New Elitism: Social Psychology in Prewar England

Abstract

At the beginning of the twentieth century, there was a widespread effort to reassess Victorian values so that they might be retained, but in a more viable form. The new democracy was the catalyst in this introspective process which affected political thought most of all. Before the Great War the anomalous behavior of the new citizen, in the streets and at the polls, compelled thoughtful attention to political problems in England. In reaction to the unreasonable and unpredictable behavior of the new democracy, a new democratic liberalism and a new elitism came into being. New liberalism, in trying to qualify rationalist assumptions and transform the negative program of nineteenth-century liberalism, largely succeeded. New elitism, like old elitism, in concluding that the great majority were fit only to be governed, largely failed. But the elitist critique of mass urban democracy was as compelling to many people as the new liberal's defense. While liberalism has received critical comment, discussions of elitism have been limited to Fabian methodology or subordinated to analyses of Utopian programs. Yet the most formidable elitist argument came from the infant science of social psychology, developed concurrently by William McDougall, a physiologist, and Wilfred Trotter, a surgeon and neurologist. In prewar Britain, social psychology was the basis for a political critique of democracy presented as a scientific analysis of behavior. This paper deals with the validity of social psychology as a reading of history which concluded in political elitism. The accuracy and significance of the social psychologists' explanation of behavior are assessed solely in terms of its political implications as a plea for government by an Elect of social scientists, a plea hidden within a purportedly scientific account of social evolution.

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