ARE ALL RADICALS
INSANE 2
‘By
THEODORE SCHROEDER
From
PSYCHE AND EROS
Vol. II. Nov.-Dec., 1921
New York City
Are All Radicals Insane?
By THEoDoRe Schroeder, New York
“Aunt Fannie, bent upon the standal
of the neighborhood, sees many things
which exist nowhere but in her own
eyes. Yet she can bring you the con-
firmatory shreds of evidence. What is
evidence enough for the utter condem-
nation of our enemies would be laughed
to scorn if applied to our friends.”
(Prof. Ralph T. Flewelling. Personal-
ist. 2:209.)
Recently I was stimulated by the an-
nouncement of an article on: “The
Psychology of the Radical.” (Yale Re-
view, Vol. 2, No. 1, pp. 89-IoI; Oct.
1921.) The author was Dr. Stewart
Paton, a neurobiologist and psychiatrist,
This raised hopes, that at last something
worthwhile was being done for mental
hygiene, in an important but neglected
field. Doubtless he would instruct the
sane, educated, and economically fortu-
nate persons who read the Yale Review,
just how society should conduct itself,
especially toward the disinherited ones.
I thought that the object of this advice
would be to minimize the development
of the morbid emotional conflict, which
expresses itself in morbid radicalism, as
well as the morbid patriotic conserva-
tism. It is the intensities of these two
groups that precludes the peaceful prog-
ress of the democratization of welfare.
Unlike Dr. Paton, I was seeing all this
morbidity as a human psychologic prob-
lem, rather than as a political or eco-
nomic class-problem. From this view-
point, the mob violence of, for, or by
well fed conservative patriots and by
underfed or morbid revolutionists, pre-
sents the same psychologic mechanism
and the same sociologic problem, in spite
of the economic differences.
However, I was doomed to dissapoint-
ment. Instead of a lesson in mental
hygiene, I found a special plea on be-
half of the economically fortunate ones,
which suggested that all radical critics
are insane. There is no intimation that
all morbid radicals have their exact
counterpart among conservatives. This
false perspective was portrayed to Dr.
Paton's evident satisfaction, and appar-
ently without his having any personal
acquaintance with any actual radical,
and without any intimate study of any
radicalisms. The natural tendency of
his essay is to intensify the fears, and to
rationalize the hatred of all morbid con-
servatives, and he admits “a widespread
epidemic of insanity” including “all parts
of the world, and among all kinds and
conditions of men”. Thus Dr. Paton
has done his bit toward making impos-
sible that mutuality of understanding,
upon which alone depends our peaceful
social evolution. By thus promoting a
revolution by violence, Dr. Paton was
actually violating his professed desire
to the contrary. But why?
On the whole Dr. Paton presents a
358
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44-4.04.2-
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ARE RADICALS INSANEP 359
smooth, easy-flowing discourse stating
many psychiatric commonplaces, in their
most logical and plausible form. The in-
sanity of all radicals is conclusively
proven by him, for all those who are un-
critical, because uninformed about mod-
ern diagnostic methods, and who enjoy
Dr. Paton's wishfulfilling phantasies
about the characteristics that he ascribes
to all radicals. In short his conclusions
were reached by such immature intellec-
tual processes, that one may well won-
der what ails Dr. Paton? It is there-
fore Dr. Paton's mental processes that
I propose to review. In what follows
all quoted words, not otherwise credited
are Dr. Paton's. All italics are mine.
PATon’s RADICAL UNDEFINED
It is important to note that Dr. Paton
makes a diagnosis of “the radical”, not
of a radical. Nothing in his essay sug-
gests that he has ever made a personal
study of even one accredited radical.
Furthermore, he does not inform us by
what test one becomes an integral part
of this imaginative, all-inclusive, syn-
thetic personality of his own creation,
which he calls “the radical”. Obviously,
here he is not using the methods of scien-
tific precision, although his paper was
prepared for highly educated readers.
What morbid compulsion was behind
this abandonment of his training in clin-
ical methods? Apparently he is using
the collective singular “the radical”
much as it is used by ignorant and mor-
bid persons, for whom it serves as an
epithet of reproach, expressive mainly of
fearful feelings. It also serves Dr.
Paton as a convenient escape from the
study of concrete realities, and gives the
fullest play to his phantasies. Is not
this conduct of Dr. Paton's just like that
of his “the radical”? And is it not like-
wise symptomatic of a personality that
“is crippled emotionally”? If Dr. Paton
was not mentally afflicted, just like “the
radical”, would he not have deemed
some definition of “the radical” to be
an indispensable prerequisite for a group-
diagnosis? I leave the answer to Dr.
Paton, because I am not a psychiatrist.
TESTS OF RADICALISM
I am sure, however, that I possess
more than average acquaintance with
radicals and radicalisms. I confess this
with fear and trembling, because that
confession alone may prove my insanity,
according to Dr. Paton's intellectual
methods. But then if I avoid the con-
fession of this reality, that evasion would
also tend to prove me insane. Tough
luck!! Isn't it? But, that is part of the
risk and the reality of living on the
same earth with Dr. Paton.
Different groups of radicals each have
a different procedure, crystalized into
creeds that are often conflicting, but all
designed to accomplish similar aims.
The most inclusive, unifying factor
among economic and industrial radicals
can be expressed in this definition: A
radical is one who is actively seeking to
remodel our social system, according to
the Communist Manifesto where it says:
“From each according to his ability; to
each according to his need.” Within
the narrow range of his family, probably
even Dr. Paton practices this creed.
Why not extend the range indefinitely?
Only a little narrower is the aim of those
socialists who prefer the following words
of Abraham Lincoln: “To secure to
each laborer the whole product of his
labor, or as nearly as possible, is a
worthy object of any government”.
360 - -,
(Schleuter, Herman. Abraham Lincoln
and the Working Class, p. 40.) Per-
haps I should add that by the “whole
product of his labor” the socialist means
its social value, as distinguished from its
market value, under our competitive
system of exploitation.
Presumably Dr. Paton was familiar
with these creeds, when he attempted an
all-inclusive diagnosis of radicals. It is
therefore, of persons who promote the
realization of one or the other of these
aims that he says: “Nor do they [rad-
icals] seem to understand the importance
of refraining from advocating the
adoption of social systems of which the
best that can be said is that it is a con-
ception not of sound minds, but of those
weakened by a feeling of inadequacy.”
In the light of these facts concerning the
radical's aims, which Dr. Paton evades,
his diagnostic conclusion about the in-
sanity of “the radical” is not so obviously
correct, as to have justified him in omit-
ting all sustaining argument, or data.
His unsupported conclusion is therefore
adjusted only to the needs of those con-
servatives who are “crippled emotion-
ally”, and who wish their morbid fears
rationalized, and are predisposed to ac-
cept uncritically anything that is offered.
In Dr. Paton this method of diagnosis
and its predetermined results, suggest a
prejudice that is evidently conditioned by
a fear of assuming a mature man's re-
sponsibility in a democracy of service,
where privileged parasitism is prohibited.
Does not that fear imply such a feeling
of inadequacy as belongs not to sound
minds? Dr. Paton's wholesale diag-
nosis is also of the “all or none” variety,
which he says evidences morbidity.
Again I ask, what is wrong with Dr.
Paton's emotions? Are they as “crip-
PSYCHE AND EROS
pled” as those of “the radical”? Ac-
cording to my concept of evolutionary
psychology such aristocratic feudal-
mindedness and its craving for aristo-
cratic privileges, are the very psycho-
logic essence of an infantile parasitism.
It is really too bad that Dr. Paton is
so fearful of being weaned from para-
sitic pap, that he must declare insane all
those who propose the democratization
of service and of welfare. I fear he will
suffer very much if the Bolsheviks should
catch him and make him work for a liv-
ing, just as wholesome but no better than
that of any other. Would he then organ-
ize the I Won't Workers, and think
sabotage or revolution an evidence of
sanity?
PATON's TESTs of INSANITY
We have already seen that Dr. Paton
found it desirable to make a psychiatric
diagnosis of an imaginary synthetic rad-
ical, rather than a real, live one. It ap-
pears also that he found it more con-
venient to prove the morbidity of his
hypothetical imaginative creation by the
use of unusual standards of sanity. Seem-
ingly at least, to be adjudged sane by
Dr. Paton, we must be quite conserva-
tively and aristocratically conventional
in our way of meeting every critical situ-
ation. Therefore, according to Dr. Paton,
in determining soundness of mind, the
all important inquiry is, “what a person
does”. To act out of harmony with the
privileged beneficiaries of things as they
are is more than a significant symptom.
Dr. Paton is quite conscious that con-
duct as a test of mental soundness, is
not unusual among psychiatrists. He
admits that: “relatively few students of
human nature understand the biological
soundness of this [his] view.” My own
ARE RADICALS INSANEP
361
mere layman's ignorant suspicion is, that
most specialists in human nature have
outgrown Dr. Paton's viewpoint upon
this subject, and that some painful feel-
ing of inadequacy has here made him
boastful of his own backwardness.
Making physical manifestations a mat-
ter of prime importance, in psychiatric
diagnosis of mere functional disorders,
is the unenlightened layman's way of de-
termining insanity. It has also been the
way of the physician, at the beginning
of psychiatry. With the growth of scien-
tific observation and of its data, some
have outgrown the older descriptive
psychiatry, in favor of the genetic ap-
proach to diagnostic problems. Some
have retained the antiquated viewpoint
of the descriptive psychologist and have
been content merely to elaborate their
descriptions, and call that progress. I
suspect that Dr. Paton belongs to the
latter class. Then perhaps his error is
that he mistakes a mere refinement of
the descriptive psychiatry to constitute
a new diagnostic method. To me it
seems true, that the relatively sane and
insane often indulge in the same con-
duct. The difference between the mor-
bid and the wholesome ones is often
found mainly in the differences of the
quality of the underlying compulsion,
and of its genesis. Such considerations
have lead to the genetic approach to men-
tal problems, which is completely ig-
nored by Dr. Paton, while he is diag-
nosing “the radical”. Under this our
more modern view, “what a person does”
is seldom a sufficient test, in borderland
morbidity, but serves rather to give defi-
nition to the problem of diagnosis, which
is to be solved by a study of the genetics
of the conduct. Now the all-important
inquiry is to discover the organic or psy-
chogenetic why and how of the com-
pulsion behind the conduct to be dia-
gnosed.
Being only a presumptuous layman in
psychiatry, I must quote at least one
authority in my support. First, I will
remind the reader that Dr. Paton no-
where intimates that his imaginative col-
lective “the radical” is in all its human
units organically afflicted. Dr. W. H.
B. Stoddard, an eminent psychiatrist,
has recently confessed his more complete
acceptance of this newer viewpoint in the
third edition of his: Mind and its Dis-
orders. There he says: “The physical
manifestations of a functional disorder
must be regarded as secondary, not pri-
mary, as I taught in my first edition.”
(Phycho-Analytic Rev., 8:347.) Since
Dr. Paton obviously failed to subordin-
ate the outgrown descriptive psychiatry,
in favor of a psychogenetic investiga-
tion of “the radical”, does not this show
in Dr. Paton such a “lack of discrimin-
ation and [such] inappropriateness of
the response” to the radical's stimulus
as justified him, in a case of “the radi-
cal”, in adjudging him collectively in-
sane?
CASE of “THE FREEMAN”
The Freeman, of New York City, is
a journal that professes to be “radical"
and is just radical enough to advocate
the single tax. It will hardly be classi-
fied as radical by the organized radicals
whom Dr. Paton fears most. In an ad-
vertisement the Freeman was recom-
mended to “tough-minded readers"
(doubtless in Wm. James' sense) who
indulge in “fundamental thinking".
Now it seems to me that any “well
balanced personality”, other than Dr.
Paton, and one that is “not forced to
362
PSYCHE AND EROS
withdraw from reality”, and is there-
fore, “capable of appropriateness of re-
action to [such an) occasion” would
assume that the Freeman meant to use
the word “fundamental” in the ordinary
sense of: essential, important, unsuper-
ficial. But, Dr. Paton tells us that if
one is influenced by morbid fears, then
“in the flight from reality he abandons
the accumulated experience that man has
gathered together during the progress of
civilization”. This accumulation is
partly recorded in our dictionaries. One
so afflicted might write of that adver-
tisement as did Dr. Paton: “Probably
he [who wrote the advertisement]
would not have used these words, if he
[and the prospective readers] had under-
stood [that Dr. Paton had overruled
the dictionary so) that “fundamental
thinking' is the kind of thinking char-
acteristic of primitive people, or ‘the
civilized man after deterioration. Dr.
Paton also informs us that: “We find
plenty of fundamental thinking' in
cases of shell shock, nervous breakdowns
and dementia praecox”. (For editorial
criticism see: The Freeman, 4 (No. 88):
222-3; Nov. 16, 1921.) Now behold
that miracle in diagnosis' By the simple
trick of changing the usual meaning of
a single word from his victim, Dr. Paton,
the distinguished professor of neuro-
biology and celebrated psychiatrist, has
proven a radical publisher, and those
who enjoy the Freeman, to be quite in-
sane like unto cases of “shell shock,
nervous breakdowns and dementia prae-
cox.”
In this marvellous feat of diagnosis,
Dr. Paton has left nothing to doubtful
inference. “Shell shock, nervous break-
downs, [or] and dementia praecox” is
conclusively established by the indis-
putable confession of the culprit himself.
Isn't it wonderful? It even beats the
so-called third degree administered by
our lawless sadistic policemen as a means
of extorting truthless confessions.
But, in my ignorance, I wish to know:
Is this verbal trick of Dr. Paton's an
illustration of “the improvement of
mental processes” which is not “hair-
splitting human argument”, from which
he says the insane radical must be “di-
verted” in order to enable the race to
recover its sanity? Or, is Dr. Paton
only compensating for not having stu-
died any actual insane radicals, by mak-
ing himself an exhibit of morbid mental
processes? Is Dr. Paton really “all
there”? These last quoted words are
not from Paton's essay. He is too
skientifique to use slang.
ON BEING CRIPPLED EMOTIONALLY
Dr. Paton himself has told us the
symptoms when one “is crippled emo-
tionally”. Such persons are guilty of
“withdrawal from reality” he says. This
means that such persons ignore accessible
facts which are pertinent to their inter-
ests or their problems, and consequently
they live relatively much according to
the demands of a world of their own
phantasy. Such persons construct very
plausible and logical arguments, to justi-
fy their morbid emotional needs, by the
process of substituting wishfulfilling fic-
tions in lieu of records of actual obser-
vation. Their justifications seem less
logical, just as soon as the ignored data
are adequately co-ordinated with the
rest. Furthermore, persons who are
“crippled emotionally” show it by “not
relying upon well co-ordinated and in-
tegrated intellecutual processes”. “The
radical”, that is all radicals, show these
ARE RADICALS INSANEP
363
symptoms as Dr. Paton knows without
having examined even one radical. Ac-
cordingly “the radical”, that is all rad-
icals, are seemingly considered by him
to be “crippled emotionally”. But does
not Dr. Paton, in the article now under
review, show all these same symptoms
of “crippled emotions”?
It might be interesting to ask, since
he fails to report a clinical study of even
one of the available radicals and fails to
supply a differential test for “the rad-
ical” group to be diagnosed (as above
indicated) whether Dr. Paton is not un-
intentionally illustrating a “withdrawal
from reality”? Also whether or not the
failure to co-ordinate any concrete study
of any particular radicals with his other
psychiatric data, indicates that Dr.
Paton, (at least when radicals are con-
cerned) is incapable of “well co-ordin-
ated and integrated mental processes”,
and therefore “is crippled emotionally”?
In psychiatric diagnosis, by some who
are not “crippled emotionally”, the pres-
ent reaction of individuals will be co-
ordinated with the environment and with
the subject's character, both past and
present, as an important method for the
more intelligent determination of rela-
tive “inappropriateness of the response”.
From this point of view, all insanity is
relative. I believe that in our lucid
moments Dr. Paton and myself could
agree upon this last proposition. How-
ever, it appears from the article under
review, that Dr. Paton, by ignoring
available data and by ignoring relativity,
is “not relying upon [any such] well-
co-ordinated and integrated intellectual
processes”, in reaching his conclusions
about the relative insanity of his collec-
tive, imaginative, “the radical”, or about
the relative appropriateness of the radi-
cal's response to his particular environ-
IIlent.
If all insanity is relative, then the
diagnosis of a group must include a
study of the environmental background,
in co-ordination with the provocative
stimulus, as the only adequate means of
determining relative degrees of “inap-
propriateness of the [radical] response”,
as a “well-graded and appropriate re-
action”. Dr. Paton does not even pre-
tend to have done this. Instead he re-
sorts to his own phantasy. Not claim-
ing to have made a personal study of
even one particular accredited radical
leader, he proceeds to compare his syn-
thetic imaginative “the radical” with an
equally imaginative abstract ideal of
mental processes, rather than with any
actuai process generally in use, among
capitalists let us say. That is exactly
the mental trick which morbid conserva-
tives and morbid radicals always play,
and it is symptomatic of their disorder.
It is by such methods that Dr. Paton
concludes that “the best that can be said
is that it [the social systems advocated
by “the radical'] is that it is the con-
ception not of a sound mind”. Did Dr.
Paton here allow “the wandering of de-
sire [to] direct both instinct and in-
terest and shape his entire program of
living” especially his attitude toward
“the radical”? If so, was it because Dr.
Paton himself “is crippled emotionally”?
Perhaps his feeling of inadequacy makes
him doubt his ability to make good under
a social system that would deprive both
him and me of our present privileged
positions. But why is he afraid? Are
only the fearful ones now to be classed
as sane? Are those of us insane who
are unafraid even of Bolshevikif
364
PSYCHE AND EROS
PHYCHOLOGIC EXPERIENCE AND UNDER-
STANDING
Probably Dr. Paton never had the
longing of a disinherited, disemployed
and painfully hungry wobbly to ex-
change a bounteous sweat for a long
overdue the next meal. If that should be
so, then he is not too well qualified to
decide just what is “a well graded and
appropriate reaction” under such condi-
tions. The feeling-value engendered by
such experiences, even in the healthy-
minded, can be adequately understood
only by those who have felt them. They
can be apprehended in proper perspective
only by those, who have had the experi-
ence and then have surmounted the con-
ditions thereof, so as to be entirely free
from the fear of a repetition of the ex-
perience. That is a kind of preparedness
for efficient living that may be beyond
Dr. Paton's experience, and therefore
leaves him fearful of his own adequacy,
under industrial democracy.
Had Dr. Paton's crippled emotions
permitted him to be more intelligently
fair, he might have made a study of “the
radical’s’ background of life in the city
slums, and in the lumber camps of the
south and the northwest; then he might
have tried making a living as a short-
weighted coal miner in Virginia or Col-
orado; Also it would have been helpful
to him to get a few touches of high life
as a worker in the copper mines, around
Bisbee or Butte; he might also try min-
ing around Cripple Creek, or hold a
common laborer's job under the steel
trust. Thus equipped, in addition to
his neurobiologic lore, he could have
expressed a valuable judgment of rela-
tive healthy-mindedness, by asking him-
self if he could remain as sane, let us
say as Lenin or Gene Debs now is, if the
crazy Bolsheviki during all his life had
compelled him to choose between starva-
tion and such a life as our American
radicals have witnessed, at some such
places as the above? Then, too, he
might have been able to enquire how far
his affluent and equally morbid friends
are the responsible beneficiaries of hav-
ing morbidity forced upon others. With-
out having used these means for de-
termining relativity in the “appropriate-
ness of the response”, and without hav-
ing studied even one particular radical,
does not his group-diagnosis of “the
radical" show him as “not relying upon
well-co-ordinated and integrated intel-
lectual processes”? If so, then is he not,
by his own standards, made to appear
as one who “is crippled emotionally”?
One wonders how far he is removed
from “nervous breakdown.” If he re-
gressed mentally in typical “dementia
praecox” fashion, would Dr. Paton then
join the Anarchists, Socialists, Syndical-
ists, Bolsheviks or the I. W. W.? By
the way, I wonder if Dr. Paton knows
what words are symbolized by those
terrible letters: I. W. W.? Is it just
an “I Won't Work” club, of rich people
out of a job?
Of course, I am not a neuro-biologist,
so I am not able to diagnose Dr. Paton's
case from this one article of his. In my
ignorance it would be difficult for me to
say whether Dr. Paton is suffering from
dementia praecox, or senile dementia, or
both, or neither; or from home brew,
or just plain cold feet. I am only put-
ting it up to him to apply his own dia-
gnostic methods and tests to himself, just
as he applied them to his synthetic phan-
tasmal “the radical”. I admit that I am
disqualified from answering such ques-
ARE RADICALS INSANEP
365
tions as I am asking, and disqualified
even in other ways than by not being a
neuro-biologist.
“SLOPPY SENTIMENTALITY”
Dr. Paton further says: “The rad-
ical who talks so much about his love for
the people and the masses, is not any
surer of the basis of his humanitarianism
than is the man sure of his honesty who
boasts publicly of possessing this par-
ticular virtue.” In my ignorance, I be-
lieve that to be a true statement of a
frequent psychologic mechanism. But-
I suspect that here again Dr. Paton illus-
trates “a flight from reality” and re-
sorts to a wishfulfilling phantasy in cre-
ating “the radical”, whom he wishes to
prove insane.
For nearly twenty years I have been
engaged in fruitless effort to promote,
among conservatives like Dr. Paton, the
intellectual hospitality which is indis-
pensable “to the emotional and mental
dispositions favorable for the peaceful
and rational adjustment of international
and social difficulties.” By the way:
Dr. Paton then was too busy to give
any aid to the peaceful solution of hu-
man problems. His feet were still warm
then. Before the Russian revolution all
effective lawless violence was used by
conservatives, and therefore was sane.
To keep informed on invasions of free
speech, I subscribed for and read many
radical periodicals. For some years I
conducted an open forum in Brooklyn
where I weekly heard radicals and con-
servatives debate. For more years I lec-
tured before thirty or forty liberal and
radical clubs and always was publicly
subjected to their criticisms. In this
manner, during the lecture season, I
appeared from two to eight times per
week before radicals and in debate with
them. I have talked with every theo-
retic variety of radical, and have seen
some of them exhibit all the same symp-
toms of morbidity, that can be found
among Dr. Paton's conservative friends.
Yet, I have never heard or read of one
radical who “talked much [or at all]
about his love of the people and the
masses.”
I have heard a very few pious con-
servatives say that people generally and
radicals particularly, should love their
exploiting neighbors as themselves, and
should turn the other cheek, etc., etc.
Also I have heard persistent rumors that
an occasional conservative politician with
a corporation label talks of his love for
the common people. But according to
my observation, the radical's conscious
attitude is not one of wanting to be
loved, nor of offering love. Earnestly
and persistently he demands economic
justice, according to unconventional
standards of justice, that will give him
the entire product of his labor. This
conception of justice the radical insists
is based upon a larger co-ordination of
facts than can be marshalled in support
of the sentimental approval of the gen-
erally accepted standards of economic
justice. The talk of a generally diffused
love is so foreign to the conscious part
of his psychology that I must doubt that
Dr. Paton had at hand even one such
statement, taken from among the many
366
PSYCHE AND EROS
thousands of pieces of literature issued
by accredited radicals* Am I wrong
in my surmise, Dr. Paton? Perhaps
such radicals as are devoted to the dog-
ma of economic determinism, will all
have a ready explanation for Dr.
Paton's necessity for creating a fictitious
radical, and then for declaring his col-
lective imaginary radical to be insane,
by comparing his imaginary personality
with an equally imaginary and undefined
abstract ideal of mental processes.
If Dr. Paton had possessed a better
understanding of the genesis and mech-
anism of the subjective conflict, which
is the essence of “crippled emotions”, or
if he had applied that understanding to
an actual study of a few accredited rad-
ical leaders, he would have seen the ab-
surdity of his phantasy of a radical
preaching a morbid love of humanity.
No- the morbid radical shows his mor-
bidity, when it exists, by a conscious
attitude and public conduct, that is al-
ways negativistic toward the great
crowd. The victims of the same sub-
jective conflict, who hold the love atti-
tude in consciousness, become religious,
or IOI per cent patriots, some of whom
so love God, or the masters of their
country, that they must organize mobs
to kill economic heretics and even im-
aginary enemies. Dr. Paton never
preaches mental hygiene to such. I
wonder why?
THE war INSANITY AND PAToN's
REMEDY
In this article Dr. Paton says that:
“A large part of the world since 1914
has shown signs of insanity.” Some per-
sons more familiar than Dr. Paton with
what had been going on in the real
world, saw the symptoms many years
before 1914. Long ago some radical
humorist suggested that the inhabitants
of other planets must be using this world
as their insane asylum. Had Dr. Paton
been in open-eyed relation with the reali-
ties of his larger social environment, he
too might have known the widespread
“signs of insanity” long before 1914.
Then he would have co-ordinated such
American movements as: Holy Rollers,
Holy Jumpers, Angel Dancers, Theos-
ophy, New Thought, Divine Science,
Christian Science, Mormonism, and
scores of other freak religions, all ex-
hibiting the same psychology as the more
orthodox revivals, under Billy Sunday
and under the army of less efficient imi-
tators. He might thus have also known
of mass violence inflicted upon religious,
industrial and economic heretics, negroes
and whites, all by respectable conserva-
tive mobs, sometimes by the police, all
acquiesced in by the general public, and
through relative inaction in effect ap-
proved by our courts. Then he might
also have heard of a score of riotous
suppression of free speech, in as many
important American cities and long be-
fore the war. If in addition he had
been able to study judicial action with
the critical eyes of both a lawyer and
psychologist; And likewise had he stu-
died the clergy and the great newspapers,
*Nettlau, Max. Bibliographie de
l'anarchie Bruxelles & Paris, 1897, 294
p. This has since been extended in
manuscript so as to contain about 1oo-
OOO items, including anti-radical items.
For a select list of recent material see:
Zimand, Sacel, Modern Social Move-
ments. Descriptive summaries and bib-
liographies, H. W. Wilson Co., 1921,
250 p.
ARE RADICALS INSANEP
367
with a desire to discover their distor-
tions, evasions and suppressions of facts;
If Dr. Paton had lived in the world of
reality and had studied all this to see
how much of dissociated personality is
everywhere evidenced, war insanity
would not have been novel to him. Had
he studied the frame-ups against rad-
icals, their lawless deportations, as from
Bisbee and elsewhere, and their legal-
ized deportations to foreign countries;
Also the mobbing and killing of organ-
izers, of even the conservative American
Federation of Labor, and had he stud-
ied critically the judicial decisions in
cases, of radicals and on labor problems,
and free speech cases, the symptoms of
insanity brought to his notice by the war
could not have seemed new.
Being economically privileged he
could, before the war, indulge his phan-
tasies and create a world to his liking,
just as his imagination created “the rad-
ical” to fit his emotional needs. Hence
the evidence of our racial infantilism and
childishness, that he first saw during the
war, came to him as a newly created fact,
rather than as an acute culmination of
long existing and obvious tendencies.
What is more important, however, is
that we consider the remedies offered by
this distinguished psycho-thereapeutist.
Fortunately he makes it very simple, just
as simple as his diagnosis of “the rad-
ical”, and wholly free from technical
jargon. The ability to simplify the com-
plex, especially in abnormal psychology,
is convincing evidence of real genius. If
anything more is necessary to prove Dr.
Paton a genius, his remedy for racial in-
sanity supplies the need. All we need to
do, he tells us, is to advise the insane
radical (and shall I include the inter-
national financiers who are masters of
war and peace?) “to cultivate a dispo-
sition favorable to a peaceful solution of
social difficulties.” And this changed
disposition seemingly can be very easily
brought about, by simply “diverting at-
tention from hair-splitting human argu-
ments to the improvement of mental
processes”. The National Committee of
Mental Hygiene will please take notice
of this very simple remedy. I find no
other suggestion in his article. Obvious-
ly this change away from a morbid dis-
position is deemed, by Dr. Paton, to be
so simple as to need no elaboration of
technique. Just tell it to the insane
ones, in his words and the cure is effec-
ted, no doubt! Was Dr. Paton really
trying to help along “only good mental
hygiene” or was he perhaps exhibiting
in his own sacred person some symptoms
of shell shock? I am not a psychiatrist,
nor a university professor, so I must
leave it to him to answer.
TESTING RELATIVE MORBIDITY
I have already indicated that mor-
bidity is always a matter of relativity.
From this viewpoint it might be instruc-
tive to make a comparative study of the
emotional disturbance of Dr. Paton and
some selected radical leader. As a means
to this end, it might be interesting to
have a public debate between Dr.
Paton and some such radical as Morris
Hilguit or Clarence Darrow. But they
are skillful lawyers and therefore Dr.
Paton might not have an equal chance.
Next I think of Gene Debs and big Bill
Heywood. But at this writing Debs
is still in jail for having cultivated “a
disposition favorable to a peaceful solu-
tion of social [international] difficul-
ties”, and Dr. Paton is not helping him
to get a pardon. Bill Heywood is in
368
PSYCHE AND EROS
Russia, a fugitive from what is judicially
called justice. So that is impractical, be-
sides being unfair to Dr. Paton, who is
only a psychiatrist and perhaps not a
specialist in economics. Next I think
of Roger Baldwin, Scott Nearing, or
Max Eastman. These men like all the
rest whose names I am mentioning have
done things, disagreeable things, and
have been under arrest. But also these
last three have been “educated” and like
Dr. Paton they have been university
teachers. I wish to make it easier for
Dr. Paton because I too am something
of a privileged parasite, and have in my
insane way a fellow feeling for him.
Perhaps the radical's insanity would
shine brighter if we selected some one
who has seen more of the inside of jails
than of universities, to say nothing of
never having been a Professor. Just an
ordinary wobbly should represent the
radicals. I want Dr. Paton to shine at
his best in this comparative test. So
then, I would like his permission to
arrange a public debate between him
and Red Doran, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn,
Bill Z. Foster, Anton Johannsen, or Kate
O'Hare. One of these extremely unde-
sirable citizens would defend his or her
own personal economic radicalism and
jail record and Dr. Paton is to show its
lack of co-ordination of economic data.
This debate, right out in public, would
be a mildly “critical situation” especially
if Dr. Paton and his opponent each are
victims of a morbid money complex.
Then let us have present a committee of
psychanalysts, who are specialists in
functional mental disorders. Let this
committee decide for the public whether
Dr. Paton or his radical opponent gives
the more numerous signs of being “crip-
pled emotionally” by their avoidance of
the hard cold realities that come to the
human cogs of our economic and indus-
trial machines.
Dr. Paton, by declaring in effect that
“the radical” collectively is insane, has
practically issued the challenge, for test-
ing a relative sanity. I wish to have his
challenge accepted. Has he such a “a
sense of accomplishment and [of] being
emotionally equal to the occasion” of
such a test, which feeling he says “is a
measure of a person's preparedness for
actual life”?
Will he come to the fore and give us
an illustration of that “sane intellectual
leadership now urgently needed in every
phase of life” because, obviously to him,
not even the conventional politicians sup-
ply it? Will he now, by contrasting his
own superior capacity for “well-graded
and appropriate reactions” to the stimu-
lus of the insane radical, or of his eco-
nomic theories, set the world an ex-
ample in 'good mental hygiene'”? Will
he show just how our acute problems, of
the unemployed rich and the disem-
ployed poor, are to be peaceably settled
on a higher intellectual level for de-
termining economic justice, and with the
permission of the beneficiaries of things
as they are? Thus he could “assist stu-
dents [by illustrative example or other-
wisel to recognize signs of insanity and
to become familiar with the principles
of good mental hygiene,” and at the
same time he could help the rich “to cul-
tivate a disposition favorable to a peace-
ful solution of social difficulties” by in-
ducing them to accelerate the natural
processes of democratization.
This debate would also enable him to
show that he alone among moderns has
profitted by rediscovering what Dr.
Paton says “the Greek recognized . . .
ARE RADICALS INSANEP
[namely] the effect of graceful posture
and action upon the finer sentiments and
the entire intellectual life.” When
showing us how a “graceful posture”
will produce a more refined sense of
economic justice, Dr. Paton surely will
shine as compared with his awkward,
clumsy, insane, radical, opponent. Thus
he will stand out in bold relief, while
he demonstrates that he alone never loses,
much less does he “abandon the accumu-
lated experiences that man has gathered
together during the progress of civiliza-
tion.” Will he agree to meet such a
radical in economic debate, if I find a
jobless one with leisure, to meet him?
If Dr. Paton's self-sufficiency will
permit, he will come, and by exhibiting
his superiority he will prove that these
radicals think as do victims “of shell
shock, nervous breakdowns, and demen-
tia praecox.” If he won't face this test
of relatively wholesome views on eco-
nomic problems, then may we not infer
that the real impulse for his article was
to mask his fear and feeling of inade-
quacy? Here then is his chance to prove
himself more sane than those who invite
us all to practice: “from each according
to his ability, to each according to his
need.”
369
And yet, Dr. Paton is obviously such
a kind and gentle soul, that his genial
temper breathes all through his article.
Evidently he never had his collar mussed
by riding a breakbeam. Also he is not
sufficiently informed in evolutionary
psychology to see that his profound pre-
judices are formed on an infantile level
of desires, and justified on a childish
level of mental processes. Apparently
his prejudices also leave him quite un-
conscious of the pernicious influence of
such an article, as of his underlying
great fear of radicalism.
Have I proven Dr. Paton as insane
as “the radical”? If so it is because I
have been only as unfair as he was to-
ward radicals, and like him, I have
ignored the genetic approach to the prob-
lem of diagnosis. Lest the radicals who
may read this, shall too hastily think Dr.
Paton insane, I will requote the lines
at the beginning of this article. “Aunt
Fannie bent upon the scandal of the
neighborhood, sees many things which
exist nowhere but in her own eyes. Yet
she can bring you the confirmatory
shreds of evidence. What is evidence
enough for the utter condemnation of
our enemies, would be laughed to scorn
if applied to our friends.”
Explanatory Correspondence
The following letters add two items of interest. First, they confirm a sus-
picion as to Dr. Paton's feeling of adequacy. Second: His letter corrects an inference
of mine that he had not studied any radicals. It is still uncertain whether his radicals
were only of the parlor variety, and whether he studied enough of these in number to
warrant his all-inclusive generalization. Here are the two pertinent letters of our
correspondence. • T. S.
December 4th, 1921.
My dear Dr. Paton:—
I have written a review of your mental processes as exhibited in your article on:
The Psychology of the Radical. I hope to place it for publication in some magazine.
After that I will have some reprints. I think I would like to publish your article
together with mine. Perhaps you, too, would feel better satisfied to have your article
entire, accompanying my criticism, so that it may correct any derogatory impression
that my comment tends to create. For some minds no doubt, my article will supply
new proof of the correctness of your conclusions. Anyway, why not pass on to the
general public the issue of the relative maturity of our mental processes?
So then, in the spirit of being a “good sport” I am writing to ask your permission
to reprint your article with my own. If you are wholly satisfied with your superiority
of wisdom as to the psychology of radicals, perhaps you will be willing to even pay a
proportionate share of the cost of joining your propaganda [with mine] (in the two),
so as to make the contrast the more conspicuous. Then I propose that we place them
in such public libraries as preserve pamphlets. I understand that the Yale Review
is to print “two brief replies.” I might like to include them also, if I can get permis-
sion to do so.
Awaiting your pleasure, I remain,
Most cordially yours,
THEODORE SCHROEDER.
December 16th, 1921.
Dear Mr. Schroeder:
I have been out of town and therefore have been delayed in answering your letter.
I appreciate your desire to have the two articles printed together, but I think you
will not misunderstand me when I say I prefer to let my case rest. For twenty years
I have been very much interested in the study of the personality. It seems to me that
the only hope for our civilization is to find out enough about the human animal to
be able to regulate his behavior intelligently. My conclusions were based on the study
of the personal histories of radicals I have met. I refer of course, only to those who
call themselves radicals. The person who is thoroughly honest does not say very
much about it. He lets his deeds speak and in the same way the person who is con-
vinced he is intelligent enough to bring about radical changes for the better in civiliza-
tion does not feel compelled to emphasize his radicalism.
If anyone is greatly interested in this subject they can do a great deal of good
by getting a sum of money to be expended in the scientific study of the inferiority
complexes. This is a great problem and one requiring special study.
Very truly yours,
STEWART PATON.
BIBLIOGRAPHIES OF SCHROEDERIANA
1913
Partial bibliography of the writings of Theodore
Schroeder dealing largely with problems of religion,
of sex, and of freedom of speech.
Free Speech league. (New York) April, 1913, 8p.,
84 titles.
1919
Authorship of the book of Mormon. Psychologic tests
of Prince, critically reviewed by Theodore
Schroeder *** to which is now added a bibliography
of Schroeder on Mormonism. Reprint [except bib-
liography]. American Journal of Psychology. (Wor-
cester, Mass.) XXX pp. 66-72. January, 1919. 18p.
Bibliography pp. 10-18, lists 65 titles, some of which
flººte material as by revision, republication or trans-
at IO11,
Sankey-Jones, Nancy Eleanor, 1862–
Theodore Schroeder on free speech, a bibliography
by Nancy E. Sankey-Jones. (New York) Free
speech league. 1919. 24p.
Lists 149 titles, some of which duplicate material by
republication or translation.
1920
Sankey-Jones, Nancy Eleanor, 1862–
Theodore Schroeder's use of the psychologic ap-
proach to problems of religion, law, criminology
and philosophy. A bibliography by Nancy E.
Sankey-Jones. (Cos Cob, Conn.) 1920. 16p.
Lists 75 titles, some of which duplicate material
because of revisions, republications or translations.
1921
Sankey-Jones, Nancy Eleanor, 1862–
A unique heathen, to which is now added: Theodore
Schroeder on the erotogenesis of religion. A bib-
liography “. * * Enlarged from the Freethinker,
London, April 17, 1921.
Lists 43 titles, mostly selected from the last list.