SOCIOLOGIST IN THE HOUSE
305
ological interpretation of the evil forces (either religious or
political)" conspiring against him.)
If
these absurdities stood by themselves, they might be
regarded as a passing aberration. But they appear to reflect a
mental climate characteristic of the school to which Mr. Lipset
adheres.
In
a quieter and less pretentious, more baldly factual
and for this very reason even more alarming and braincurdling
form, they also occur in the writings of his colleague, Professor
Kornhauser.
The Politics of Mass Society,
like Mr. Lipset's essay collection,
has for its central theme the analysis of what happens to demo–
cracy when it has to operate in a post-bourgeois environment.
(Not that either Mr. Lipset or Mr. Kornhauser would agree to
this statement; they favor a more involved nomenclature.)
In
such
a society there are "masses," i.e., people who own no property
(this point too is not much stressed in the productions of the
school, since it conflicts with the dogma that we live
in
the best of
all possible worlds) . Such people are not well integrated, and
their behavior, as Mr. Kornhauser notes with concern (p. 46)
"tends to be highly unstable," reflecting "social alienations," and
leading to "resentment against the social order." This mental
condition is the seed-bed of "mass movements," which in turn m3.Y
(but need not) acquire a totalitarian character. "Mass movements
are miniature mass societies; totalitarian movements are miniature
totalitarian societies"
(ibid .,
p. 47). Such movements "appeal to
the most extreme dispositions of individuals and their readiness
to go to any extreme in the pursuit of their objectives." This
makes them dangerous to democracy (p. 49). "Mass society is
characterized by an abundance of mass movements. Other types
of society are characterized by different kinds of social movements"
(p. 50). How does such a state of affairs come about? "The major
set of circumstances associated with the emergence and develop–
ment of mass movements must include those factors that weaken
social arrangements intermediate between the individual and the
state . . . Such factors are those associated with
major discon–
tinuities in social process
(author's italics) as measured by the
rate, scope and mode of social change . . . Where the pre-
