On Growth Two

18. Alex N. Leontiev

Alex N. Leontiev was born in 1903 in Moscow. He was graduated from the University of Moscow and the same year entered the Institute for Psychology. Since 1926 he has taught at the College for Communist

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Education of the USSR Academy of Sciences. His first book appeared in 1931: The Development of the Memory. From 1932 to 1935, Professor Leontiev was head of the psychoneurological department of the Academy of the Ukraine, and at the same time lectured at the Pedagogical Institute of Kharkov. In 1945 he was nominated chairman of the Faculty of Psychology of Moscow University. He is vicepresident of the International Association for Scientific Psychology. In 1963 he was awarded the Lenin prize for his book The Development of the Psyche and recently he was given the Order of Lenin. This interview was conducted in his office at the University of Moscow.

Valentina Tereskova once stated that youths in the Soviet Union are taught from their early years onward that the state needs them; that they have a special task in building a future society for all of the USSR.

First of all let me stress that I am in complete agreement with the notion that in our land young people are fully conscious that they are needed and that they are useful for society on the whole. That is absolutely correct. On the other hand, I think we should not oversimplify this question. After all, this consciousness of being useful, if you want to put it that way, has to be cultivated through education. Our entire system of education aims at the cultivation of a feeling of necessity and usefulness. We teach them to take full part in developments in our society, and to be creative. Perhaps, I should say, we stress their participation in the creation of society. We do not underline this at one particular moment in their development. This would not be sufficient at all. This notion is rather the result, the fruit of our entire process of education, from early schooling, to adolescence, till the very end of their university studies.

I would like to clarify this. You did not bring forward the problem of the forms in which this participating in society develops. You do not touch, either, on the question of those persons in charge of this process of learning and how they assist in creating society. For the moment I will skip these questions.

It is your interview, I only listen.

I would like to say a few words, not so much as a psychologist, but simply as a member of Soviet society. For me, the primary question is the different forms in which youths take part in the creation of society at large. To me this is extremely important, also from a psychological point of view. It is clear

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that we know of many kinds of human activities, which all represent different forms of taking part in the creation we are discussing.

You are referring to the creation of a global society?

No, sorry. For the moment I am concentrating on the development within Soviet society. In other words, the creation of a socialist life. We need an entire scale of all kinds of different activities. Among these are the activities of workers in industry, in agriculture, in science. I also think of workers in the service industries, such as medicine, commerce, transportation, and administration. From a historical point of view, or, to rephrase it more correctly, in the course of the history of society, ‘social ladders’ were formed. Likewise, evaluations of these activities developed. In other words, some activities draw a higher level of appreciation than others. They do not all possess an equal value to society as a whole, and this, then, determines the fate of the ordinary man. This we know to be a historical fact. Therefore we have to change these ladders. We have to create new value criteria. And what then is the principle at the base of these new conceptions? It is the quality of our activity, our productivity. Take the possibility of evaluating a wide variety of forms: the labor of workers, both in industry and in agriculture in their day-to-day tasks. If you could read our newspapers, you would notice the distinction in evaluations: the rewards. You would see that the appraisal of this labor takes into account even the simplest tasks in society. They vary, up to descriptions and evaluations of the most complicated scientific work. Basically, all things are evaluated by the same standards. Of course we sometimes note paradoxical cases, for instance, when an engineer with a university degree receives a smaller salary than a certain worker who happens to be highly competent in his particular field. This means that we evaluate work not in terms of techniques, or theories, but straight out of practice. In this way we underline that value is determined by the quality of the labor. Or the creative drive, if you wish. Do you understand? This causes deep changes in our society.

You will find in the popular press of most countries the standard clichés about so-called great personalities: generals, ministers, and politicians. Now, if you were to consult a newspaper in our country you would always find news about people who do ordinary jobs. Like an article about a railway repairman. We consider that publicity. The work this man is doing is just as important as any other. We consider such an article the reward. Publicity should be geared to public opinion. Exactly that. Everyone should be granted prestige. For that reason you will see, for instance, in a rest home of the finest quality people from all strata of our society, such as scientists or

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writers, but also workers, ordinary workers. Men or women who do manual labor. Anybody. We would not make such a rest home available only to persons from a certain economic level, as happens in a society with separate classes. This is the basic difference with our country.

Nevertheless, we should not conceal the fact that at times it is difficult, also within our society, to combat certain prejudices that still exist in some families and that relate to the old chain of values. Some parents, for instance, still long for their children to reach the upper strata of society. But an upper class as such does not in reality exist with us.

We who live in capitalist societies do not believe that Soviet society is totally classless.

I think it is necessary to define more precisely the classes we are talking about here. Socialist society maintains that it does not consist of classes contradictory to each other. In other words, a socialist society is devoid of classes that oppose each other or that exploit each other. It is an entirely different matter, of course, when we are speaking of different groups within society, as, for instance, the workers or the intelligentsia. We do have differences between inhabitants of cities or the population in rural areas, like peasants. But the differences are getting smaller all the time. And why? First of all, this depends on the economic situation in a given area, or it depends on efforts being made to industrialize agriculture. For instance, you can see for yourself that our country villages also have the kind of large buildings that we have in our cities.

In other words, the old ‘izba’ [hut] that used to be the standard type of dwelling in the countryside is gradually disappearing and is being replaced by modern dwellings equipped with every convenience that we find in our city housing. Electricity is being extended to our most remote areas.

And telephones?

A beginning was made. Immediately after our civil war we tried to set up a telephone network throughout the country. This process is constantly being accelerated.

But won't there always be a certain inequality among all men based on differences in intelligence? What does one do with low IQ people who can only sweep corridors?

This is quite a complicated problem and we really have to understand what it is all about. Biological differences between people, like physical dissimilarities, will always continue to exist. These differences, based on

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individuality, should actually become constantly more pronounced among societies consisting of opposing classes. All overrate according to different individual methods. Nevertheless, equality, in a social-economic sense, is still the basis of all individual development. This equality offers the chance to the individual to further develop himself. It offers a chance to reach full maturity, but not necessarily the formation of special characteristics of such and such a person or individual. What would seem to me most regrettable is the tendency to program people according to a set model, a standard type, which would represent the average person from one or the other specific group or class. Let's take for instance the famous American citizen.

In practice, he does not really exist. Nevertheless, people try to create a stereotype. The American citizen has to be cast, propagated, fixed in the minds of people. This then turns into a kind of equality which is really frightening. If you have the true equality of averages in the development of individual possibilities, then the individual will indeed assert himself and fully develop his creative capacities.

So far, I have spoken about changing values. However, I believe that a person's professional qualities should be understood in relation to this notion. We are dealing here with the notorious problem of a man's IQ, where so many kinds of ladders are constructed by means of tests and relying on instruments that are far from perfect. I would even say, in the process of establishing this so-called IQ, a person is being judged and studied one-sidedly. He is observed only on the basis of a number of superficial mental functions. More precisely: the tests are made to suit a mannerism. What is present in the genetic program of an individual will never be the same as what was acquired from the outside; that which characterizes a man and his possibilities. Our genetic hereditary pecularities are the conditions on the basis of which our development takes place. For example: in order to see, I have got to have an eye. Or, a machine has a specific task. Will the machine execute this task? How will it be used? That of course is a different matter.

That cannot be read from the genetic type-cast. It is impossible to differentiate between preconditions and the realization of those conditions, since while they could be present, it is also possible that they cannot be realized. In other words, this means that it is quite possible that the familiarization with a culture does not take place. A person could possess all the organs needed to speak a language - all the organs can be present for the genetic program - but if a child simply does not experience the influence of the language, it will not learn to speak. Such a development would not be possible.

Is there a direct and unchangeable connection between genetic factors and

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the results of environment? This is a rather complicated matter. We know of a number of cases that give the impression of many contradictions. Take for instance a child born blind, or one that loses its sight in early youth. These are conditions that would make it, under ordinary circumstances, impossible to have an intellectual development, but under special conditions and by special guidance and education development is quite possible. This means that there are no direct connections, while at the same time the limits are more qualitative then quantitative. In effect, we are not concerned here with the possibilities of development, but rather with the possibility to develop oneself in one way or another. Much depends on whether the direction of the development is correctly valued by society, the environment, the Umwelt. If society fails to correctly appraise the possibilities of development, then in a certain sense the development of the possibilities for further improvement are being limited. I do not believe that everyone possesses, for instance, the possibility of playing music or that each of us could undergo an esthetic development in activities concerning music. Not everyone has, or should have, the talent to play the violin. Perhaps a certain individual will, instead, find himself through an esthetic relationship with drawing, architecture, or other fields taken from the world of beauty. That is how the possibilities of the individual are being met.

Christopher Jencks of Harvard University studied the differences between whites and blacks. The gap existing between the races in America was said to be caused by cultural differences, not economic ones. If this were true, the developed nations should assist developing nations in other directions than by sending them technicians or huge sums of money.

First of all, we should accept that there are differences between whites and blacks. At the same time, people tend to forget that the differences being discovered through experimental methods or tests are only empirical observations. They tell us nothing about the origin of the differences, let alone explain the cause. The situation concerning development is for blacks completely different from that regarding the possibilities of development for whites. That is the first observation, a fact, the reality of the situation. There are of course differences which can be explained or pinpointed through a number of innate characteristics.

Hereditary?

Yes, inborn in the sense of being hereditary. I am thinking of traits such as differences in temperament, ways in which people react. I am sure there are many more differences. At times they are explained as differences in

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temperament, or, as Pavlov has done, as features of the nervous system, which actually means shades of temperament but is explained from the point of view of the physiology of the brain. This type of explanation by Pavlov also answers another, second problem; namely the question of differences in the central nervous system. These differences definitely exist and they are hereditary as well. They are biologically determined. Therefore, I believe the theories that presuppose that types could be altered, for instance, through the central nervous system -

By chemical means?

Not necessarily. I would say through methods based on conditioning and so forth, this will not be possible. It will be impossible to change individual types, which formed themselves in the course of the evolution of living beings. And why not? Because they have sufficiently adapted themselves. If they had not, these types would not exist. They would have been destroyed by the evolutionary process. They are perhaps different, but nevertheless are self-sufficient. This is the important aspect, that they are durable, sound.

Take aggression. What can be proven from a biological point of view? I mean, for instance, by studying animal behavior. In manipulating several generations of cats, one could produce aggressively behaving cats, cats that will kill mice even if they are not hungry. These things have been done. But there is something else that should be well understood, and that is that this has nothing to do with speaking of aggression as a mentality. One could well imagine an individual who in temperament or character is not aggressive at all, but who is destined to be the one who will be ordered to push the nuclear button. At the same time, there could very well be a temperamental and aggressive person at work fighting against the possibility that the nuclear button would ever be pushed.

What conclusion can be drawn from these many kinds of genetic and biologically foreseen differences? These differences were engraved as they came into being. And therefore, the possible effect will be that these differences will produce various sorts of behavior. For instance: in the south, people will be more impetuous; at least the majority will be. All these difference produce a scale of human possibilities by which man's essence further develops. All this means a further enrichment. Which brings me to the subject of cultural relationships between people. I believe that rapprochement could be reached, for instance, through the transmission of certain national achievements. I am speaking of the enrichment of human culture in the most abstract sense, in a general human sense, in relation to the

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totality of human beings that inhabit our planet. They do not suffer from these differences. On the contrary, they are enriched by them. I support the idea of the creation of an international conscience, but at the same time, the national conscience cannot by bypassed. There are, after all, codes of conduct, habits of conduct, human activities, that express themselves differently. There are so many different types - calm and quiet types, sensitive types, turbulent types - existing in cultural relationships and forming a ‘bouquet.’ In the lively communication between two of these types, we are confronted with an exchange of various ways of behavior. Thus, a number of traditions were formed. And as in all exchanges, a mutual enrichment takes place.

This is why I do not believe one can create a certain model or a stereotype based on traditions. One could ask the question, for instance, whether African music influenced our own music. The reply should be: certainly, it did.

Claude Debussy was influenced by Indonesian gamelan music.

Exactly.

But returning a moment to human aggression. Are you not afraid that all cultural communication between people will vanish, once our natural resources reach the end? If food is no longer available to ever-increasing groups of individuals will aggression not reign?

I am smiling and I have to explain myself. You are taking some entirely invented, totally abstract model. You did so since you presupposed that the sole manner in which people would be able to obtain food from others would be to fight for it. I do not believe this is always the case. Why not think of another model? Like a family, a family of six or seven. Suppose, they have almost no resources to live on. What would they do?

They would consult.

They discuss what each of them could do to circumvent their crisis. Perhaps one of them goes into town to borrow some money. They discuss the possibilities of how they can get the water they need to irrigate their fields. Perhaps they should further economize. They would try to find a solution acceptable to all of them.

Your model is one, mine is another. Both are abstract. Now, I pose the following question: Which model is more realistic? Or in perspective the most effective? Which is the model that will deliver the best results?

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But history shows us differently. Doesn't reality outstrip hope? You seem to possess deep confidence in people and their wisdom.

I don't believe it is possible to live, otherwise. How could one exist without this confidence? I have no other alternative. Once you are convinced there is only one disastrous alternative, this could result in madness, neurosis, suicide, whatever. One should not kill human beings through pessimistic ideas. That is suicidal pessimism.

Is the interest of young people in the Soviet Union in psychology, psychiatry, and the behavioral sciences growing and is it extensive?

I have to draw your attention here to two points. The number of students interested in these fields is increasing continually. I can give you a few figures. At Moscow University we have some fourteen or fifteen faculties [colleges]. They are very specialized; we do not have one faculty for all the exact sciences. We have separate faculties for chemistry, physics, and mathematics. We do not have one faculty for social sciences, but separate faculties for philology, psychology, and so on. This explains the large number of faculties. Getting into one of the faculties takes place through an entrance examination. Usually, the number of young people who want to study, let us say, mathematics or psychology, is larger than the available space. Therefore we have simple criteria. We take an examination from the number of people that desire to be admitted to a specific faculty. In this way we determine the number of students. Or, to put it more precisely, we determine the number of students that want to be allowed to study a certain field, and we find that in this way we always have about the same proportion of students that desire to study at one of our faculties and the number of available places.

Is that really true? Absolutely.

But the Literaturnaya Gazeta wrote not so long ago that these entrance examinations were so intensely competitive and difficult that they were causing a heavy strain on prospective students and causing psychologically enormous frustration.

I have to say that the exams have become increasingly difficult, since there are far too many applicants. The interest in these studies is much greater than the need in our society for specialists at such high levels.

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As in Western societies, too many applicants for the same discipline.

That is how it is in the USSR. Students are being asked to take these examinations. Is this the right way? I do not think so. No one believes this is the best solution, but there is no better method as yet. I agree with the Literaturnaya Gazeta that the exams are too difficult and that this leaves a bad impression on the students, who went out of their way to pass the exams in order to be admitted. This causes certain emotions, frustrations, if you wish. But perhaps the expression ‘frustration’ is too strong. For a student who wants to be a doctor and fails the entrance exam, this does not necessarily mean that his case is closed.

In the first place, he can prepare himself once more to be admitted the next year and study even harder in order to pass. Some students even try a third time. In our social system these opportunities exist. Students are allowed to follow special schools at all times so they can prepare themselves for the exams.

To return to the influence of society on individuals, B.F. Skinner believes that society could program the individual so as to improve himself. With Carl Rogers it is the individual that receives prime attention.

I am convinced that science and psychology in general will not develop themselves in ways proposed by Rogers or Skinner. There is another way.

Mao Tse-tung?

No, I certainly hope not. There is another way, another direction, another possibility of development in the human sciences, in which psychology is being scientifically studied. That is my view, but it is certainly a very personal one.

How would you formulate scientific psychology apart from the Rogers or Skinner approach?

Very simple. I intend to name you one point of departure. And if you want me to, I will cite this point in its axiomatic form. I cannot analyze the entire matter now, for it would take too much time. For me there exist several modes of psychological thought. The first is individual-society. For man, this means the social milieu; for animals it is the natural environment. The interaction between those two points is a theory of the two determinant factors. The second concept in that which is determined by the processes among men, the subject and the object. Now, Skinner's concept is that of

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following the road from animal to man. All you have to do is to change the environment. But, nature, as represented by animals -

Skinner's famous pigeons!

Right. Skinner feels all you have to do in studying this interaction is to replace the animal side by instruments, by stimuli, that is all. But in reality this route of interaction consists of three points; three stages and not two. The individual, man, is point one, agreed. The second point is the other side: the object, the environment. But there is a third and decisive point. And this is difficult to express. Perhaps I should state my terms in three languages, even four. First: in Russian I would describe this point by the word ‘dejatjelnost.’ In German it would be ‘Tätigkeit.’ Mind you, I do not mean by Tätigkeit, Handlung. I really mean Tätigkeit. For the French, the word would be ‘activité,’ the activity of human conduct. But even that does not explain it fully. Actually, I do not think there exists an exact translation for Tätigkeit. But a word was invented. The French launched a neologism. They now speak of ‘l'activité objectale,’ not ‘objectif,’ but ‘objectale.’ The English would speak of ‘activity.’

Human conduct.

Yes, human activity with objects. That approaches it, although it is not exactly the same thing.

And now the third point, the third phase. This is best described as the product of the influence of the individual on the environment. Seen from this point of view everything changes. The transformation of the environment brings to the individual itself a transformation in the sense that the individual possesses a notion of his environment. And the formation of this notion cannot come into being otherwise than via human conduct, human activity. For instance, a person can possess an image of something on the level of the most differing abstractions. Now, in order to have a tangible image, an image that can be touched... let us say I have my eyes closed. I am doing something with the object. I form the image, I translate it, I give it a subjective form, the form of reflection of that object. Then, one discovers with this knowledge, obtained by touching, that the process exists in all kinds of modalities, even in the activity of the visual system, and other kinds of perception.

By the individual?

Right. But at the same time, while a person works with objects, we

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experience another transformation. An image expresses itself in phenomena, in objects that belong to the milieu, the environment. In other words, we see here a double movement. And during this process we are obliged to keep an eye on one very important aspect. When I speak of an object, I do not necessarily associate this object to material things. It could very well be an idea, a concept if you like, or music, whatever you want. I do not limit myself to material things, although I do have to stress that material objects are always the beginning. However, during the course of development spiritual objects are formed. Through the realization of the activities with these objects, images are formed, both because of the objects, and as a result of the objects. They also act as instruments in the forming of images. They are used, but always in a double sense. They form a circle, but not a closed vicious circle. The circle is interrupted by the third point that I mentioned. The image is never exact or correct. There are always confrontations with objects, not necessarily material objects. There still is this indefinable process of the activity of man, this Tätigkeit in the spiritual sense. There is a resistance operating, guided by logic. And this entire new process results in the operation of what I have indicated by the third channel. We have to act. A man realizes his act. The realization of human acts leads to human activity. That is precisely the third point. The world intervenes in this process.

Dr. Margaret Mead remarked to me, ‘But who programs Skinner?’

Well, I would like to amend that question. Who has the capacity to program the transformation of the world, or human culture, rather, in the way Skinner sees it? In other words, in the sense in which freedom, complete freedom, is understood by Skinner, in this world of comfort, a term used by him, isn't it? A world of prosperity. Who creates this culture? Skinner is not very clear on this point. What will be the social trends that will influence such a programmed culture? What will be its contents? Its development? This means you would have to conceal the coming into being of an elite. Otherwise, Skinner's entire scheme would be incomprehensible. Someone would have to program the entire movement. Who constructs this new culture? And now we come to an abstraction which in my view is completely impossible.

Culture needs spreading, propagation. The possibility of propagating such and such a culture should be considered in the light of who owns it. In a society divided into classes, culture belongs to the upper class. What happens to the press, television, and radio because of such programming?

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What happens to the interests of social groups? Or those of the large industries? Skinner says that we have to instruct them, educate them in the spirit of a culture that takes into consideration the future of man and society. But what happens to the interests involved? Let us take a simple example: the production of automobiles. The entire social group, the automobile managers, have but one defined interest, and this is to sell as many cars as they possibly can. So, if one wanted to reprogram the automobile industrialists, one would have to tell them that they should sell fewer cars. The income from the production of automobiles would have to be sharply reduced. If I were to carry out, as an automobile industrialist, this request to reduce production, most likely my own family would ask the authorities to lock me up or have my head examined by a psychiatrist, because the income of the family would suffer from such a decision. This idea is completely impossible. The husband, the brother, the nephew, all have known wealth stemming from the production of automobiles for probably two or three generations. It would be impossible to carry out such plans because they would oppose them. That is the reality of life. What Skinner says in his book On Freedom and Dignity is pure fantasy. Skinner fabricates an abstraction from life in societies in the contemporary world. Culture as an abstraction - as if there were no classes or no differences in cultures! The technology of compartmentalized behavior - that is Skinner. In fact, it is only the semblance of technology, for technology is based on mechanical and chemical laws, which are ironclad and inescapable. These laws are valid for the construction of machines, for the establishment of industries. When you start to apply technology to human activity, it is completely senseless.

Another consideration is that we want to see a human creature in a human being and not merely a robot. A human being is a social creature possessing consciousness and realizing his aims in life. Man is an active being, conscious not only of himself, but of performing his responsibilities toward other individuals in society. Man must struggle for the happiness of all of mankind, not discriminate, and he should be fully aware of the barbarism of war and all kinds of violence.

Don't you believe that scientists should not continue to populate the ivory towers of universities, but be educated in the full understanding and awareness of their responsibilities toward mankind as a whole?

Yes. I support the idea of making the humanities a part of the curriculum of, for instance, chemists, physicists, and other students of the abstract sciences. I do not believe that the preparation of today's scientists has been sufficient. Will the students that are now leaving our universities all over the

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world be ready to meet the twenty-first century? If we think at all of the future of mankind and its survival then it will be absolutely necessary to end the system of only partly educated human beings.

Partly developed people.

Yes, just that. It is not a matter of being responsible or not. How can we demand responsibility from people who have not met their social reality?

Carl lung called the bomb dropped by scientists and militarists on Hiroshima a disaster in man's psychology first, and a disaster in technology second. But when I discussed this with one of the scientists responsible for this explosion, Edward Teller, he told me as late as in 1972, that ‘perhaps’ the dropping of that bomb was a mistake.

Frankly, I must confess that I prefer my own formula. Hiroshima is also the problem of too specialized development among scientists. How can I hold a scientist responsible for something concerning social problems and questions concerning humanity, about which he never ever learned anything? He is simply blind to the ideas of others. Specialists of this kind in certain fields are absolutely and totally blind from a social point of view. This is a matter of an educational system that is entirely wrong. We have to change it.

Toynbee told me that many historians refuse to accept him as being too much of a generalist. He believes that scientists should be taught sufficient principles and be given enough information about the totality of science to understand basic matters that concern the entirety of human problems.

I am convinced that heads of important scientific teams, or heads of sections, departments, faculties, research laboratories, or whatever comes with universities should be sufficiently prepared for such important tasks and functions by possessing a broad frame of knowledge. There should be strong ties between research and education. That is most important, and not solely for the sake of teaching. It is often maintained that in order to be able to teach, one should be a researcher. This is not so. On the contrary: In order to be an efficient researcher one should also be in a position to teach, because in teaching, one's spiritual field of vision is continuously broadened and filled with new information. One's mind does not run the risk of transforming itself in too narrow vistas. When one is inclined to stick strictly to problems that are directly involved with one's subject of research, which often is a small part of one particular subject, one is inclined to concentrate only and too much on this matter of research. It's as simple as that.