The "Reason" Behind The Motivation For The Attack

In 1922, Lothrop Stoddard wrote a book called The Revolt Against Civilization.

I'd like to quote from Chapter One "The Burden Of Civilization"...


The Under-Man -- the man who measures under the standards of capacity and adaptability imposed by the social order in which he lives. And this term I shall henceforth employ.

Now how does the Under-Man look at civilization?

This civilization offers him few benefits and fewer hopes. It usually affords him little beyond a meagre subsistence. And, sooner or later, he instinctively senses that he is a failure; that civilization's prizes are not for him. But this civilization, which withholds benefits, does not hesitate to impose burdens.

We have previously stated that civilization's heaviest burdens are borne by the superior. Absolutely, this is true; relatively the Under-Man's intrinsically lighter burdens feel heavier because of his innate incapacity. The very discipline of the social order oppresses the Under-Man; it thwarts and chastises him at every turn. To wild natures society is a torment, while the congenital caveman, placed in civilization, is always in trouble and usually in jail.

All this seems inevitable. But, in addition to these social handicaps, the Under-Man often suffers from the action of better-placed individuals who take advantage of his weakness and incapacity to exploit him and drive him down to social levels even lower than those which he would normally occupy. Such is the Under-Man's unhappy lot.

Now, what is his attitude toward that civilization from which he has so little to hope? What but instinctive opposition and discontent? These feelings, of course, vary all the way from dull, unreasoning dislike to flaming hatred and rebellion. But, in the last analysis, they are directed not merely against imperfections in the social order, but against the social order itself.

This is a point which is rarely mentioned, and still more rarely understood. Yet it is the meat of the whole matter. We must realize clearly that the basic attitude of the Under-Man is an instinctive and natural revolt against civilization.

The reform of abuses may diminish the intensity of social discontent. It may also diminish the numbers of the discontented, because social abuses precipitate into the depths many persons who do not really belong there; persons who were innately capable of achieving the social order if they had had a fair chance. But, excluding all such anomalous cases, there remains a vast residue of unadaptable, depreciated humanity, essentially un-civilizable and incorrigibly hostile to civilization.

Every society engenders within itself hordes of savages and barbarians, ripe for revolt and ever ready to pour forth and destroy. In normal times these elements of chaos go almost unperceived. Civilization automatically evolves strong social controls which keep down the antisocial elements. For one thing, the civilized man instinctively supports his civilization, just as the Under-Man instinctively opposes it; and when civilization is threatened, its supporters instantly rise in its defense.

Again society maintains a permanent standing army (composed of policemen, soldiers, judges, and others), which is usually quite capable of keeping order. The mere presence of this standing army deters the antisocial elements from mass action. Desperate individuals, of course, break forth into crime, but society hunts them down and eliminates them by prison and the scaffold. The Under-Man may thus be controlled. But he remains; he multiplies; he bides his time. And, now and then, his time comes.

When a civilization falters beneath its own weight and by the decay of its human foundations; when its structure is shaken by the storms of war, dissension, or calamity; then the long-repressed forces of atavistic revolt gather themselves together for a spring. And (noteworthy fact!) such revolts usually have able leaders. That is what makes them so formidable. This revolutionary officers-corps is mainly composed of three significant types: the "border-liner," the "disinherited," and the "misguided superior." Let us consider them in turn.

We have already noted the "border-liner," the man who cannot quite "make good." We have seen how hard is his lot and how hotly he turns against that social order which he just fails to achieve. Most of such persons fail because of some fatal defect -- a taint of character or a mental "twist." In other respects they may be very superior, and possess brilliant talents which they can use against society with powerful effect.

We have also noted the "disinherited," the man innately capable of civilized success but cast into the depths by social injustice or individual wrong-doing. Deprived of their birthright, the disinherited are like-wise apt to be bitter foes of society. They enlist gladly in the army of chaos (where they do not really belong), and if they possess marked talents they may be very dangerous enemies.

Lastly, there is the "misguided superior." He is a strange phenomenon! Placed by nature in the van of civilization, he goes over to its enemies. This seems inexplicable. Yet it can be explained. As the Under-Man revolts because civilization is so far ahead of him, so the misguided superior revolts because it is so far behind. Exasperated by its slow progress, shocked at its faults, and erroneously ascribing to mankind in general his own lofty impulses, the misguided superior dreams short cuts to the millennium and joins the forces of social revolt, not realizing that their ends are profoundly different even though their methods may be somewhat the same. The misguided superior is probably the most pathetic figure in human history. Flattered by designing scoundrels, used to sanctify sinister schemes, and pushed forward as a figurehead during the early stages of revolutionary agitation, the triumph of the revolution brings him to a tragic end. Horrified at sight of barbarism's unmasked face, he tries to stay its destructive course. In vain! The Under-Man turns upon his former champion with a snarl and tramples him into the mud.

The social revolution is now in full swing. Such upheavals are profoundly terrible. I have described them as "atavistic." And that is just what they are -- "throwbacks" to a far lower social plane. The complex fabric of society, slowly and painfully woven, is torn to tatters; the social controls vanish, and civilization is left naked to the assaults of anarchy. In truth, disruption goes deeper still. Not only is society in the grip of its barbarians, but every individual falls more or less under the sway of his own lower instincts. For, in this respect, the individual is like society. Each of us has within him an "Under-Man," that primitive animality which is the heritage of our human, and even our pre-human, past. This Under-Man may be buried deep in the recesses of our being; but he is there, and psychoanalysis informs us of his latent power. This primitive animality, potentially present even in the noblest natures, continuously dominates the lower social strata, especially the pauper, criminal, and degenerate elements -- civilization's "inner-barbarians."

Now, when society's dregs boil to the top, a similar process takes place in individuals, to whatever social level they may belong. In virtually every member of the community there is a distinct resurgence of the brute and the savage, and the atavistic trend thus becomes practically universal.

This explains most of the seemingly mysterious phenomena of revolution. It accounts for the mental contagion which infects all classes; the wild elation with which the revolution is at first hailed; the way in which even well-poised men throw themselves into the stream, let it carry them whither it lists, and commit acts which they afterward not only cannot explain but cannot even remember. General atavistic resurgence also accounts for the ferocious temper displayed, not merely by the revolutionists, but by their counter-revolutionary opponents as well. However much they may differ in their principles, "Reds" and "Whites" display the same savage spirit and commit similar cruelties. This is because society and the individual have been alike re-barbarized.

In time the revolutionary tempest passes. Civilized men will not forever endure the misrule of their own barbarians; they will not lastingly tolerate what Burke rightly termed the tyranny of a "base oligarchy." Sooner or later the Under-Man is again mastered, new social controls are forged, and a stable social order is once more established.


To see the full text of this work go here: http://www2.mo-net.com/~mlindste/revltciv.html

Michael Ross