The Psychology of Nations: A Contribution to the Philosophy of HistoryPartridge, G. E. (George Everett)
Philosophy
The Psychology of Nations: A Contribution to the Philosophy of History
Partridge, G. E. (George Everett)
Education; History -- Philosophy; War
We are presenting these views in a somewhat loose and illogical order,
but let us look at still a few more of them. Patrick thinks of war as
precisely a plunge into the primeval. War is a reaction, a regression,
but still it is something more than a mere slipping of the machinery
of life. It is _craved_; and it is craved because it offers relief
from the tension of modern life. It is not quite clear whether it is
because we are tired and want rest for our over-worked functions, or
are merely dull and need renewed life, but in any case, when the
desire has accumulated enough, back we fall into the primeval. Then
all the tensions and inhibitions of civilized society disappear.
Society, relieved of its cross-tensions, is resolved and organized
into an harmonious and freely acting whole, seeking a definite object.
Life is simplified, and becomes again primitive. Old and vigorous
movements take the place of the cramped thinking of our civilized
life. All that keeps us modern and evolved is relaxed.
Naturally the Freudians have their own explanation of war in terms of
subconscious wishes, repressed feelings and instincts. Freud (78)
himself says that war is a recrudescence (and a mastery over us) of a
more primitive life than our own. The child and the primitive man, as
we have long known them in the Freudian theories, live still in us and
are indestructible. We have supposed ourselves to have overcome these
primitive impulses, but we are far from being so civilized as we
thought. The evil impulses, as we call them, which we supposed had at
least been transformed are changed only in the sense that they have
been influenced by the erotic motive, or have been repressed by an
outer restraint, an educational factor, the demands of what we call
civilized environment. But let us not deceive ourselves; the old
impulses are still alive; the number of people who have been
transformed by civilization is less than we supposed. All society is
at heart barbaric. Judged by our unconscious wishes, we are a band of
murderers, for the primitive wish is to kill all who oppose our
self-interests, and war is precisely a reversion to the method of free
expression of our desires in action. Society and the authority of
government have suppressed these primitive reactions in the
individual, but instead of eliminating them altogether from human
nature (which, of course, no legislation can do in any case),
government and society as a whole have appropriated all these
primitive actions to their own use.
Jones (37), the Freudian, distinguishes two quite different groups of
causes of war: the conscious causes, all expressed in the feeling of
patriotism; and the unconscious causes, which grow out of the desire
to release certain original passions--the passions of cruelty,
destruction, loot and lust.
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