Thorstein Veblen
DEMENTIA PRAECOX.

The Freeman, Vol. V., June 21, 1922, pp. 344-347.
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IT is evident now, beyond cavil, that no part of Europe is better off for 
America's having taken part in the great war. So also it is evident that 
the Americans are all the worse off for it. Europe is balancing along the 
margin of bankruptcy, famine, and pestilence, while America has gone into 
moral and industrial eclipse. This state of things, in both cases, is 
traceable directly to America's having taken part in the war, whatever may 
have been the ulterior determining circumstances that brought European 
politics to a boil in 1914.
As regards the state of Europe, the immediate effect of American 
intervention was to bring the war to an inconclusive settlement; to 
conclude hostilities before they were finished and thereby reinstate the 
status quo ante out of which the war had arisen; to save the Junkers from 
conclusive defeat. There is every reason to believe that in the absence of 
American intervention the hostilities would have been continued until the 
German nation had been exhausted and the German forces had been broken and 
pushed back across their frontiers and across their own territory; which 
would have demoralised and discredited the rule of privilege and property 
in the Fatherland to such effect that the control of affairs would have 
passed out of the hands of the kept classes. The outcome should then have 
been an effectual liquidation of the old order and the installation of 
something like an industrial democracy resting on other ground than 
privilege and property, instead of the camouflage of a pro forma 
liquidation in 1918-19 and the resulting pseudo-republic of the Ebert 
Government. Noske could not have functioned and the Junkers would not have 
been war-heroes. It was the apprehension of some such eventuality that 
brought out the Lansdowne letters, which served warning on the kept classes 
of the Entente and prepared the way for an inconclusive peace - a compact 
to preserve the elements of dissension, the vested interests and national 
ambitions out of which the war arose.
There can be no grounded surmise as to what might have been the ulterior 
fortunes of any conceivable revolutionary establishments that so might have 
been set up in the German lands on some other basis than vested interests 
and national ambition; but it may at least be confidently believed that no 
such foot-loose establishment or group of establishments could have 
constituted a warlike menace to the rest of Europe, or even a practicable 
war-bogy. The outcome would presumably have been a serious peaceful menace 
to absentee ownership and imperial politics, throughout Christendom, but 
assuredly not a menace of war - Germany would :, have ceased to be a Power, 
in the usual minatory sense of the term. And when Germany, with Austria, 
had fallen out of line as a Power, the rest of the line of Powers would be 
in a precarious case for want of something formidable to lean against. A 
practicable Power has to rest its case on a nerve-shattering popular fear 
of aggression from without.
The American intervention saved the life of the German Empire as a 
disturber of the peace, by saving the German forces from conclusive defeat, 
and so saving the rule of the kept classes in Germany. It will be said, of 
course, by vainglorious Americans and by obsequious politicians of the 
Entente, that America's entrance into the war decided the case against the 
Central Powers; which is a sufficiently idle piece of stage-bravery. So 
also the German war-lords cover their shame with the claim that America 
turned their assured victory to defeat; but the reason for that claim is 
the need of it. When the whole adventure is seen in perspective it is 
evident that the defeat of the Germans was decided at the battle of the 
Marne in 1914, and the rest of the conflict was a desperate fight for 
negotiable terms on which the German war-lords hoped to save their face at 
home; and America's intervention has helped them save the remnants of their 
face.
If Imperial Germany had dropped out of the running, as a practicable war-
Power, at the same time that Imperial Russia had gone into collapse, the 
French Government would have had no practicable war-scare at hand with 
which to frighten the French people into a policy of increased armament. On 
the same grounds coercion and submission would have ceased to characterise 
the administration of their internal affairs; the existing Government of 
French profiteers would have lost control; and expenditures would have been 
covered in part by taxes on income and capital, instead of the present 
deficit-financiering and constantly increasing debt. France would have 
returned to a peace-footing. At the same time the prosecution of 
hostilities through the winter 1918-19 would have carried the exhaustion of 
French resources and the inflation of French indebtedness to such a point 
as to ensure a drastic and speedy liquidation of their fiscal and 
commercial affairs, with a recapitalisation of assets at a reasonable 
figure, such as to permit French trade and industry to make a new start 
within a reasonable time.
What has just been said of the French case will hold true for the other 
Continental peoples in nearly the same degree, with some allowance for 
local circumstances. The case of the British is not substantially 
different, except in degree, and except that the outcome of the war has 
enabled British imperialism to take on an added degree of jobbery and 
effrontery. The American intervention brought the war to a close before the 
exhaustion of resources and the inflation of capital and liabilities in 
Europe had reached the breaking-point, and thereby it has enabled the 
vested interests to keep their footing on a nominal capitalisation in 
excess of the earning-capacity of their assets, to maintain prices and 
restrict output; from which follows unemployment, privation, and industrial 
disorder. At the same time the inconclusive peace, with the resulting 
international intrigue, has enabled the politicians of the old line to 
retain control and continue the old line of warlike diplomacy and coercive 
administration - a state of things which could scarcely have come to pass 
except for the formidable intervention of America during the closing months 
of the war.
It may be said, of course, that the state of things in Europe was not 
brought on by the American intervention; that even if the contending Powers 
had been left to their own devices they might not have carried their 
emulation of the Kilkenny Cats through to the normal Kilkenny finish. Even 
if the Americans had not come in and upset the fighting-balance, the 
European statesmen might have seen their way to much the same sort of 
negotiated peace, with much the same view to renewed hostilities at a 
future date. Such an outcome would of course have been possible, though it 
would not seem probable; and in that event the Europeans would presumably 
have fallen into much the same evil case in which they now find themselves, 
under the rule of the statesmen of the kept classes. They would have been 
no worse off, and presumably no better.
But it still remains true that in such event the Americans would have been 
spared certain untoward experiences that have followed. Most of the war-
debt, much of the increased armament, a good share of the profiteering 
incident to the war and the peace, and all of the income tax would have 
been avoided. It is true, American statesmen would still have continued to 
do the "dirty work" for American bankers in Nicaragua; they might still 
have seen their way to manhandle the Haitians and put the white man's 
burden on the black population of Liberia for the profit of American banks 
and politicians; it is even conceivable that they could still have backed 
the Polish adventures in Russia and have sent troops and supplies to the 
Murmansk and Siberia to annoy the horrid Bolsheviki; but there is at least 
a reasonable chance that, in such event, there would have arisen no 
"American Legion," no Ku-Klux-Klan, no Knights of Columbus, and no Lusk 
Commission. Presumably there would also have been relatively little of the 
rant and bounce of Red-Cross patriotism; no espionage act, no wholesale 
sentences or deportations for constructive sedition, and no prosecution of 
pacifists and conscientious objectors for excessive sanity. In short, there 
is a reasonable chance that in such event the Americans might have come 
through the period of the war in a reasonable state of buncombe and 
intolerance without breaking down into the systematised illusions of 
dementia praecox.
It will be said, of course, that the American intervention hastened the 
return of peace and thereby saved much property and very many lives of men, 
women, and children that would otherwise have been wasted in hostilities 
carried on to no effect for another four or five months; all of which is 
not reasonably to be questioned. But it is also not reasonably to be 
questioned that the past three or four years of dissension, disorder, 
privation, and disease that have been brought on by the precipitate 
conclusion of hostilities, have taken twice as heavy a toll in wasted time 
and substance and in wasted lives - not counting the debauch of waste and 
confusion which their unselfish participation in the war has brought upon 
the Americans.
Assuredly, none of these untoward consequences was aimed at or contemplated 
by the Administration when it shifted from a footing of quasi-neutrality to 
formal hostilities in 1917. Still less was anything of the kind 
contemplated in that run of popular sentiment that came to the support of 
the Administration in its declaration of war. So far as the case can be 
covered with any general formula, America entered the war "to make the 
world safe for democracy." It is only that, instead of what was aimed at, 
the untoward state of things described above has followed in the chain of 
consequence. The motives of the Americans in the case are not to be 
impugned. They were as nearly blameless as might reasonably be expected 
under the circumstances. It is only that the unintended and unforeseen 
ulterior outcome of the adventure has now, after the event, shown that 
America's participation in the war was a highly deplorable mistake. In so 
far, this unhappy turn of events has gone to vindicate the protests of the 
pacifists and the conscientious objectors. Their arguments may have been 
unsound, and the conscientious objectors have at least found themselves on 
the wrong side of the law, and their motives may have been unworthy as 
often as not. There is no call to argue the legalities or the moralities of 
the case in this connection. It is only that now, after the event, it has 
unhappily become evident that the course of public policy against which 
they contended - perhaps unworthily - was not the wiser course to pursue. 
Their morals may have been bad and their manners worse, and the courts have 
decided, with great spontaneity, that their aim was criminal in a high 
degree, and popular sentiment has borne out the sentiment of the courts in 
this matter, on the whole and for the time being. Yet the turn of events 
has, unhappily, gone to show that, barring the statutory infirmities of 
their case, these statutory criminals were in effect contending for the 
wiser course. And for so having, in some wrongheaded way, spoken for a 
wiser course of action than that adopted by the constituted authorities, 
these statutory criminals have been and continue to be subjected to cruel 
and unusual punishment. All of which invites reflection on the vagaries of 
dementia praecox.
The current situation in America is by way of being something of a 
psychiatrical clinic. In order to come to an understanding of this 
situation there is doubtless much else to be taken into account, but the 
case of America is after all not fairly to be understood without making due 
allowance for a certain prevalent unbalance and derangement of mentality, 
presumably transient but sufficiently grave for the time being. Perhaps the 
commonest and plainest evidence of this unbalanced mentality is to be seen 
in a certain fearsome and feverish credulity with which a large proportion 
of the Americans are effected. As contrasted with their state of mind 
before the war, they are predisposed to believe in footless outrages and 
odious plots and machinations - "treasons, stratagems, and spoils." They 
are readily provoked to a headlong intolerance, and resort to unadvised 
atrocities as a defense against imaginary evils. There is a visible lack of 
composure and logical coherence, both in what they will believe and in what 
they are ready to do about it.
Throughout recent times the advance of exact knowledge in the material 
sciences has been progressively supplanting the received barbarian beliefs 
in magical and supernatural agencies. This progressive substitution of 
matter-of-fact in the place of superstition has gone forward unremittingly 
and at a constantly accelerated rate, being the most characteristic and 
most constructive factor engaged in modern civilisation. But during the 
past six or eight years, since the outbreak of the war, and even more 
plainly since its conclusion, the churches, high and low, have been gaining 
both in numbers and in revenues, as well as in pontifical unction. The 
logical faculty appears to have suffered a notable degree of prostration 
throughout the American community; and all the while it is the more puerile 
crudities of superstitious fear that have been making particular and 
inordinate gains. So, for example, it is since the outbreak of the war that 
the Rev. Billy Sunday has effectively come into his own, and it is since 
the peace that he has become such a power of obscurity as to command a 
price as an agency of intimidation and misrule. So also it is during these 
last few years of the same period of nervous prostration that the 
Fundamentalists are effectually making headway in their campaign of 
obscuration designed to reinstate the Fear of God in place of common-sense. 
Driven by a nerve-shattering fear that some climax of ghostly atrocities is 
about to be visited on all persons who are found lacking in bigotry, this 
grosser sort of devout innocents now impugn certain findings of material 
science on the ground that these findings are presumed to be distasteful to 
a certain well-known anthropomorphic divinity, to whom His publicity-agents 
impute a sadistic temper and an unlimited power of abuse. These evidences 
of a dilapidated mentality are growing more and more obvious. Meantime even 
a man of such signal good sense and humanity as Mr. Bryan is joining forces 
with the Rev. Billy Sunday in the propaganda of intolerance, while the 
gifts of so engaging a raconteur as Sir Conan Doyle are brought in to cover 
the flanks of this drive into intellectual twilight.
It may be said, of course, that such-like maggoty conceits are native to 
the religious fancy and are due to come into the foreground in all times of 
trouble; but just now the same fearsome credulity is running free and large 
through secular affairs as well, and its working-out is no more edifying in 
that department of human conduct. At the date when America formally entered 
the war, American popular sentiment had already been exposed to a 
protracted stress of apprehension and perplexity and was ready for alarms 
and excursions into intolerance. All manner of extravagant rumors met with 
ready belief, and, indeed, few were able to credit anything that was not 
extravagant. It was a period dominated by illusions of frightfulness and 
persecution. It was the peculiar misfortune of the American people that 
they were called into action only after their mental poise had been 
shattered by a long run of enervating perplexity and agitation. The 
measures taken under these circumstances were drawn on such lines of 
suspicion and intolerance as might be looked for under these circumstances. 
Differences of opinion were erected into statutory crimes, to which 
extravagant penalties were attached. Persons charged with these new-found 
statutory crimes were then convicted on a margin of legal interpretation. 
In effect, suspected persons were held guilty until proved innocent, with 
the doubt weighing against them. In one of these episodes of statutory 
frightfulness, that of the far-famed "Lusk Committee," some ten thousand 
persons were arrested on ungrounded suspicion, with extensive destruction 
of papers and property. The foreign-language press was laid under 
disabilities and the use of the mails was interrupted on general grounds of 
hysterical consternation. On the same grounds circulation and credence were 
given to extravagantly impossible fictions of Bolshevik propaganda, and the 
I.W.W. were by interpretation erected into a menace to the Republic, while 
the Secret Service kept faithfully on the job of making two suspicions grow 
where one grew before. Under cover of it all the American profiteers have 
diligently gone about their business of getting something for nothing at 
the cost of all concerned, while popular attention has been taken up with 
the maudlin duties of civil and religious intolerance.
The Republic has come through this era of spiritual dilapidation with an 
unbalanced budget and an increased armament by use of which to "safeguard 
American Interests" - that is to say, negotiate profitable concessions for 
American oil companies - a system of passports, deportations, and 
restricted immigration, and a Legion of veterans organised for a draft on 
the public funds and the cultivation of warlike distemper. Unreflecting 
patriotic flurry has become a civic virtue. Drill in patriotic - that is to 
say military - ritual has been incorporated in the ordinary routine of the 
public schools, and it has come to be obligatory to stand uncovered through 
any rendition of the "National Anthem" - a musical composition of which one 
could scarcely say that it might have been worse. The State constabularies 
have been augmented; the right of popular assembly freely interfered with; 
establishments of mercenary "gunmen," under the formal name of detective-
agencies, have increased their output; the Ku-Klux-Klan has been reanimated 
and reorganised for extra-legal intimidation of citizens; and the American 
Legion now and again enforces "law and order" on the unfortunate by extra-
legal measures. Meantime the profiteers do business as usual and the 
Federal authorities are busied with a schedule of increased protective 
duties designed to enhance the profits of their business.
Those traits in this current situation wherein it is different from the 
relatively sober state of things before the war, have been injected by 
America's participation in the war; and it is, in effect, for their failure 
to join hands and help in working up this state of things that the 
conscientious objectors, draft-evaders, I.W.W.'s, Communists, have been 
penalised in a manner unexampled in American history. This is not saying 
that the pacifists, conscientious objectors, etc., are not statutory 
criminals or that they foresaw such an outcome of the traffic against which 
they protested, or that they were moved by peculiarly high-minded or 
unselfish considerations in making their protest; but only that the 
subsequent course of events has unhappily brought out the fact that these 
distasteful persons took a stand for the sounder side of a debatable 
question. Except for the continued prevalence of a distempered mentality 
that still runs on illusions of persecution, it might reasonably have been 
expected that this sort of de facto vindication of the stand taken by these 
statutory criminals would be allowed to count in extenuation of their de 
jure fault. But the distemper still runs its course. Indeed, it is 
doubtless the largest, profoundest, and most enduring effect brought upon 
the Americans by America's intervention in the great war.

Typically and commonly, dementia praecox is a distemper of adolescence or 
of early manhood, at least such appears to be the presumption held among 
psychiatrists. Yet its occurrence is not confined within any assignable 
age-limits. Typically, if not altogether commonly, it takes the shape of a 
dementia persecutoria, an illusion of persecution and a derangement of the 
logical faculty such as to predispose the patient to the belief that he and 
his folks are victims of plots and systematic atrocities. A fearsome 
credulity is perhaps the most outstanding symptom, and this credulity may 
work out in a fear of atrocities to be suffered in the next world or in the 
present; that is to say a fear of God or of evil men. Prolonged or 
excessive worry appears to be the most usual predisposing cause. Expert 
opinions differ as to how far the malady is to be reckoned as a curable 
disease; the standard treatment being rest, security, and nutrition. The 
physiological ground of such a failure of mentality appears to be 
exhaustion and consequent deterioration of nerve-tissue, due to shock or 
prolonged strain; and recuperation is notoriously slow in the case of 
nerve-tissue.
No age, sex, or condition is immune, but dementia praecox will affect 
adolescents more frequently than mature persons, and men more frequently 
than women; at least so it is said. Adolescent males are peculiarly subject 
to this malady, apparently because they are - under modern circumstances - 
in a peculiar degree exposed to worry, dissipation, and consequent nervous 
exhaustion. The cares and unfamiliar responsibilities of manhood fall upon 
them at that period, and under modern circumstances these cares and 
responsibilities are notably exacting, complex, and uncertain. Given a 
situation of widespread apprehension, uncertainty, and agitation, such as 
the war-experience brought on the Americans, and the consequent derangement 
of mentality should be of a similarly widespread character - such as has 
come in evidence.
The peculiar liability of adolescent males carries the open suggestion that 
a similar degree of liability should also extend to those males of more 
advanced years in whom a puerile mentality persists, men in whom a boyish 
temper continues into later life. These boyish traits may be seen in 
admirably systematised fashion in such organisations as the Boy Scouts. 
Much the same range of characteristics marks the doings and aspirations, 
individual and collective, of high-school boys, undergraduate students, and 
organisations of the type of the Y.M.C.A. In this connection it would 
perhaps be ungraceful to direct attention to the clergy of all 
denominations, where self-selection has resulted in a concentration on the 
lower range of the intellectual spectrum. One is also not unprepared to 
find a sensible infusion of the same puerile traits among military men. A 
certain truculent temper is conspicuous among the stigmata. Persons in whom 
the traits and limitations of the puerile mentality persist in a 
particularly notable degree are called "morons," but there are also many 
persons who approximate more or less closely to the moronic grade of 
mentality without being fully entitled to the technical designation. Such a 
degree of arrested spiritual and mental development is, in practical 
effect, no bar against entrance into public office. Indeed, a degree of 
puerile exuberance coupled with a certain truculent temper and boyish 
cunning is likely to command something of popular admiration and affection, 
which is likely to have a certain selective effect in the democratic choice 
of officials. Men, and perhaps even more particularly the women, will be 
sympathetically and affectionately disposed toward the standard vagaries of 
boyhood, and this sentimental inclination is bound to be reflected in the 
choice of public officials in any democratic community, where such choice 
is habitually guided by the play of sentiment. America is the most 
democratic of all nations; at least so they say. A run of persecutory 
credulity of the nature of dementia praecox should logically run swiftly 
and with a wide sweep in the case of such a community endowed with such an 
official machinery, and its effects should be profound and lasting.
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