A fascinating window into early left critiques of racial ‘science’ and psychology as Vern Smith looks at the uses and misuses of science under capitalism and imperialism.

‘The Left Wing in Science’ by Vern Smith from Industrial Pioneer. Vol. 2 No. 10. February, 1925.

SCIENCE is normally revolutionary; that is why master classes from the beginning of time have been so careful to control it. All the older sciences are pretty well blinded and bridled— even such apparently harmless branches of learning as physics and chemistry are now surrounded by safeguards, and high tuition fees for those who would learn them. The reason, or at least one reason, is that chemists and physicists are likely to be useful both in war and in civil war, and the employing class state wishes to have thoroughly dependable poison gas experts, etc.

The capitalist class itself came into existence with a great flourish of rationalism, with arguments based on astronomy and geology, and directed against the power of religion, because religion was one of the forces that the old landowning feudalism made use of to hold down and subdue peasants, merchants and other such canaille. When capitalism got control of things, religion itself was changed, so as to be no longer in the line of fire. Only the moss-back fundamentalist still insists on the verity of Genesis, taken literally, and that is a reaction from revolution, which other forces are bringing about. So astronomy and geology are no longer dangerous to capitalism. They are controlled, by a capitalistic retreat, a sort of spiritual “Hindenburg Lane.”

Biology, also used by rationalists to attack such notions as the sudden creation of man, and the virgin birth of Christ, had to be handled differently. Part of the biologists were put to work making better plants and animals. They became cogs and wheels in the capitalist machine — it might not be unfair to say that some of them became cranks. At any rate, a good many did spend a lot of time reconciling science and religion, and some of them spent a lot of time building up arguments, like houses of cards, cheap and showy, but unsubstantial, about the superior germ plasm of the merchant class (the leaders of human society) and the superiority of the white race, and especially of Nordic blood, and its god-given right to rule over all inferior races, including the Celtic, the Italian, the Jewish, and other groups ordinarily called “white” themselves. Capitalism tamed the biologist, and made him an inventor of the materials of commerce and an advocate of imperialism.

“Fixing” the Sciences

So it goes with all the sciences: it requires no long argument to show what happened to economics in capitalistic centers of learning; anthropology is at present in the process of devitalization; mathematics, the most removed from all contact with life of any science, is either harnessed for the engineer, or is hissed into pursuit of shadowy fourth dimensions; geography abandons the human element, and becomes commercial geography, the art of extracting rubber and coral from primitive peoples, etc., etc.

Only the youngest of the sciences retain much of the revolutionary punch. Psychology and sociology are making strides ahead, and seem to be veering towards the left, even though capitalism is right ready to be the controlling factor of each. A review of a book of one modern psychologist (ALLPORT: Social Psychology) in the November Industrial Pioneer shows how the “suppressed desire” theory of the Freudian school and the “intelligence test” theory of the Behaviorist school have been used as capitalist propaganda. (There may be a good deal of truth in each of these theories, when methods of investigation based on them are properly applied to the facts in the case, but that is not what the masters want.) But still, modern psychology does so much harm, as a whole, to all conservative ideals and master class religious doctrines, that the only reason that can be given for its present comparative freedom from suppression (as Marxian economics have been suppressed) is the newness of the thing — intelligence stole a march on reaction. Capitalism is not yet sufficiently alarmed to discharge the Scott Nearings of psychology, and they can talk for a while yet.

They can even do more. If you turn a real scientist loose in his chosen field, without oversight from those who pay his salary, you never can tell where he will stray away to. Some stray further than others, they form a “left wing.”

Where Some Truth Leaked Out

This has happened. The American Sociological Society held a conference in Chicago, from Dec. 29 to 31, and the left wing was there. It got a chance on the last day of the conference. All the other days were well taken up by safe and sane papers on immigration, income tax, cultural trends, etc. They were well, though sometimes humorously, reported by the capitalist dailies of Chicago. But the last day dealt with race mixture, and with nationalism: i.e., with patriotism either of skin color or local habitat, and this day’s discussion was not reported very well by the Chicago dailies. Their silence was actually remarkable. If the sociologists aren’t hog tied yet, the Chicago capitalist newspaper editors certainly are.

So it is necessary for the Industrial Pioneer to pay some little attention to this last day’s proceedings. If capitalism found it necessary to suppress all mention of it, revolutionists have at least that reason for investigating it a little.

One of the most interesting features to observe was the extent to which sociology had become a refuge for the exiles of other sciences. The discussion was rather more about biology and psychology than it was about what we ordinarily understand is sociology. The left wing of the older sciences felt much at home under the protection of the loose and inclusive new science of sociology.

A Wallop at the K.K.K.

The K.K.K., which seemed to have attended in some numbers, sat toward the back and muttered while one scientist after another smashed into the doctrines of “pure” races, “white” supremacy, etc.

L.C. Dunn, of Storrs Agricultural Experiment Station, read a paper on “Race Crossing in the Light of Modern Genetics.” Dunn lamented the abundance of misinformation on the subject, most of which had its origin in pride and prejudice, and not in scientific investigation. The facts, as far as they are known, seem to indicate that there are no real races, in the sense of something permanent and fixed. What are called races are themselves highly mixed. There was in prehistoric times, skeletons show, a strong infusion of negroid blood into Europe. There is also Mongolian blood in the “white” race. A “white” man, then, is a man with a certain mixture of characteristics, more or less similar to the mixture in other “white” men, and when this white man is crossed with an individual of another race, the hybrid thus produced carries some of these characteristics which show, and some which do not show. His descendants exhibit great variability, greater variability than existed in either of the parent races. The more races there are mixed together, the more possible combinations are there of the characteristics of the parents and the greater the variety among the offspring. The result may be better, or it may be worse, and that all depends on the individuals. That is all there is to that, and it knocks the bottom out of all theories of civilizations collapsing, because the “pure” race which founded them was deteriorated by race mixture. You have to look to economic conditions to find out why civilizations die.

E.B. Reuter, of the University of Iowa, who read a paper on “Human Hybrids as A Sociological Type,” seemed to be rather of the opinion that hybrids, such as the mulatto in America, were rather better and more able than either of the parents. He pointed out that it was almost the lowest types mentally of each race that mixed, because the others were restrained by conscience and pride, etc. (Nearly all mixed breeds are illegitimate, because of legal restrictions to intermarriage.) Yet, in spite of this, and in spite of the terrible social handicap (the mixed breeds being regarded as inferior, and outcast) the percentage of great men among mulattoes is far higher than among the purer negroes, and compares very favorably with that of the Southern whites. Anyway, race mixture continues, and we might as well make the best of it.

Difficulty Social, not Racial

Ralph Linton, of the Field Museum, Chicago, emphasized the impossibility of saying which race was least evolved. Older anthropologists and biologists considered it to be the negro, but they argued from the evidence of skeletons only. The Negro teeth are most like the apes, but the Negro lips are least like the apes of all the human races. Furthermore, in some features, such as hairiness, the white race is most like the ape, etc.; you can’t tell which race has evolved most. Culturally, sometimes one race and sometimes another has been superior, and besides, culture or civilization is far more controlled by physical environment than it is by race. What advance could a savage white man have made in a swampy jungle, or on a South Sea island where there was no metal to make use of?

The general consensus of opinion among these sociologists was that (K.K.K. mutterers in the back of the room to the contrary notwithstanding) the so-called racial difficulty was a social difficulty. There are, at certain times and places, master races and slave races, and the masters always claim that they have control because their race is better, essentially more intelligent, etc., though whenever members of the slave race free themselves, or are freed, they begin in a few generations to absorb the civilization of their former masters, and to compete with them on even terms.

“Over-Correction” and Patriotism

It was Handman, of the University of Texas,, who closed the discussion and marked the climax. In his, paper, “On a Method for the Study of the Phenomenon of Nationalism,” he said very little about the method, and presented instead an extraordinarily damaging set of facts against the nationalists. (He could have just as well called them “patriots”.)

According to Handman, and based on his preliminary survey of the field, most of the super-nationalists, the noisy ones, the big patriots, are men of a distinct class. They are by profession, before they become politicians, devoted to some artistic or emotional trade. “They are literary men, writers, poets, painters, preachers, or in some other calling where intelligence does not count.” In Europe, a number of the chauvinists are lawyers and architects. But in Europe, a large number of the legal lights devote themselves to pleading before juries, not to framing up the cases. They are orators, and not, as in America, the clever practical men who bribe the witnesses, and their gifts are emotional, dramatic, and not intellectual. The same is true of the architects. In America they are something like civil engineers, sometimes they are contractors, but in Europe they are dreamers and painters, artistic and not scientific.

Furthermore, most professional jingoes are of a peculiar physical type, or at least have certain common traits, physically, different from those of most other men. They are usually small in stature, though sometimes thick-set. A short, thick-set man smarts under the indignity of his mediocre height, but is not actually weak or lacking in energy, and frequently sets out to be a leader, just to get even. Most rabid nationalists have eye, ear, nose or throat defects, which they ordinarily hide — and are very sensitive about. Their determination to occupy a prominent position is then what is called by the psychologists, “over-correction.”

This same “over-correction” pervades all their writings and speeches. Some lingering feeling of inferiority causes them, in rebellion against it, to exalt their race, their family, their nation; causes them to praise the group to which they belong, and to conceal all its defects, and causes them at the same time to belittle, condemn and abuse all other races, groups and especially nations. According to Handman the nationalist attitude is represented by the vicious anti-negro prejudice in the “poor white trash.” Men who feel themselves inferior absolutely must, for their own mental satisfaction, have some dog to kick — have some other men around to whom they can feel superior.

A certain famous French nationalist was selected by Handman as an illustration. He is extremely nearsighted, weak and irritable. He lived his early years in a boy’s boarding school, where he was ill treated by the other lads, and where his whole sensitive nature, which desired love and glory, was thwarted. He shows in his writing that he delights in “fortunate young men,” whom he almost worships, that he has a poetic and sentimental longing for love, voluptuousness, blood and death, this longing amounting almost to a psychopathic degree at times.

With all his social ambitions and his affectionate nature suppressed, this unfortunate individual had to become some kind of a leader, had to espouse some sort of a cause, and the cause, which in the beginning, perhaps, might have been any cause, or several in succession, was finally set for him by his environment. He was born in French Lorraine, near the German border, and shared the prevailing desire for revenge against the Germans. He became the leader of the anti-Teutonic crusade, and did his share to whip up national feeling for the great war.

Handman’s theory may not be proved, but it is, at least on casual investigation, confirmed by facts. Think of Mussolini — short, wild eyed (astigmatism?), a leader of any old cause that lets him be leader: first, Socialist; then, army officer; then. Fascist. Think of Lloyd George. Think of Roosevelt, the weak, helpless boy, not expected to live.

Reversing Inferiority Complex Guns

The beauty (to a radical) of Handman’s argument is that it is the complete reversal of the gibe so often thrown up to the Reds — “You are inferior, you are failures, so you want to be leaders of some cause. Your radicalism comes from a sense of your own shortcomings, which makes you not quite sane.” Let those who have been firing this hot shot at us, dodge it for a while themselves now. Handman has swung their big gun right around on its base and pointed it back at the gun crew.

I think that we will some day have to acknowledge that the truth is about like this: There are these emotional, “inferiority complex” radicals. These are sentimental leaders of causes, whose main driving force is toothache, or nearsightedness, or deafness, or something like that. The emotional nature of these people makes them able and convincing propagandists, whatever cause they espouse. They are prone to change the cause. They have the martyr attitude towards everything, but they also have the will to rule. Most of them, when they cannot rule, and do not find some other phase of work where they can attract attention, will gladly destroy the very organization they would have died for, a short time before. They take a desperately personal and intense attitude towards everything. They are cruel and unreasonable — they are the fanatics. You will find them in every sort of movement, but most of them are on the side of some conservative force, necessarily, because there they find the most followers with the least effort. They lead the Ku Klux Klan, and the Fascisti, and all these Red-hunting societies, wherever the latter are not purely stoolpigeon, private detective organizations. Of course they stand to the front in churches, vice clean-ups, and every sort of puritanical crusade. During war time they are four-minute-speakers, and Liberty bond salesmen.

Capitalism is clever enough to use these people. When they get off the track, they are ruthlessly suppressed, but usually a little tact, a little praise and a little guidance by the man with money who stays behind the scenes, keeps them traveling in ways that please employers.

When they appear in radical organizations, they are a problem almost never understood by the rank and file with whom they deal, and they usually end by being pitched out, to the great loss of the movement, for they have their place, though it is not that of leaders. In both cases, such “inferiority complex” persons are attached to the movement, and are not the movement. Handman will be as unable to prove that nationalism is the product of nearsightedness, as Parker was unable to prove that the I.W.W. is the result of bad teeth. Social organizations are the result of economic forces and of inventions of a purely material nature.

But what you or I think about Handman’s theory, has nothing to do with the fact that it is going to be a very disagreeable surprise to some of these masters of industry and their great statesmen, one of these times. Sociology is going to have some trouble with the authorities if it goes on in the direction it is now headed.

The Industrial Pioneer was published monthly by Industrial Workers of the World’s General Executive Board in Chicago from 1921 to 1926 taking over from One Big Union Monthly when its editor, John Sandgren, was replaced for his anti-Communism, alienating the non-Communist majority of IWW. The Industrial Pioneer declined after the 1924 split in the IWW, in part over centralization and adherence to the Red International of Labour Unions (RILU) and ceased in 1926.

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