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Ruling Minds: Psychology in the British Empire
At its zenith in the early twentieth century, the British Empire ruled nearly one-quarter of the world's inhabitants. As they worked to exercise power in diverse and distant cultures, British authorities relied to a surprising degree on the science of mind. Ruling Minds explores how psychology opened up new possibilities for governing the empire. From the mental testing of workers and soldiers to the use of psychoanalysis in development plans and counterinsurgency strategy, psychology provided tools for measuring and managing the minds of imperial subjects. But it also led to unintended consequences.
Following researchers, missionaries, and officials to the far corners of the globe, Erik Linstrum examines how they used intelligence tests, laboratory studies, and even dream analysis to chart abilities and emotions. Psychology seemed to offer portable and standardized forms of knowledge that could be applied to people everywhere. Yet it also unsettled basic assumptions of imperial rule. Some experiments undercut the racial hierarchies that propped up British dominance. Others failed to realize the orderly transformation of colonized societies that experts promised and officials hoped for. Challenging our assumptions about scientific knowledge and empire, Linstrum shows that psychology did more to expose the limits of imperial authority than to strengthen it.
Following researchers, missionaries, and officials to the far corners of the globe, Erik Linstrum examines how they used intelligence tests, laboratory studies, and even dream analysis to chart abilities and emotions. Psychology seemed to offer portable and standardized forms of knowledge that could be applied to people everywhere. Yet it also unsettled basic assumptions of imperial rule. Some experiments undercut the racial hierarchies that propped up British dominance. Others failed to realize the orderly transformation of colonized societies that experts promised and officials hoped for. Challenging our assumptions about scientific knowledge and empire, Linstrum shows that psychology did more to expose the limits of imperial authority than to strengthen it.
- GenresHistoryPsychology
320 pages, Hardcover
First published January 4, 2016
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April 7, 2023
When running empires, rulers prefer to suppress or sidestep overt politics. Up to the end of the British empire, the science of mind – psychology -- routinely satisfied that preference. “It provided” as the author puts it, “technical solutions to political problems.”
In six thematic chapters, drawing on archives in several corners of the world and an impressive amount of secondary literature, he chronicles and analyses how “mind scientists” served a diverse range of interests, from steely imperial overlords to troubled liberals advocating reform, to military recruiters, gatekeepers of schools and colleges and managers of businesses. Psychology furnished virtual passepartouts into intimate life-realms of colonial subjects. For example it allowed Western 'experts' to denounce local practices of child-rearing as defective and then to intervene with ‘solutions’. In the face of rebellion, and later full-blown anti-colonial armed resistance, there arose well-funded sub-branches of psychology in the service of policing and anti-insurgency measures up to and including torture. The author looks closely at how academic, ecclesiastical, profit-seeking and military institutions made use of the science of mind. In studies of the politics of knowledge, we're sedom told where research money came from; this book tells who paid for what and why. The focus is on key actors, both theoreticians (Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung among them) and especially practitioners. Some of these held serious misgivings about overrule, yet most chose to tell themselves and others reassuring stories to justify their work and the concepts on which the work was based. It never seemed to matter that evidence of positive outcomes was nearly non-existent. The author concludes that as a large undertaking with many diverse interests and careers at stake, imperial psychology was too big to face up to failure. “Its appeal resisted refutation”.
This history recapitulates in uncanny ways the history of another Western undertaking whose appeal resists refutation: the aid-and-development industry, about which storytelling and hope continue to triumph over experience. The author alludes to it in remarks toward the end of his book, such as: “Mind scientists shared a widespread sense among development workers that the world beyond the West could not advance without expert guidance.” And in the concluding paragraph: “Psychology did not resolve the problems of ruling an empire so much as it dramatized them.”
This solid, well-written study concerns a bygone empire headquartered in London, but is no less relevant for other recent empires, including that headquartered in Washington DC.
In six thematic chapters, drawing on archives in several corners of the world and an impressive amount of secondary literature, he chronicles and analyses how “mind scientists” served a diverse range of interests, from steely imperial overlords to troubled liberals advocating reform, to military recruiters, gatekeepers of schools and colleges and managers of businesses. Psychology furnished virtual passepartouts into intimate life-realms of colonial subjects. For example it allowed Western 'experts' to denounce local practices of child-rearing as defective and then to intervene with ‘solutions’. In the face of rebellion, and later full-blown anti-colonial armed resistance, there arose well-funded sub-branches of psychology in the service of policing and anti-insurgency measures up to and including torture. The author looks closely at how academic, ecclesiastical, profit-seeking and military institutions made use of the science of mind. In studies of the politics of knowledge, we're sedom told where research money came from; this book tells who paid for what and why. The focus is on key actors, both theoreticians (Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung among them) and especially practitioners. Some of these held serious misgivings about overrule, yet most chose to tell themselves and others reassuring stories to justify their work and the concepts on which the work was based. It never seemed to matter that evidence of positive outcomes was nearly non-existent. The author concludes that as a large undertaking with many diverse interests and careers at stake, imperial psychology was too big to face up to failure. “Its appeal resisted refutation”.
This history recapitulates in uncanny ways the history of another Western undertaking whose appeal resists refutation: the aid-and-development industry, about which storytelling and hope continue to triumph over experience. The author alludes to it in remarks toward the end of his book, such as: “Mind scientists shared a widespread sense among development workers that the world beyond the West could not advance without expert guidance.” And in the concluding paragraph: “Psychology did not resolve the problems of ruling an empire so much as it dramatized them.”
This solid, well-written study concerns a bygone empire headquartered in London, but is no less relevant for other recent empires, including that headquartered in Washington DC.
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