing any conclusions about the anarchists in other countries.

In a concluding article we return to frank speculation with some opinions on the question "Who will be the anarchists?"

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The anarchist personality

TONY GIBSON

The following is an account of the present writer's attempt to conduct an investigation into the personality of anarchists. Some people, including a number of anarchists, may question the value and the validity of such an enterprise. Some will maintain that as anarchism is a system of ideas, the particular personality characteristics of people holding these ideas, are irrelevant. How one sees the matter depends upon one's view of the nature of social and political bliefs. Many people are conscious of the highly personal and emotional factors which underlies the belief-systems of their political opponents, but assume that their own political beliefs are entirely the result of rational thinking. The more orthodox the belief, the greater is the temptation to be misled by its veneer of rationality,

William James, in his shrewd lectures on Pragmatism, puts forward the somewhat unpopular view that all philosophical standpoints are a reflection of individual differences in temperament. He writes:

Of whatever temperament a professional philosopher is, he tries, when philosophizing, to sink the fact of his temperament. Temperament is no conventionally recognised reason, so he urges impersonal reasons only for his conclusions. Yet his temperament really gives him a stronger bias than any of his more strictly objective premises. It loads the evidence for him one way or the other. (James 1907).

The fact that my choice of a population for study was an anarchist one actually makes the project more generally acceptable, for the fact that anarchism is generally regarded as a "crank" theory gives rise to the idea that anarchists themselves must have a specially strange sort of personality. Actually, what is important is not the rationality or irrationality of anarchism, but the fact that anarchists are a very small minority group, and therefore that there may be a distinctly recognisable and definite anarchist type. In the same way it was possible to study some of the personality characteristics of fascists and communists, as has been described by Eysenck (1954). An attempt to study the personality characteristics of, say, conservatives which would be much less practicable because of the enormous variance between individuals who regard themselves as conservatives. This do not imply that conservatism is any less the outcome of temperamental factors interacting with the individual's life situation, than any other political and social belief.

TONY GIBSON is a research psychologist who has been a contributor to Freedom for many years.

The meaning of psychology

It is essential that lay people should have some concept of the meaning of a psychological investigation before they can evaluate the results of one. Psychology is a very young science, and may be compared in its present state of development to that of physical medicine, say, in the time of Hippocrates. Its systems of classification are preliminary, its powers of prediction limited and its theoretical frameworks are multifarious and contradictory. Unfortunately there is quite a lot of money to be made out of some versions of psychology, particularly in the advertising racket, and every sort of quackery exists for the sake of short-term profit, alongside genuine research.

It should be remembered that psychology is the study of behaviour. Behaviour is studied and categorized in order that workable theories may be evolved. The essence of a good theory is its predictive power* and in this particular psychology does not differ from any other scientific discipline. When descriptive labels are given to an individual, he is being compared with a defined population: thus if I describe a boy of ten years old as "having a high verbal intelligence", I am predicting that he will show a performance on verbally biassed tasks superior to that of the majority of children of his age. The "defined population" is that of children of his own age, for intellectual capacity increases with age up to adulthood.

Such an elementary example as the above is necessary, for before launching upon my description of the investigation and its results, I am concerned to try to show what psychology is—and what it is not. The honest psychologist does not make up a lot of curious-sounding entities and then attach them to people; rather he seeks for the very simplest way in which people can be described, consistent with predictive efficiency. The fact that psychological techniques and descriptive language sound discouragingly complex to the layman is simply due to the fact that any specialism dealing with complex phenomena does become heavy going for those unacquainted with the specialism. It is intended that this write-up shall be entirely comprehensible to any layman intelligent enough to read and appreciate Anarchy. Those who are not satisfied with a mere 8,000 words of description of this investigation may like to know that most of it has been written up in very great detail, along with other material, and is available to those who have the patience, qualifications and inclination to read it.

How does one test personality?

There are hundreds of published personality tests, and thousands of other tests in use in research centres, which are not in a publishable form. If it is desired to investigate the personality of a group of people one can of course give them a mixed bag of any tests that come to hand, and then ponder over the results, but such a procedure is scarcely scientific. By analogy, a chemist could set out in investigate an unknown substance by treating it with whatever chemical reagents stood on the nearest shelf. A better procedure is first to ask a number of questions about the subject of investigation, and then to seek answers

37

to these specific questions.

One of the obvious questions to be asked about the anarchist group was, "Do they hold such unusual opinions because they are rather stupid people?" Such a question indicated the use of an intelligence test. Another question presented itself: "Are anarchists extremely neurotic, or are they mentally ill in other ways, as has been suggested in some quarters?" This indicated the use of tests sensitive to neurotic-ism and to mental illneste of more specific kinds. But this line of approach, although superior to that of applying a rag-bag of tests, would have the obvious disadvantage of elaborating too many questions.

No one can approach a research problem in vacuuo. The questions which are to be asked must spring from some provisional theoretical framework. Some work on political and social opinion in relation to personality has already been done by Adorno and his co-workers in California, and Eysenck and his associates in London. The work of Eysenck et ah, as described in The Psychology of Politics may be familiar to a number of the readers of Anarchy; if so they will no doubt have come up against the problem of not being able to place anarchists as a group on the graphs where conservatives, liberals, labourites, communists and fascists are clearly positionable. The explanation of this fact will have occurred to many; that these plots are two-dimensional, being based on a tough-tender-mindedness axis and the conservative-radical axis, and to accommodate anarchists a third dimension of anti-authoritarianism would have to be added. Anti-authoritarianism can be considered as a dimension at right-angles both to tendermindedness and to radicalism.

To get an adequate theoretical framework upon which to start this research, the present writer had to go back to the philosophical basis of William James, to whom indeed Eysenck also was indebted for the concept of tendermindedness. Long acquaintance with anarchists had suggested to me that the essential characteristic of anarchists, in addition to their anti-authoritarianism, was their toughmindedness. In fact I would say that a truly toughminded person becomes anti-authoritarian in present-day society. Toughminded communists, fascists or military types nevertheless display a vein of purest sentimentality which makes them suckers for brain-washing or self-immolation on the altar of authority. William James suggested that toughminded people are those who are moved by facts rather than by principles, who are sceptical rather than dogmatic and who are content to see the universe in pluralistic terms rather than insisting upon monism. When seeking to give an example of the toughminded philosophy, James quotes at length from an American anarchist, Morrison Swift. In his own attempt to make sense out of both the toughminded and the tenderminded philosophy through the mediation of pragmatism, James himself admits where his personal sympathies lie: "Mr. Swift's anarchism goes a little farther than mine does, but I confess that I sympathise a good deal, and some of you I know will sympathise heartily with his dissatisfaction with the idealistic optimisms now in vogue." (James, ibid).

Later in the same book James pointed out that the person who could tolerate the truly pluralistic concept of the universe was typically the anarchist.

Now it is a comparatively simple matter to find out what anarchists believe; one simply has to ask them, or indeed, read their publications. It is another matter to establish what anarchists are by nature. For although James was indulging in more or less armchair theorizing about people, he held very firmly to the idea that people's beliefs and general theoretical orientation were a reflection of their basis personalities. This is the point at the base of all his discussion about the different types of universe we inhabit. For as the only universe which each and every one of us ever experiences' is that which exists in our own individual perception of it, so we all inhabit slightly different universes. The hard-headed empiricist inhabits a universe in which effect follows cause; the religious mystic inhabits a universe in which almost anything is rather more than likely to happen as the result of prayer. The chronically suspicious person inhabits a universe in which all men are crooks and twisters; the sunny optimist lives in a universe which is full of promise. Whether any universe at all can be said to exist other than the multifarious universes which we perceive, is a philosophical chestnut which is not entirely pertinent here.

The personal universe which a man inhabits is not, of course, completely stable. If he gets drunk his universe alters. Drugs like mescaline and lysergic acid are even more powerful modifiers than alcohol. Again, the influence of other people will modify his universe. Spectacular and semi-permanent changes may be brought about by "brain-washing", and spectacular temporary changes may be effected by hypnosis. To a lesser degree, all our universes are being modified the whole time by our interaction with other people. We are all suggestible to some degree.

Here I must make the necessary distinction between "suggestibility" and "gullibility", a distinction which is most important for the appreciation of this research. If an actor moves me by his portrayal of Hamlet, he acts upon my suggestibility; I may emphasise strongly with the emotions he appears to experience, and may react even to the point of tears, as though I were an onlooker at the royal court of Denmark. Yet I would not be gulled by him; 1 would know all the time that I was not at the court of Denmark and that this man was not the tragic prince. By contrast, if a salesman trades upon my ignorance of radios and sells me a very bad bargain, he will have gained by my gullibility. Highly suggestible people are not necessarily gullible, nor are very gullible people necessarily very suggestible.

It follows from the Jamesian view of personality, that people of the more empiricist temperament, the toughminded lovers of facts in all their crude diversity, should have certain predictable characteristics which will be manifest on certain psychological tests. A group of anarchists should differ from a comparable group of people (and comparability will be defined) in being less suggestible with regard to tests of so-called "waking suggestibility" and to hypnosis. They should also

39

be less credulous in a general way, more toughminded in attitude, and more generally tolerant of ambiguity as befits the pluralist outlook.

It need hardly be said that the same problems and the same concepts could be expressed very differently by different psychologists. Some psychologists might refer to the anarchist type as having a "strong ego", and might specify in what ways this might be tested. I have no objection at all to alternative formulations of the problems being made nor do I question the validity of many techniques entirely different from those I have used, in testing the predictions which might be made in terms of an alternative theoretical framework. But each research worker naturally uses the theoretical framework and the techniques in which he is most at home.

What was done

Letters were published in Freedom, the anarchist weekly, and later in The University Libertarian asking for anarchists to volunteer for an investigation of the anarchist personality. In all, 44 anarchists volunteered and completed the battery of tests. In addition, two people volunteered and then withdrew, and another person took half the test battery and then withdrew. Eight of the volunteers were women. The age range of the group was 21 to 75 years, the model age being in the early thirties.

When a fair section of this group had been tested (the project extending over about 18 months) it became apparent that one of the characteristics of the anarchist group was its high intelligence, as measured on a standard non-verbal intelligence test. To get a comparable control group with which to compare it, a group of university students was chosen. The snag here was that although the students were of comparable intelligence, or higher, they were younger. The factor of age had to be watched, and this could be done by seeing if the performance of the younger anarchists was significantly different from the older. There were 55 individuals in the student group; 19 of them were women.

It was originally planned to have a second control group of comparable size. The essential characteristic of this second control group was that it was a "cranky" group, but eccentric in a way different from the way in which anarchists are regarded as eccentric by the general public. I chose spiritualists as being a small and easily identifiable group. After I had tested 15 spiritualists I gave up because it was just too much hard work in getting hold of them, and, in some cases, getting rid of them once I had enlisted their aid. I may as well give some details about this small group before I dismiss them and get on to a discussion of the main part of the experiment.

The Spiritualists

The main characteristic of the spiritualists was their high mental instability. Most of them were highly neurotic and two were probably psychotic. Those of them who claimed to have mediumistic powers

or capacity as faith-healers, were highly susceptible to hypnosis, but the others, against my prediction on theoretical grounds, were resistant to hypnosis. However, is is becoming increasingly evident in experimental work, high neuroticism is many personalities makes for resistance to hypnosis. The spiritualist subjects were, on the whole, of above average, or even superior intelligence, but this is partly an artifact of the sampling procedure whereby subjects were recruited (a fact which also applies to the anarchist group). They were highly superstitious over a wide range of topics but not particularly credulous. They had what may be described as a militantly anti-scientific attitude, and hence in the psychological laboratory many of them were highly suspicious and on their guard. Another particular which distinguished the spiritualists from both the anarchist and the student groups, was the extraordinarily high "lie scores" which they achieved in one of the questionnaires, which will be described later. This fact implies either a strong reluctance to being frank with the experimenter or a marked lack of insight into themselves.

The mediums and faith-healers in the spiritualist group, although they were the more eccentric, seemed rather more interesting and sympathetic characters than the others. The general impression the spiritualists made was of rather bleak people, unhappy in their personal lives and desperately seeking a more potent release from the sad realities of life than an ordinary church creed can provide. The mediums undoubtedly had special abnormalities, such as hysterical fugue states which contributed to their belief in their special powers.

This digression on the subject of spiritualists has relevance to the main research. It is widely believed that anarchists are in a very similar case—that is that they are emotionally disturbed characters who have elaborated a wild and impossible social philosophy as an excuse for their own personal disorientation. One would certainly come to such a conclusion by reading the pseudo-psychological study of Kolno which deals in wide generalities about the supposed motivation of anarchists.

The Students and Anarchists

It must be understood that this research was concerned with far more details than a comparison between the personalities of students and anarchists. Mention has been made of the philosophical speculations of William James, and a number of psychological hypotheses were made from this and allied theories, which the present writer was concerned in testing. However, only that part of the research which concerns the investigation of the personality of anarchists will be considered in this account.

Intelligence

There were a number of paper and pencil tests. The first, a nonverbal intelligence test, showed that 27 out of the 44 anarchists were in the top 5% of the population (this represents an I.Q. of over 126 on the test in question). A non-verbal intelligence test was chosen because the group had very varied educational backgrounds and occu-

41

pational experience. The remaining 17 anarchists all had scores above the 50th percentile (that is above I.Q. 100). The students were not given the intelligence test.

The remaining pencil and paper tests comprised inventories of self-rating on a great variety of personal details, a questionnaire about opinions and a questionnaire about beliefs. The layman may think that such instruments are a somewhat naive way of gathering psychological data about people. Can they not be easily faked? Yes, they can be faked, but the way in which a person fakes a questionnaire may be considerably self-revealing, particularly when other psychological tests of a different nature are also being administered.

Extraversion, Neuroticism and Lying

One of the tests was a long inventory which gave scores on extra-version, neuroticism and lying. It is found in practice that people who get abnormally low scores on neuroticism also tend to get abnormally high scores on lying. The implication of this is that, in an ordinary experimental situation, some people do not like to admit even to a normal degree of neuroticism and this results in both the neuroticism score and the high lie score. But the results of such falsification are apparent in these subjects' performance on other tests too, for instance on the body sway test, which was also used in the present experiment.

The body sway test consists of the subject standing upright with his feet together and his eyes blindfolded while he is attached to a machine which records all his movements. After he has stood for a period and settled into a relaxed and comfortable posture, a tape recorded voice is played to him suggesting that he should imagine himself falling forwards, and suggestions of falling forwards are continued for two and a half minutes. The natural response to the situation is for the subject to sway forward to a greater or lesser degree. The more highly suggestible subjects sway so far forwards that eventually they lose their balance and have to be caught by the experimenter. Many subjects who are rather high on neuroticism show a good deal of static ataxia, that is, in such a situation they cannot maintain their balance if they sway forwards out of the vertical even a little, they they therefore tend to fall forwards very soon. A small minority of subjects will sway backwards on this test, thereby indicating that they are not unaffected by the suggestions, but are struggling to overcome the effects of the suggestions.

In the present experiment, out of the 99 subjects (anarchists and students), nine subjects swayed backwards. Of these, seven were in the "liar" category, having obtained lie scores above the critical point. Of the five "liars" who actually fell on the test, all fell before the 45th second, a fact which suggests that they were in reality high on neuroticism despite their claims on the personality inventory. Those subjects who obtained more than a critical score on the lie scale, and have been called "liars", were not regarded as having valid scores on the neuroticism scale.

The above example may serve to show that it is not so easy to

mislead by giving untruthful answers to a questionnaire.

The lie scores of the anarchist group were, as a whole, rather lower than those of the student group. This does not necessarily show that the anarchists were more truthful about themselves. It probably reflects the fact they were more sophisticated than the students, for the device of the lie scale may be partly apparent to more sophisticated subjects. Or again, the anarchists having rather different social values, may have been less concerned to lie about the same aspects of their personalities as the students. Comparing the valid neuroticism scores of the two groups, there was no statistically significant difference between them. Both groups contained a number of individuals who were very high on neuroticism, and this is by no means surprising. It is generally found that in groups selected for high intelligence the neuroticism level is higher than in the general population. But neuroticism must not be taken to mean neurotic illness, for it is by no means the same thing. Some psychologists have equated neuroticism with "drive", and it is natural that among more intelligent, forceful and sensitive people, as students tend to be, the level of neuroticism is higher.

The student grounp was higher on extraversion than the anarchist group, but not very much so. Again this is in accordance with the usual finding that students are more extraverted than the general population. There is nothing remarkable about the average level of neuroticism in the anarchist group.

Credulity

One of the questionnaires was intended to measure the degree to which individuals were credulous. Our common experience tells us that some people are extraordinarily credulous, believing almost any statement they encounter, whereas others are incredulous to a marked degree, having a habitual reaction of mistrust towards most of what they read or are told. A common stereotype of the anarchist is a person who is pathologically mistrustful, carrying cynical disbelief to absurd lengths. It was decided to attempt to test the credulity of the subjects in the present experiment in the following manner.

A large number of statements were assembled, and subjects were asked to indicate whether they considered them to be probably true or probably false. These statements ranged from those of extreme cynicism, e.g. "Psycho-analysis probably never benefitted anyone", through more moderate statements, e.g. "There is some serious evidence which implies the existence of telepathy", to statements which would be endorsed only by the most credulous individuals, e.g. "The existence of poltergeists is well established."

In designing a test of some supposed psychological trait like credulity, the experimenter has to be guided by the experience of past workers and by the "face validity" of the test. What the test does in fact measure is not in fact apparent until after a large number of people have done it and their results are available for analysis. In the present instance it was hoped to measure "'credulity", but when the results of the responses of the 99 subjects came to be analysed it was apparent

43

that the questionnaire contained statements dealing with two distinct areas of belief. Items of type A concerned belief in palmistry, astrology, life after death, witchcraft, spiritualism and other matters which are usually referred to as superstition. Items of type B concerned belief in matters which "scientific experts" allege to be true, e.g. the reality of subliminal perception, cosmic rays, hypnotic anaesthesia, smoke-induced lung cancer. A few items were not classifiable, as too many or far too few subjects endorsed them, or stated that they had never heard of the topics.

It is quite immaterial whether the statements as they were worded were objectively true or false. It was apparent that two kinds of credulity were being measured, and these will be called "Superstition" and "Trust". The student group as a whole proved to be significantly higher on Superstition than the anarchist group, and it is scarcely surprising as the latter were more materialistic and sceptical. But what was surprising was that the anarchists were significantly higher on the measure of Trust. This was contrary to my expectation and also, as will be discussed later, it was somewhat paradoxical in relation to certain other measures of personality.

As the anarchist group has been tested for intelligence there were differential intelligence quotients within this group even though most of them were above the 95th percentile. There was a slight negative relationship observable between intelligence and superstition, that is, the anarchists with the lower LQ.s obtained higher scores on the Super-stitution scale. No such relationship existed with regard to the Trust scale.

Intolerance of Ambiguity

This is not a very satisfactory psychological concept, and there has been a good deal of controversy over the validity of the term. It is held to be a psychological trait which represents an enduring personality tendency to react unfavourably to conditions of ambiguity, which results in an automatic tendency to use one's own processes of distortion is perception to structure events more definitely. James' version of the tendency, expressed in terms of pluralism versus monism, has already been quoted.

The test itself was in the nature of a simple personality inventory, Care was taken when analysing the results to see if there was any sign of deliberate distortion (as in the case of the neuroticism scale). There was no such sign however; the scores of the "liars" were not specially different from the scores of the other subjects.

It should be noted that in this experiment the "intolerance of ambiguity" scale which was obtained was heavily loaded on items which concerned intrapersonal relations. The student group as a whole was significantly higher on this scale than the anarchists, a result which is in accord with expectation. The anarchists appear to be considerably better able to tolerate conditions of ambiguity in interpersonal relations. Whether one considers this to be a virtue or a fault, depends upon one's system of values.

The Tender—Tough Dimension

As discussed earlier, the present writer had followed James in regarding anarchists as a specially tough-minded group. Eysenck and his associates, in investigating political attitudes, had postulated a tender-tough dimension orthogonal to the radical-conservative dimension. In this scheme, while communists and fascists differed considerably on the radical-conservative dimension, they were found to be alike in tough-mindedness. Liberals were found to be intermediate between labourites and conservatives on the radical-conservative dimension, but to be more tender-minded than either of these two parties. If a typically anarchist set of opinions is applied to one of the inventories which were used in this series of studies, it may be seen that by virtue of their support foi atheism, belief in free love, birth control and other aspects of scientific rationalism, anarchists will score heavily at the tough end. But by virtue of their rejection of war, capital punishment, racial discrimination, etc., anarchists would also score heavily at the tender end. The point is that such a scale based upon social opinions will give meaningful information about a person's position on the tough-tender dimension only if he accepts in large measure the usual assumptions about the institutions of authority which obtain in the population upon which the test was standardized.

In the present experiment I knew pretty accurately in advance what the anarchists' opinions were on the various social matters dealt with in existing tough-tender scales; I did not need to investigate the obvious. What I was concerned with, however, was the relationship between this dimension of personality and other personality variables in the "normal" population, that is, the students. What I did was to modify an existing tender-mindedness (T) scale to bring it up to date, and to re-standardize it on a population of 250 people, spreading the selected groups of this population sample as widely as possible. What did emerge from this part of the study was that, among students, there was a positive association between tender-mindedness and suspeptibility to hypnosis. This finding fits in well with the Jamesian view of human personality.

The anarchists' response to the T scale showed a far greatei unanimity of opinion than I had expected. It looked as though the anarchists were toeing a "party line" very closely, and that the "party line" on a range of social topics is that defined by Freedom. The whole anarchist group had scores above the mean of the student group on the T scale, that is, the anarchists were apparently more tender-minded ! This may seem an appalling paradox, as I have insisted, and will continue to insist, that the anarchists are particularly tough-minded. The fact is that one may hold an opinion for more than one reason. One may oppose military conscription either because the thought of violence is utterly abhorrent, or because one is opposed to all manifestations of state power. An examination of the completed records of the anarchists showed that the items on which they reached almost unanimous agreement were items in which authoritarian agencies are concerned. By their rejection of the actions of authoritarian agencies they augmented a

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tender-minded score. For those who do accept the authority of the state, by and large, the response to such questions as those dealing with bombing, war, penal treatment, capital punishment, etc., will be largely determined by the degree of tender-mindedness. On a number of items where there was no anti-authoritarian question at issue, the anarchists gave abnormally tough-minded responses.

Was the T scale therefore worthless as far as the anarchist group was concerned? As a measure of tender-mindedness, yes it was pretty useless for the anarchists, but it was of some interest in demonstrating the unanimity of the group on many social questions, and as a demonstration of the limitations of the method of exploring personality via social opinions.

Tests of Suggestibility

,The difference between suggestibility and gullibility has already been discussed and need not be laboured further. The tests used concerned motor suggestibility, sensory suggestibility and hypnosis. One test of motor suggestibility, the body sway test, has already been described and discussed. The other motor tests are somewhat similar as they depend upon the measurement of overt movements occasioned by the ideas suggested by the experimenter. Such movements ar not consciously initiated by the subject; he may even be greatly surprised by the extent to which un-willed movements will take place as the result of what the experimenter says to him. In the present experiment the anarchist group proved to be less subject to this variety of suggestibility than the student group.

Sensory suggestibility depends upon producing an illusion of sensation by a suitably rigged experiment. In general, it may be produced by repeatedly increasing the intensity of a sublimal stimulation until it is just perceived liminally, and later producing a hallucination of sensation by re-introducing all the accompanying paraphernalia but with no real stimulus present. The degree to which such a hallucination may be induced is a measure of suggestibility. In the present experiment, the apparatus and technique used were not adequate to get good results. Although the expected correlation between susceptibility to the illusion and susceptibility to hypnosis was found, taking the experimental population as a whole, this correlation was slight. It was apparent that many subjects in both experimental groups were too intelligent and sophisticated to accept the illusion-producing procedure naively. There was no significant difference between the student and anarchist groups.

Hypnosis is a perfectly normal phenomenon and knowledge of the psychological mechanisms involved has increased greatly in the past thirty years due to the continuous research of experimental psychologists. In the state of hypnosis the subject appears to go into a sort of "sleep", although this condition is far more similar to sleepwalking than to true sleep. Hypnosis is an interesting and subtle test of personality. If a standard procedure of hypnotic induction is given individually to a population of subjects, some will become easily and deeply hypnotized, a

larger percentage will become more lightly hypnotized, a similar percentage will become relaxed and perhaps temporarily drowsy but have no obvious change in their state of consciousness, and a similar percentage will apparently be entirely unaffected. There are a number of separate reasons for being insusceptible to hypnosis, viz :

1. The subject just does not want to be hypnotized, and although he may conform outwardly with the experimenter's instructions regarding lying on the couch, etc., he is determinedly unco-operative inwardly, and so remains unaffected by the procedure.

2. The subject is perfectly co-operative and may even want to experience hypnosis, but due to a form of neuroticism, he may not be able to "let himself go". Such a reaction is typical of the extraverted neurotic, the hysterical type whose main reaction is an embarrassed

giggle.

3. The subject whose universe is so firmly structured that it cannot be easily modified by the suggestions of the hypnotist, even though he himself might like to take a trip, as it were, into the substitute universe that the hypnotist tries to create. This is the personality type which has been labelled "tough-minded", and which is characterized by materialism, empiricism, pluralism and scepticism.

Susceptibility to hypnosis may be regarded as a characteristic which is probably distributed in a roughly normal fashion, a small percentage of people being very highly susceptible, and an equally small percentage being utterly insusceptible, with most people being of indeterminate degrees of insusceptibility. For test purposes, however, it is often convenient to divide a population between the "susceptible" and the "insusceptible", the distinction being made on the basis of whether or not the suggestions produced closure of the eyes such that the subject did not manage to open them again when told he could do so. This is a convenient criterion, for if the condition of eyelid catalepsy is reached, a number of other classic signs of hypnosis will also be manifest upon testing. A number of subjects who are lightly hypnotized and have a fairly complete memory for all that happened, afterwards report that they could have opened their eyes if they had "really tried", even thought they failed to do so. (This raises some interesting side-issues as to the philosophic status of the will in hypnosis, but the experimenter must be governed by the objective fact of whether or not the eyes did open on challenge).

Of the 55 students, 28 proved susceptible to hypnosis, using the minimum criterion given above. There was no difference between the male and female students with regard to susceptibility. Of the 44 anarchists only 16 were susceptible to hypnosis; only one of the eight anarchist women was suspectible. When reporting results it is usual to state the level of probability at which such differences are observed might have occurred by chance. This is done by applying a statistical test of significance, and if the level of chance probability is greater than, say, 5 in 100, so our confidence in the significance of the results

47

is reduced. The data given here may be presented in tabular form thus:

Students Anarchists

Susceptible to hypnosis ... 28 16

Resistant to hypnosis ... 27 28

In actual fact taking a 5 in 100 level of chance probability, the difference in the above data does not quite reach the criterion, and this fact must be borne in mind when considering the fact that the anarchists, in numerical terms, were more resistant to hypnosis. As to the relatively greater resistance of female anarchists the figures may be expressed thus:

Woman students Woman anarchists Susceptible to hypnosis ... 9 1

Resistant to hypnosis ... 10 7

Even though these numbers are small the probability of the difference is high, that is, that the female anarchists were significantly less susceptible to hypnosis than the female students. This difference cannot be attributable to neuroticism, for the anarchists were not more neurotic than the students, but is almost certainly a reflection of the particularly tough-minded personality of female anarchists.

The question of variance

When comparing the dispersion of a characteristic in different populations, it is helpful to consider the relative variance of the characteristic in the populations. For instance, there was quite a large variance of the T scores in the student group, that is, students differed quite widely from one another on the degree of tender-mindedness they showed on the test. With the anarchist group, however, the variance of T scores was very restricted indeed, that is, as has been mentioned before, there was very little difference between the anarchists in the opinions they expressed on the questionnaire.

As an example of variance in the other direction, we may consider the question of age. In the student group the age variance was highly constricted in contrast to the large age variance of the anarchist group.

Having demonstrated the meaning of variance by means of these two examples, the significance of variance in personality traits for this research may be discussed. One question which may be asked is, are the anarchists in this study representative of a homogeneous personality type or are they an agglomeration of a wide variety of personality types calling themselves anarchists? For comparison there is the data on the group of university students. It may be remarked, of course, that students are not a representative sample of the population, as certain personality characteristics are necessarily being selected in the complex process by which students are selected. This is just one of the many drawbacks of this study. Looking at the data available, it may be seen that out of the seven personality measures considered the anarchists have a larger variance on four. The difference in variance is not great; in only one measure is the difference of variance between the two groups of a large and significant size, that is the T score which has already been discussed.

Expressing the matter in commonsense terms, it is probably correct to conclude that anarchists differ from one another in personality to about the same degree that university students differ from one another, although there are certain well-marked and measurable differences in personality whereby anarchists may be differentiated from students.

Conclusion

It is hardly necessary to point out that this research is with a biassed sample of anarchists. We are only concerned with the kind of anarchists who were prepared to give up their time to come for a lengthy interview which afforded no particular advantage to themselves. The fact that psychological tests were known to be involved may possibly have discouraged the less intelligent anarchists from applying, hence the high average intelligence of the group which was recruited. A similar sort of self-selection procedure may have operated in favour of mental stability, and indeed I was thankful that none of the weird and pathological creatures who haunt and disrupt public meetings, presented themselves to me declaring that they were anarchists. 1 took all comers who alleged that they were anarchists, and I was perfectly satisfied that they were all sincere.

Some people may be disappointed that I have conducted this investigation the way that I did and used only the techniques that have been described. Certainly, other techniques could have been used, and other data gathered. To any such critics who have alternative proposals I can only say—why do you not carry them out?

What I was concerned to do was to gather the maximum reliable personality data from each individual in the minimum of time. I did not attempt to take full personal histories, as the resultant data would have formed an amorphous mass of information which would no doubt be of interest, but which would be difficult to handle and sift in a meaningful manner. Rather I was concerned with the individual as he was at the time of testing, irrespective of what factors had contributed to his development. 1 have been concerned to ascertain facts, and even if others may not agree with the interpretations I have made, these facts remain. In this highly condensed account of a very copious research, I have not had the space to report more than a brief account of some of the facts which were established. I have offered them in the interpretive framework of Jamesian philosophy, agreeing with James that the anarchist is an essentially tough-minded personality type. The paradox of the highly tender-minded score obtained on the T scale by the anarchists is valuable in that it calls attention to the peculiar position of the anarchists on the Left. Their alignment with other bodies on such issues as pacifism, abolition of hanging, anti-colonialism, etc., is deceptive. Are the anarchists themselves at all deceived, imagining themselves to be more tender-minded than they are? Certainly there is a natural tendency for anarchists to use tender-minded arguments when it suits their case e.g. in advocating all the arguments against hanging—while perhaps condoning individual assassination in

49

certain cases. Few anarchists had tender-minded regrets over the murder of Mussolini or the attempted murder of Verwoerd. There are, of course, sincere anarchists of a very tender-minded disposition, and even a religious attitude to life. They may seek to develop principles of anarchism which are permeated with a sort of holiness, and their devotion to the cause takes on a sort of mysticism. Such an attitude was rare among the sample of anarchists in this study.

I have not attempted to answer the question of "who are the anarchists?"—I have limited myself to an exploration of some of the personality characteristics of anarchists who would volunteer for testing, and compared them with students who volunteered for testing. (I should mention that the latter were paid a small fee for their attendance). The big question which needs answering concerns the reason why out of a population of so many million adults in this country only a few hundreds identify themselves as anarchists. The investigation reported here has contributed its mite; at least we know something which is based upon controlled observation rather than armchair theorizing and individual anecdote. The response of 44 anarchists who were prepared to co-operate is encouraging. At least people are curious and seriously concerned to establish facts. Maybe the curiosity of the modern era is going to be fruitful.

References :

Adorno, T. W. et at, (1950) The Authoritarian Personality (New York- Harpers)

Eysenck, H. J. (1945) The Psychology of Politics (London: Routledge & Kegan

James, W. (1907) Pragmatism (London: Longmans, Green & Co.). Kolnoi, A. (1921) Psychoanalysis and Sociology (London: Allen & Unwin).

Anarchism—a definition

ANARCHISM, from Greek anarchla (non-rule), a political doctrine standing for the abolition of every organised authority and State machinery, and the creation of a Stateless society instead. The anarchists hold that every form of government, whether a monarchy, a republic, or even a socialist republic, is equally evil and tantamount to tyranny.They want to substitute for it a free association of individuals and groups without any coercive organisation, without armed forces, courts, prisons or written law, merely based on voluntarily respected mutual treaties. Anarchism covers a great variety of currents which may be divided into the individualist and socialist schools as to their ends, and into the peaceful and revolutionary schools as to their means. There is, however, no anarchism advocating anarchy in the sense of dissolution of every social order.

— The Penguin Political Dictionary

The Freedom

survey

At the beginning of 1960 a questionnaire was sent out to 1863 postal subscribers to the anarchist weekly Freedom (which is the 'parent' of Anarchy which was started after the survey and has a largely overlapping readership). The twenty-five questions were designed to elicit what kind of people read the anarchist press and what their reactions to it are. The response rate for recipients in Britain was just over one-third, and for those in the world as a whole, one quarter. This is a low response, but by no means an unusual one, which illustrates the disadvantage of postal questionnaires. (The usual inducements like pre-paying postage or sending follow-up letters could not be undertaken for reasons of expense, and because respondents were not asked to supply their names or addresses).

"Non-response" says a text-book on the subject "is a problem because of the likelihood—repeatedly confirmed in practice—that people who do not return questionnaires differ from those who do." The differences usually found are that better-educated people are more likely to respond than others and that the results tend to have "an upwards-biased social class composition." It has also been found not surprisingly that the respondents are people with more interest in the subject of the questionnaire than non-respondents.

All these limitations have to be borne in mind in drawing any conclusions from the statistics which follow, though one interesting point is that this sample does not differ significantly in the distribution of age, sex, educational and occupational background, from the sample of anarchists in the independently conducted investigation of the anarchist personality reported in this issue of Anarchy.

Response

Number of questionnaires sent out

Replies received Percentage

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Age and Sex

Of the 470 respondents, 58 were women. Of the 457 who indicated their ages:

10 were under twenty 50 were in their fifties

127 were in their twenties 27 „ „ „ sixties

156 „ „ „ thirties 14 „ „ „ seventies

72 „ „ „ forties 1 „ „ „ eighties

Education

Readers were asked "What types of school did you go to?" It is hard to classify the answers accurately because of variations in educational terminology (and for this reason it seemed best not to include in the list the overseas answers, especially as 'public' school in this country means the opposite of its meaning abroad). For instance, a reader who has had the minimum statutory education provided in this country might answer Board School if he was at a school before the 1902 Education Act came into force, Elementary if he was at school before the 1944 Act came into operation, and Secondary Modern if he was at school in the last twelve years. Ignoring primary education, and using the current teminology, the answers for the 358 respondents in this country are:

Grammar School (or pre-war equivalent) ... 145

Secondary Modern (or pre-war equivalent) ... 130

Secondary Technical (or pre-war equivalent) 26

Public School 47

Private School 7

None 2

A further question asked "What training or further education have you had since leaving school?" The answers, with their prior education, are 78 attended a university or took university degrees through part-time study (48 grammar, 4 sec. mod., 2 sec. tech., 23 public, 2 private). 54 attended Training Colleges, Schools of Art or Architecture, or Technical Colleges (35 grammar, 10 sec. mod., 5 sec. tech., 2 public, 2 private). 85 attended evening classes, W.E.A. classes, etc. (28 grammar, 42

sec. mod., 8 sec. tech., 6 public, 1 private). 36 had some other form of further education (12 grammar, 16 sec. mod., 4 sec. tech., 3 public, 1 private). Thus the number of the 358 respondents in Britain who had some kind of further education or training after leaving school is 253. Many others of course, replied that they have educated themselves through reading and private study.

Occupation

In classifying the occupations of respondents, it was difficult to know, on the information given, how to group them. The headings adopted below are helpful but rather arbitrary.

'Not gainfully employed' : 70

em ^o^d tS ' 12 housewives ' l invalid > 21 retired, 2 non-employed, 4 un-

Education: 52

52 teachers or lecturers (including art teachers, music teachers, professors).

Health and Welfare: 25

2 physicians, 2 psychiatrists, 1 psychiatric social worker, psychologist, psychological research student, medical technician, hospital almoner 2 hospital porters staff nurse, 2 nurses, mental nurse, physiotherapist,

2 pharmaceutical chemists, 1 doctor's receptionist.

^°c^l workers, child welfare worker, kindergarten superintendent, youth

Science and Research : 25

3 industrial chemists, 2 research chemists, 2 chemical engineers, analytical chemist, chemical tester, 'scientist', 2 research students, research biochemist research biologist, biophysicist geophysicist, laboratory technician! 5 research workers, veterinary research worker, market researcher statistician.

Manufacturing and Electrical Industry : 40

Open hearth furnace worker, heat treater (metal), blacksmith, 2 sheet metal workers, 2 maintenance engineers, engineer, universal miller, drill press operator, press operator, press toolmaker, titter-welder, engineering machinist, centre lathe turner, development engineer, mechanical engineer, lathe-setter, fitting and turning capsule maker, 2 engineering draughtsmen, factory worker', 'factory manager', general manager of engineering company, progress-chaser, personnel officer, 'technical assistant*.

Building Industry: 42

20 architects or assistants, 7 building labourers, 2 carpenters, joiner, slater, mason, plumber, domestic engineer, 2 surveyors, 2 bricklayers, roadman, civil engineer, civil engineering draughtsman, structural steel draughtsman!

The Printed Word: 47

11 journalists, 5 writers, 8 librarians or assistants, 8 booksellers, 4 in publishing, 5 printers, 2 typographers, silk screen printer, print operative, newspaper copy-taker, newspaper seller.

Arts, Entertainments and Crafts: 27

5 commercial artists or technical illustrators, 4 artists, 3 photographers,

interior decorator, glass designer and sculptor.

2 actors, film worker, TV director, 2 musicians, jazz musician, musicologist,

musical instrument expert.

Potter, hairdresser, leather-worker, shoe-maker and upholsterer.

Land Workers: 23

5 farmers, 5 gardeners, 2 farm workers, 2 smallholders, 2 fruit-growers, lumber worker, agricultural extension agent, poultry-farmer, poultryman, company director (poultry farm), estate manager, horticultural worker.

Food Processing and Distribution : 10

2 master bakers, milk salesman, milk roundsman, macaroni maker, grocery branch manager, caterer, hotel worker, cocktail barman, waiter.

Other Distributive Trades: 25

6 salesmen, 2 shop managers, 2 shop assistants, sales engineer, sales manager, traveller, advertising manager, manufacturer's agent, technical representative, 5 warehousemen, storekeeper, security officer, 2 street traders.

Administrative, clerical and commencial: 40

22 clerks, 2 secretaries, typist, 2 accountants, 2 civil servants, actuary, 2 attorneys (USA), 2 insurance brokers, Unit Trust dealer, manager (bookkeeper), company director, Trade Union organiser, Trade Union district agent, office manager.

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Transport and Communications : 19

2 sailors, 2 seamen, ship's rigger, docker, airline tariff officer, airline clerk, loco fireman, 2 lorry drivers, van driver, motor engineer, motor mechanic, garage worker. 2 postmen, post officer worker, GPO engineer.

Miscellaneous: 9

Jack-of-all-trades, Unitarian minister, 'Do-it-yourself enthusiast', caretaker, 'self-employed', 'unskilled', 'work occasionally', 'money-raiser for charity, "looked after village sewage works for the last 25 years".

Religion

The questionnaire asked "If you have any religion, what is it?" and "If you had any religion in the past, what was it?"

Of the 470 respondents, 406 indicated no religion or described themselves as agnostics, atheists, humanists, etc., and 185 indicated that they had not had any religion in the past. Many others, in mentioned a former religion indicated that they were baptised into in, or brought up in it as children, or mentioned some early age at which they abandoned it, or said that they never believed in it anyway.

Present

Past

Present Past

Respondents were asked to state whether they were single, married, living in unmarried union, separated, or widowed, and how many children they have. Some people naturally came into more than one

category. In the following list 'single' and 'married' are only used for those who come into no other category in addition.

Single 141

Married 247

Living in unmarried union ... 51

Separated (or divorced) ... 19

Widowed 10

Of the 215 respondents who have children, 79 have one, 81 have two, 34 have three, 13 have four, 5 have five, 2 have seven, 1 has nine.

Or single readers not ticking any other category, 2 have one, 3 have two.

Of married readers, 65 have no children, 62 have one, 58 have two, 32 have three, 13 have four, 4 have five, 2 have seven, I has nine.

Of readers living in unmarried union, 27 have no children, 7 have one, 14 have two, 2 have three, 1 has five.

Of separated, widowed and divorced readers not included in any other category, 11 have one child and five have two.

The total number of children of readers answering the questionnaire is 443.

Other Periodicals Read

Readers were asked to state which daily, weekly, and monthly papers they read. (In the list which follows, those included among monthlies which are in fact bi-monthlies or quarterlies, are probably for this reason under-represented).

55

Political Affiliations

Respondents were asked to name any political parties or groups they had belonged to in the past, and to indicate any of which they were still active members or supporters. Some readers explained in their answers that they were supporters, but not actual members of the parties named, some indicated that their membership was a long time ago, and others, especially in the case of the Communist Party, indicated that their membership or support was transient. Some readers appear to have gone through the whole range of political affiliations before moving out altogether. We assume that in the list which follows, showing answers which came from the 358 respondents in Britain, those organisations which are not actually political parties, are under-represented.

Labour party

Communist Party Independent Labour Party

Liberal Party

Socialist Party of Great Britain

Trotskyists •••

Conservative Party

Scottish or Welsh Nationalists

Common Wealth

Social Credit

Peace Pledge Union

Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament Direct Action Committee Against

Nuclear War

What kind of Anarchist?

The questionnaire asked "If you would describe yourself as an anarchist indicate which of the following would describe you most adequately: anarcho-syndicalist, individualist, anarcho-communist, philosophic anarchist, pacifist anarchist."

Many respondents ticked two or more of these categories. Eight wrote "just anarchist" or "something of each," etc. The total number of those who were willing to accept the designation of anarchist in one form or another was 393. The numbers for each of the given categories were: —

Anarcho-syndicalist ... 68

Individualist Anarcho -communist Philosophic anarchists Pacifist anarchist

149 81

112 91

To the question "If you are carrying out any anarchist propaganda activities, indicate their nature", 249 of the respondents indicated that

they were, even though their activity in many cases might be "nothing beyond ordinary conversation". For an account of the variety of activities described, see the Fifth Interim Report on the survey in Freedom for 26/3/1960.

Voting Behaviour

The question was asked "Did you vote in the last General Election?". Of the 358 respondents in Britain, 109 answered Yes (and of the 112 overseas respondents, 26 answered yes). Of the 109 British voters, 83 were people who ticked one or more of the anarchist categories (i.e. 24% of the anarchist respondents) voted. The numbers of voters for each category ticked were

Anarcho-syndicalist 10

Individualist Anarcho-communist Philosophic anarchist Pacifist anarchist

41 10

24 22

People who voted were not asked to state for which party. But some volunteered this information and in other cases it can be inferred from present or past political affiliations. In many cases it cannot. On this basis we assume that of the 109 British voters, 50 voted Labour, 9 Liberal and 4 Conservative. Ten of these add comments to their answers. Two say "reluctantly", and the others say: "Yes, because the Labour candidate was an electrician from our factory", "candidate a personal friend", "Yes, with misgivings", "Peculiarly enough, for a progressive Liberal candidate", "Yes, anti-Tory", "Yes, regret, Tory", "Anti-Bomb Liberal Protest Vote" "To keep the other b s out".

Many of the non-voting majority of respondents also add their comments, telling us what they wrote on their deliberately-spoilt voting papers, or emphasising that they "never have and never will."

Among overseas readers who voted, an Argentinian says that his vote was purely and simply anti-Peronist, and several Australians say that they registered an "informal" vote to avoid the fine for non-voting.

Relations and reactions to "Freedom"

The remaining questions were about the respondents' relations and reactions to Freedom. The first 298 answers to the question "Precisely how were you first introduced to Freedom?" are given and discussed in Freedom for 30/1/1960.

A report on the first 440 answers to the questions "Have you ever written to Freedom?", "Have you had anything rejected?", "How many people beside you regularly read your copy?", "Do you contribute to the Deficit Fund?", "Have you induced any other people to take out a subscription?", is given in Freedom for 26/3/60, together with a table showing the answers to the question in which readers were asked to indicate the order in which 13 topics in the paper interested them, and

57

the answers to the question "Indicate if you endorse any of the following criticisms of Freedom : 'Too highbrow', 'Full of carping criticism', 'Lacking in any clear policy', 'Too far from traditional anarchism', and Too old-fashioned'."

Another question asked "If you think that the ideas expressed in Freedom have been a contributory factor in any changes which have taken place in your own life, can you indicate the sort of changes these have been?" The first 144 answers to this question were published in full in Freedom for 16/1/1960.

Two final questions asked "What constructive criticisms have you?" and "Any other comments?". All the answers received from the 470 respondents to these questions were published in Freedom in the following issues: 7/5/60, 21/5/60,28/5/60, 11/6/60, 25/6/60, 2/7/60, and 9/7/60.

Who will be the anarchists ?

TRISTRAM SHANDY

If we attempt to divide the respondents to Freedom's survey into "working-class" and "middle-class" according to their educational and occupational background, we can draw up the following table:

Age Proportion of readership Working-class Middle-class

Now, granted that postal questionnaires are always more readily completed by the middle-class than by the working-class, and that while middle-class kids are poring over their books, working-class kids are

jiving at the Palais, an unmistakable trend is observable here: unlike the older generation, the next generation of anarchists will have a predominantly middle-class background.

The manual workers have not only vastly improved their position as manua workers, they have also changed their position; some are no longer manual workers at all. As a result of technological changes some blue-collar workers have become white collar workers; with the continuing changes in the structure and techniques of industry, more cross over this line each year. There is an increasing fluidity in our society as a result of the new chances for advancement, particularly of the opportunities for education up to the highest level now open to all children who can make the grade, ihe day is gone when workers must regard their station in life as fixed-tor themselves and for their children.

This quotation from the Abrams-Rose-Hinden report Must Labour Lose? reminds us that these social changes effect the whole of the Left (though they exaggerate the extent of the new social fluidity—see "Education, equality, opportunity" in Anarchy 1). They have already disastrously affected the Co-operative movement and reduced it to blowsy bumbledom, and they are denuding the Trade Union movement of the forceful and highly intelligent characters who built it up. Had they been born a hundred years later Tom Mann would have gone to Oxford and become a PRO for ICI, while Ben Tillett would have gone to LSE and become an advertising consultant.

Of all the movements of the Left, anarchism is the least "elitiste", but the fact remains that the anarchist leaven in working-class movements has always been an intellectual elite—think of people like Frank Kitz, Joseph Lane or Sam Mainwaring in the early days of anarchism in this country, or the Glasgow anarchists, now dead or dispersed, of the 'thirties and 'forties. Or abroad, think of the oberos conscientes described by the sociologists of Spanish anarchism. This elite is slowly being drawn out of the ranks of industry, and but for the recalcitrance of individuals and the built-in class bias of the educational system, would be to a much greater extent. Michael Young, in his satirical prophesy The Rise of the Meritocracy projects this trend into the future and foresees the growth in fifty years' time of a movement of dissident intellectuals, mainly women, in emulation of the 19th century Russian Populists, who, he reminds us

were composed of young intellectuals who on return from universities abroad decided, under the influence of Bakunin, Kropotkin, and Stepniak to go to the people for inspiration, dressed themselves as peasants, lived in the villages, and tried to promote revolution. When the peasants merely gaped at them, they were driven to terrorism.

Will the anarchists of the future be the new Populists—a new species of Beatnik-Populist perhaps? There is no evidence for this in the survey, but what kind of a Beat would answer a questionnaire anyway?

Paul Goodman in his book Growing Pp Absurd, discussed in Anarchy 11, describes the new class structure of America as consisting of three classes, the Poor, the Organisation, and the Independents; and

59

of three statuses within the dominant class, the Organization, thus: I. Organized System:

1. Workers

2. Organization Men

3. Managers II. Poor

III. Independents. His class of Independents do not properly belong to the system and are not yet submerged into the poor "outside" of society. "Its fragmented members hover about the organization in multifarious ways—running speciality shops, trying to teach or to give other professional services, robbing banks, landscape gardening, and so forth."

Can this element, apart from the bank robbers, be discerned as characteristic of the younger anarchists—all those teachers and architects and people in "creative jobs" that the survey reveals? (Teachers were also the biggest single occupational group in the survey of readers of Liberation in America in 1959, and in the survey made of Alder-maston marchers that year). And is the implication that, following its potential market, the anarchist press should concentrate its attention on these groups of "Independents"? The answer depends on your view of the strategy of anarchist propaganda. Goodman notes that "neither they nor their usually rather irrelevant enterprises make much headway in the market, the universities, entertainment, politics, or labour".

But does any other social group which you might regard as potentially receptive to anarchist propaganda?

There is one lesson of the survey which reinforces the conclusions which one might draw from social trends. Our readers are intelligent and, by ordinary standards, well-educated. In the future they are going to be better educated, in the formal sense. In this country the "popular" press has a declining circulation, and only the "quality" small-circulation press is gaining new readers. If anarchist propaganda—whoever it is directed at, in the future, is to gain a hearing, it has to raise and not lower, its standards.

For the immediate future, its readers are—everywhere. This is a point which arises from the answers to the question "Precisely how were you first introduced to Freedom?" printed in Freedom for 30/1/60. Every paper, especially every specialist paper, has an optimum circulation, and it is obvious from the large number of readers who first came across the paper by sheer chance or accident, and have then continued to subscribe to it, that the anarchist press is nowhere near its optimum circulation. If every reader of Freedom and Anarchy were to consider himself a circulation agent for the press, the circulation of both journals would double in a short time, but unless they see their relationship to the press in this light, nothing else except an intensive circulation drive, for which there is neither the money nor the personnel, can do this.

In this prosaic sense, the answer to the question "Who will be the anarchists?" rests with the anarchists themselves.

Reflections on mass media

MARTIN SMALL

When the mass media were first begun, their promoters found it rather difficult to operate them. One of the obstacles to their efficient functioning was, of course, the fact that, as with self-government, the proper use of the machinery could be learnt only by working with it. But, at least as far as the promoters were concerned, the most disastrous effect of their earliest crude failures to put the machinery in proper working order—was not the direct "objective" harm that they did to the mass media, but rather the strength and encouragement which these "undeniable failures" gave to the more irrational "subjective" factors which impeded the proper development of the machinery: the relationship between this primary, natural obstacle and the other accidental subsidiary and derivative hostile forces at one stage had the aspect of a vicious circle—that it was ever broken out of does seem to be, rather more than in the case of most historical events, the result of the efforts of a few determined and imaginative men.

The secondary, hostile forces were the feelings, the prejudices and the interests of certain groups of men, which, with varying degrees of violence and absoluteness, found something intolerable, either inherently in the mass media themselves or in the structure of society they required (or that they thought the media required). Perhaps the largest and most interesting group consisted of those who claimed that the effects of the media would be far-reaching and pernicious: that there was no sort or item of information which was not the instrument of some attempt at persuasion and which would not, therefore, interfere with the happy fulfilment of the spontaneously-formed and individually created beliefs of men; whilst these beliefs were all that gave shape and substance to human activity. This group, although incoherent, was among the most belligerent and indignant, and easily the most enduring. When told that the real distinction was not between persuasion and spontaneity, but between knowledge and ignorance; they would often reply that man's natural state was ignorance, that anyway knowledge was as much a deception as freedom, that its real nature was not formative but destructive, that it could not give a man anything new but could only

MARTIN SMALL, born at Oxford, 1941, now studies history there and is president of the Oxford University Sociology Society.

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emphasize one part of his character at the cost of the imbalance of the whole—that in fact and in short it was nothing more than a deformation of thinking and a constriction of being.

Another school of thought maintained that the media were not so much pernicious as unnecessary—or rather that they were luxuries, secondary commodities which did not come at the top of the list of human priorities. They would say that the media "served no useful purpose"; that by definition the media had no inherent or essential significance or value, but were entirely dependent upon the strength and force of the related material, between which they were the means of communication, for any objective justification. They argued that, as things were, there was no such justification for the mass media: that the ideas and thoughts of men were not (as yet) total and irreversible in form or proportion and they therefore should not—indeed could not —move by means of a continuous, even if adaptable, projection onto the minds of a mass; they were not even sure that it could ever be different— they themselves could not see any possibility or at least likelihood of change in this condition—but anyway at that time the only means by which ideas could survive and prosper was a passing from one individual mind to another—such a movement being intense, meaningful and compulsive—so creating a positive and illuminating reaction in each mind and remaining, even after transmission or rejection, as a realistically felt experience, an immediately and actively determining influence: briefly they said that the understanding of ideas might be shared, but not their reception. Their most bitter complaint was that the ideal of "a man speaking to men" had been used—and so perverted—to justify all forms of totalitarian communication.

A third group used the Oxford English Dictionary to mount a formidable, if by its intemperance somewhat unattractive, attack against the "mass media"—it is to their polemicists that the first use of the phrase is sometimes attributed. The Oxford Dictionary's description of a mass as "an aggregate in which individuality is lost" was their starting-point, and one might say, though unkindly; that it made up the whole substance of their argument: sometimes one could not avoid the impression that it revolved in a very tighly woven circle out of which it issued only to denounce, deplore or deride, more or less eloquently, the "loss of individuality" with which the mass media threatened civilisation. They contended that the very idea of addressing a word, a meaning, a sign, an image, to a mass was immoral; that it was anyway an idea impossible to put into practice, any pretensions to do so could only unnerve those to whom the words etc, so diffused did appeal, destroying some of the security which they found in their sense of individuality, whilst at the same time endangering the force and coherence of such a word, etc., itself in the process of giving it a distribution so amorphous that all chance of progress, development— in fact all hope of any further movement at all—was lost in a swamp of indifferent and undifferentiated acceptance and/or repudiation out of which no fresh and challenging response—either hostile or friendly—

dition of the health and well-being of men: "Except a man meets with immediate, direct and strenuous awareness the passions of the ungov-erned and omnipotent hour, he cannot feel secure in himself; and can do nothing."

Such was the nature, in crude outline, of the ideological structure which the promoters of the mass media found barring the way of their advancement. There were other ways of thought ranged against them; but in general the violence of their denunciations was equalled only by their ineffectiveness (which was merely disguised by public attention and recognition—the result almost entirely of the eccentricity and impracticability of that same violence). There was in fact very little to fear from such opposition which consisted of purely self-interested and dogmatic sects rather than of accommodating and expansionist groups—characterised far more by their incoherence than by their possession of a considered plan of campaign. Untouched by any thought of compromise or co-operation, their desire of victory was far less than their sense of outrage: often it seemed that each sect was fighting its own individual war, in which the mass media were not only the inevitable, but the necessary, enemy: without which their word and their desire would, foundationless and substanceless, return to chaos. Such an analysis would have been particularly applicable to the activities and imaginings of the various apocalyptical sects, to whom the mass media were, under different interpretations, the whore of Babylon, the spouse of Antichrist, Antichrist himself or his instrument, and the beast: "At last, and with much feasting of fornication and drunkeness, the mark of the beast has been set on all activities wherein men glorify themselves and laugh in the splendour of their miserable wealth at the hand of God; the worship of the false gods of the world has reached the point where it is, beyond measure and degree, at one with the carnal imagination of man, of which it is both corrupter and corruption: and such a union is death."

To explain the triumph and absolute vindication of the mass media it is necessary to describe the efforts and achievements in thought of the small group of brilliant men who studied to discover—and did discover—wherein lay the strength and essential incontestability of the mass media. Their work was the work of the bold, unfaltering, un-repentent imagination which they all possessed: it made them capable of the initial act of faith which ensured that, so long as it was the guiding principle of their endeavours, whatever direction their ideas took, their movement would be an irresistible advance. Their act of faith was a determination, which seemed to come sudden and simultaneously to them all, to set aside that which was apparently the occasion and the necessity of their work—that is, the repudiation of the evil qualities with which the mass media had been reproached and a detailed refutation of all such insidious charges—and instead to conduct the argument on a more spacious ground. No attempt was made to provide a detailed logical exposition of the fallacies or absurdities of the particular accusations which were made against the mass media;

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could be distinguished. They said, simply, that both the mass and that which was being addressed to the mass were intimidated by the form and by the conditions of the mass media: and that the intimidation was such as to preclude any possibility of an intelligible, much less intelligent, intercourse between the two.

The last of the important groups which stood in opposition to the mass media very often bore a marked resemblance to the first and third groups: not to both at once, but at one time to the one, at another to the other, according to the changing emphasis of their objections which changing times and changing places dictated. Their policy was summed up very clearly by one of their principal speakers: "We take up arms against the whole principle of mediation; there is but one effective form of communication, and that is—attack and defence." He went on to explaint what he meant by attack and defence—in order to put at rest the minds of any who might have feared that what he was advocating was destruction pure and simple. The technique of their argument was to begin by showing that "a true likeness" was an impossibility—a contradiction in terms: a dogmatic assertion would then be followed by a reasoned explanation which pointed out that all representation was essentially a recreation of something in a different place from that in which it had first existed, and that therefore, essence and environment being logically inseparable, all transference—all movement—of a thing, either in place or time, was merely a more exact way of speaking of changing it; representation, they said, was an outstanding, or primary, example of this transference, and the mass media were the product of the organisation and mechanisation of the instruments of representation on a national, or even on a world-wide, basis: their absurdity became most clearly evident when one realised that they might be used to communicate something which was already a representation—such as a painting. A representation, these people said, however beautiful it might be, could never be anything other than a distortion of the original; the mass media, however carefully and conscientiously they might be used, could never achieve the truthfulness to which they aspired: truthfulness—and truthfulness was the guiding principle, the constant standard of reference, of this group—was not to be sought among the achievements of the mass media: the effects which the mass media produced were not real and valid, the reactions to the forces of which they were the carriers were not the reactions of a spontaneous and vital reason working in the minds of men (some—the most passionate —would claim uncompromisingly that reason could not work in the minds of men, but only in the mind of a man) to satisfy an immediate and undeniable psychic need: such a response was mocked by the crude and inconsidered demands which were brought into the light— almost, it sometimes seemed, shamefacedly—by the hand of the mass media. Such institutionalisation and pre-conditioning of the challenging indivdual human experience of stimulus and response could not but damage the idea of individual self-sufficiency, the preservation of which, even in a society economically so interdependent, was the primary con-

indeed the policy of these men abjured any idea of maintaining that these accusations did possess fallacies or absurdities—they were merely passed by, a slight and cursory reproach being intimated with regard to their inadequacy to solve the problem of a new dimension which the mass media did in fact put before men. By means of the sureness of their judgment and the acuteness of their expectations they built a framework and theory of human activity and purpose—which did not merely reassert, in the name of the mass media, those values, assumptions and beliefs upon which had been raised a hundredfold artillery of denunciation to destroy the media: but transcended these values, and, discarding them, brought them to the stake: "Outworn, superstitious, and—yes!—corroding, they must be not merely left behind, but destroyed ... A new education of man is what the mass media propose: they challenge nothing less than the soul of man to come forward and put on a new and shining armour in preparation for a further and greater battle of the mind ..." The language of these men made no concessions to particular interests or prejudices of thought, but appealed directly to the vast mythical imagination of mankind as a whole. They seized upon the two things which are the common concern of all men, of each man: what he is now, and what will happen to him: and showed that a constant attention to these two concerns was the twofold principle which informed the whole working of the machinery of the mass media. The boldest and most determined would say that the media had created—or were the creation of—the idea of the individual, the idea of life: that these universal and omnicompetent mediators of experience had found and had given out to all men a picture of man in which for the first time, his activities were thought of as something more than the mere performance of a function and he himself was seen as a fantasy of hopes and fears essentially indefinable and remote from the products and controls of experience: and a picture of the world in which, for the first time, life itself was realised—indeed discovered— in its changefulness, its intenseness and irresistibility: to man, in short, was brought his first awareness of the joyfulness and the excitement which was the experiment of being alive. Life itself, they argued, was now revealed to be, not merely a convenient collective term for all the processes of activity which impinged themselves upon human perception, but a rich and varied, a diverse and intricate complexity: a dynamic concept of life had been added to a purely static description. Things, they said, had been given a new significance, the world of things a new dimension.

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