Civilization -- Philosophy; Death -- Psychological aspects; Psychoanalysis; Psychoanalysis and culture; War -- Psychological aspects
These primitive impulses go through a long process of development before
they can become active in the adult. They become inhibited and diverted
to other aims and fields, they unite with each other, change their
objects and in part turn against one's own person. The formation of
reactions against certain impulses give the deceptive appearance of a
change of content, as if egotism had become altruism and cruelty had
changed into sympathy. The formation of these reactions is favored by
the fact that many impulses appear almost from the beginning in
contrasting pairs; this is a remarkable state of affairs called the
ambivalence of feeling and is quite unknown to the layman. This feeling
is best observed and grasped through the fact that intense love and
intense hate occur so frequently in the same person. Psychoanalysis goes
further and states that the two contrasting feelings not infrequently
take the same person as their object.
What we call the character of a person does not really emerge until the
fate of all these impulses has been settled, and character, as we all
know, is very inadequately defined in terms of either "good" or "evil."
Man is seldom entirely good or evil, he is "good" on the whole in one
respect and "evil" in another, or "good" under certain conditions, and
decidedly "evil" under others. It is interesting to learn that the
earlier infantile existence of intense "bad" impulses is often the
necessary condition of being "good" in later life. The most pronounced
childish egotists may become the most helpful and self-sacrificing
citizens; the majority of idealists, humanitarians, and protectors of
animals have developed from little sadists and animal tormentors.
The transformation of "evil" impulses is the result of two factors
operating in the same sense, one inwardly and the other outwardly. The
inner factor consists in influencing the evil or selfish impulses
through erotic elements, the love needs of man interpreted in the widest
sense. The addition of erotic components transforms selfish impulses
into social impulses. We learn to value being loved as an advantage for
the sake of which we can renounce other advantages. The outer factor is
the force of education which represents the demands of the civilized
environment and which is then continued through the direct influence of
the cultural _milieu_.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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