The Americans

by Hugo Münsterberg

This leads us to a second consequence of the desire for self-direction. It stimulates not only initiative and self-reliance, but also the consciousness of duty. If a man earnestly believes that the subject must also be potentate, he will not try to put off his responsibilities on any one else but will forthwith set himself to work, and prescribe as well his own due restrictions. If a neighbourhood or club, town, city, or state, or yet the whole federation sees before it some duty, the American will not be found waiting for a higher authority to stir him up, for he is himself that authority; his vote it is which determines all who are to figure in the affair. Wherefore he is constrained by the whole system to an earnest and untiring co-operation in everything. This is not the superficial politics of the ale-house, with its irresponsible bandying of yeas and nays. When Secretary of the Navy under McKinley, Mr. Long said that when the cabinet at Washington was in conference, every member was of course better posted on the matter than the average citizen; but that nevertheless a dozen villagers, say in northern Maine, would read their New York and Boston papers and talk over the affairs with as much intelligence and as good a comprehension of the points at issue as would appear at any cabinet debates. This was by no means meant as a reflection on his colleagues of the cabinet, but as a frank recognition of an aspect of American life which invariably surprises the foreigner. One needs only to recall the discussion which preceded the last presidential election, and more especially the one preceding that; the silver question was the great issue, and evening after evening hundreds of thousands listened to technical arguments in finance such as no European orator could hope to lay before a popular assembly. Huge audiences followed with rapt attention for hours lectures on the most difficult points of international monetary standards. And this intellectual seriousness springs from the feeling of personal responsibility which is everywhere present. The European is always astonished at the exemplary demeanour of an American crowd; how on public occasions great multitudes of men and women regulate their movements without any noticeable interference by the police, how the great transportation companies operate with almost no surveillance of the public, trusting each person to do his part, and how in general the whole social structure is based on mutual confidence to a degree which is nowhere the case in Europe. The feeling that the ruler and the ruled are one pervades all activities, and its consequences are felt far beyond the political realm. Especially in the social sphere it makes for self-respect among the lower classes; they adapt themselves readily to discipline, for at the same time they feel themselves to be the masters; and the dignity of their position is the best security for their good behaviour.

But here, too, excellence has its defects. Where every one is so intensely aware of an identity between political authority and political subject, it is hard for the feeling of respect for any person whatsoever to find root. The feeling of equality will crop out where nature designed none, as for instance between youth and mature years. A certain lack of respect appears in the family and goes unpunished because superficially it corresponds to the political system of the land. Parents even make it a principle to implore and persuade their children, holding it to be a mistake to compel or punish them; and they believe that the schools should be conducted in the same spirit. And thus young men and women grow up without experiencing the advantages of outer constraint or discipline.

Hitherto we have considered only those intellectual factors derived from the spirit of self-direction which bear on the will of the individual, his rights and duties; but these factors are closely bound up with the others which concern the rights and privileges of one’s neighbour. We may sketch these briefly. Deeply as he feels his own rights, the American is not less conscious of those of his neighbour. He does not forget that his neighbour may not be molested and must have every opportunity for development and the pursuit of his ambitions, and this without scrutiny or supervision. He recognizes the other’s equal voice and influence in public affairs, his equally sincere sense of duty and fidelity to it. This altruism expresses itself variously in practical life. Firstly, in a complete subordination to the majority. In America the dissenting minority displays remarkable discipline, and if the majority has formally taken action, one hears no grumbling or quibbling from the discontented, whether among boys at play or men who have everything at stake. The outvoiced minority is self-controlled and good-natured and ready at once to take part in the work which the majority has laid out; and herein lies one of the clearest results of the American system and one of the superior traits of American character.

Closely related to this is another trait which lends to American life much of its intrinsic worth—the unconditional insistence in any competition on equal rights for both sides. The demand for “fair play” dominates the whole American people, and shapes public opinion in all matters whether large or small. And with this, finally, goes the belief in the self-respect and integrity of one’s neighbour. The American cannot understand how Europeans so often reinforce their statements with explicit mention of their honour which is at stake, as if the hearer is likely to feel a doubt about it; and even American children are often apt to wonder at young people abroad who quarrel at play and at once suspect one another of some unfairness. The American system does not wait for years of discretion to come before exerting its influence; it makes itself felt in the nursery, where already the word of one child is never doubted by his playmates.

Here too, however, the brightest light will cast a shadow. Every intelligent American is somewhat sadly aware that the vote of a majority is no solution of a problem, and he realizes oftener than he will admit that faith in the majority is pure nonsense if theoretical principles are at issue. This is a system which compels him always where a genius is required to substitute a committee, and to abide by the majority vote. The very theory of unlimited opportunity has its obvious dangers arising, here as everywhere, from extremes of feeling and so exaggeration of the principle. The recognition of another’s rights leads naturally to a sympathy for the weaker, which is as often as not unjustified, and easily runs over into sentimentalism, not to say an actual hysteria of solicitude. And this is in fact a phase of public opinion which stands in striking contrast to the exuberant health of the nation. What is even worse, the ever-sensitive desire not to interfere in another’s rights leads to the shutting of one’s eyes and letting the other do what he likes, even if it is unjust. And in this way a situation is created which encourages the unscrupulous and rewards rascality.

For a long time the blackest spot on American life, specially in the opinion of German critics, has been the corruption in municipal and other politics. We need not now review the facts. It is enough to point out that a comparison with conditions in Germany, say, is entirely misleading if it is supposed to yield conclusions as to the moral character of the American people. Unscrupulous persons who are keen for plunder, are to be found everywhere; merely the conditions under which the German public service has developed and now maintains itself make it almost impossible for a reprobate of that sort to force his entrance. And if a German official were discovered in dishonest practices it would be, in fact, discrediting to the people. In America the situation is almost reversed. The conditions on which, according to the American system, the lesser officials secure their positions, specially in municipal governments, and the many chances of enriching oneself unlawfully and yet without liability to arrest, while the regular remuneration and above all the social dignity of the positions are relatively small, drive away the better elements of the population and draw on the inferior. The charge against the Americans, then, should not be that they make dishonest officials, but that they permit a system which allows dishonest persons to become officials. This is truly a serious reproach, yet it is not a charge of contemptible dishonesty but of inexcusable complacency; and this springs from the national weakness of leniency toward one’s neighbour, a trait which comes near to being a fundamental democratic virtue. It cannot be denied, moreover, that the whole nation is earnestly and successfully working to overcome this difficulty.

The denunciations of the daily papers, however, must not be taken as an indication of this, for the uncurbed American press makes the merest unfounded suspicion an occasion for sensational accusations. Any one who has compared in recent years the records of unquestionably impartial judicial processes with the charges which had previously been made in the papers, must be very sceptical as to the hue and cry of corruption. Even municipal politics are much better than they are painted. The easiest way of overcoming every evil would be to remove the public service from popular and party influences, but this is, of course, not feasible since it would endanger the most cherished prerogatives of individualism. Besides, the American is comforted about his situation because he knows that just this direct efficiency of the people’s will is the surest means of thoroughly uprooting the evil as soon as it becomes really threatening. He may be patient or indifferent too long, but if he is once aroused he finds in his system a strong and ready instrument for suddenly overturning an administration and putting another in its stead. Moreover, if corruption becomes too unblushing an “educational campaign” is always in order. James Bryce, who is of all Europeans the one most thoroughly acquainted with American party politics, gives his opinion, that the great mass of civil officials in the United States is no more corrupt than that of England or Germany. An American would add, however, that they excel their European rivals in a better disposition and greater readiness to be of service.

But the situation is complicated by still another tendency which makes the fight for clean and disinterested politics difficult. The spirit of self-direction involves a political philosophy which is based on the individual; and the whole commonwealth has no other meaning than an adding up of the rights of separate individuals, so that every proposal must benefit some individual or other if it is to commend itself for adoption. Now since the state is a collection of numberless individuals and the law merely a pledge between them all, the honour of the state and the majesty of the law do not attach to a well organized and peculiarly exalted collective will, which stands above the individual. Such a thing would seem to an individualist a hollow abstraction, for state and law consist only in the rights and responsibilities of such as he. From this more or less explicitly formulated conception of political life there accrue to society both advantages and dangers. The advantages are obvious: the Mephistophelian saying, “Vernunft wird Unsinn, Wohltat Plage,” becomes unthinkable, since the body-politic is continually tested and held in check by the lively interests of individuals. Any obvious injustice can be righted, for above the common weal stands the great army of individuals by whom and for whom both state and law were made.

But the disadvantages follow as well. If state and law are only a mutual restraint agreed on between individuals, the feeling of restraint becomes lively in proportion as the particular individuals in question can be pointed to, but vanishingly weak when, in a more intangible way, the abstract totality requires allegiance. So one finds the finest feeling for justice in cases of obligation to an individual, as in contracts, for instance, and the minimum sense of right where the duty is toward the state. There is no country of Europe where the sense of individual right so pervades all classes of the inhabitants, a fact which stands in no wise contradictory to the other prevalent tendency of esteeming too lightly one’s righteous obligations to city or state. Men who, in the interests of their corporations, try to influence in irregular ways the professional politicians in the legislatures, observe nevertheless in private life the most rigid principles of right; and many a one who could safely be trusted by the widows and orphans of his city with every cent which they own, would still be very apt to make a false declaration of his taxable property.

There is a parallel case in the sphere of criminal law. Possibly even more than the abuses of American municipal politics, the crimes of lynch courts have brought down the condemnation of the civilized world. Corruption and “lynch justice” are usually thought of as the two blemishes on the nation, and it is from them that the casual observer in Europe gets a very unfavourable impression of the American conception of justice. We have already tried to rectify this estimate in so far as it includes corruption, and as regards lynching it is perhaps even more in error. Lynch violence is of course not to be excused. Crime is crime; and the social psychologist is interested only in deciding what rubric to put it under. Now the entire development of lynch action shows that it is not the wanton violence of men who have no sense of right, but rather the frenzied fulfillment of that which we have termed the individualistic conception of justice. The typical case of lynching is found, of course, in Southern States with a considerable negro population. A negro will have attempted violence on a white woman, whereon all the white men of the neighbourhood, assuming that through the influence of his fellow negroes the criminal would not be duly convicted, or else feeling that the regular legal penalty would not suffice to deter others from the same crime, violently seize the culprit from out the jurisdiction of the law, and after a summary popular trial hang him. But these are not men who are merely seeking a victim to their brutal instinct for murder. It is reported that after the deed, when the horrid crime has been horribly expiated, the participants will quietly and almost solemnly shake one another by the hand and disperse peacefully to their homes, as if they had fulfilled a sacred obligation of citizenship. These are men imbued with the individualistic notion of society, confident that law is not a thing whose validity extends beyond themselves, but something which they have freely framed and adopted, and which they both may and must annul or disregard as soon as the conditions which made it necessary are altered. It is a matter of course that such presumption is abhorred and condemned in the more highly civilized states of the Union, also by the better classes in the Southern States; and a lyncher is legally a murderer. His deed, however, is not to be referred psychologically to a deficient sense of justice. That which is the foundation of this sense, resentment at an infringement of the individual’s rights and belief in the connection between sin and expiation, are all too vividly realized in his soul.