The Ghost in the Machine (35 page)

 

* In the terminology of C.M. Child, the part becomes 'physiologically
isolated' from the whole. [4]

 

Not only parts of the body can, under conditions of stress, assert
themselves in harmful ways, but mental structures as well. The
idée fixe
, the obsession of the crank, are cognitive holons
running riot. There is a whole gamut of mental disorders in which some
subordinate part of the mental hierarchy exerts its tyrannical rule
over the whole; from the relatively harmless infatuation with some
pet theory, to the insidious domination over the mind of 'repressed'
complexes (characteristically called 'autonomous complexes' by Freud
because they are beyond the ego's control), and so to the clinical
psychoses in which large chunks of the personality seem to have 'split
off' and lead a quasi-independent existence. In the hallucinations of
the paranoiac, not only the cognitive but also the perceptual hierarchy
has fallen under the sway of the unleashed mental holon, which imposes
its peculiar rules of the game on it.

 

 

However, clinical insanity is merely an extreme manifestation of
tendencies which are potentially present, but more or less under
restraint in the normal mind or what we call by that name. Aberrations
of the human mind are to a large extent due to the obsessional pursuit
of some part-truth, treated as if it were a whole truth -- of a holon
masquerading as a whole. Religious, political, philosophical fanaticisms,
the stubbornness of prejudice, the intolerance of scientific orthodoxies
and of artistic cliques, all testify to the tendency to build 'closed
systems' centred on some part-truth, and to assert its absolute validity
in the teeth of evidence to the contrary. In extreme cases, a cognitive
holon which has got out of control can behave like a cancerous tissue
invading other mental structures.

 

 

If we turn from individuals to social holons -- professional classes,
ethnic groups, etc. -- we again find that, so long as all is well, they
live in a kind of dynamic equilibrium with their natural and social
environment. In social hierarchies, the physiological controls which
operate inside of organisms are of course replaced by institutional
controls which restrain the self-assertive tendencies of these groups on
all levels, from whole social classes down to the individual. Once more,
the ideal of frictionless, pacific co-operation, without competition,
without tensions, is based on a confusion of the desirable and the
possible. Without a moderate amount of self-assertiveness of its parts,
the body social would lose its individuality and articulation; it would
dissolve into a kind of amorphous jelly. However, under conditions of
stress, when tensions exceed a critical limit, some social holon -- the
army, the farmers or the trade unions -- may get over-excited and tend
to assert itself to the detriment of the whole, just like an over-excited
organ. Alternatively, the decline of the integrative powers of the whole
may lead to similar results, as the collapse of empires indicates on a
grandiose scale.

 

 

 

The Pathology of Devotion

 

 

Thus the self-assertive tendencies of the individual are a necessary
and constructive factor -- so long as they do not get out of hand.
On this view the more sinister manifestations of violence and cruelty
can be written off as pathological extremes of basically healthy
impulses which, for one reason or another, have been denied their normal
gratifications. Provide the young with harmless outlets for aggression --
games, competitive sports, adventure, sexual experimentation -- and all
will be well.

 

 

Unfortunately, neither of these remedies, though often tried, has ever
worked. For the last three or four thousand years, Hebrew prophets, Greek
philosophers, Indian mystics, Chinese sages, Christian preachers, French
humanists, English utilitarians, German moralists, American pragmatists,
have discussed the perils of violence and appealed to man's better nature,
without much noticeable effect. There must be a reason for this failure.

 

 

The reason, I believe, lies in a series of fundamental misconceptions
concerning the main causes which compelled man to make such a mess of his
history, which prevented him from learning the lessons of the past, and
which now put his survival in question. The first of these misconceptions
is putting the blame for man's predicament on his selfishness, greed,
etc.; in a word, on the aggressive, self-assertive tendencies of the
individual. The point I shall try to make is that selfishness is not the
primary culprit; and that appeals to man's better nature were bound to be
ineffectual because the main danger lies precisely in what we are wont
to call his 'better nature'. In other words, I would like to suggest
that
the integrative tendencies of the individual are incomparably
more dangerous than his self-assertive tendencies
. The sermons of the
reformers were bound to fall on deaf ears because they put the blame
where it did not belong.

 

 

This may sound like a psychological paradox. Yet I think most historians
would agree that the part played by impulses of selfish, individual
aggression in the holocausts of history was small; first and foremost,
the slaughter was meant as an offering to the gods, to king and country,
or the future happiness of mankind. The crimes ofa Caligula shrink
to insignificance compared to the havoc wrought by Torquemada. The
number of victims of robbers, highwaymen, rapers, gangsters and other
criminals at any period of history is negligible compared to the massive
numbers of those cheerfully slain in the name of the true religion,
just policy, or correct ideology. Heretics were tortured and burnt not
in anger but in sorrow, for the good of their immortal souls. Tribal
warfare was waged in the purported interest of the tribe, not of the
individual. Wars of religion were fought to decide some fine point
in theology or semantics. Wars of succession, dynastic wars, national
wars, civil wars, were fought to decide issues equally remote from the
personal self-interest of the combatants.* The Communist purges, as the
word 'purge' indicates, were understood as operations of social hygiene,
to prepare mankind for the golden age of the classless society. The gas
chambers and crematoria worked for the advent of a different version
of the millennium. Adolph Eichmann (as Hannah Ahrendt, reporting on
his trial, has pointed out [5]) was not a monster or a sadist, but a
conscientious bureaucrat, who considered it his duty to carry out his
orders and believed in obedience as the supreme virtue; far from being
a sadist, he felt physically sick on the only occasion when he watched
the Zyklon gas at work.

 

* Rape and plunder in war was no doubt an incentive to a minority
of mercenaries and adventurers; but theirs was not the making
of decisions.

 

Let me repeat: the crimes of violence committed for selfish, personal
motives are historically insignificant compared to those committed ad
majorem gloriam Dei, out of a self-sacrificing devotion to a flag, a
leader, a religious faith or a political conviction. Man has always been
prepared not only to kill but also to die for good, bad or completely
futile causes. And what can be a more valid proof of the reality of the
self-transcending urge than this readiness to die for an ideal?

 

 

No matter what period we have in view, modern, ancient, or prehistoric,
the evidence always points in the same direction: the tragedy of man
is not his truculence, but his proneness to delusions. 'The worst of
madmen is a saint run mad': Pope's epigram applies to all major periods
of history -- from the ideological crusades of the totalitarian age down
to the rites which govern the life of primitives.

 

 

 

The Ritual of Sacrifice

 

 

Anthropologists have paid far too little attention to the earliest,
ubiquitous manifestation of the delusionary streak in the human psyche:
the institution of human sacrifice, the ritual killing of children,
virgins, kings and heroes to placate and flatter the gods. It is found at
the dawn of civilisation in every part of the world; it persisted through
the height of antique civilisations and pre-Columbian cultures, and is
sporadically still being practised in remote comers of the world. The
usual attitude is to dismiss this subject as a sinister curiosity
belonging to the dark superstitions of the past; but this attitude begs
the question of the universality of the phenomenon, ignores the clue
that it provides to the delusional streak in man's mental structure,
and its relevance to the problems of the present.

 

 

Let me insert at this point a personal anecdote. In 1959, I stayed as
a guest with my late friend Dr. Verrier Elwin at his house in Shillong,
Assam. Dr. Elwin was the leading authority on Indian tribal life, Chief
Adviser to the Indian Government on Tribal Affairs, and had married a
beautiful girl from an Orissa tribe. One day, one of his three sons,
a quiet, intelligent little boy of ten, asked to accompany me on my
morning walk. At the point where we lost sight of the house the boy
became worried and insisted on turning back. I complied, asked him what
the matter was, and after hedging for a while, he confessed that he was
afraid of meeting some bad men, Khasis, who killed little boys.

 

 

Later on, I mentioned the matter to Verrier, who explained that the
child had indeed acted on his instructions not to venture out of sight
of the house. The Khasis are an Assam tribe who were suspected of still
secretly practising human sacrifice. From time to time there were rumours
about the disappearance of a small child. The risks of meeting marauding
Khasis on the outskirts of Shillong were remote, but still . . . Then
he explained that the Khasis' traditional method of sacrifice had been
to push two sticks up the nostrils into the child's brain; the more it
cried and bled, the more pleased the gods.

 

 

I mention this story to give an instance of what the abstract notion
'human sacrifice' meant in concrete terms. Surely these Khasis must
have been insane? That is precisely the point: the act indicates mental
derangement. But it was a universal form of mental derangement, cutting
across the frontiers of races and cultures. To quote a recent author on
the subject, G. Hogg:

 

Sacrifice, of course was a gesture: the supreme gesture, if you
will. There is no part of the world, however remote, in which
sacrifice in one form or another has not played an essential part
in the way of life of the people. . . . Sacrifice, and often as
not human sacrifice, was an integral part of the priestly rites,
and immolation was very extensively associated with the consuming of
human flesh. . . . The practice of cannibalism, as such, is almost
certainly less of an established institution than human sacrifice,
or immolation. Nevertheless, except in the case of the Fijians and
certain other Melanesian tribes, among whom the sheer lust for human
flesh seems to have predominated over all other considerations,
the basic ritualistic motive is virtually identical. Both in the
sacrifice of human beings, and in the partaking of portions of
their flesh before or after the sacrifice, there is always the
underlying principle of the transfer of'soul-substance'. . . . In
Mexico, sacramental rites probably reached a higher degree of
complexity than anywhere else. Human flesh was considered the only
food likely to be acceptable to the principal gods who had to be
propitiated. Therefore human beings, carefully selected, were looked
upon as representations of such gods as Quetzalcoatl and Tetzcatlipoca
and, with most elaborate ceremonial rites, were eventually sacrificed
to those gods whom they in fact represented, the onlookers being
invited to share portions of the flesh in order thus to identify
themselves with the gods to whom sacrifice had been made. [6]

 

All this has nothing to do with the seven deadly sins -- pride,
covetousness, lust, anger, gluttony, envy, sloth -- against which
the sermons of the moralists are chiefly directed. The eighth sin,
deadlier than all -- self-transcendence through misplaced devotion --
is not included in the list.

 

 

But where is the jury who decides whether devotion is of the 'right'
or the 'misguided' kind? As we are on the subject of the Aztecs, let me
quote a passage from Prescott, which provides a hint of the relevance
of their madness to our own times. Prescott estimates that the number
of young men, virgins and children sacrificed
annually
throughout
the Aztec empire was between twenty and fifty thousand; then continues:

 

Human sacrifices have been practised by many nations, not excepting
the most polished nations of antiquity; but never by any, on a scale
compared with those in Anahuac. The amount of victims immolated on
its accursed altars would stagger the faith of the most scrupulous
believer. . . . Strange that, in every country, the most fiendish
passions of the human heart have been those kindled in the name of
religion! . . .
In reflecting on the revolting usages recorded in the preceding
pages, one finds it difficult to reconcile their existence with
anything like a regular form of government, or an advance in
civilisation. Yet the Mexicans had many claims to the character
of a civilised community. One may, perhaps, better understand the
anomaly, by reflecting on the condition of some of the most polished
countries in Europe in the sixteenth century, after the establishment
of the modern Inquisition; an institution which yearly destroyed
its thousands, by a death more painful than the Aztec sacrifices;
which armed the hand of brother against brother, and, setting its
burning seal upon the lip, did more to stay the march of improvement
than any other scheme ever devised by human cunning.
Human sacrifice, however cruel, has nothing in it degrading to its
victim. It may be rather said to ennoble him by devoting him to
the gods. Although so terrible with the Aztecs, it was sometimes
voluntarily embraced by them, as the most glorious death, and
one that opened a sure passage into paradise. The Inquisition,
on the other hand, branded its victims with infamy in this world,
and consigned them to everlasting perdition in the next. [7]