Instincts of the Herd in Peace and WarTrotter, W. (Wilfred)
Science
Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War
Trotter, W. (Wilfred)
Collective behavior; Crowds; Social psychology; World War, 1914-1918 -- Psychological aspects
By the end of September 1914 it had become reasonably clear that the
war would be one of endurance, and the comparatively equal though
fluctuating strength of the two groups of adversaries has since shown
that in such endurance the main factor will be the moral factor rather
than the material. An examination of the moral strength of the two
arch-enemies will therefore have the interest of life and death behind
it, as well as such as may belong to the thesis which stands at the
head of this chapter.
Germany affords a profoundly interesting study for the biological
psychologist, and it is very important that we should not allow what
clearness of representation we can get into our picture of her mind to
be clouded by the heated atmosphere of national feeling in which our
work must be done. As I have said elsewhere, it is merely to encourage
fallacy to allow oneself to believe that one is without prejudices. The
most one can do is to recognize {157} what prejudices are likely to
exist and liberally to allow for them.
If I were to say that at the present moment I can induce myself to
believe that it will ever be possible for Europe to contain a strong
Germany of the current type and remain habitable by free peoples, the
apparent absence of national bias in the statement would be a mere
affectation, and by no means an evidence of freedom from prejudice. I
am much more likely to get into reasonable relations with the truth
if I admit to myself, quite frankly, my innermost conviction that
the destruction of the German Empire is an indispensable preliminary
to the making of a civilization tolerable by rational beings. Having
recognized the existence of that belief as a necessary obstacle to
complete freedom of thought, it may be possible to allow for it and to
counteract what aberrations of judgment it may be likely to produce.
* * * * *
In making an attempt to estimate the relative moral resources of
England and Germany at the present time it is necessary to consider
them as biological entities or major units of the human species in
the sense of that term we have already repeatedly used. We shall have
to examine the evolutionary tendencies which each of these units has
shown, and if possible to decide how far they have followed the lines
of development which psychological theory indicates to be those of
healthy and progressive development for a gregarious animal.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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