Hungarian-born sociologist Paul Hollander has devoted his life to exposing pernicious ideologies. He is the author of many books, including Political Pilgrims and Anti-Americanism. His two latest are The Only Superpower: Reflections on Strength, Weakness, and Anti-Americanism, which is a collection of essays, and Political Violence: Belief, Behavior, and Legitimation, an edited volume. He recently took questions from NRO’s John J. Miller.
JOHN J. MILLER: You’ve tackled grim topics as a scholar: political violence, anti-Americanism, and so on. What has motivated you to study these phenomena?
PAUL HOLLANDER: My American wife often remarked on this fact and asked how can I read and write about such horrible topics. Quite clearly my background and experiences growing up in Hungary have something to do with it. My family and I narrowly survived the Jewish persecution (1944). Later we were classified as politically unreliable by the Communist authorities (1951–1956) and as a result deported to a village. I was drafted into a labor battalion and could not attend the university.
I have personal recollections of the siege of Budapest, corpses littering the streets, Soviet troops raping women in 1945, the 1956 Revolution (corpses again on the streets). I always wanted to understand how political power can become so concentrated as it was under the Nazi and Communist systems: Why and how the few can intimidate the multitudes, how people succeed in dehumanizing other groups (a precondition of politically motivated mass murder), and the unpredictable and often tragic relationship between ends and means, political ideals, and realities. I have also been morbidly fascinated by the human capacity for self-deception.
I have three Hungarian friends of the same generation and background living in this country: one a historian, the other a philosopher, the third a social psychologist. They too left in 1956. All four of us have been preoccupied with and writing about various incarnations and manifestation of evil, without necessarily using that word.
I have also been baffled (as well as irritated) by many Western intellectuals who believe that Western capitalist democracies, and especially the United States, have been morally and otherwise inferior to state socialist systems.
MILLER: Is there any reason to hope that the 21st century will be less bloody than the 20th century?
HOLLANDER: I very much doubt it. But probably certain forms of mass murder — such as carried out in gas chambers — are less likely. The latter are too discredited and too widely known.
MILLER: Does that mean you expect World War III to break out at some point, or murderous ideologies that are capable of reproducing Communism’s death toll of 100 million people?
HOLLANDER: I am reluctant (an incapable of) predicting any major historical event such as a new world war. Nobody predicted the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Chinese Cultural Revolution, or the Rwanda massacres — to mention a few recent, major historical events. However it is likely that fanatically held ideologies will continue to play a major part in mass murders of the future. Radical Islam is the most likely candidate. A plausible scenario would be some fanatics getting hold of nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons of mass murder.
MILLER: I’ve been looking at the galleys to a forthcoming book, Jungle of Snakes: A Century of Counterinsurgency Warfare from the Philippines to Iraq, by James R. Arnold. On the very first page, Arnold writes: “The American rebels [in the War of Independence] freely employed terror — whether the tarring and feathering of a British tax collector or the hanging of a backwoods loyalist leader — to advance their cause.” Were the Americans who fought under George Washington terrorists?
HOLLANDER: My American history has lots of gaps because I didn’t grow up in this country. I am not sure what tarring and feathering entailed as regards pain or bodily damage, or how widely it was used, or how durable the injuries. Hanging a loyalist leader was targeted political murder whereas terrorists cast their nets wider, they kill groups of totally innocent people. I am disinclined to call the above-mentioned terrorists on the basis of your characterization and what I know.
MILLER: Is one man’s terrorist another man’s freedom fighter?
HOLLANDER: Only insofar as such definitions are based on political partisanship or predisposition. I believe that it is possible to differentiate between terrorists and freedom fighters on the basis of their objectives and methods, even if sometimes the lines are blurred.
MILLER: Political Violence, the book you recently edited, is dedicated to Robert Conquest. Who is he and why is he important?
HOLLANDER: Conquest is the foremost expert of the Soviet system. He has written about 20 books on every aspect of it and did more than anyone else I can think of to acquaint Western readers with the nature of that system. He is also a poet, of British origin, over 90 years old, and still active. He has lived in this country for a long time. Several of his books have also been translated into Russian following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Hopefully they will remain available.
MILLER: What is Conquest’s very best book — the one that readers should turn to first?
HOLLANDER: The Great Terror, in its latest edition (it has had several). I would also strongly recommend Kolyma: The Arctic Death Camps and The Harvest of Sorrow.
MILLER: In The Only Superpower, you comment in a couple of places on the guilt of the Rosenbergs, who were convicted of spying for the Soviets. Have you followed the new revelations about Alger Hiss and I. F. Stone in Spies, the new book by John Haynes, Harvey Klehr, and Alexander Vassiliev? Do they surprise you in any way?
HOLLANDER: I only read a review of the new book. I am not surprised. There have already been such revelations, perhaps not quite as solidly documented. Actually I am a bit surprised about Stone, since later in life he ceased to be pro-Soviet. Moreover, many people of his type managed to detest the United States or capitalism without actually seeking to assist the Soviet Union by spying. I understand that Stone didn’t actually spy but made himself available.
MILLER: What drives people to anti-American treachery?
HOLLANDER: All those mentioned were fully convinced that spying for the Soviet Union would help to bring about a better future for humanity whereas the United States was the greatest enemy of moral and social progress. Of course the interesting and difficult question is how some people reach such conclusions. Obviously we must examine closely their entire lives and the influences bearing on them.
MILLER: Everybody’s story has its unique features, of course. But are there any common experiences or beliefs that drive people to anti-Americanism?
HOLLANDER: Before attempting to answer this question I suggest that we distinguish between domestic or American anti-Americanism and that directed at the U.S. from abroad. The latter is easier to explain than the former.
Anti-Americanism abroad is often based on genuine grievances of some kind, even if it represents an over-reaction to them. Mexico lost about one-third of its territory to the U.S. in the 19th century. That is a genuine grievance. Of course it doesn’t follow from it that the United States is the most destructive or corrupt entity ever known in history or the source of all major global problems.
Domestic anti-Americanism is harder to explain and especially why some people are more prone to it than others. As to the common experiences or traits of such people I would suggest: 1) High expectations regarding the perfectibility of social institutions and human nature; 2) idealism; 3) access to or experience of higher education (in the humanities and social sciences); 4) a propensity to dissatisfaction or sense of “relative deprivation” (feeling deprived in relation to certain ideals, or in comparison to imaginary potentials or possibilities); 5) disdain for commerce and “consumerism” (or an anti-capitalist outlook); and 6) a more speculative possibility: people who are more prone to connect the personal and social/political realm, who feel strongly that society or social institutions, or the existing social system determine their entire lives and therefore are more inclined to blame the system for personal problems or difficulties.
Needless to say, many people who have these attributes or experiences are not anti-American. The fact of the matter is that shared social, political, historical, or economic conditions or experiences do not impose or create a uniform outlook or mentality. All we can say that anti-American sentiment is more likely to be found among people who have in common the traits or experiences I proposed above.