Turncoats & True Believers: The Dynamics of Political Belief and Disillusionment [Hardcover]

Ted Goertzel (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1992

This book probes the psychology and group dynamics underlying political beliefs. The concepts of "left" and "right" are no longer adequate descriptions of the ideological landscape of our diverse world. Ted Goertzel uncovers the ideological scripts, which explain the complex roles played by political and cultural leaders who have shaped the modern world. The personal events and social dynamics that lead people to become Utopians or Survivors, Hawks or Doves, Authoritarians or Protestors, Sceptics or Pragmatists are examples in biographical vignettes of such fascinating people as Bertrand Russell, Adolph Hitler, Linus Pauling, and Ayn Rand.The lives of Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman illustrate how people with similar values can follow different scripts, one ending in tragedy - the other transformation. The lives of Betty Friedan, Kate Millet, and Phyllis Schlafly show how different life scripts lead to varying approaches to women's issues. Goertzel also explores the bizarre fanaticism of Jim Jones, which led to the mass suicide of his followers at Jonestown.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Famous people whose political convictions dominated their lives are examined by a Rutgers sociologist in brief psychobiographies, and are found to have shared childhood traumas, mostly attributable to poor parenting. Winston Churchill, a depressive personality when not swept up in action, adored an unresponsive mother; Bertrand Russell, whose parents' early deaths left him to the care of domineering women, escaped emotional instability in a passion for mathematics and social issues; Betty Friedan's mother was a nagging housewife whose model the feminist author rejected. Hitler, Ayn Rand, Gorbachev, Woodrow Wilson and others are examined on the author's couch. Each is classified by a "script" the author develops; they are Skeptics, Doves, Hawks, Utopians, Survivors, Protestors, Committed, Authoritarians or Pragmatists. The muddy lines between these slots are more confusing than clarifying. Though it is interesting to see the common threads, Goertzel's effort to provide a system for understanding the directions of these lives is unsatisfying.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 428 pages
• Publisher: Prometheus Books (June 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0879757558
• ISBN-13: 978-0879757557
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,969,606 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Thoughtful and Even-Handed, February 22, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Turncoats & True Believers: The Dynamics of Political Belief and Disillusionment (Hardcover)

Why do groups -- from multi-nation empires to local PTA's -- fall into the same patterns over and over again? Why do extremists who have a conversion experience tend to wind up not in the middle, but just as far over to the opposite extreme? Goertzel argues that one answer is the patterns, or "scripts" that people use to organize their lives. Goertzel begins the book with his own personal journey from a red-diaper baby to a mildly liberal middle age, contrasted with a close friend and colleague whose soul-searching ended in suicide.

Most of the book is likewise organized as a series of brief biographies. At least two famous people are cited for each personality "script" such as the Utopian, the Authoritarian, the Protestor, and the Pragmatist. A lot of the sets aren't what you expect. Hitler and Churchill appear side by side in the section on Hawks, for example.

Goertzel doesn't play favorites among his personality scripts. Each type is shown as having unique strengths and weaknesses. For example the Utopian script, which might be disastrous for a national leader who's free to impose his fads on a whole nation, can also give a social worker the emotional strength to carry on with his work where a more pragmatic personality type would give up. He also looks at the way people with different scripts and agendas interact within political movements, ranging from modern feminism to Holocaust denial to Castro's Cuba. The book closes with an evaluation of Mikhail Gorbachev and George Bush (the first) as examples of the strengths of the Pragmatic personality type.

I don't want to make Goertzel's book sound like universal explanation for human group dynamics. That would be an over-use of the Utopian personality script. :) But this is a considered, useful book which offers some handy mental tools for understanding other personality types. I read a library copy, but I intend to purchase one to keep and refer back to.