by Angela Walsh
In 1932 the International Institute of Intellectual Co-operation, under the League of Nations, proposed to Professor Albert Einstein that he should contact any person he wished, to have a frank exchange of views on a problem facing civilization at that time. Einstein chose to put the following question to Freud “Is there any way of delivering mankind from the menace of war? In his letter to Freud he went on to say “with the advance of modern science, this issue has come to mean a matter of life and death for civilization as we know it; nevertheless, for all the zeal displayed, every attempt at its solution has ended in a lamentable breakdown”.
Einstein goes on to question how it is possible for man to be roused to such wild enthusiasm for war, even to sacrifice his life for it? He believes that there is only one possible answer because man has within him a lust for hatred and destruction. He adds, “here lies, perhaps, the crux of all the complex of factors we are considering, an enigma that only the expert in the lore of human instincts can resolve.”
Einstein’s reason for putting this question to Freud he explains as “There are certain psychological obstacles whose existence a layman in the mental sciences may dimly surmise …. You, I am convinced, will be able to suggest educative methods lying more or less outside the scope of politics, which will eliminate these obstacles.”
Einstein states that any obstacles to peace can be removed by educating mankind. As this obstacle appears to be mankind’s instinctual impulse towards aggressiveness, I ask can education remove or reverse this primal instinct?
In his lengthy response to Einstein, Freud first makes the following observations: “a glance at the history of the human race reveals an endless series of conflicts between one community and another or several others, between larger and smaller units - between cities, provinces, races, nations, empires - which have almost always been settled by force of arms.”
As to the prospect of Einstein’s suggestion of educating mankind to prevent it from pursuing its aggressive tendency of going to war, Freud’s paper Thoughts for the Times on War and Death written in 1915 at the early stages of WW1, answers this question. Freud is speaking here about the sense of disillusionment and horror people are feeling at the cruelty and brutality of the ‘civilized nations’ of the world in WW1 and “the low morality shown by states which in their internal relations pose as the guardians of moral standards, and the brutality shown by individuals whom, as participants in the highest human civilization, one would not have thought capable of such behaviour”.
Freud is questioning how, educated people living in countries that were ‘civilized’ were capable of the utmost brutality in the war. He asks why this should surprise us and why we would be so foolish as to assume that “the developmental process for these individuals consists in eradicating his evil human tendencies and, under the influence of education and a civilized environment, replacing them by good ones.”
Freud writes “In reality there is no such thing as ‘eradicating’ evil – psycho-analytic investigation shows instead that the deepest essence of human nature consists of instinctual impulses which are of an elementary nature, are similar in all men and which aim at the satisfaction of certain primal needs”.
What are these instinctual impulses that aim at the fulfilment of man’s primal needs? Freud explains “according to our hypothesis human instincts are of only two kinds; Those which seek to preserve and unite and those which seek to destroy and kill and which we group together as the aggressive or destructive instinct.”
These two human instincts are sometimes referred to as Eros or the sex drive or life drive and aggression or the destructive drive or death drive. Freud goes on to say that “Neither of these instincts is any less essential than the other; the phenomena of life arise from the concurrent or mutually opposing action of both … …. an instinct of the one sort can scarcely ever operate in isolation; it is always accompanied … with a certain quota from the other side, which modifies its aim or is, in some cases, what enables it to achieve that aim.
So, both Eros and the aggressive instinctual impulses are necessary for mankind to function, but Freud tells us that civilization itself comes at a high price for mankind, in that it demands the restriction of both these instinctual impulses. But what is this cost and does this restriction contribute to an increase in man’s aggressive tendencies?
As far back as 1915 in Thoughts for the Times on War and Death Freud spoke about this when he said “We had expected the great world-dominating nations of white race upon whom the leadership of the human species has fallen, who were known to have world-wide interests as their concern …… to succeed in discovering another way of settling misunderstandings and conflicts of interest. Within each of these nations high norms of moral conduct were laid down for the individual, to which his manner of life was bound to conform if he desired to take part in a civilized community. These ordinances, often too stringent, demanded a great deal of him – much self-restraint, much renunciation of instinctual satisfaction.”
And in a later work, Civilization and its Discontents (1929) Freud tells us that to be ‘civilized’ we must curb our desires and that this has consequences for us.He explains how people struggle when living in societies with advanced stages of social and cultural developmentand says “civilization imposes such great sacrifices not only on man's sexuality, but also on his aggressivity, we are in a better position to understand why it is so hard for him to feel happy in it. Primitive man was actually better off, because his drives were not restricted.”
So, what means does civilisation use to inhibit this aggression it faces and eliminate it? What happens during the development of individuals to render it harmless?
Freud answers this question: “Something very curious, which we would not have suspected, but which is plain to see. The aggression is introjected, internalised, actually sent back to where it came from: in other words, it is directed against the individual's own ego.
There it is taken over by a portion of the ego that sets itself up as the Super-ego, in opposition to the rest, and is now prepared, as conscience, to exercise the same severe aggression against the ego that the latter would have liked to direct towards other individuals. The tension between the stern super ego and the ego that is subject to it is what we call a sense of guilt: this manifests itself as a need for punishment. In this way civilization overcomes the dangerous aggressivity of the individual, by weakening him, disarming him and setting up an internal authority to watch over him, like a Garrison in a conquered town.”
Despite this intervention, Freud takes the view that the tendency to aggression is an original, autonomous disposition in man and that it represents the greatest obstacle to civilization.
"This aggressive drive is the descendent and principal representative of the death drive, which we have found beside Eros, and which rules the world jointly with him. And now, I think, the meaning of the development of civilization is no longer obscure to us. This development must show us the struggle between Eros and death, between the life drive and the drive for destruction, as it is played out in the human race. This struggle is the essential content of all life: hence, the development of civilization may be described simply as humanity's struggle for existence.
Freud goes on to look at what he says has been called ‘the ideal demand of civilized society’ which is Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy self. Freud says: It is famous the world over, and certainly older than Christianity, which puts it forward as its proudest claim.
It would seem that this demand was considered to be an ‘ideal’ by Freud rather than something that had any possibility of actually being achievable for he suggests that “we approach it naively, as if we were hearing if for the first time and in that way we are able to suppress a sense of surprise and bewilderment”. He asks: What is the point of such a portentous precept if its fulfilment cannot command itself as reasonable? Why should we behave in this way? What good will it do us? And above all, how shall we manage to act like this? How will it be possible? It imposes duties on me, and in performing these duties I must be prepared to make sacrifices. If I love another person, he must in some way deserve it.”
I found it interesting that as Freud continues with this argument, his speech becomes more and more aggressive. It’s as if he is demonstrating how the death drive operates in our psyche and in our speech. He continues: “But if he is a stranger to me and cannot attract me by any merit of his own or by any importance he has acquired in my emotional life, it becomes hard for me to love him. This stranger is not only altogether un-loveable: I must honestly confess that he has a greater claim to my enmity, even to my hatred. He appears to have not the least love for me and shows me not the slightest consideration. If it is to his advantage, he has no hesitation in harming me.”
Freud’s final comment regarding this commandment, shows what really is at stake here. Contrary to what is suggested, it seems that any love that we have, we keep for ourselves and do not squander on someone who is undeserving of it. Freud says: Yet if I am to love him with this universal love, just because he is a creature of this earth, like an insect, an earthworm or a grass snake, then I fear that only a modicum of love will fall to his share, and certainly not as much as the judgement of my reason entitles me to reserve for myself.
But it seems that Freud’s argument veers more towards hatred of the ‘other’ rather than just a refusal to show love to a stranger or perhaps, in this instance, Freud is showing that, for mankind, that is the same thing as he says: “There is another commandment that I find even more unintelligible and that causes me to rebel even more fiercely. It runs: ‘Love thine enemies’. But on reflection I see that I am wrong to reject it as a still greater presumption. Essentially it is no different”.
Freud is confirming here that the command to love thine enemies is the same unreasonable one of asking people to love thy neighbour. It appears that, to mankind, all strangers are enemies who are unworthy of even a portion of our love. Self-love is mankind’s priority. Freud goes on to explain this argument by saying “The reality behind all this, which many would deny, is that human beings are not gentle creatures in need of love, at most able to defend themselves if attacked; On the contrary, they can count a powerful share of aggression among their instinctual endowments. Hence, their neighbour is not only a potential helper or sexual object, but also someone who tempts them to take out their aggression on him, to exploit his labour without recompense, to use him sexually without his consent, to take possession of his goods, to humiliate him and cause him pain, to torture and kill him. [Man is a wolf to man]. Who after all that he has learned from life and history, would be so bold as to dispute this proposition?”
It seems that mankind has little hope of overcoming this fundamental hostility of one to another and as such civilised society is constantly threatened with disintegration even, as Freud says: “A common interest in work would not hold it together: passions that derive from the drives are stronger than reasonable interests”.
Now I want to return to Einstein’s question of 1932 asking if mankind can be delivered from the menace of war and Freud’s response to it. Freud writes “when human beings are incited to war they may have a whole number of motives for assenting, some noble and some base, some which are openly declared and others which are never mentioned. There is no need to enumerate them all. A lust for aggression and destruction is certainly among them: the countless cruelties in history and in our everyday lives vouch for its existence and its strength.”
And he goes on to agree with Einstein that “in any case …. there is no question of getting rid entirely of human aggressive impulses; it is enough to try to divert them to such an extent that they need not find expression in war.
But how do we divert these impulses? Freud suggests that “If willingness to engage in war is an effect of the destructive instinct, the most obvious plan will be to bring Eros, it's antagonist, into play against it. Anything that encourages the growth of emotional ties between men must operate against war.”
Freud gives us what he calls a “Utopian Expectation” as a possible solution when he adds “The ideal condition of things would of course be a community of men who had subordinated their instinctual life to the dictatorship of reason. Nothing else could unite men so completely and so tenaciously, even if there were no emotional ties between them.” Freud doesn’t appear to hold out any hope of this happening as he continues: “Wars will only be prevented with certainty if mankind unites in setting up a central authority to which the right of giving judgement upon all conflicts of interest shall be handed over.” He goes on to say thatthis promises no rapid success.
In his closing remarks to Einstein, Freud asks “Why do you and I and so many other people rebel so violently against war? He answers: “ we react to war in this way because everyone has a right to his own life, because war puts an end to human lives that are full of hope, because it brings individual men into humiliating situations, because it compels them against their will to murder other men and because it destroys precious material objects which have been produced by the labours of humanity”.
And he adds “In its present-day form (and bear in mind this letter was written in 1932) owing to the perfection of instruments of destruction a future war might involve the extermination of one or perhaps both of the antagonists”.
Freud remarks that they are both pacifists because they are obliged to be for organic reasons and asks just how long will they have to wait before the rest of mankind become pacifists too?
He answers by saying that two factors may provide some hope: Cultural attitudes and the justified dread of the consequences of a future war. Freud ends the letter “But one thing we can say: whatever fosters the growth of civilization works at the same time against war”.