Perceived legitimacy in the struggle for civil rights - Book Review

Review of The Psychology of Legitimacy, edited by John Jost and Brenda Major

To the extent that civil rights movements are battles for the hearts and minds of the public, they are conflicts about the perceived legitimacy of our social institutions and laws. Political theorists, including Machiavelli and Marx, have long recognized that perceptions of legitimacy--what people perceive to be correct, proper, or morally acceptable--are critical to the maintenance of social and political hierarchies. Legitimization conspires with psychological, social, political, and economic processes to support established social hierarchies.

The Psychology of Legitimacy, edited by John Jost and Brenda Major, collects varied perspectives on the social-psychological processes, among both the advantaged and the disadvantaged, that shore up this wall around the status quo. Because we contributed a chapter, this article is not intended to be an objective, critical review, but rather to highlight the broader implications of theories and research presented in the book. (The researchers mentioned below are either contributors to the book or cited in it.) We will concentrate here on one of the most disturbing aspects of the tendency to legitimize--how difficult it is to puncture the apparent legitimacy of a discriminatory social system, even among those who bear the burdens of disadvantage and discrimination.

Psychological theories of legitimacy examine what Jim Sidanius and his colleagues have termed "legitimizing myths," the shared values, beliefs, and ideologies that justify social hierarchy. Legitimizing myths provide Pangloss-like rationalizations as to why, despite obvious inequities, ours is the best of all possible societies. As John Jost and his colleagues note, such "system-justifying" beliefs (that our society is good and fair) may either complement or conflict with rationalizations each of us uses to preserve esteem for ourselves and for our groups (based on ethnicity, gender, class, etc.). The possible conflicts between these levels of rationalization (self, group, society) differ for the privileged and the disadvantaged.

Legitimization Among the Privileged

Happy are the privileged for whom justifying the legitimacy of society simultaneously fulfills the goals of flattering themselves and their groups. Successful members of dominant social groups can feel good about themselves, the groups to which they belong, and their society by embracing mutually reinforcing beliefs in the legitimacy of each. For example, the system-justifying belief that American society is a perfect meritocracy provides individual and collective self-esteem for affluent whites, confirming that their own and their group's success is due to talent and effort, not group privilege. By asserting the fairness and legitimacy of society as a whole, these individuals also reinforce positive self-images and group identifications.

That the privileged typically support a discriminatory system surprises no one. Nor is this basic tenet of Marxist thought a new idea. What the psychological perspective adds, however, is the realization that legitimizing beliefs are not solely about maintaining economic advantage, going beyond pure Marxian views, nor are they merely cynical, deliberately Machiavellian attempts to placate the masses. Rationalizations are truly effective only when they deceive oneself as well as others. The most powerful legitimizing ideologies are sincerely held, unrefiectively believed, and widely shared.

For the privileged, the most attractive rationalizations not only reinforce their economic and social advantage, but also fulfill the basic psychological need to view themselves as both competent and morally good. Arguably, these psychological motivations are at least as important to people as the political and material self-interest that Machiavelli and Marx claimed as the driving forces behind ideological convictions. Recognizing psychological motives helps to explain behavior that appears to contradict self-interest, but fulfills the need to feel morally correct. The revolutionary zeal of affluent reformers (Marx and Engels, after all, were members of the bourgeoisie) illustrates how material self-interest can take a backseat to a desire to be morally good. In successful social movements, reformers have provoked (what Habermas termed) a "legitimation crisis" among members of the dominant social group. When most white Americans were led to realize that racial segregation contradicts American democratic ideals--central to the perceived moral goodness of American identity--attitudes changed.

One's own and one's group's perceived morality, however, can all too easily reconcile with justifying hierarchy and discrimination. Mary Jackman suggests that paternalism appeals to the privileged through a mental jui jitsu that transforms exploitation into benevolence, and dominance into service. Paternalistic legitimizing myths justified 19th-century colonialism and slavery, by affirming white European racial and cultural superiority while simultaneously defining, and by construing their actions toward "inferior" groups as benevolent rather than exploitative (e.g., governing people who were perceived as incapable of governing themselves and ostensibly introducing culture and true religion to "superstitious savages").