“Human Nature in Action”: Harold Lasswell, NBC Radio, and the Psychotherapy Program for the American Masses

Nick Dorzweiler, Wheaton College

In 1939 and 1940, the renowned political scientist Harold Lasswell wrote and hosted over forty episodes of a radio show, Human Nature in Action, for the National Broadcasting Corporation. The program was meant to habituate listeners to the psychological insecurities of American life – insecurities Lasswell believed would engender political unrest if not properly managed. In examining the scripts of the show's first season and archival documentation surrounding its commissioning, this conference paper not only explains why one of the most famous political scientists of the mid-twentieth century believed the American public needed to be subjected to such a program of mass psychotherapy, and why the nation’s largest broadcaster agreed to support it. It also invites reconsideration of the ways in which popular political commentary today – even when it represents otherwise diverse ideological perspectives – remains stubbornly attached to Lasswellian narratives of mental insecurity as incompatible with a “healthy” democratic polity.

No extended abstract or paper available

 Presented in Session 44. Managing the Masses: Critical Reconsiderations of 20th Century Political Science and Theories of Expert Control