White psychologists only

Abstract

This article explores the rise and fall of an Afrikaner psychological association: the Psychological Institute of the Republic of South Africa (PIRSA). It presents rhetorical, discursive and social analyses of presidential addresses delivered at PIRSA congresses between 1962 and 1977, identifying the emergence of a discourse of volksdiens (ethnic-national service) during the 1960s that called for the ethnic-national relevance of the discipline. With the Afrikaner nation vulnerable to the triple threat of communism, capitalism and egalitarianism, PIRSA insisted that psychological research be dedicated towards addressing these and other dangers. In the 1970s, however, such appeals became less prominent as discussions of South African issues slipped off the agenda. Curiously, at a time when the apartheid state was in decline, PIRSA’s psychologists were concerned with everything but the survival of Afrikanerdom. The unraveling of PIRSA’s quest for ethnic-national relevance mirrored the disintegration of the state’s apartheid rationality, which resulted from a concatenation of political, economic and cultural upheavals.

Keywords

Afrikanerdom apartheid ethnic-national relevance PIRSA psychology in South Africa

Introduction

Psychology first came to Africa in the form of ethno-psychology, when 19^th-century writers, philosophers and anthropologists set about documenting what was, for them, a world of newfound curiosities (Nell, 1990). Until the 1960s, the discipline comprised little more than a motley collection of ex-colonists, expatriates, visiting scholars and, in the case of South Africa, white psychologists (Abdi, 1975). Research was concerned primarily with the resolution of Euro-American disciplinary impasses – with the subtext of ‘mak[ing] more effective the African’s exploitation [and] advancing a “science” of dubious relevance to African reality’ (Bulhan, 1981: 27). Lucien Lévy-Bruhl’s (1923) Primitive Mentality, for example, in which he presented his thesis on the ‘prelogical mentality’ of ‘uncivilized communities’, became a seminal work that inspired psychological research on the continent for decades. This line of theorizing was taken up by, among others, John Carothers (1951 cited in Richards, 1997), according to whom Africans did not use their frontal lobes, Carl Jung (1961 cited in Nell, 1990), in whose reckoning the African mind featured as something infantile and largely unconscious, and Octave Mannoni (1968 cited in Bulhan, 1981), who dismissed the struggle for independence as a reaction formation against the underlying ‘dependency complex’ of the African personality.

In colonized Africa, psychological expertise operated largely in the service of state and industry – both of which were ill-disposed to African interests (Bulhan, 1981). Because psychologists were employed usually by industrialists – by 1962, with the exception of South Africa, there was not a single department of psychology in sub-Saharan Africa (Peltzer and Bless, 1989 cited in Nsamenang, 1995) – they tended to endorse an economic outlook that was consonant with worker exploitation. In the cases of Nigeria, the Cameroons, South West Africa and Ghana, for example, one reads of how the overcrowded living conditions that obtained in worker compounds were excused on the grounds that ‘the dispersed housing patterns … appear to be the preference of the westernised middle and upper classes’ (Wober, 1975: 202).

To be sure, the advent of psychology as a natural science occurred against this backdrop of slavery and colonialism (Teo, 2005). Its racism derived from a certain disciplinary regime ‘established between 1850 and 1945 [that] implied an imperial divide … between European modernity as subject and the colonized world as object’ (Staeuble, 2006: 193). In South Africa, where an ‘internal’ (Hook, 2004) – and more virulent – form of colonialism prevailed, that racism had been evident as far back as the 1840s with the racial segregation of ‘lunatics’ on Robben Island. By 1891, when white patients were being accommodated on the mainland at Valkenberg, their black counterparts had to wait another quarter of a century for a separate facility ‘across a small river’ (Louw and Foster, 2004: 173). Later still – during the 1920s and 1930s – South African psychologists continued to ignore the subjugation of blacks by focusing instead on the ‘poor white problem’ and the attendant ‘threat’ of miscegenation. As for the postwar years, ‘for the most part, psychological practice [was] a matter of treating individuals as objects of political or management decisions not made by themselves’ (Louw and Danziger, 2000: 59).

It was not unusual, then, that in the mid-1950s questions about ‘race’ continued to dominate the collective imagination of South African psychologists. During those years the South African Psychological Association (SAPA) had threatened to break apart on the matter of admitting black psychologists to the association. Eventually, at its 1961 annual general meeting the council’s proposal in favour of racial integration was ratified – but in June 1962, in response to what they considered a challenge to the state’s apartheid policy, Afrikaner psychologists broke ranks to form the whites-only Psychological Institute of the Republic of South Africa (PIRSA). SAPA’s fortunes declined rapidly as its associational life came to a virtual standstill. In stark contrast, PIRSA’s membership increased exponentially as it grew into a vibrant and efficient association. But by 1978, PIRSA had renounced its founding ethos of racial separatism to hold joint conferences with the racially integrated SAPA; in 1982, it ceased to exist altogether, fusing with SAPA to form the Psychological Association of South Africa (PASA). How was it that this once thriving psychological society disintegrated only two decades after its formation? In this article, presidential addresses delivered at annual PIRSA congresses are interpreted in relation to the shifting South African political landscape in an attempt to explain the institute’s dramatic fall from grace.

Method and materials

At any given convention of the American Psychological Association, a presidential address involves one of two things: it is either a summary of the president’s contributions to a particular field of psychology, or, especially during periods of conflict, it represents an account of how the discipline should relate to societal concerns (Fowler, 1990). Since PIRSA was created, nurtured and eventually dismantled through years of political crisis, its presidential addresses are likely of the latter kind – and since the apartheid state (for which PIRSA acted as a mouthpiece) was already in decline by the mid-1970s, an analysis of PIRSA addresses may shed light on the institute’s rapid dissolution.

Accordingly, 13 presidential addresses for the period 1962 to 1977 were collected from the National Library of South Africa, the Raubenheimer archive housed in the University of Stellenbosch’s Special Collections, and the Pretoria branch library of the University of South Africa.¹ Fairclough’s (1992, 1995) three-dimensional model for critical discourse analysis – suitable for the analysis of official speeches (Antaki, 2009) – was then adopted as an analytic frame. At the levels of text and discourse practice, rhetorical strategies,² grammatical properties³ and the discourses employed by speakers were identified. At the level of social practice – as recommended by Wetherell and Potter (1992) – a comprehensive reading of South African political history was undertaken in order to elaborate the social matrices within which the aforementioned discursive practices were constellated. While an analysis of other PIRSA documents (e.g. minutes of meetings and policy statements) falls beyond the scope of this article, it is worth pointing out that these addresses have never been collated and analysed by any historian until now; they are of considerable historical value and warrant detailed exposition in their own right.

Serving the endangered volk

Throughout the 1960s, PIRSA’s presidents expressed concern for the survival of the Afrikaner volk (ethnic group); they stressed, correspondingly, the need for a psychology that would serve Afrikanerdom. This apocalyptic outlook has been ascribed to the workings of a hypervigilant Afrikaner ‘psyche’ forged through centuries of misfortune at the southernmost tip of the ‘dark continent’; notable calamities include the 18^th-century oppressions of the Dutch East India Company, the 19^th-century threat of social leveling posed by British liberalism, the multiple traumas of the Second Anglo-Boer War, and the subsequent rise of a ‘poor white’ underclass (Giliomee, 2003; Moodie, 1975). Indeed, for no less a figure than the former South African prime minister, D. F. Malan, ‘[t]he history of the Afrikaner signifies resoluteness and a determination, which leaves a person feeling that Afrikanerdom is not the work of people but the creation of God’ (Malan, 1964: 236).⁴

Then again, if the mid-1960s to the early 1970s were the heyday of apartheid rule (O’Meara, 1996), one would have expected the sense of threat to have dissipated – and yet nothing could have been further from the truth. In the reckoning of Christian-National Afrikaners, the spread of communism and African liberation movements represented, respectively, the much-feared rooi gevaar [red threat] and swart gevaar [black threat]. It was inevitable, then, that the Afrikaner civil religion of redemptive suffering would fuel the stirring sense of mission that descended over PIRSA’s inaugural congress (see Nell, 1993: 35).

Presidential address, 1962 (A. J. la Grange )

For Adriaan la Grange – the institute’s first president – the founding of PIRSA is an expression of ‘a natural need for self-protection against a worldwide, hysterical mass movement for equalization’⁵ (1962: 7) and ‘the natural striving for self-realization that forms the stimulus for the healthy development of every self-respecting individual as well as for every self-respecting people or nation’ (ibid.). By naturalizing the existence of a whites-only psychological society, La Grange makes PIRSA’s existence politically incontestable, and by nominalizing processes such as ‘self-protection’, ‘self-realization’ and ‘development’, he turns apartheid policy into an abstraction without perpetrators or victims. Drawing on William McDougall’s Group Mind and Kenneth Little’s Race and Society, he provides evidence of the ‘devastating’ (ibid.: 12) consequences of racial integration, in so doing appealing to the logos of ‘all reasonable people’ (ibid.: 9). In an example of manifest intertextuality (Fairclough, 1992), La Grange transports into his argument the memorable adage of former Prime Minister D. F. Malan – ‘Bring together what, through inner conviction, belongs together’ – and subjectifies himself within Afrikaner nationalist discourse:

The happiness of humankind is not attainable under conditions of racial integration, but in obedience to the demands of the elementary natural law that brings together those who on the basis of common inborn characteristics belong together. (La Grange, 1962: 11–12)

Above all, La Grange anoints what will become PIRSA’s discourse of volksdiens (ethnic-national service), whose raison d’être is an Afrikaner volk (ethnic group) threatened by the depravity of heathens:

Who knows! But one thing is certain: If it is true that two thousand years were too few for the true Christianity to take root in the deepest core of the western person, how can we ever (humanly speaking) assume that a period of two or three centuries will suffice for it to take root in the deepest core of Africa’s barbarism? (La Grange, 1962: 17)

It becomes, consequently, the collective responsibility of PIRSA’s psychologists to address ‘the urgent demands [presented by] the social questions that at a national level are coming stronger to the fore … [and] that are busy threatening on a large scale the foundations of our continued national existence’ (La Grange, 1962: 17).

Presidential address, 1963 (A. J. la Grange)

Re-elected president in 1963, La Grange revisits the familiar treatise on imperiled Afrikanerdom by means of successive condemnations of ‘[t]he communist striving for world domination’ (1964: 5), ‘[t]he capitalistic-democratic striving for self-assertion’ (ibid.) and ‘[t]he liberalistic-socialistic striving for the obliteration of all class differences and the equalization of all people regardless of race, nationality or individual differences of whatever kind whatsoever’ (ibid.). He commends, therefore, the preservation of white South Africa’s ‘rich heritage of the past [which must] be transmitted faithfully to posterity, and its principles made known to the non-white communities in the country’ (ibid.: 12). The transmission of this heritage, moreover, ‘with its predominantly Christian and Nationalist life- and worldview’ (ibid.), is an indication that ‘we are not willing to sacrifice our highest spiritual values for material gain’ (ibid.) and ‘that we shall also not countenance our material decline by allowing, through neglect of our gifted [people], that we fall behind the rest of the Western world in scientific and technological areas’ (ibid.). The viability of apartheid policy depends on the ethnic-national relevance of psychological research: without the study of giftedness, the ‘non-white communities’ will never reach the heights of white civilization, while the ensuing failure of white ‘trusteeship’ – voogdyskap (ibid.: 11) – amounts to a breach of Christian-National morality.

Presidential address, 1965 (A. J. la Grange)

At the 1965 congress, La Grange returns as president one last time. On this occasion his concern is with road safety research – he listed road accidents in his 1962 address as one of ‘the social questions … that are busy threatening on a large scale the foundations of our continued national existence’ – and he proceeds to encourage university authorities to increase their involvement in national road safety education [volksopvoeding]. He concludes that

… it is above all my inner wish that [PIRSA members] will not be found wanting when, in relation to questions of national scope, an appeal for help and leadership is made to them. Only on the basis of a strong orientation of service to country and people [volk], including service to fellow citizens within the different national associations of different racial groups, is our survival justified and our future assured. (1966: 18)

It is unclear if, in his closing sentence, La Grange has in mind the survival of PIRSA, Afrikanerdom, or the white ‘race’ in general. Regardless, the survivalist outlook of his previous addresses remains apparent: the only way to guarantee ‘our survival’ is through ‘a strong orientation of service’ to country and volk. La Grange remains committed to a volksdiens discourse: a psychology devoted to questions of ethnic-national relevance is valorized to the point that research problems of limited consequence have ethnic-national significance read into them. After all, it is with some difficulty that the prevention of road accidents or, for that matter, the cultivation of giftedness, can be considered matters of national urgency, the neglect of which will jeopardize ‘the foundations of our continued national existence’. La Grange, however, under the spell of an apocalyptic Afrikaner nationalist discourse, seems to view any given question through the prism of ethnic-nationalism.

Presidential address, 1967 (P. M. Robbertse)

In 1967, it is the turn of P. M. Robbertse who, like La Grange (1962, 1964), takes aim at ‘[t]he shift in opinions about natural [racial] differences [in the direction of racial] equality’ (Robbertse, 1967: 1). Robbertse contends that ‘egalitarianism is the scientific joke of the century [but] a dangerous joke … in so far as it implicates other people’s survival’ (ibid.: 3). Citing a host of American researchers and the work of the International Association for the Advancement of Ethnology and Eugenics, he decries UNESCO’s Statement on Race as ‘notorious’ (ibid.: 5). Instead, he falls back on ‘the ground-breaking work’ (ibid.: 7) of John Carothers for whom the intellectual capacity of the African matched that of the lobotomized European. Yet Robbertse insists that the PIRSA principle on ‘the unlikeness of races’ should not be confused with a belief in ‘the superiority or inferiority of races’ (ibid.: 3). PIRSA was founded on the conviction that the equality of races was a ‘false religion’ (ibid.) and its members – he calls them ‘realists’ – have a ‘solemn duty’ to ‘destroy the faulty and dangerous image that the egalitarians have created’ (ibid.: 4). The task is all the more urgent since

… some of the lecturers in psychology at our Afrikaans-language universities have become entangled in the nets of the racial equality philosophy … they have become its victims and … they are busy spiritually poisoning our students with it. Let us wake up before it is too late. (Robbertse, 1967: 10)

Robbertse concludes by asking PIRSA members to ‘engage in research in the area on a greater scale because it involves the scientific basis of separate development and it touches on the root of our survival’ (1967: 11).

This address is saturated in religious imagery. In Robbertse’s rendering, PIRSA’s mission takes on Abrahamic proportions and involves nothing less than the destruction of a false idol: egalitarianism. Similar to La Grange’s, Robbertse’s main concern is with guaranteeing ‘our survival’ by proving through research of ethnic-national relevance that ‘the scientific basis’ of apartheid policy is well-founded. He, too, advances the discourse of volksdiens in which psychologists have a ‘solemn duty’ to protect the volk from ‘spiritual poisoning’.

Presidential address, 1968 (P. M. Robbertse)

The following year, Robbertse – referencing the worldwide turmoil of 1968 – notes ‘the current unrest in human events on account of strike actions, protests and revolution, the misinterpretation and unholy violation of the moral codes of society on virtually all … fronts’ (1968: 1). He asks to what extent the ‘natural-scientification’ of the discipline ‘has contributed to [the fact that] at present man’s religious-ethical mode of existence is deteriorating at increasing pace’ (ibid.). Following La Grange’s (1964) line of argument, Robbertse takes the view that technological progress ‘has robbed man of his soul’ (1968: 2): now ‘a utility-being in the great machine of Robotism’, modern man ‘has become estranged from the cause of his existence, namely, God’ (ibid.).

With the world in irreligious meltdown, the scene is set once more for socially conscious psychologists to intervene timeously. Accordingly, ‘as fellow guardians of national distinctiveness, we cannot but deliver a timely plea through our psychological work by attempting at least to make a contribution as a matter of support for a deranged humankind in a reeling world’ (1968: 2). Robbertse points the way by contending that humans are both spiritual and relational beings: he finds fault not only with the Freudian and behaviorist traditions but also with the dehumanizing manner in which psychologists routinely interact with their respondents. Arguing for an ‘intersubjective method of approach in psychological practice’ (ibid.: 10), he contradicts any would-be objectivists on the grounds that ‘God the Creator … is the only complete Knower of each person and thereby the entire mankind’ (ibid.). Robbertse adopts an expansive, service-oriented discourse of benevolence that, while distinct from Christian-National survivalism since it is concerned not with Afrikaners specifically but with ‘a deranged humankind’, retains nonetheless a focus on the precariousness of the human condition.

Presidential address, 1969 (P. M. Robbertse)

By the time of his 1969 address, however, Robbertse has returned to type. Forgoing humanitarianism for the familiarities of Afrikaner survivalism, he argues that the spread of communist ideology demands that

… the psychologist must ask himself what his duty is. Does the psychologist have a duty as regards the spread of ideologies that weaken his own worldview right down to the root so that his own survival is thereby threatened, or must he just follow an ostrich-politics and not notice the problem? (Robbertse, 1969: 7)

In fact, the psychologist must do more than merely notice the problem because

… his spiritual assets will be threatened … he must also actually undertake research in the area [of communication studies] … The question can also be posed as to whether research in the field of psychology is providing the necessary contribution to the elaboration of our national affairs – or is it purely research for the sake of research? … An analysis of the research projects that are currently underway in the field of psychology in South Africa does not leave a person without doubts. Too much thereof bears no relation to our national needs and the findings are often of such a nature that they have no meaning for anyone other than the researcher … Research on a topic such as the sexual life of a scorpion is clearly a waste of manpower, especially when our country’s many human problems are taken into consideration. (1969: 7–8)

According to Robbertse, psychological research that directs itself towards issues of national import can curtail the reach of communist propaganda and contribute to the national life by addressing its manifold human problems. Once again, Robbertse’s rhetoric is symptomatic of the siege mentality that pervades Afrikaner nationalist discourse. Consistent with volksdiens discourse, he prescribes studies of ethnic-national relevance for duty-bound psychologists in order to avoid the calamitous trajectory of irrelevant research – which includes a communist takeover and a barrage of other social problems.

The death of ideology

Over the course of the 1970s, calls for research of ethnic-national relevance receded into the background. Politics took a back seat as PIRSA’s presidents resorted to discussions of intra-disciplinary matters and – as Robbertse did in 1968 – the existential angst of human beings in general. This is surprising in view of the fact that, by the early 1970s, the apartheid state was beginning to show signs of decline. Instead of an even more bellicose discourse of danger, one observes a growing distance from the vicissitudes of politics that manifests rhetorically as a series of red herrings (Corbett and Connors, 1999), including culturally imperiled Bantus (Robbertse, 1971), intellectually inferior women (Krige, 1973), pervasive anomie (Van der Merwe, 1974) and the scientific posturing of an unscientific discipline (Du Toit, 1975).

There are several reasons for this discordance between PIRSA’s discursive orders of the 1960s and 1970s. First, with the declaration of a South African republic in 1961, Afrikaner nationalism forfeited its sine qua non as it ‘could no longer avail itself of its old British bogeyman to mobilise the volk’ (O’Meara, 1996: 116). Second, economic developments weakened the apartheid project further as verligtes (reformists) and verkramptes (conservatives) battled each other for control of the ruling National Party (NP). When, in 1964, a mining deal was struck between Federale Mynbou and Harry Oppenheimer’s Anglo-American Corporation, Afrikanerdom was outraged at this violation of ‘the myth of a classless volk’ (ibid.: 136); after its travails against the depredations of British imperialism, it appeared now to be cutting deals with capitalists. The uncomfortable truth, however, was that the NP’s economic policy of favoring Afrikaner workers had increased its social stratification to such an extent that, by the mid-1960s, it was no longer possible to identify the volk’s common interest. And third, on the cultural scene, the rise of the Sestigers – a literary movement that tackled questions of sexual liberation, racial tolerance and modernity – scandalized the sedate Afrikaner establishment but ignited the imagination of Afrikaans readers (Giliomee, 2003). Conservatives interpreted the trend as evidence of a creeping communist influence: the remainder of the decade saw much maneuvering within Afrikaner cultural institutions and a concomitant struggle to define authentic Afrikanerdom (O’Meara, 1996).

Meanwhile, inter-Afrikaner tensions were complicated further by the eruption of a press war that stoked long-standing north–south rivalries. When, in late 1965, the Cape-based Nasionale Pers decided to publish a Sunday paper – Die Beeld – in the Transvaal, it loosed upon itself the fury of northerners, lighting the fuse for an all-out war between verligtes and verkramptes. Driven by commercial interests, the press saga drove another stake into the heart of Afrikaner unity. With H. F. Verwoerd’s killing in 1966 and John Vorster’s succession to the prime ministership, the flames of discontent spread rapidly. Vorster had no NP track record to speak of, nor did he enjoy a provincial constituency within the party. With a consequently hands-off leadership style, he not only came close to presiding over what would have been a catastrophic splitting of the volk but also proved unable to provide any ideological direction for the party (O’Meara, 1996).

South Africa’s capital-intensive mode of production was causing growing unemployment among black African workers while job reservation for whites and movement restrictions on blacks translated into a shortage of workers with the requisite technical skills (O’Meara, 1996). Inflation started rising in the early 1970s, black African workers began striking and, by 1976, the country had plunged into a recession. The buffer states, too, were experiencing revolutionary change. ZANU guerrillas succeeded in infiltrating Rhodesia in 1972, Mozambique attained independence in 1975 via the collapse of Portuguese colonialism, the South African army suffered a humiliating defeat in early 1976 at the hands of Angolan and Cuban forces, and, after the death-by-shooting of scores of Soweto youths later that year, the NP could no longer swear by the morality of the Afrikaner mission (ibid.).

Presidential address, 1970 (P. M. Robbertse)

In his final address, Paul Robbertse reiterates his plea from the previous year that ‘psychological research in the Republic of South Africa must relate to our national needs’ (1971: 2). He has in mind ‘an actual human problem that affects closely everyone in South Africa, regardless of color or political conviction … [namely] the reaction of the Bantu to the twentieth century Western world’ (ibid.). In terms of ‘research on psychological factors that play a role in the development of the Bantu homelands … what is the duty of psychology?’ Robbertse asks (ibid.: 4; original emphases). Drawing on the rhetorical strategy of comparison (Corbett and Connors, 1999), he suggests that if Chris Barnard can find the justification to lengthen a person’s life by giving him another heart,⁶ ‘isn’t there just as much, if not more, justification to find a scientific basis for the motivation of people to develop their underdeveloped homeland’ (Robbertse, 1971: 5)? While accepting that a scientist may choose not to contribute to the realization of a certain policy goal, Robbertse maintains that, ‘if a policy goal for humanitarian reasons … appears desirable or even crucially necessary, who can condemn [the researcher] if he orients his research towards the realization of that goal’ (ibid.)? He concludes with yet another question: ‘Are we, more particularly, directed adequately to the study of the Bantu in his hour of crisis, which is perhaps also our own hour of crisis’ (ibid.: 7)?

Robbertse’s address heralds a softening of hard-boiled PIRSA dogma. To be sure, he continues to patronize ‘the Bantu’ in a manner consistent with the doctrine of white stewardship, but his overriding concern – bar the closing question – is not plainly with the future of the volk. By relying heavily on erotema – the rhetorical question (Corbett and Connors, 1999) – Robbertse is challenging his audience to break with the Christian-National survivalism of bygone years. As in his 1968 address, he employs a humanitarian discourse of benevolence that, ‘regardless of color or political conviction’, is concerned with the well-being of ‘the Bantu’.

Presidential address, 1972 (H. L. Krige)

Talking about ‘Personality, Giftedness and Creative Thoughts’ against the backdrop of ‘all the dangers of changing world conditions’, H. L. Krige (1973: 1) recalls La Grange (1964) and Robbertse (1968) in their pomp. He blames the ‘rapid technological development of Western civilization’ for creating ‘a worrying gap between old and young’ (ibid.), with the result that ‘the gifted youth in particular … revolts against existing systems’ (ibid.: 2). Speaking to ‘one of the greatest contradictions of the modern youth rebellion’ (ibid.: 4), namely, gender equality, Krige points out that, according to his research, men are more capable of creative thoughts than women – ‘it is therefore surely not pure coincidence that the four most creative personalities that I was able to identify during ten years of research in this area were all boys’ (ibid.: 7). Krige’s broader point, however, is that unless provision is made for gifted children in the schooling system – many of whom are already underachieving – they will not achieve in later life in accordance with their abilities and may end up dedicating their creative talents to the cause of political rebellion.

Although Krige introduces his topic with political-sounding turns of phrase – ‘the challenge of the near future’, ‘the leaders of the future’, ‘maintenance of current progress’ (1973: 1) – the remainder of his address is devoted to the humdrum reportage of correlations and means. The disjuncture between his opening paragraphs and what follows is a function of being a new president with no reputation to precede him. Krige must earn, as it were, the right to speak. He accomplishes simultaneously an ethical [ethos] and emotional [pathos] appeal, revealing his moral character to the audience by speaking a language with which it is well acquainted: the significance of giftedness and creativity in a dangerous world. By declaring his allegiance to standard PIRSA doctrine, Krige shows his ‘respect for the commonly acknowledged virtues’ (Corbett and Connors, 1999: 73) – that is, the importance of ethnic-national relevance in psychological research – while the audience, now convinced of his good intentions, is better disposed to receiving his message.

Presidential address, 1973 (A. B. van der Merwe)

The first ‘southerner’ to be elected PIRSA president,⁷ A. B. van der Merwe structures his address around ‘The Medical Model in Clinical Psychology’. He advises the natural scientist against reducing all conscious experience to biochemical reactions, which will result in ‘the person being treated more and more like a robot’ (1974: 9). On the other hand, he questions the competence of psychologists in treating a new form of personality disturbances that emerged in the 1960s: ‘[a]nomie, alienation, rootlessness, existential vacuum, nonbeing, meaninglessness, absurdity, despair philosophy, credibility gap, generation gap, campus radical, backlash, etc.’ (Mitchell, 1971: 120 quoted in Van der Merwe, 1974: 11). According to Van der Merwe, neither Freudian pessimism nor Rogerian humanism can provide adequate frameworks within which to conceptualize these phenomena; cognizance must be taken of the importance of the religious sensibility to personality structure.

Similar to Robbertse (1971), Van der Merwe is far removed from PIRSA’s habitual survivalism. It is not that some intractable discrepancy exists between the political articulations of southern and northern Afrikaners (O’Meara, 1996) – after all, Robbertse (1971) is himself a hardened northerner who appears to have relinquished many of the ideological assurances of old, while Van der Merwe’s views resonate appreciably with those of La Grange (1964) and Robbertse (1968) in recalling the dehumanizing consequences of modern living. All things considered, Van der Merwe’s address fits the mold of the 1970s during which PIRSA’s discursive formations become increasingly unstable.

Presidential address, 1975 ( J. M. du Toit)

J. M. du Toit begins his address with an introduction narrative [anecdotal account] in which he describes how Sigmund Koch, the editor of a 7-volume tome on the discipline in the 1950s, was ‘now looking back with a measure of disillusionment and despair at the undertaking of those days’ (Du Toit, 1975: 1). Taking his own advice ‘to stare your sacred cows … in the eye’ (ibid.: 2), Du Toit launches into an excoriating takedown of the discipline, lambasting what he sees as the intersection of cult formation in psychology (ibid.: 3) with the scientific posturing of psychoanalysis (ibid.: 4–5), psychodiagnostics (ibid.: 6–10), psychophysiological measurement (ibid.: 10–13), encounter groups (ibid.: 13–15), behavior therapy (ibid.: 15–17) and research practices (ibid.: 17–21). Du Toit expresses sympathy for his students who – he quotes Koch –

… are asked to read and memorize a literature consisting of an endless set of advertisements for the emptiest of concepts, the most inflated theories, the most trivial ‘findings’, and the most fetishistic yet heuristically self-defeating methods in scholarly history – and all of it conveyed in the dreariest and most turgid prose that ever met the printed page. (Du Toit, 1975: 25)

Just as he prefaces his wide-ranging criticism of the discipline with the disclaimer that his intention ‘is not to discredit psychology’ (1975: 2), Du Toit apologizes for his forthright remarks about the profession with a negative politeness strategy that makes liberal use of nominalizations and the passive voice: ‘[w]hat is mentioned here is not meant as accusations [but is presented] only as considerations … for deliberation’ (ibid.: 21). But despite himself, Du Toit ends up questioning the Afrikaner ideal of public service through psychology, claiming that registration does not protect the public but, rather, protects practitioners themselves, and adding that psychotherapy on average achieves nothing.

More than Robbertse (1971) or Van der Merwe (1974), Du Toit turns 1960s’ PIRSA dogma on its head. He forgoes the strains of Afrikaner piety for a discourse of disciplinarity while rejecting the charge of scientism (1975: 2, 4). Akin to Robbertse (1969), he concedes that ‘despite advanced methodological development a very large part of the overwhelming amount of research remains insignificant, trivial, practically inconsequential or unreliable’ (Du Toit, 1975: 18). Du Toit’s relentless interrogation of science and profession constitutes a sweeping re-evaluation of the discipline’s ethnic-national relevance credentials. A programmatic U-turn that began with Robbertse (1971) has culminated in iconoclastic free-fall: Du Toit’s diatribe hints at an association in despair over the merits of its case.

Presidential address, 1977 (H. P. Langenhoven)

If Du Toit’s address marks a low point in PIRSA’s regular order of business, H. P. Langenhoven attempts to restore equilibrium. Like Du Toit, Langenhoven begins with an introduction narrative, his opening comments an implicit reference to the deadly riots of 1976 and the ongoing border wars:

In 1917, when the U.S.A. entered the First World War, the American Psychological Association appointed a committee to determine what psychology could do to win the war … Today South Africa is also involved in a war, not just a military war but a war on different fronts that is being waged against it – especially psychologically. Today every citizen, every organization, even science, even psychology, should ask itself what it can do to confront our current problems. In my opinion we in psychology have a very meaningful contribution to make … Our country is involved in the first instance in a psychological war that must be fought with the best psychological means. I wonder if the time has not come for our universities to make far better provision for the teaching of military psychology. (Langenhoven, 1977: 1, 4)

Elsewhere, on an economic front marked by ‘capital shortages, a decrease in economic activity, unemployment and inflation’ (1977: 4), Langenhoven recommends that psychologists assist in the identification of leadership potential and the maximization of workforce productivity. As for ‘race’ relations, ‘the psychologist can make an important contribution by putting the problem in proper perspective, collecting and analyzing appropriate data, coming to conclusions, communicating these in an understandable and acceptable manner and helping with the implementation of the findings’ (ibid.: 8). Similarly, valuable contributions can be – and are being – made in education and mental health.

Consonant with early PIRSA addresses, Langenhoven recapitulates the precariousness of the South African situation and the consequent duty of psychologists to intervene: ‘we are not only responsible for the development of psychology as science but also of psychology as a profession that must deliver a service to society’ (1977: 13). However, although he counters Du Toit’s nihilism, Langenhoven commends social engagement to his listeners from a position of seeming remoteness. For example, he never pauses to disclose the identity of the enemy in this ‘war of low intensity’ (ibid.: 3). As for the two-year compulsory military service, he speaks impersonally of ‘the absolute importance of special steps being taken [to ensure] that these people’s time is put to best use’ (ibid.; added emphases). The proposed solution for ‘race’ relations – quoted earlier – is similarly abstract: all that is required is for one to follow the standard research recipe, namely, problem formulation, data collection, data analysis, conclusion, communication of findings and implementation, in that order. In other places, ‘the group that stands apart’ (ibid.: 15) remains unnamed, while non-specific talk of ‘pro-active forces’, ‘reactive forces’, ‘pressure from outside’ (ibid.: 6) and ‘people’ (e.g. ibid.: 7–8) proliferates.

In light of Langenhoven’s frequent use of the high modality auxiliary verb, must, it is not clear where the necessary human agents will be coming from when his subjects’ identities remain consistently indeterminate. It is poignant, in fact, how La Grange (1964) warned of the existential threat facing the Afrikaner nation, Robbertse (1968) grieved the loss of man’s soul and Van der Merwe (1974) inveighed against alienation, for, by the time one gets to Langenhoven, there appear to be no sentient beings left at all. It is as if Du Toit’s annihilation of the discipline ends up depriving Langenhoven of the very protagonists his plan of action requires. Although Langenhoven goes through the motions of advancing a volksdiens discourse – the country is ‘at war’ while the discipline struggles with ‘exceptionally difficult duties’ (1977: 10) to ‘deliver a service to society’ – the volk itself seems to have disappeared.

Concluding remarks

When one is interpreting PIRSA’s presidential addresses, the socio-political currents of the 1960s and 1970s assume heightened significance. The speeches point clearly to the progressive unraveling of the institute’s ideological coherence, which can be explained in terms of several developments. First, with the fulfillment of the republic dream, nationalist discourse no longer exerted a vice-like grip on the collective imagination of Afrikaners. Second, economic progress led to the disintegration of the ‘classless’ volk. Third, cultural trends undermined the received wisdoms of Afrikanerdom. Fourth, a rancorous press war fomented regional divisions. And fifth, contrasting prime ministerial leadership styles ensured that the ideological certainties of bygone years were lost for ever.

PIRSA’s inability to get back on the ideological bandwagon did not result from the successful (non-partisan) professionalization of the discipline that occurred during the 1970s. Rather, its ideological dithering was the inevitable consequence of the bandwagon itself – Grand Apartheid – losing its wheels altogether. In the 1960s, PIRSA, in pursuit of a psychology of ethnic-national relevance, could appeal to an age-old discourse of dangerousness. At the start of the 1970s, however, with the fragility of the apartheid project starting to show, it was now a more generic social relevance that was sought, rationalized by identifying conditions obtaining in the wider world – such as western capitalism (Robbertse, 1971), the contradictions of a technocratic social order (Krige, 1973) and the preponderance of anomie (Van der Merwe, 1974). Later still, one encounters the inversion of social relevance in the forms of an irreverent critique of an irrelevant discipline (Du Toit, 1975), an impugnment of the Afrikaner public service ideal (ibid.) and a formulation of socially relevant psychology best described as rarefied (Langenhoven, 1977). With its politics on the brink, one discerns in the final years of PIRSA’s existence the collapse of its ethnic-national register. Disconnected for all intents and purposes from the lexicon of its founding philosophy, the institute itself was soon to run its course.

Footnotes

Notes

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