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Finally, therefore, some degree of psychological coherence is becoming apparent
in Pareto’s insistence that the (conservative) class II residues tend to correlate with
the class IV residues of sociality. It seems that he anticipated the idea that both
individuals and whole societies risk succumbing to a kind of ‘crisis orientation’
with distinctively conservative-authoritarian characteristics. We might think of this
crisis orientation as having perhaps evolved by helping our evolutionary ancestors
adjust psychologically to survive all manner of threatening circumstances through
a combination of neophobic suspicion of the unfamiliar, strong in-group affiliation,
and preparedness to share resources and make sacrifices. The point of contrast to this
crisis orientation
would then be times of peace, economic prosperity and material
abundance when altruistic concerns can be freely and widely distributed without
compromising genotypical survival, and where neophobic suspicions go unfed and
reduce because the ‘unfamiliar’ becomes much less threatening. It is worth stressing
that this concept of a conservative or authoritarian crisis orientation dovetails very
neatly indeed with Pareto’s repeated insistence that the class II residues come to the
fore under conditions of material austerity, often in societies geared towards military
readiness, while the class I residues intensify as societies
grow more prosperous and
interdependent with neighbouring societies.
To return once more to what Pareto said of his class IV residues, it appears that
the idea of a conservative or authoritarian crisis orientation also provides a plausible
framework theory for understanding that ‘willingness to conform’, and, and the same
time, those ‘demands for conformity from others’, which Pareto also lists among
them (§§ 1117–1129). Clearly, these aspects of our sociality might, just like ‘altruism’
and ‘neophobia’ have advantaged group survival during our evolutionary history.
However, it is interesting to consider that psychoanalytic theory also provides an
explanatory framework for these conformist sentiments. What’s more, this framework
seems to lend further weight to Pareto’s belief that these are more pronounced
within conservative personality. Perhaps most obviously, it is useful to reiterate that
psychoanalytic theories of compulsive personality explain that the child’s
forced
compliance to parental authority during the anal phase and/or later identification
with the same sex parent during the phallic phase can provide a template for the
adult’s willing compliance to other – e.g. political and religious – forms of authority.
Hence the child’s identification with the aggressor might often reoccur throughout
adulthood in the form of yearnings for strong leadership. Indeed, this might well
explain Wolak and Marcus’ (2006) finding that authoritarians in particular are likely
to display ‘enthusiastic’ emotional responses to favoured political candidates. Or,
where such individuals find themselves in extremely threatening situations, we might
speculate that they will be more likely to identify with those who threaten them. We
see this phenomenon in its most extreme manifestations within the condition which
Nils Bejerot termed ‘Stockholm Syndrome’, where hostages in kidnap or siege
situations cope with their trauma by identifying with their potential killers. This is
often exemplified with reference to the 1974 kidnapping of the heiress Patty Hearst
by
the Symbionese Liberation Army, which was followed just two months later by
her filmed participation in a bank robbery where she brandished a machine gun
alongside her former captors.
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Psychoanalytic theory also explains that compulsives cling to all manner of
established social regulations, partly due to exaggerated, neurotic fears that if they
should be freed from the restrictions which authority and regulation impose, then
they may lose control over or be forced to acknowledge repressed emotions and
desires. Indeed, this might explain why many individuals
who struggle with the
demands of their superegos seek membership of conservative instutions which
simultaneously reinforce the superego and provide sanctioned outlets where these
repressed contents can be discharged without guilt. One further argument from
psychoanalytic theory becomes important here. Freud argued in his ‘Civilisation
and its Discontents’ that culture ‘levies energy from sexuality’ in the sense that aim-
inhibited libido is channeled towards strengthening those bonds of friendship which
ultimately hold together civilised communities. The close relationship suggested
by Pareto between the conservative, class II residues and the class IV residues of
sociality might therefore be explained in part by arguing that because compulsives
repress
libidinal energy heavily, they become more likely to create sublimated
outlets, both through enthusiastic praise directed towards particular politicians, and
through in-group bonds formed within political institutions.
Having said that, Baumeister and Leary (1995, 497–529) have pulled together
empirical research which suggests that the desire to form interpersonal attachments,
or as they term it, the ‘need to belong’, is a ‘powerful, fundamental and extremely
pervasive motivation’ which has hitherto been underappreciated by psychologists
and sociologists alike. After setting out detailed evidence to suggest that this need
to
belong governs cognition, emotion and even physical well-being to a surprising
degree, they conclude that it seems too fundamental to count, as Freud believed,
as a mere by-product of other psychological processes. Of course, this view does
not exclude the possibility that differing levels of libidinal sublimation might
explain some individual variance in the
strength of Baumeister and Leary’s ‘need
to belong’.
Finally, it is worth adding that Pareto also regarded human sociality as manifesting
itself within ‘sentiments of hierarchy’ which fix one’s sense of place or ‘rank’ within
the social structure. He seemed to suggest that there are ‘sentiments of superiors’ and
‘sentiments of inferiors’ which, along with the need for group approval in general,
spring from the same imperative for us to integrate within social hierarchies. We
are asked to accept that ‘sentiments of superiors’ vary between ‘protection and
benevolence’ and ‘dominance and pride’ (Pareto 1935, §1155), whilst ‘sentiments
of inferiors’ include ‘subordination,
affection, respect and fear’ (Pareto 1935, §§
1156–1159). This may on the surface seem a rather awkward ordering of a very
heterogeneous list of other-regarding sentiments. However, we might try to bring
them together within an explanatory framework by saying that all correspond to a
heightened consciousness of one’s position within social hierarchies.
One way to theorise this consciousness is with reference to Alfred Adler’s famous
belief that inferiority and superiority complexes often combine within individuals
striving to compensate for childhood feelings of helplessness which have persisted into
adulthood. Adler believed that the more intensely we have experienced helplessness
as children, the more likely we are as adults to experience fluctuate between timidity
and aggression in our relations with others as we try
to develop ourselves towards