There are certain rules of thumb according to which human behavior has long been controlled which make up a species of prescientific craft. The scientific study of behavior has reached the point where it is supplying additional techniques. As the methods of science continue to be applied to behavior, we may expect technical contributions to multiply rapidly. If we may judge from the application of science to other practical problems, the effect upon human affairs will be tremendous.
We have no guarantee that the power thus generated will be used for what now appear to be the best interests of mankind. As the technology of modern warfare clearly shows, scientists have not been able to prevent the use of their achievements in ways which are very far from the original purposes of science. A science of behavior does not contain within itself any means of controlling the use to which its contributions will be put. Machiavelli’s prescientific insight into human behavior was dedicated to preserving the power of a governmental agency. In Nazi Germany the results of a more exact science were applied to similarly restricted interests. Can this be prevented? Are we to continue to develop a science of behavior without regard to the use which will be made of it? If not, to whom is the control which it generates to be delegated?
This is not only a puzzling question, it is a frightening one; for there is good reason to fear those who are most apt to seize control. To the suggestion that science would eventually be able to “control man’s thoughts with precision” Winston Churchill once replied, “I shall be very content if my task in this world is done before that happens.” This is not, however, a wholly satisfactory disposition of the problem. Other kinds of solutions may be classified under four general headings.
Denying control. One proposed solution is to insist that man is a free agent and forever beyond the reach of controlling techniques. It is apparently no longer possible to seek refuge in that belief. The freedom which is at issue in the evaluation of governments is related to the countercontrol of aversive techniques. A doctrine of personal freedom appeals to anyone to whom the release from coercive control is important. But behavior is determined in noncoercive ways; and as other kinds of control are better understood, the doctrine of personal freedom becomes less and less effective as a motivating device and less and less tenable in a theoretical understanding of human behavior. We all control, and we are all controlled. As human behavior is further analyzed, control will become more effective. Sooner or later the problem must be faced.
Refusing to control. An alternative solution is the deliberate rejection of the opportunity to control. The best example of this comes from psychotherapy. The therapist is often clearly aware of his power over the individual who turns to him for help. The misuse of that power requires, as we have seen, unusual ethical standards. Carl R. Rogers has written, “One cannot take responsibility for evaluating a person’s abilities, motives, conflicts, needs; for evaluating the adjustment he is capable of achieving, the degree of reorganization he should undergo, the conflicts which he should resolve, the degree of dependence which he should develop upon the therapist, and the goals of therapy, without a significant degree of control over the individual being an inevitable accompaniment. As this process is extended to more and more persons, as it is for example to thousands of veterans, it means a subtle control of persons and their values and goals by a group which has selected itself to do the controlling. The fact that it is a subtle and well-intentioned control makes it only less likely that people will realize what they are accepting.”1 Rogers’ solution is to minimize the contact between patient and therapist to the point at which control seems to vanish.
Philosophies of government which arise from a similar fear of control are represented in an extreme form by anarchy and more conservatively by the doctrine of laisser faire. “He governs best who governs least.” This does not mean that moderate governmental techniques are especially effective, for if that were true the moderate government would govern most. It means that a government which governs least is relatively free from the dangers of misuse of power. In economics a similar philosophy defends the normal stabilizing processes of a “free” economy against all forms of regulation.
To refuse to accept control, however, is merely to leave control in other hands. Rogers has argued that the individual holds within himself the solution to his problems and that for this reason the therapist need not take positive action. But what are the ultimate sources of the inner solution? If the individual is the product of a culture in which there is marked ethical and religious training, in which governmental control and education have been effective, in which economic reinforcement has worked in an acceptable way, and in which there is a substantial lay wisdom applicable to personal problems, he may very well “find a solution,” and a therapist may not be necessary. But if the individual is the product of excessive, unskillful, or otherwise damaging control, or has received atypical ethical or religious training, or is subject to extreme deprivations, or has received powerful economic reinforcements for asocial behavior, no acceptable solution may be available “within himself.” In government a philosophy of laisser faire is effective if the citizen is in contact with religious, educational, and other types of agencies, which supply the control which the government refuses to accept. The program of anarchy, which argues that man will flourish as soon as governmental control is withdrawn, usually neglects to identify the other controlling forces which adapt man to a stable social system. A “free society” is one in which the individual is controlled by agencies other than government. The “faith in the common man” which makes a philosophy of democracy possible is actually a faith in other sources of control. When the governmental structure of the United States was being designed, the advocates of a minimal government could point to effective religious and ethical controls; if these had been lacking, a program of laisser faire would have left the people of the country to other controlling agencies with possibly disastrous results. Similarly, in an uncontrolled economy, prices, wages, and so on are free to change as functions of variables which are not arranged by a governmental agency; but they are not free in any other sense.
To refuse to accept control, and thus to leave control to other sources, often has the effect of diversifying control. Diversification is another possible solution to our problem.
Diversifying control. A rather obvious solution is to distribute the control of human behavior among many agencies which have so little in common that they are not likely to join together in a despotic unit. In general this is the argument for democracy against totalitarianism. In a totalitarian state all agencies are brought together under a single superagency. A state religion conforms to governmental principles. Through state ownership the superagency acquires complete economic control. Schools are used to support governmental practices and to train men and women according to the needs of the state, while education which might oppose the governmental program is prevented through control of speech and the press. Even psychotherapy may become a function of the state, as in Nazi Germany, where, because there were no opposing agencies, extreme measures were adopted.
A unified agency is often said to be more efficient, but it makes a solution to the problem of control very difficult. It is the inefficiency of diversified agencies which offers some guarantee against the despotic use of power. A simple example of the beneficial effect of diversification is provided by American advertising. Large sums of money are spent annually to induce people to purchase particular brands of goods. A large part of the control attempted by each company is counteracted by the control attempted by others. Insofar as advertising is directed toward the choice of brand only, the net effect is probably slight. If all the money used to promote particular brands of cigarettes, for example, were devoted to increasing the number of cigarettes smoked per day regardless of brand, the effect might well be more marked. This fact is recognized by industries which pool their advertising funds to promote a type of product rather than individual brands.
In a democracy there is a similar, but much more important, canceling out of the effects of control: economic control is often opposed by education and by governmental restrictions; governmental and religious control is often opposed by psychotherapy; there is often some opposition between government and religion; and so on. So long as the opposing forces remain in some sort of balance, excessive exploitation by any one agency is avoided. This does not mean that control is never misused. Proceeds from control tend to be less conspicuous when thus divided, and no one agency increases its power to the point at which the members of the group take alarm. It does not follow, however, that diversified control does more than diversify the proceeds.
The great advantage of diversification is not closely related to the problem of control. Diversification permits a safer and more flexible experimentation in the design of culture. The totalitarian state is weak because if it makes a mistake, the whole culture may be destroyed. Under diversification, new techniques of control may be tested locally without a serious threat to the whole structure.
Those who accept diversification as a solution to the problem of control find it possible to adopt several appropriate measures. One controlling agency is explicitly opposed to another. Legislation against monopolistic practices, for example, prevents the development of the unlimited economic power of a single agency. It often has the effect of setting up two or three powerful agencies among which a given sort of economic control is distributed. In education an explicit diversification is implied in any opposition to standardized practices. By maintaining many different kinds of educational institutions, working in different ways and achieving different results, we gain the advantages of safe experimentation and avoid excessive emphasis on any one program. In America diversification in government is exemplified by the coexistence of federal, state, and local governments, while religious control is distributed among many sects.
To those who fear the misuse of a science of human behavior this solution dictates an obvious step. By distributing scientific knowledge as widely as possible, we gain some assurance that it will not be impounded by any one agency for its own aggrandizement.
Controlling control. In another attempt to solve the problem of control a governmental agency is given the power to limit the extent to which control is exercised by individuals or by other agencies. The possibility of controlling men through force, for example, is all too evident. One strong man governing through force alone is a small totalitarian state. When the force is distributed among many men, the advantages of diversification ensue: there is some cancellation of effect, exploitation is less conspicuous, and the strength of the group does not depend so critically upon the continuing strength of one man. But an advance over the mere diversification of force is achieved by a government which functions to “keep the peace”—to prevent any sort of control through the use of force. Such a government may be extended to other forms of control. In modern democracies, for example, the man in possession of great wealth is not permitted to control behavior in all the ways which would otherwise be open to him. The educator is not permitted to use the controls at his disposal to establish certain kinds of behavior. Religion and psychotherapy are not permitted to encourage or condone illegal behavior. Personal control is restricted by giving the individual redress against “undue influence.”
In this solution to the problem there is no doubt where the ultimate control rests. But if such a government is to operate efficiently, it must be assigned superior power, and the problem of preventing its misuse remains. The problem has apparently been solved with respect to control through force whenever a government has successfully kept the peace without otherwise interfering in the lives of its citizens. But this result is not inevitable. Governments which are assigned force in order to keep the peace may use it to control citizens in other ways and to fight other governments. Other sorts of control may also be misused. A government which is able to restrict the control exercised by a particular agency may coerce that agency into supporting its own program of expansion. The totalitarian state begins perhaps by merely restricting the control of the agencies under it, but it can eventually usurp their functions. This has happened in the past. Does a science of behavior necessarily make it less likely to happen again?
The ultimate strength of a controller depends upon the strength of those whom he controls. The wealth of a rich man depends upon the productivity of those whom he controls through wealth; slavery as a technique in the control of labor eventually proves nonproductive and too costly to survive. The strength of a government depends upon the inventiveness and productivity of its citizens; coercive controls which lead to inefficient or neurotic behavior defeat their own purpose. An agency which employs the stupefying practices of propaganda suffers from the ignorance and the restricted repertoires of those whom it controls. A culture which is content with the status quo—which claims to know what controlling practices are best and therefore does not experiment—may achieve a temporary stability but only at the price of eventual extinction.
By showing how governmental practices shape the behavior of those governed, science may lead us more rapidly to the design of a government, in the broadest possible sense, which will necessarily promote the well-being of those who are governed. The maximal strength of the manpower born to a group usually requires conditions which are described roughly with such terms as freedom, security, happiness, and knowledge. In the exceptional case in which it does not, the criterion of survival also works in the interests of the governed as well as those of the government. It may not be purely wishful thinking to predict that this kind of strength will eventually take first place in the considerations of those who engage in the design of culture. Such an achievement would simply represent a special case of self-control in the sense of Chapter XV. It is easy for a ruler, or the designer of a culture, to use any available power to achieve certain immediate effects. It is much more difficult to use power to achieve certain ultimate consequences. But every scientific advance which points up such consequences makes some measure of self-control in the design of culture more probable.
Government for the benefit of the governed is easily classified as an ethical or moral issue. This need not mean that governmental design is based upon any absolute principles of right and wrong but rather, as we have just seen, that it is under the control of long-term consequences. All the examples of self-control described in Chapter XV could also be classified as ethical or moral problems. We deal with the ethics of governmental design and control as we deal with the ethics of any other sort of human behavior. For obvious reasons we call someone bad when he strikes us. Later, and for as obvious reasons, we call him bad when he strikes others. Eventually we object in more general terms to the use of physical force. Countermeasures become part of the ethical practices of our group, and religious agencies support these measures by branding the use of physical force immoral or sinful. All these measures which oppose the use of physical force are thus explained in terms of the immediate aversive consequences. In the design of government, we can, however, evaluate the use of physical force by considering the ultimate effect upon the group. Why should a particular government not slaughter the entire population of a captured city or country? It is part of our cultural heritage to call such behavior wrong and to react, perhaps in a violently emotional way, to the suggestion. The fact that the members of a group do react in this way could probably be shown to contribute ultimately to the strength of the group. But quite apart from such a reaction we may also condemn such a practice because it would eventually weaken the government. As we have seen, it would lead to much more violent resistance in other wars, to organized counterattack by countries afraid of meeting the same fate, and to very serious problems in the control of the government’s own citizens. In the same way, although we may object to slavery because aversive control of one individual is also aversive to others, because it is “wrong,” or because it is “incompatible with our conception of the dignity of man,” an alternative consideration in the design of culture might be that slavery reduces the effectiveness of those who are enslaved and has serious effects upon other members of the group. Similarly, we defend a way of life which we believe to be superior to others by listing those characteristics which are immediately reinforcing to us and which we call ethically or morally good; but in evaluating a particular cultural experiment we may, instead, ask whether that way of life makes for the most effective development of those who follow it.
Ethical and moral principles have undoubtedly been valuable in the design of cultural practices. Presumably those principles which are with us today have been most valuable in this respect. However, the ultimate survival value of any given set is not thereby guaranteed. What science can tell us about the effect of a given practice upon behavior, and the effect of that behavior upon the survival of the group, may lead more directly to recognition of the ultimate strength of government in the broadest sense. Eventually the question must be asked with respect to mankind in general. Much has been written recently of the need to return to “moral law” in deliberations concerning human affairs. But the question, “Whose moral law?” frequently proves embarrassing. Faced with the problem of finding a moral law acceptable to all the peoples of the world, we become more acutely aware of the shortcomings of the principles proposed by any one group or agency. The possibility of promoting such principles, either through education or military conquest, is not promising. If a science of behavior can discover those conditions of life which make for the ultimate strength of men, it may provide a set of “moral values” which, because they are independent of the history and culture of any one group, may be generally accepted.
Although science may provide the basis for a more effective cultural design, the question of who is to engage in such design remains unanswered. “Who should control?” is a spurious question—at least until we have specified the consequences with respect to which it may be answered. If we look to the long-term effect upon the group the question becomes, “Who should control if the culture is to survive?” But this is equivalent to asking, “Who will control in the group which does survive?” The answer requires the kind of prediction which cannot be made with any certainty because of the extremely complex circumstances to be taken into account. In the long run, however, the most effective control from the point of view of survival will probably be based upon the most reliable estimates of the survival value of cultural practices. Since a science of behavior is concerned with demonstrating the consequences of cultural practices, we have some reason for believing that such a science will be an essential mark of the culture or cultures which survive. The current culture which, on this score alone, is most likely to survive is, therefore, that in which the methods of science are most effectively applied to the problems of human behavior.
This does not mean, however, that scientists are becoming self-appointed governors. It does not mean that anyone in possession of the methods and results of science can step outside the stream of history and take the evolution of government into his own hands. Science is not free, either. It cannot interfere with the course of events; it is simply part of that course. It would be quite inconsistent if we were to exempt the scientist from the account which science gives of human behavior in general. Science can, however, supply a description of the kind of process of which it itself is an example. A reasonable statement of our present position in the evolution of culture might take this form: We find ourselves members of a culture in which science has flourished and in which the methods of science have come to be applied to human behavior. If, as seems to be the case, the culture derives strength from this fact, it is a reasonable prediction that a science of behavior will continue to flourish and that our culture will make a substantial contribution to the social environment of the future.
Western thought has emphasized the importance and dignity of the individual. Democratic philosophies of government, based upon the “rights of man,” have asserted that all individuals are equal under the law, and that the welfare of the individual is the goal of government. In similar philosophies of religion, piety and salvation have been left to the individual himself rather than to a religious agency. Democratic literature and art have emphasized the individual rather than the type, and have often been concerned with increasing man’s knowledge and understanding of himself. Many schools of psychotherapy have accepted the philosophy that man is the master of his own fate. In education, social planning, and many other fields, the welfare and dignity of the individual have received first consideration.
The effectiveness of this point of view can scarcely be denied. The practices associated with it have strengthened the individual as an energetic and productive member of the group. The individual who “asserts himself” is one to whom the social environment is especially reinforcing. The environment which has characterized Western democratic thought has had this effect. The point of view is particularly important in opposition to despotic control and can, in fact, be understood only in relation to such control. The first step in the countercontrol of a powerful agency is to strengthen the controllee. If the governing agency cannot be made to understand the value of the individual to the agency itself, the individual himself must be made to understand his own value. The effectiveness of the technique is evident in the fact that despotic governments have eventually been countercontrolled by individuals acting in concert to build a world which they find more reinforcing, and in the fact that governing agencies which recognize the importance of the individual have frequently become powerful.
The use of such concepts as individual freedom, initiative, and responsibility has, therefore, been well reinforced. When we turn to what science has to offer, however, we do not find very comforting support for the traditional Western point of view. The hypothesis that man is not free is essential to the application of scientific method to the study of human behavior. The free inner man who is held responsible for the behavior of the external biological organism is only a prescientific substitute for the kinds of causes which are discovered in the course of a scientific analysis. All these alternative causes lie outside the individual. The biological substratum itself is determined by prior events in a genetic process. Other important events are found in the nonsocial environment and in the culture of the individual in the broadest possible sense. These are the things which make the individual behave as he does. For them he is not responsible, and for them it is useless to praise or blame him. It does not matter that the individual may take it upon himself to control the variables of which his own behavior is a function or, in a broader sense, to engage in the design of his own culture. He does this only because he is the product of a culture which generates self-control or cultural design as a mode of behavior. The environment determines the individual even when he alters the environment.
This prior importance of the environment has slowly come to be recognized by those who are concerned with changing the lot of mankind. It is more effective to change the culture than the individual because any effect upon the individual as such will be lost at his death. Since cultures survive for much longer periods, any effect upon them is more reinforcing. There is a similar distinction between clinical medicine, which is concerned with the health of the individual, and the science of medicine, which is concerned with improving medical practices which will eventually affect the health of billions of individuals. Presumably, the emphasis on culture will grow as the relevance of the social environment to the behavior of the individual becomes clearer. We may therefore find it necessary to change from a philosophy which emphasizes the individual to one which emphasizes the culture or the group. But cultures also change and perish, and we must not forget that they are created by individual action and survive only through the behavior of individuals.
Science does not set the group or the state above the individual or vice versa. All such interpretations derive from an unfortunate figure of speech, borrowed from certain prominent instances of control. In analyzing the determination of human conduct we choose as a starting point a conspicuous link in a longer causal chain. When an individual conspicuously manipulates the variables of which the behavior of another individual is a function, we say that the first individual controls the second, but we do not ask who or what controls the first. When a government conspicuously controls its citizens, we consider this fact without identifying the events which control the government. When the individual is strengthened as a measure of counter-control, we may, as in democratic philosophies, think of him as a starting point. Actually, however, we are not justified in assigning to anyone or anything the role of prime mover. Although it is necessary that science confine itself to selected segments in a continuous series of events, it is to the whole series that any interpretation must eventually apply.
Even so, the conception of the individual which emerges from a scientific analysis is distasteful to most of those who have been strongly affected by democratic philosophies. As we saw in Chapter I, it has always been the unfortunate task of science to dispossess cherished beliefs regarding the place of man in the universe. It is easy to understand why men so frequently flatter themselves—why they characterize the world in ways which reinforce them by providing escape from the consequences of criticism or other forms of punishment. But although flattery temporarily strengthens behavior, it is questionable whether it has any ultimate survival value. If science does not confirm the assumptions of freedom, initiative, and responsibility in the behavior of the individual, these assumptions will not ultimately be effective either as motivating devices or as goals in the design of culture. We may not give them up easily, and we may, in fact, find it difficult to control ourselves or others until alternative principles have been developed. But the change will probably be made. It does not follow that newer concepts will necessarily be less acceptable. We may console ourselves with the reflection that science is, after all, a cumulative progress in knowledge which is due to man alone, and that the highest human dignity may be to accept the facts of human behavior regardless of their momentary implications.