Men clearly do not find it easy to do without satisfaction of this
tendency to aggression that is in them; when deprived of satisfaction
of it they are ill at ease. There is an advantage, not to be
undervalued, in the existence of smaller communities, through which the
aggressive instinct can find an outlet in enmity towards those outside
the group. It is always possible to unite considerable numbers of men
in love towards one another, so long as there are still some remaining
as objects for aggressive manifestations. I once interested myself in
the peculiar fact that peoples whose territories are adjacent, and are
otherwise closely related, are always at feud with and ridiculing each
other, as, for instance, the Spaniards and the Portuguese, the North
and South Germans, the English and the Scotch, and so on. I gave it
the name of ‘narcissism in respect of minor differences’, which does
not do much to explain it. One can now see that it is a convenient and
relatively harmless form of satisfaction for aggressive tendencies,
through which cohesion amongst the members of a group is made easier.
The Jewish people, scattered in all directions as they are, have in
this way rendered services which deserve recognition to the development
of culture in the countries where they settled; but unfortunately not
all the massacres of Jews in the Middle Ages sufficed to procure peace
and security for their Christian contemporaries. Once the apostle Paul
had laid down universal love between all men as the foundation of his
Christian community, the inevitable consequence in Christianity was
the utmost intolerance towards all who remained outside of it; the
Romans, who had not founded their state on love, were not given to lack
of religious toleration, although religion was a concern of the state
and the state was permeated through and through with it. Neither was
it an unaccountable chance that the dream of a German world-dominion
evoked a complementary movement towards anti-semitism; and it is quite
intelligible that the attempt to establish a new communistic type of
culture in Russia should find psychological support in the persecution
of the bourgeois. One only wonders, with some concern, however, how
the Soviets will manage when they have exterminated their bourgeois
entirely.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account