Harold Lasswell: biography, personal life, work, achievements

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:47

Harold Dwight Lasswell is a famous American sociologist who belonged to the Chicago school of this science. Popular for his work in political science. Born in 1902, died in 1978. Three of his most significant works were published in 1927, 1946 and 1947, and were devoted to the features of propaganda and behavior in the field of politics. Known for choosing a functional political approach. Actively resorted to psychological calculations, analyzing the topic of propaganda, politics.

General information

Harold Dwight Lasswell specialized in the features of mass communication and its connection with political power, worked in the field of influence of these two phenomena on each other. He was engaged in the analysis of content in the field of communication. He regarded communication as an open form, urged to be mutually tolerant and provide oneself and others with access to basic life values.

The political scientist is revered as one of those who laid political science in the modern view of this science. He adhered to the ideas of behaviorism in the field of politics. ForThe Chicago School of Sociology was among the founders. The sociologist and political scientist developed the features of an interdisciplinary approach to the study of the characteristics of a personality active in various fields. He received the status of an honorary professional in law from Yale University. In the Center for Political Sciences, he held one of the director's positions. He was the head of the Political Science Association of his country. He spoke of the society of his native state as highly manipulated.

Important milestones

Harold Lasswell came to behaviorism in the period 1918-1922 while studying at the University of Chicago. It was then that he began to use the basic calculations of this trend to draw his own conclusions. After graduating from the university and until 1938 inclusive, he also held the position of professor.

During World War II, the political scientist led the research department in the library organized under the sovereign congress, de alt with aspects of the information war. At the same time he taught at the New School for Social Research, where he was invited as a lecturer. In the same period, he gained teaching experience at the Yale Law School, and from the 46th he became a professor at Yale University.

As can be seen from the brief biography of Harold Dwight Lasswell, his area of specialization was the formation of an integral science in the field of politics. Field work was chosen as the main direction in spite of the theoretical studies carried out earlier. To achieve what he had planned, he had to create a fundamentally new functional approach, for which he usedsocial psychology and its ways and methods, and also resorted to the practices of psychoanalysis and psychiatric calculations. The scientist set himself the goal of studying political behavior and how it is corrected by mass communications that spread symbols of political power. Lasswell went down in history as one of the first who resorted to content analysis technology.

Scientist success

From specialized publications you can find out that there were several major works that made Harold Lasswell especially famous and popular in politics. Who receives what, what channels it uses for this - the political scientist brought all these aspects into a coherent system of a unified theory, calling it an act of communication. This act was decomposed into its component parts, an analytical scheme was built, which is a sequence of questions and answers.

Today, Lasswell is known for his perception of political science as a self-cognitive organ necessary for civilization to improve. He believed that in the historical era in which he happened to live, the worldwide influence of the technological revolution was especially strong. At the same time, as he believed, the dependence on each other of various aspects of human activity, the life of society, is significantly increasing. Lasswell was one of the first who began to talk about the fact that humanity is a single entity that has come to realize itself as such. He believed that at this level, the formation of law and order at the international level comes to the fore. Due to this, according to the opinion of an eminent sociologist,human dignity was to be established throughout the planet.

New scientific milestones

Today, almost any student of the political science or sociology department of the university knows that Harold Lasswell used the method of content analysis. Also, as part of the educational program, the fact is that it was thanks to this scientist that humanity received the concept of a “garrison state”. This was first introduced in the 37th following a study of the ruling elite. The term proposed by the scientist assumed such a political system, in which professionals working with violence occupy a key position, using the most modern technological means for this. As the opposite social system, the political scientist assumed the public, in which everything is controlled by business circles.

As can be concluded from the works of Harold Lasswell, in addition to extreme forms, the state can be formed in one of the intermediate types and types. For example, management processes can be subordinated to the party propaganda apparatus. Everything can be run by the party bureaucracy. Lasswell also proposed to regard as intermediate options for formation, in which the power of the party and the monopoly of the market are combined. According to Lasswell's calculations, society can be saved from the encroachment of the ruling elites if the importance of academia is strengthened, and such measures are taken at the interstate level.

Value and importance

Studying the structure and function of communication in society, Harold Lasswell wrote several extremely significantboth for his time and for our days of theoretical work. Many believe that among the sociologists of the last century, he can rightly be called one of the most productive. In total, the number of works that came out from under his pen is in the hundreds. In his works, the scientist considered political and social life at different levels, from different points of view. Contemporaries recognized the incredibly wide range of interests of the scientist. He was engaged not only in general, but also in specialized disciplines, he was attracted by various areas of the humanities.

Modern scientists, evaluating what Harold Lasswell wrote about mass communication, believe that all the interests of this outstanding personality were subordinated to one strictly defined target strategy, namely the formation of such a scientific political system, due to which the adoption of managerial decisions became would be more rational. The scientist set himself the task of forming such a system that would give a good result for a variety of problems, would be practically applicable at all levels of consideration of the current situation. In the system developed by the scientist, science had to limit the possibility of reflection and action, to determine acceptable guidelines and values. The main idea was to organize such social development in which the society would be stable and efficient.

Work and life

Any modern student of the political science, sociology department for sureknows that Harold Lasswell used the method of content analysis to draw the conclusions that are published in his numerous writings. It is known that the scientist spoke more than once about the psychological family and proposed to consider society as a single whole or a set of subjects close to each other - as if relatives. At the same time, little is known about the personal life of this scientist. Modern open sources do not mention information about his parents. The scientist was never married, he left no heirs. This man, who in many ways worked to unite society into a single family, preferred to leave his own personal life in the shadows. However, if we recall the historical context and the era in which the political scientist lived, we can agree that such a decision was fully justified and to some extent dictated by security issues.

Relevance and importance of research

Harold Lasswell's books give modern scientists and researchers a good understanding of how social values and scientific research relate to each other. From his works one can extract an understanding of how important science is for the ruling system and what role it plays in it. Lasswell considered the significance of power politics. Despite the fact that his works were written quite a long time ago, the calculations given in them are relevant to our days. The legacy of this scientist makes it possible to methodically provide modern sociologists and political scientists, making it easier for them to formulate and justify questions.

Thanks to his models, Harold Lasswell went down in history as the authorpsychoanalytic politics. To this day, the significance of the unconscious has not been fully explored, and there is especially little information about the influence of this aspect on the political system and science. Psychoanalytic politics, political psychology - these are areas that have yet to be explored in detail in order to have an idea of \u200b\u200bdeep human reactions to crises affecting the political system and social life. As our contemporaries admit, this scientist was one of those few who were engaged in empirical science, while fully understanding that only positive information about the mechanisms of society is sorely lacking. He also formulated the need to substantiate, form rationalization guidelines and values that would be universal and could be applied at any level of political activity. According to the calculations of the scientist, it was necessary to invent such values that would work both locally and at the level of interethnic interaction, would not depend on the characteristics of a particular culture, would be relative, thanks to which they would be widely applicable.

Models and problems

Harold Lasswell's model is the idea of mutual dependence and mutual influence of empiricism and theoretical calculations; a cognitive object and a subject engaged in cognition in philosophy. For politics, such a dyad is an ideology and the orientations and values inherent in a particular subject, which are characteristic of the current moment in time. Studying the characteristics of society, a scientist must simultaneously consider what is happening from two positions - a detached observer and a partyfigure. In the first case, its task is to determine what are the boundaries of political activity in the current case. The second point of view becomes available only to those who are versed in the mechanics of society.

As you can see from modern scientific works, for a long time the books of Harold Lasswell in our country were not in demand, interest and respect from public circles and scientists. A detailed analysis allows you to notice hidden citations, occasionally found generalized characteristics, as well as rare individual mentions. Several pages of analysis of the works of the outstanding scientist are highlighted in the works of Shestopal. In addition, Lasswell's calculations attracted the attention of Alyushin. All works that mention the scientist in question are devoted to a thematic analysis of his ideas. Many of our owners criticize the possibility of using psychoanalytic models in relation to socialization. The political scientist is considered to be the one who laid the foundation for the Freudian trend in politics. At the same time, he belonged to the number of behaviorists, which, it would seem, contradicts one another.

Philosophy, politics and sociology

The author of "Propaganda Techniques in the World War" Harold Lasswell is considered by many of our compatriots more as a philosopher than a political scientist or sociologist. Others consider its logical calculations and cause-and-effect relationships to be incorrect, and criticize the reconstructive approach. It is no secret that the scientist put a lot of effort, spent a huge amount of time in order to create a rigorous and integral theory that would adviselogic and would be complete, aesthetic. At the same time, theoretical research was aimed primarily at the formation of such schemes that would work in practice.

As can be concluded from the works translated into our language, Harold Lasswell used the comparison method to build his logical chains. Scholars involved in the analysis of his works note that in the last century in the field of political science, the institutional approach was predominant. The English and American traditions were marked by the individualistic development of such institutions that would be as close to the ideal as possible, based on philosophy, historical premises and jurisprudence. Lasswell, in particular, was the author of a doctrine that had a number of similarities with others characteristic of the authors of his time. He was looking for a stable reference point from which to begin the transformation of the social world, and the foundation should have been something outside this society.

Development of the theory

Much of Harold Lasswell's work is based on material previously published by Merriam. It is believed that this scientist determined the scientific interests of his follower. It was thanks to him that Lasswell became interested in analytical psychological research. In Merriam's work one can see the very basic principles that would then form the basis of the Chicago School of Social Science. In many ways, science will reflect the projects of Comte, who sought to transform the government of the country into a natural scientific process.

Harold Lasswell lived in a period when society was changing at an exceptionally rapid pace, and on a glob althe arena regularly showed up more and more powerful players whose interests came into conflict with each other. This influenced the Chicago School. Social change was carried out by forces that were described not through rationality, but as an unconscious impulse. For Lasswell, the main object of research was a specific individual, the bearer of needs. Focusing on such conclusions, the scientist came to the conclusion that psychoanalysis is the most effective and accurate method applicable to the goals that he set for himself.

Science: different facets of the question

Developing his ideas, Harold Lasswell considered progress as such a fact, the reliability of which cannot be objectively shown and proved. He proposed to evaluate progress using social values. Much of this is based on Dewey's work. Lasswell revised his concept, applied the theory of cultural relativity. He interpreted concepts, integrated ideas based on the conclusions of Freud, Adler. It is noted that the well-known political scientist successfully worked with concepts that are quite different from each other in applied and theoretical aspects, which did not prevent him from developing a unique integration approach.

Harold Lasswell paid special attention to the works of Freud. In addition, the works of Watson in the field of psychoanalysis, which predetermined the development of behaviorism, had a certain influence. Watson concentrated on the instantaneous variability of patterns that were obtained from experience, even if they were stable. And here is Freudconsidered the correction of such a template for the shortest possible time impossible. At the same time, Freud proposes to consider the personality as a "black box". From the point of view of many researchers, it was this fact that became a turning point for Lasswell, who chose the side of the Austrian psychoanalyst. The metapsychological theory, which made it possible to analyze the personality from three sides, turned out to be topologically promising. In addition, the scientist considered mental processes and their inherent conflicts, taking into account the influence of individual experience and social environment. Probably, it was these calculations that became the final reason for Lasswell to resort to Freud's theory to build his vision of political science and the processes taking place in society under the influence of power.

A contribution that cannot be overestimated

If we turn to the works of Smith, who analyzed the work of Lasswell, one can find a description of this scientist as "Leonardo da Vinci in behaviorism." According to this researcher, Lasswell played an extremely significant role in the formation of the approach, the development of science; possessed a unique and multifaceted talent, which he managed to reveal through numerous works in disciplines that are rather remote in nature. Lasswell is known for anthropological, political, philosophical, empirical works. He de alt with interstate relations and economic policy, wrote several significant psychological, semantic works and works on labor relations. Presumably, such a multifaceted talent was due to the environment, the scientific community in which Lasswelldeveloped and existed.

A feature of the works of Harold Lasswell is the harmonious combination of various theories and calculations. As the researchers of his activity agree, the synthesis of ideas is the main distinguishing feature of the activity of the American scientist. The depth of research and the correct assessment of the complexity of the object under study, in turn, became possible due to the wide variety of interests of the sociologist and political scientist.