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Human Nature in Politics: Third Edition
I have been sometimes asked to recommend a list of books on the psychology of politics. I believe that at the present stage of the science, a politician will gain more from reading, in the light of his own experience, those treatises on psychology which have been written without special reference to politics, than by beginning with the literature of applied political psychology.
218 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1948
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About the author
Graham Wallas
34 books16 followersGraham Wallas was an English socialist, social psychologist, educationalist, a leader of the Fabian Society and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Wikipedia
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
August 15, 2021
“Political science in the past was mainly based on conceptions of human nature, but the discredit of the dogmatic political writers of the early nineteenth century has made modern students of politics over-anxious to avoid anything which recalls their methods.”
“Political impulses are not mere intellectual inferences from calculations of means and ends; but tendencies prior to, though modified by, the thought and experience of individual human beings. This may be seen if we watch the action in politics of such impulses as personal affection, fear, ridicule, the desire of property, etc.”
“Intellectualist political thinkers often assume, not only that political action is necessarily the result of inferences as to means and ends, but that all inferences are of the same ‘rational’ type.”
“…it is clear that many of the half-conscious processes by which men form their political opinions are non-rational.”
“The empirical art of politics consists largely in the creation of opinion by the deliberate exploitation of subconscious non-rational inference.”
The behavior of concrete human beings should be made the center of political investigation. The study of politics should return to the tradition of Plato, Aristotle and Machiavelli.
“…political behavior is irrational, that politics is the business of manipulating and exploiting the basic yet complex drives of men, and that all political progress must reckon with those drives.” Max Letner
“Political impulses are not mere intellectual inferences from calculations of means and ends; but tendencies prior to, though modified by, the thought and experience of individual human beings. This may be seen if we watch the action in politics of such impulses as personal affection, fear, ridicule, the desire of property, etc.”
“Intellectualist political thinkers often assume, not only that political action is necessarily the result of inferences as to means and ends, but that all inferences are of the same ‘rational’ type.”
“…it is clear that many of the half-conscious processes by which men form their political opinions are non-rational.”
“The empirical art of politics consists largely in the creation of opinion by the deliberate exploitation of subconscious non-rational inference.”
The behavior of concrete human beings should be made the center of political investigation. The study of politics should return to the tradition of Plato, Aristotle and Machiavelli.
“…political behavior is irrational, that politics is the business of manipulating and exploiting the basic yet complex drives of men, and that all political progress must reckon with those drives.” Max Letner
April 15, 2021
Wallas was a British politician and a political writer hoping for a more methodical approach towards politics, which he viewed as being hopelessly stuck in a vague, undeveloped, and not very useful frame of mind.
He lists many psychological patterns about political phenomena: there is an advantage for a candidate to live outside of their constituency, the power of national and political symbols, even names of political parties, when it is advantageous for a politician or a newspaper to change their opinion and as the patterns begin to accumulate Wallas moves towards a general approach towards politics.
One of his main points is that we ought to approach politics as one approaches science, reducing it to as many measurable facts as one can. “We must aim at finding as many relevant and measurable facts about human nature as possible and we must attempt to make all of them serviceable in political reasoning”
Many political concepts are based in ideals and not anything measurable, and this irritates Wallas to no end. “No doctor would begin a medical treatise by saying 'the ideal man requires no food, and is impervious to the actions of bacteria, but this ideal is far removed from the actualities of any known population'”
Earlier, Wallas had quoted an actual political scientist, James Bryce introducing a book on English and American politics writing about how “in the ideal democracy, every citizen is intelligent, patriotic, disinterested. His sole wish is to discover the right side in each contested issue, and to fix upon the best man among competing candidates”
I think I get the point. Medicine does seek to improve the health of the human race to the highest extent possible and I'm sure there are researchers that dream of no limits to such an effort, but the typical doctor doesn't appear to approach their daily work with the approach of a zealous transhumanist. I would say that even the average person goes into a hospital knowing there are a wide variety of factors outside of anyone's control, that perhaps their best hope is only a mitigation of their condition, and that regardless of the results eventually they will die.
As for those involved in politics...well the field has honestly been ruined by idealism. Imagine a physician looking through all the varieties of men, women, and children in the world, actually throughout the entire history of humanity, in all their capacities, in all of their talents, deficiencies, or deformities, and telling you, I through my knowledge can turn you into any one of them, and keep you in that state forever. The implication also being that if the wrong physician gets to you, he'll give you, perhaps for his own greedy purposes the worst diseases and deformities that humanity has ever suffered, any of them. Surely neither politicians or doctors are that omnipotent.
“If our imaginations ever start on the old road to Utopia”, Wallas notes “we are checked by remembering that were are blood relations of the other animals, and that we have no more right than [they] to suppose that the mind of the universe has contrived that we can find a perfect life by looking for it.” Over 99% of the species in the history of this Earth have gone extinct, and we have found no trace of any, let alone intelligent, life anywhere else, but we shall be the exception to emptiness and decay. We may last as long as we wish, proliferate as far as we want, advance as much as possible...if the right politicians are in charge. The modern era is not the age of Darwin it will till its end be the age of Condorcet.
Wallas’ ideal is the civil service, educated, well tested, and I can't help but note...unelected, and Wallas is not ashamed to explore the possibilities of authoritarianism, noting that the most ambitious experiment in such a style of government is the British presence in India, and when you realize the small number of Englishmen that were ruling so many hundreds of millions, he may be right about that. I actually think even today a lot of people would tolerate authoritarianism as long as the aims are in their own opinion "benevolent".
He doesn't think any government can ignore public opinion without imperiling itself, which I completely agree with, but doesn't think that opinion needs to come through the system of voting, and notes that even when voting is allowed many people don't vote, leading to a de-facto unelected government. His ideal is the rational, removed, aristocracy and points out that in an important case, the jury system works best when the jurors are isolated rather than being influenced by the emotional circus being put on by the media meanwhile. He thinks that the rulers can’t be entirely removed from their population however, and ought to listen to public opinion but I don't think he entirely figured out how.
Almost as an aside there are some interesting predictions on the future of government. He deplores the popular view of geopolitics as a survival of the fittest, and notes the irony that imperial ambitions have now led to a world war where the leading nations, the supposedly fittest were now destroying each other. He takes into account globalization and notes the trends towards a one world government, which he appears to advocate, a one world polity embracing humanity in all its diversity, as opposed to the nationalist though not illiberal theories of the 19th century that wanted simply to grant democracy and self determination to all of the “nations” of the Earth. “We are coming...to believe that the world is richer for the existence both of other civilizations and of other racial types than our own”
Nonetheless he predicts a future where the trends that caused the First World War could continue as well, “After centuries of warfare and the steady retrogression, in the waste of blood and treasure and loyalty, of modern civilizations, two empires...America and China may remain. Both will possess an armament which represents the whole 'surplus value' beyond mere subsistence created by its inhabitants. Both will contain white and yellow and brown and black men hating each other across a wavering line on the map of the world. But the struggle will go on, and, as the result of a naval Armageddon in the Pacific only one Empire will exist.”
There is irony in a book emphasizing that human beings are irrational, criticizing utopians, and then proposing his own overhaul and improvement of the political process. To be fair, Wallas doesn't think that he can get rid of human irrationality, but that it can be mitigated, as we aim for a harmony between the intellect and the senses, in the tradition of Plato of which Wallas appears to be a fan. This is a fair and reachable goal in my opinion for the individual, but to try and fix society or politics in the same manner appears a bit more complicated. Every solution Wallas offers leaves too much space for something not-measurable, an opportunity for a value judgment, countless actually, a vulnerable breach for irrationality to reach in flood everything else.
He lists many psychological patterns about political phenomena: there is an advantage for a candidate to live outside of their constituency, the power of national and political symbols, even names of political parties, when it is advantageous for a politician or a newspaper to change their opinion and as the patterns begin to accumulate Wallas moves towards a general approach towards politics.
One of his main points is that we ought to approach politics as one approaches science, reducing it to as many measurable facts as one can. “We must aim at finding as many relevant and measurable facts about human nature as possible and we must attempt to make all of them serviceable in political reasoning”
Many political concepts are based in ideals and not anything measurable, and this irritates Wallas to no end. “No doctor would begin a medical treatise by saying 'the ideal man requires no food, and is impervious to the actions of bacteria, but this ideal is far removed from the actualities of any known population'”
Earlier, Wallas had quoted an actual political scientist, James Bryce introducing a book on English and American politics writing about how “in the ideal democracy, every citizen is intelligent, patriotic, disinterested. His sole wish is to discover the right side in each contested issue, and to fix upon the best man among competing candidates”
I think I get the point. Medicine does seek to improve the health of the human race to the highest extent possible and I'm sure there are researchers that dream of no limits to such an effort, but the typical doctor doesn't appear to approach their daily work with the approach of a zealous transhumanist. I would say that even the average person goes into a hospital knowing there are a wide variety of factors outside of anyone's control, that perhaps their best hope is only a mitigation of their condition, and that regardless of the results eventually they will die.
As for those involved in politics...well the field has honestly been ruined by idealism. Imagine a physician looking through all the varieties of men, women, and children in the world, actually throughout the entire history of humanity, in all their capacities, in all of their talents, deficiencies, or deformities, and telling you, I through my knowledge can turn you into any one of them, and keep you in that state forever. The implication also being that if the wrong physician gets to you, he'll give you, perhaps for his own greedy purposes the worst diseases and deformities that humanity has ever suffered, any of them. Surely neither politicians or doctors are that omnipotent.
“If our imaginations ever start on the old road to Utopia”, Wallas notes “we are checked by remembering that were are blood relations of the other animals, and that we have no more right than [they] to suppose that the mind of the universe has contrived that we can find a perfect life by looking for it.” Over 99% of the species in the history of this Earth have gone extinct, and we have found no trace of any, let alone intelligent, life anywhere else, but we shall be the exception to emptiness and decay. We may last as long as we wish, proliferate as far as we want, advance as much as possible...if the right politicians are in charge. The modern era is not the age of Darwin it will till its end be the age of Condorcet.
Wallas’ ideal is the civil service, educated, well tested, and I can't help but note...unelected, and Wallas is not ashamed to explore the possibilities of authoritarianism, noting that the most ambitious experiment in such a style of government is the British presence in India, and when you realize the small number of Englishmen that were ruling so many hundreds of millions, he may be right about that. I actually think even today a lot of people would tolerate authoritarianism as long as the aims are in their own opinion "benevolent".
He doesn't think any government can ignore public opinion without imperiling itself, which I completely agree with, but doesn't think that opinion needs to come through the system of voting, and notes that even when voting is allowed many people don't vote, leading to a de-facto unelected government. His ideal is the rational, removed, aristocracy and points out that in an important case, the jury system works best when the jurors are isolated rather than being influenced by the emotional circus being put on by the media meanwhile. He thinks that the rulers can’t be entirely removed from their population however, and ought to listen to public opinion but I don't think he entirely figured out how.
Almost as an aside there are some interesting predictions on the future of government. He deplores the popular view of geopolitics as a survival of the fittest, and notes the irony that imperial ambitions have now led to a world war where the leading nations, the supposedly fittest were now destroying each other. He takes into account globalization and notes the trends towards a one world government, which he appears to advocate, a one world polity embracing humanity in all its diversity, as opposed to the nationalist though not illiberal theories of the 19th century that wanted simply to grant democracy and self determination to all of the “nations” of the Earth. “We are coming...to believe that the world is richer for the existence both of other civilizations and of other racial types than our own”
Nonetheless he predicts a future where the trends that caused the First World War could continue as well, “After centuries of warfare and the steady retrogression, in the waste of blood and treasure and loyalty, of modern civilizations, two empires...America and China may remain. Both will possess an armament which represents the whole 'surplus value' beyond mere subsistence created by its inhabitants. Both will contain white and yellow and brown and black men hating each other across a wavering line on the map of the world. But the struggle will go on, and, as the result of a naval Armageddon in the Pacific only one Empire will exist.”
There is irony in a book emphasizing that human beings are irrational, criticizing utopians, and then proposing his own overhaul and improvement of the political process. To be fair, Wallas doesn't think that he can get rid of human irrationality, but that it can be mitigated, as we aim for a harmony between the intellect and the senses, in the tradition of Plato of which Wallas appears to be a fan. This is a fair and reachable goal in my opinion for the individual, but to try and fix society or politics in the same manner appears a bit more complicated. Every solution Wallas offers leaves too much space for something not-measurable, an opportunity for a value judgment, countless actually, a vulnerable breach for irrationality to reach in flood everything else.
July 26, 2014
Wallas starts off with a really interesting the implications of which are usually very important and very interesting: What if our models of human behavior are overreliant on rational behavior?
Although this is well-trod turf, it's useful because all models will rely on some sort of rational behavior, right? Right?
There are two problems: one substantive and one worse. The first is that Wallas seems to believe that people are only partly irrational. So Wallas thinks it's possible to get people working from their rational sides or, in the alternative, people can rationally plan around their irrational sides. That's a little tricky.
The real trouble is that Wallas believes that the irrational tendency of people to feel comfortable in their in-groups is likely to lead to a global race war in the near future. Wallas may or may not dislike the race war, but he seems to think it's so inevitable that he wants to suss out the consequences. So this is unpleasant and bad and largely nonsensical.
Although this is well-trod turf, it's useful because all models will rely on some sort of rational behavior, right? Right?
There are two problems: one substantive and one worse. The first is that Wallas seems to believe that people are only partly irrational. So Wallas thinks it's possible to get people working from their rational sides or, in the alternative, people can rationally plan around their irrational sides. That's a little tricky.
The real trouble is that Wallas believes that the irrational tendency of people to feel comfortable in their in-groups is likely to lead to a global race war in the near future. Wallas may or may not dislike the race war, but he seems to think it's so inevitable that he wants to suss out the consequences. So this is unpleasant and bad and largely nonsensical.
December 5, 2014
It is the best book for political seience's students.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews