Hans Speier

Wit and politics : An essay on laughter and power

Originally published in German in 1975, this reflective essay draws on material from a wide range of epochs and societies to analyze the uses, intricacies, and paradoxes of wit in political relationships great and small. Topics include wit as a weapon, the crucial element of surprise, the uses of nonsense, the laughter of both the mighty and the weak, whispered jokes in totalitarian regimes, and wit and death. The essay returns repeatedly to the paradox of timelessness, that is, the recurrence of similar forms of political humor, indeed identical jokes, in different centuries and among different peoples.

Some Observations on Political Gaming

D uring the past five years the Social Science Division of The RAND Corporation has been developing a procedure for the study of foreign affairs that we call “political gaming.” This article gives a brief description of the technique and some of our observations about its utility.

Historical development of public opinion.

Public opinion, defined for purposes of this historical review as free and public communications from citizen to their government on matters of concern to the nation, is a phenomenon of middle-class civilization. Its attainment of political significance was accompanied and facilitated by certain changes in the economic and convivial institutions of society and by shifts in social stratification. In its early phase public opinion was preoccupied with domestic affairs, but during the French Revolutionary wars and after the Congress of Vienna the utilization of public opinion in international affairs, became generally respectable among statesmen. Effective government by public opinion in the field of foreign affairs today is jeopardized by various specified characteristics of modern democratic civilization.

The Social Types of War

Three pure types of war are distinguished, viz., absolute war, instrumental war, and agonistic fighting. These wars are oriented, respectively, toward annihilation, advantage, and glory. Absolute war is unrestricted and unregulated war; agonistic fighting is regulated according to norms; and instrumental war may or may not be restricted, according to considerations of expediency.

German Rearmament and the Old Military Elite

Abstract : The American policy toward postwar Germany is examined. Rearmament of West Germany is discussed in terms of its political and military significance. The former German military elite are considered as representatives of Germanys military tradition and as persons potentially competent to discuss the military implications of the European Defense Community.

The Truth in Hell: Maurice Joly on Modern Despotism

Political crises have often generated, through overt or disguised polemics, incisive theoretical analyses of political concepts and institutions. Such works, irrespective of their merit, have usually receded into oblivion once the crisis passed. Maurice Jolys Dialogue in Hell, written as an attack on the dictatorship of Napoleon III, was no exception despite the startling foresight it contains in anticipating political developments in twentieth-century mass society. Ironically, it was the ideas which were the targets of Jolys attack that were preserved and adapted to ends he would have found utterly repulsive in the outrageous antisemitic forgery under the title of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Speier provides an analysis of the prophetic political insights of Jolys essay and retraces the circumstances of the falsification of his ideas in the Protocols.

The Future of Psychological Warfare

AT A TIME when world attention is focused on new and terrible engines of physical destruction, the United States has allowed its psychological weapons to fall into desuetude. Our propaganda effort during the last war was characterized by improvisation, but in the event of another war it is doubtful whether time for renewed improvisation will be available. An analysis of the various types of wartime propaganda indicates that exhaustive study and preparation are necessary if this arm is to be kept in readiness. If it is to be prepared to seize the psychological offensive, the United States must first adopt a realistic attitude toward political warfare; secondly, it must devote far more energy to planning and preparation in this field than it has done in the past. The author is Professor of Sociology at the New School for Social Research, and former Associate Chief of the Division of Occupied Areas of the Department of State.

Germany Transformed: Political Culture and the New Politics

* Foreword by Max Kaase * Introduction One: The Changing Political Culture * Legitimizing a System * The Involved Electorate * Sources of Political Information Two: The Changing Political Agenda * Politics and the Economic Environment * Politics and the International Environment * Old Politics and New Politics Three: Changing Partisan Politics * Transition in the Social Bases of German Politics * Partisanship and Political Behavior * Partisan Images and Electoral Change * A Causal Analysis of the Components of the Vote Four: Epilogue * The 1976 Election * West German Politics in Transition * Appendix A: The Database * Appendix B: Constructed Measures * Notes * Index

War and Peace

The essay below was part of the Columbia University Bicentennial lecture series, “Mans Right to Knowledge,” which was broadcast over the CBS network, November 21, 1954. Mr. Speier, a sociologist, is with the Rand Corporation, Washington, D.C.