ISAR - Psychology, Racism & Fascism: An On-line Edition

Chapter Eight

Conclusion

The history and continuation of race-science shows the complexity with which scientific and political ideas can become interwoven. However, in the midst of this complexity a number of patterns are distinctly visible.

When discussing the attempts to create a racialist culture the same names kept re-occurring, whether in relation to Britain, the United States, France or Germany. As well as sharing many of the same personnel, The Mankind Quarterly, Neue Anthropologie and Nouvelle Ecole have similar purposes and pedigrees.

All three journals have been active in promoting the theories of Eysenck and Jensen about racial differences in intelligence. Moreover, they have all been aided in this respect by the distinguished psychologists themselves. Eysenck is formally associated with The Mankind Quarterly and Nouvelle Ecole, and Jensen with Neue Anthropologie.

The connections between old and new race-science do not end there. The interviews granted by Eysenck to Beacon and Jensen to Nation Europa illustrate the continuing connections between race-science and the fascist political tradition.

However, race-science extends beyond the debate over IQ scores. It has not been too difficult to demonstrate that journals like The Mankind Quarterly, Nouvelle Ecole and Neue Anthropologie are perpetuating, to a greater or lesser extent, the traditions of Günther and Nazi race-science. What is more, this tradition, rejuvenated by the boost of modern research into race and IQ, is now attempting to return to academic circles from the obscurities of fascist organisations like the Northern League.

The patterns, especially those relating to the involvement of 'respectable' psychologists, are too consistent to be dismissed as isolated, individual aberrations. The involvements of Eysenck and Jensen have seemed to parallel each other at all points.

A few years ago, the American linguist Noam Chomsky, when discussing the psychological research into IQ differences between races, pointed out that the work of psychologists like Jensen has a very limited intrinsic scientific value:

"A possible correlation between mean IQ and skin colour is of no greater scientific interest than a correlation between any two other arbitrarily selected traits, say mean height and colour of eyes. The empirical results, whatever they might be, appear to have little bearing on any issue of scientific significance. In the present state of scientific understanding, there would appear to be little scientific interest in the discovery that one partly heritable trait correlates (or not) with another partly heritable trait" (For Reasons of State, 1973, p.146).

Chomsky went on to assert that if the research has little scientific merit per se, then "the zeal and intensity with which some pursue or welcome it cannot be reasonably attributed to a dispassionate desire to advance science".

Some of the facts outlined in this pamphlet may go part of the way to explain "the zeal and intensity" of some academics engaged in conducting the research and disseminating its findings. Perhaps it is not too surprising that there still exist individual academics who still venerate racial theorists like Günther. An intellectual tradition does not suddenly cease without all trace. What is perhaps more surprising, and certainly more worrying, is that this tradition is being invigorated by contemporary psychologists. Moreover, when The Mankind Quarterly and Neue Anthropologie are examined in detail, some very big academic fish can be found in the murkiest of waters.

Footnotes

The author is grateful to Maurice Ludmer and Pavlos Anastasiades for their help and would also like to thank Pressedienst Demokratische Initiative, Munich, and the Wiener Library, London.

1. See, for instance, C. Bolt, Victorian Attitudes to Race (Routledge, Kegan and Paul, London, 1971), W.D. Jordan, The White Man's Burden: historical origins of racism in the United States (Oxford University Press, New York, 1974); V.G. Kiernan Lords of Human Kind: European attitudes toward the outside world in the Imperial Age (Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, 1972); L. Poliakov The Aryan Myth (Chatto and Heinemann, London, 1974).
2. A. del Boca and M. Giovanna Fascism Today: a world survey (Heinemann, London, 1970).
3. See M. Billig Chapter 1 of Fascists: a social psychological view of the National Front (Academic Press, London, 1978) for a comparison of the electoral performances of Oswald Mosley's pre-war British Union of Fascists and the National Front.
4. Psychological theories of race prejudice and fascism have commonly identified prejudice with lack of education. See, for example, surveys of research about 'the authoritarian personality' in R. Brown Social Psychology (Collier-Macmillan, London, 1965) and J.P. Kirscht and R.C. Dillehay Dimensions of Authoritarianism (University of Kentucky Press, Kentucky, 1967); see also G.J. Selznick and S. Steinberg The Tenacity of Prejudice (Harper and Row, New York, 1969). Some observers have suggested that the National Front recruits largely from the ill-educated sections of the working class (C.T. Husbands 'The National Front: a response to crisis', New Society, 1975, 32, 403-405; M. Walker The National Front, Fontana, Glasgow, 1977). However such observations may be oversimplifications (M. Billig, 1978 op.cit.).
5. Quoted in J.C. Fest The Face of the Third Reich (Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, 1972), p.378.
6. See J.C. Fest (1972, op.cit.). E.Y. Hartshorne The German Universities and National Socialism (George Allen and Unwin, London, 1937) contains a detailed account of German academic life under the Nazis. A.D. Beyerchen Scientists under Hitler: Politics and the physics community in the Third Reich (Yale University of Press, New Haven, 1977) concentrates on pro-Nazi professors of physics. The most comprehensive record of German academic complicity with Nazism is still M. Weinreich Hitler's Professors: the part of scholarship in Germany's crimes against the Jewish people (Yiddish Scientific Institute, New York, 1946). According to Weinreich: "The ideas underlying the ultimate 'action' were developed in advance with the necessary philosophical and literary trimmings, with historical reasoning, with maps and charts providing for the details with well-known German thoroughness. Many fields of learning, different ones at different times according to the shrewdly appraised needs of Nazi politics, were drawn into the work for more than a decade: physical anthropology and biology, all branches of the social sciences and the humanities -- until the engineers moved in to build the gas chambers and crematories" (p. 7).
7. F. Baumgarten-Tramer 'German psychologists and recent events' Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 1948, 43, 452-465, documents the wide support the Nazi regime received from German psychologists. See also M. Billig (1978, op.cit.) Chapter Two; D.P. Boder 'Nazi science' Chicago Jewish Forum, 1942, 1, 23-29.
8. H.-G. Zmarzlik 'Social Darwinism in Germany seen as a historical problem' in Republic to Reich, edited by H. Holborn, (Vintage Books, New York, 1973) examines the contribution of Darwinian ideas to Nazi philosophy. See also D. Gasman The Scientific Origin of National Socialism (MacDonald, London, 1971) which discusses the biological origins of Nazi thought in detail.
9. N. Cohn, Warrant for Genocide (Chatto Heinemann, London, 1967), p.174.
10. G.L. Mosse Nazi Culture: intellectual and social life in the Third Reich (W.H. Allen, London, 1969). See also L. Poliakov (1974, op.cit.).
11. The most detailed account of Günther and the Nordicist School is contained in H.-J. Lutzhöft Der Nordische Gedanke in Deutschland 1920-1940 (Ernst Klett, Stuttgart, 1971).
12. G.G. Field 'Nordic racism', Journal of the History of Ideas, 1977, 38, 523-540.
13. H.F.K Günther The Racial Elements of European History (Methuen, London, 1927) p.78.
14. See Weinreich (1946 op.cit.) on Fischer. E. Fischer went out of his way in Human Heredity (written in conjunction with E. Baur and F. Lenz) to praise Günther's book Rassenkunde des deutschen Volkes: "a brilliant account of German ethnology . . . his book gives a vigorous and substantially accurate picture of the various races out of which our people is composed" (Human Heredity, English trans., George Allen and Unwin, London, 1931, p. 703).
15. For instance, the works of Johann von Leers were regularly reviewed. Von Leers was one of the most notorious of the Nazi anti-Semites. His booklet Juden Sehen Dich An was dedicated to "the gallant Julius Streicher". To take just one example, his Blut und Rasse in der Gesetzgebung, an anti-semitic book justifying the Nazis' legislation against Jews, was reviewed in Zeitschrift für Rassenkunde, 1937, 6, 346.
16. Quoted in Weinreich (1946, op.cit.), p.112. Weinreich, pp. 106-119, contains details of the Frankfurt Institute for Research into the Jewish Question and its inaugural conference.
17. See Lutzhöft (1971, op.cit.) for details.
18. Pearson has combined his involvement with extremist racist politics with a more conventional academic career in anthropology. He is the author of a number of standard anthropological texts, including An Introduction to Anthropology (Holt, Rinehart and Winston). In the 1960s Pearson held a number of academic posts in the United States. He taught at Queens College in Charlotte, North Carolina, then moved to the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg, before becoming the dean of academic affairs at Montana College in Butte.
19. G. Thayer The British Political Fringe (A. Blond, London, 1965).
20. Fascist groups which seek a modicum of political 'respectability', like the National Front, do not like to publicise connections with the Northern League. Walker in his book National Front (Fontana, 1977) has detailed the recriminations within the party on the only occasion that Spearhead, the National Front magazine, advertised The Northlander (pp. 103f). This episode illustrates that the Northern League is considered to be extremist even by fascist groups.
21. In most other fields, too, the process of denazification in post-war Germany was only partial, often only attacking the superficial signs of Nazism (see, for instance, del Boca and Giovana, 1970 op.cit.,Chapter Five).
22. L.J. Kamin The Science and Politics of I.Q. (Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, 1977); Racism, IQ and The Class Society (published in Britain by the British Society for Social Responsibility in Science). H. Rose and S. Rose 'The IQ myth', Race and Class, 1978, 20, 63-74 describe the economic and political background to IQ research, both contemporary and historical. For a history of the eugenicist movement in the United States, see K.M. Ludmerer Genetics and American Society (Johns Hopkins, University Press, Baltimore, 1972).
23. Quoted in Kamin (1977 op.cit.) p.31.
24. J.P. Rushton and N.S. Endler 'The scholarly impact and research productivity of departments of psychology in the United Kingdom' Bulletin of the British Psychological Society, 1977, Nov., 369-372, list Eysenck as by far the most influential single psychologist in Britain. Similarly Rushton and Endler show that Eysenck's Department at the Institute of Psychiatry is the most prolific Department of Psychology in Britain today.
25. H.J. Eysenck Race, Intelligence and Education (Temple Smith, London, 1971), published in America under the more innocuous title of The IQ Argument (Library Press, New York).
26. For a discussion of the scientific impact of Jensen's original article, see E. Garfield 'High impact science and the case of Arthur Jensen', Current Contents Oct. 9 1978, 5-15. Garfield concludes that Jensen's work must be classified "as important but questionable science".
27. L.J. Kamin (1977, op.cit.); O. Gillie Who Do You Think You Are? Man or Superman: the genetic controversy (London, 1976).
28. See, for instance, the contributions by Bodmer, Lewontin, Lerner and Thoday in The IQ Controversy, edited by N.J. Block and G. Dworkin, (Pantheon, New York, 1977), for examples of geneticists criticising the work of Jensen. Also W. Bodmer and L. Cavalli-Sforza 'Intelligence and race', Scientific American, October 1970. Race, Culture and Intelligence, edited by K. Richardson and D. Spears (Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, 1972) contains criticism of Eysenck and Jensen from a variety of perspectives: genetic, psychological and sociological.
29. P. Medawar 'Unnatural science' New York Review of Books, 1977, 24, No.1, 13-18.
30. One might note Eysenck's choice of words: 'benevolent', with its overtones of kindly superiority, seems to run counter to Eysenck's argument that genetic differences between races do not imply per se racial attitudes.
31. R. Gayre Teuton and Slav on the Polish Frontier (Eyre and Spottiswoode, London, 1944).
32. In fact the Racial Preservation Society has also continued to function independently of the National Front as a publishing company. In this way extreme explicitly anti-semitic material has been published without directly implicating the National Front.
33. A.K. Chesterton was of the opinion that Gayre's evidence was crucial in securing the acquittal. According to the then chairman of the National Front, Gayre's "cool-headed and scientific assessment of the racial issues proved invaluable to the defence" (Not Guilty, 1968).
34. For details of these meetings see the anti-fascist magazine Searchlight, 1977, 24, pp.3-4.
35. Emphasis in original. The Northlander, August/October, 1970.
36. Examples of Hofmeyr's contributions to Journal of Racial Affairs include: 'Biologiese en ander aspekte van Rassever-houdings', Oct. 1972, 185-187; 'Fundamental aspects of racial differences', April 1971, 50-52; 'Genetic aspects of race formation and racial differences', July 1975, 106-108.
37. The Mankind Quarterly, 1960, 1, p.134.
38. Benson publishes a monthly newsletter Behind the News. Articles from this by Benson are frequently reprinted in fascist publications throughout the world. For instance, the National Front, in addition to recommending Benson's booklets, has also reprinted articles by Benson in its magazine Spearhead (e.g. pieces in Spearhead June and July 1972 which are explicit in their anti-Semitism).
39. In 1966 Revilo Oliver, who was then a member of the National Council of the John Birch Society, declared in a public speech that the world's troubles would be ended if "all Jews were vapourised at dawn tomorrow" (for details see B.R. Epstein and A. Foster The Radical Right: report on the John Birch Society and its allies (Random House, New York, 1966, pp.110f).
40. See Racism, IQ and The Class Society, pp.58-60 for details.
41. E.R. Papa Fascismo e cultura (Marsilio, Venice, 1974) pp.165f. Gini was the author of a plan which Mussolini used to 'reorganise' (or curtail the powers of) the Italian senate. Gini publically praised Mussolini, writing that Italian fascism had "at its head an individual of exceptional qualities". According to Gini in 1927 "the Fascist experiment has had highly satisfactory results . . . The concentration of power in the hands of few men has permitted the revaluation of national ideals, the reestablishment abroad of the prestige of Italy and the restoration of domestic order" (C. Gini 'The scientific basis of Fascism', Political Science Quarterly, 1927, 42, 99-115).
42. According to Gregor: "By 1930, Fascism had developed a synoptic theory of race . . . By that year, Fascist race theory had found academic expression in the work of Corrado Gini, particularly in his Nascita, evoluzione e morte delle nazioni. After 1930, Fascist theory matured in a relatively coherent manner" (The Ideology of Fascism, Free Press, New York, 1969). In his preface to The Ideology of Fascism, Gregor specifically thanks Corrado Gini for his help (p.xiv).
43. See, for instance, A.J. Gregor 'National Socialism and race', European, July 1958, 273-291. Gregor writes that in the last stages of Nazism are to be found "the elements of a far more profound theory". According to Gregor, these were "the germs of a world view which makes of man a creator, a builder of future races; a philosophy which unites history, politics, and race, eugenics and humanism, pride in self and respect for others, a philosophy scientifically sound and emotionally satisfying".
44. For example, Professors B. Lundman, B. Males and H.V. Vallois.
45. W.C. Boyd 'Review of Human Ancestry by R. Ruggles Gates', American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 1948, 6, 385-387.
46. The Northlander obituary for Los (June/August 1974) noted that he published in such magazines as Nouvelle Ecole (see below), American Mercury and Deutsche Hochschullehrer-Zeitung (a German neo-Nazi paper), as well as The Mankind Quarterly.
47. For example, K. Magnussen 'The world's oldest parliament and Icelandic ethnology', The Mankind Quarterly, 1964, 4, 138-141.
48. A.K. Chesterton The New Unhappy Lords (Candour Publishing Company, Hampshire). Such is the success of this anti-semitic book amongst fascist groups that by 1975 it was in the second printing of the fourth revised edition; it had been first published in 1965. Spearhead, the National Front magazine, recently praised Chesterton for having provided a "concrete and scientific doctrine" in The New Unhappy Lords, which "is widely read in the NF and beyond" (Spearhead, 103, p.2).
49. Censored is published in Florida by B. Corbett.
50. According to Garrett, "It is not entirely clear whether or not King was a Communist but he sympathized with and tacitly supported Communist causes . . . A complex intelligent mulatto, it is hard to know just what King actually believed" (H. Garrett 'Review of House Divided: the life and legacy of Martin Luther King by L. Lokos'. The Mankind Quarterly, 1968, 8, 190-191).
51. The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion is a classic anti-Semitic text based on a Tsarist Russian forgery. The definitive account of the origins and disastrous effects of the Protocols is Warrant for Genocide by N. Cohn (Chatto Heinemann, London, 1967).
52. Isherwood has also contributed to The Mankind Quarterly. In 1970, Volume 11 he warmly reviewed G. Young's Two Worlds, Not One: race and civilization. Isherwood wrote that "this book is recommended reading for all in authority who are concerned with the social and political aspects of racial relationships" (p.61). Young's book is both excessively racist and anti-Semitic; for instance, it describes the Western Jew as "the germ plasma which for its sustenance feeds on a basically alien soma". This metaphor was, of course, one of Hitler's favourites. For more on Young, see C.C. Aronsfeld 'Recent writings on race: the theory of prejudice' Patterns of Prejudice, 1971, Nov./Dec., 23-27. Aronsfeld's article documents recent British and European fascist theories of race.
53. Accounts of the history of the Britons Publishing Company are contained in G. Thayer (1965, op.cit.); C.C. Aronsfeld 'The Britons Publishing Society', Wiener Library Bulletin, 1966, 2, 31-35.
54. The book in question was Specious Origins of Liberalism by A.M. Ludovici. It is recommended National Front reading; The Britons Publishing Company catalogue describes it as "a courteous but absolutely crushing deflation of the false philosophy underlying all modern political parties".
55. The Mankind Quarterly does not only review British extremist political material. The fascist culture is international. For instance, The Mankind Quarterly October 1967 reviewed I. Benson's The Opinion Makers; in January 1969 it reviewed Lincoln's Negro Policy by E.S. Cox, who was a member of the Ku Klux Klan and the Northern League. Shortly after Cox's death, The Mankind Quarterly (October 1966) reviewed his book White America. The reviewer commented that "it is fitting to memorialize Cox's death by a timely review of White America, a classic book by this truly great man". The review ended by quoting with warm approval Cox's conclusion: "If North America becomes mongrel, the entire Western World is to be surrendered to the forces of decay". In January 1975 The Mankind Quarterly praised Revilo Oliver's Christianity and the Survival of the West, claiming that "this book hits the heart of the matter . . . I feel it should be read" (p.227). For details of Benson, Cox and Oliver see the section on 'The Mankind Quarterly' and its editors.
56. G. Ainsworth 'The Mankind Quarterly' Man, 1961, 61, 163-4.
57. U.R. Ehrenfels 'Critical paragraphs deleted' Current Anthropology, 1962, 3, 154-155.
58. The International Association for the Advancement of Ethnology and Eugenics (IAAEE) was established in 1959 in the wake of the court battles in the South of the United States over integration. Members of the executive committee have included a number of academics connected with The Mankind Quarterly: Garrett, McGurk, Kuttner and Gregor, as well as the British geneticist C.D. Darlington, an associate of Gayre and an editorial advisor to Neue Anthropologie.
59. The Sons of Liberty publish Christian Vanguard, arguably the nastiest and most extreme of American extremist publication. It is hard to find an English-language pro-Nazi publication which is not on the Sons of Liberty booklist; Ku Klux Klan publications rub shoulders with the works of Hitler and much older mystical anti-Semitic works.
60. In defending Rieger, Kiesel quotes from no less an authority than Roger Pearson, founder of the Northern League. Kiesel himself has also contributed to Neue Anthropologie; see his article in 1974 entitled 'Augenfarbe, Rasse und Persönlichkeitsstruktur'. The same volume of Neue Anthropologie contains another article illustrating the similarity with The Mankind Quarterly: 'Zur Psychologie des amerikanischen Negers' by J.C. Carothers, who is also an Honorary Editorial Advisor to The Mankind Quarterly. Certainly some of Carother's views are attractive to contemporary fascists. For instance, the National Front magazine Spearhead quoted Carothers with approval: "The African, with his lack of total synthesis, must, therefore use his frontal lobes (of the brain) but little, and all the peculiarities of African psychiatry can be envisaged in terms of frontal idleness" (Carothers, quoted in Spearhead, April 1977, p.4).
61. For details of the meeting, see the report issued by the anti-fascist Pressedienst Demokratische Initiative: Chronik der Berhinderung einer neonazistischen Veranstaltung (PID, Munich, November 1977).
62. Butz's book The Hoax of the Twentieth Century is published by Historical Review Press. It appears that one of the leading men involved in Historical Review Press is Robin Beauclaire, who together with Alan Hancock established the Racial Preservation Society. Hancock was one of the defendants at the Lewes Race Relations Trial, helped by Gayre's expert evidence (for details of Beauclaire and Historical Review Press, see Searchlight, Sept. 1976).
63. F.J. Irisgler 'Rhodesian man and the evolution of the hominid brain' The Mankind Quarterly, 1976, 17, 83-114.
64. 'Interview mit Hans-Jürgen Eysenck' Neue Anthropologie, January/March, 1976, 16-17.
65. Comments such as these are not necessarily offensive to fascists. A number of observers have remarked on the fact that contemporary fascist groups often seem to identify themselves, at least in a restricted way, with communist groups (for an extended discussion of this, see M. Billig, Fascists, Chapter Nine).
66. D.A. Swan 'La "Geographische Anthropologie" de Bertil Lundman' Nouvelle Ecol., 1972, 18. .
67. 'A.R. Jensen répond aux questions de "Nouvelle Ecole".' Nouvelle Ecole, 1972, 18, 75-81.
68. H.J. Eysenck 'Le déclin et la chute de l'Empire freudien' Nouvelle Ecole, 1973, 23, 57-73. The article was originally published in English in the American girlie magazine Penthouse.
69. For discussions of the National Party's ideology see: M. Billig (1978, op.cit.), Chapter Six; D. Edgar 'Racism, fascism and the politics of the National Front' Race and Class, 1977, 19, 111-131.
70. At one point in the interview, the interviewer interrupts Eysenck to check that he is not "of Jewish origin". It is almost as if the interviewer wanted to establish this in order not to destroy the professor's credibility in the eyes of Beacon's anti-Semitic readership.
71. Steppingstones in fact abbreviated the Beacon interview. Included are Eysenck's statements on race, etc.; however Steppingstones omitted a passage in which Eysenck expressed his opposition to Hitler's Nazi regime. Although such sentiments might have distressed the Hitlerian Nazis of Steppingstones, they would not have upset the Strasserite Nazis of Beacon.
72. The present pamphlet assumes that the words attributed to Eysenck in Beacon are in fact Eysenck's own words. Searchlight 1977, No. 23, printed details of the interview and a copy of the article was sent to Eysenck, who it appears took no action against either Beacon or Searchlight.
73. M. Bardèche Qu'est-ce que le Fascisme? (Les Sept Couleurs, Paris, 1961).
74. For example, A.v. Thadden 'Die Einleitung der Wiederbewaffnung', Nation Europa, December 1975, 29-35.
75. For instance: R. Kosiek published an article in Nation Europa June 1975; J. Rieger, December 1975; Irsigler, August 1971; D.A. Swan, January 1975. A colleague of Swan's on the executive board of the International Association for the Advancement of Ethnology and Eugenics also published an article in Nation Europa 1975: Dr R.J. Die 'Die hellen Negerbabies' July 1975, 35-40.
76. Nation Europa September 1975, p. 62. Harwood's Did six million really die? was published by Historical Review Press (see Note 62). There is strong evidence to suggest that 'Harwood' (a pseudonym) is in fact Richard Verrall of the National Front Directorate (see Searchlight 31 and 40).
77. A.M. Shuey The Testing of Negro Intelligence (J.P. Bell, Lynchburg, 1958).
78. H.J. Eysenck and G.D. Wilson ThePsychological Basis of Ideology (MTP Press, 1978).
79. G.D. Wilson The Psychology of Conservatism (Academic Press, London, 1973).
80. According to Wilson: "Individuals scoring towards the 'realistic' end of this dimension would tend to be racialistic, punitive, hedonistic and conforming, and to be generally predisposed to express attitudes and act in a 'selfish', expedient manner" (The Psychology of Conservatism, pp.87-88).
81. J.J. Ray Conservatism as Heresy (Australian and New Zealand Book Co., Sydney, 1974).
82. J.J. Ray 'Do authoritarians hold authoritarian attitudes?' Human Relations, 1976, 29, 307-325. Like Wilson, Ray on occasions fights shy of the term 'fascism'. For instance in a recent article, Ray claims that Adorno et al. in their book The Authoritarian Personality investigated the psychology of 'nationalism'; whereas in fact their book was explicitly about the psychology of fascism. In the same article, Ray consistently prefers to call Nazism 'German Nationalism', thus using a turn of phrase adopted by many contemporary fascists (J.J. Ray 'Are Scottish nationalists authoritarian and conservative?' European Journal of Political Research, 1978, 6, 411-418).

STOP PRESS: The Mankind Quarterly has just announced a new editor to succeed Gayre. It has chosen Roger Pearson, founder of the Northern League, and so strengthens its links with Nazi race science.
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