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Reflections on War and Death - Sigmund Freud · Classic Science Fiction Library

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Speaker 1: Reflections on War and Death. This is a LibriVox recording.
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Speaker 1: All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
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Speaker 1: information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Reflections
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Speaker 1: on War and Death by Professor Doctor Sigmund Freud. Authorized
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Speaker 1: English translation by doctor A. A. Brill and Alfred B. Kuttner,
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Speaker 1: nineteen eighteen. Translator's note. This book is offered to the
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Speaker 1: American public at the present time, in the hope that
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Speaker 1: it may contribute something to the cause of international understanding
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Speaker 1: and goodwill, which has become the hope of the world. End.
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Speaker 1: Translator's note. Reflections on War and Death, Section one. The
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Speaker 1: disappointments of war. Caught in the whirlwind of these war times,
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Speaker 1: without any real information or any perspective upon the great
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Speaker 1: changes that have already occurred or are about to be enacted,
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Speaker 1: lacking all premonition of the future, it is small wonder
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Speaker 1: that we ourselves become confused as to the meaning of
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Speaker 1: impressions which crowd in upon us, or of the value
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Speaker 1: of the judgments we are forming. It would seem as
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Speaker 1: though no event had ever destroyed so much of the
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Speaker 1: precious heritage of mankind. Confused so many of the clearest intellects,
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Speaker 1: or so thoroughly debased what is highest. Even science has
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Speaker 1: lost her dispassionate impartiality. Her deeply embittered votaries are intent
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Speaker 1: upon seizing her weapons to do their share in the
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Speaker 1: battle against the enemy. The anthropologist has to declare his
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Speaker 1: opponent inferior and degenerate. The psychiatrist must diagnose him as
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Speaker 1: mentally deranged. Yet it is probable that we are affected
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Speaker 1: out of all proportion by the evils of these times,
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Speaker 1: and have no right to compare them with the evils
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Speaker 1: of other times through which we have not lived. The individual,
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Speaker 1: who is not himself a combatant and therefore has not
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Speaker 1: become a cog in the gigantic war machinery, feels confused
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Speaker 1: in his bearings and hampered in his activities. I think
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Speaker 1: any little suggestion that will make it easier for him
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Speaker 1: to see his way more clearly will be welcome. Among
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Speaker 1: the factors which cause the stay at home so much
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Speaker 1: spiritual misery and are so hard to endure, there are
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Speaker 1: two in particular which I should like to emphasize and discuss.
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Speaker 1: I mean, the disappointment that this war has called forth,
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Speaker 1: and the altered attitude towards death, to which it, in
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Speaker 1: common with other wars forces us. When I speak of disappointment,
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Speaker 1: everybody knows at once what I mean. One need not
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Speaker 1: be a sentimentalist. One may realize the biological and physiological
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Speaker 1: necessity of suffering in the economy of human life, and
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Speaker 1: yet one may condemn the methods and the aims of
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Speaker 1: war and long for its termination. To be sure, we
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Speaker 1: used to say that wars cannot cease as long as
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Speaker 1: nations live under such varied conditions, as long as they
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Speaker 1: place such different values upon the individual life, and as
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Speaker 1: long as the animosities which divide them represent such powerful
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Speaker 1: psychic forces. Were therefore quite ready to believe that for
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Speaker 1: some time to come there would be wars between primitive
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Speaker 1: and civilized nations, and between those divided by color, as
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Speaker 1: well as with and among the partly enlightened and more
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Speaker 1: or less civilized peoples of Europe. But we dared to
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Speaker 1: hope differently. We expected that the great ruling nations of
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Speaker 1: the white race, the leaders of mankind, who had cultivated
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Speaker 1: world wide interests, and to whom we owe the technical
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Speaker 1: progress in the control of nature, as well as the
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Speaker 1: creation of artistic and scientific cultural standards. We expected that
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Speaker 1: these nations would find some other way of settling their
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Speaker 1: differences and conflicting interests. Each of these nations had set
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Speaker 1: a high moral standard to which the individual had to
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Speaker 1: conform if he wished to be a member of the
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Speaker 1: civilized community. These frequently over strict precepts demanded a great
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Speaker 1: deal of him, a great self restraint, and a marked
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Speaker 1: renunciation of his impulses. Above all, he was forbidden to
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Speaker 1: resort to lying and cheating, which are so extraordinarily useful
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Speaker 1: in competition with others. The civilized state considered these moral
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Speaker 1: standards the foundation of its existence. It drastically interfered if
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Speaker 1: any one dared to question them, and often declared it
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Speaker 1: improper even to submit them to the test of intellectual criticism.
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Speaker 1: It was therefore assumed that the state itself would respect them,
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Speaker 1: and would do nothing that might contradict the foundations of
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Speaker 1: its own existence. To be sure, one was aware that
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Speaker 1: scattered among these civilized nations there were certain remnants of
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Speaker 1: races that were quite universally disliked, and were therefore reluctantly
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Speaker 1: and only to a certain extent, permitted to participate in
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Speaker 1: the common work of civilization. Where they had proved themselves
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Speaker 1: sufficiently fit for the task. But the great nations themselves,
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Speaker 1: one should have thought, had acquired sufficient understanding for the
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Speaker 1: qualities they had in common, and enough tolerance for their differences,
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Speaker 1: so that, unlike in the days of classical antiquity, the
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Speaker 1: words foreign and hostile should no longer be synonyms. Trusting
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Speaker 1: to this unity of civilized races, countless people left hearth
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Speaker 1: and home to live in strange lands, and trusted their
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Speaker 1: fortunes to the friendly relations existing between the various countries.
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Speaker 1: And even he who was not tied down to the
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Speaker 1: same spot by the exigencies of life, could combine all
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Speaker 1: the advantages and charms of civilized countries into a newer
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Speaker 1: and greater father land, which he could enjoy without hindrance
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Speaker 1: or suspicion. He thus took delight in the blue and
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Speaker 1: gray ocean, the beauty of snow clad mountains and of
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Speaker 1: the green lowlands, the magic of the north woods and
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Speaker 1: the grandeur of southern vegetation, the atmosphere of landscapes upon
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Speaker 1: which great historical memories rest, and the peace of untouched nature.
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Speaker 1: The new Fatherland was to him also a museum filled
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Speaker 1: with the treasure that all the artists of the world
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Speaker 1: for many centuries had created and left behind. While he
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Speaker 1: wandered from one hall to another. In this museum, he
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Speaker 1: could give his impartial appreciation to the varied types of
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Speaker 1: perfection that had been developed among his distant compatriots by
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Speaker 1: the mixture of blood, by history, and by the peculiarities
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Speaker 1: of physical environment. Here, cool in flamelexible energy was developed
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Speaker 1: to the highest degree. There the graceful art of beautifying life.
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Speaker 1: Elsewhere the sense of law and order, or other qualities
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Speaker 1: that have made man master of the earth. We must
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Speaker 1: not forget that every civilized citizen of the world had
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Speaker 1: created his own special Parnassus and his own school of Athens.
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Speaker 1: Among the great philosophers, poets, and artists of all nations,
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Speaker 1: he had selected those to whom he considered himself indebted
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Speaker 1: for the best enjoyment and understanding of life, and he
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Speaker 1: associated them in his homage, both with the immortal ancients
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Speaker 1: and with the familiar masters of his own tongue. Not
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Speaker 1: one of these great figures seemed alien to him just
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Speaker 1: because he spoke in a different language, be it the
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Speaker 1: incomparable explorer of human passions, or the intoxicated worshiper of beauty,
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Speaker 1: the mighty and threatening seer, or the sensitive scoffer, And
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Speaker 1: yet he never reproached himself with having become an apostate
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Speaker 1: to his own nation and his beloved mother tongue. The
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Speaker 1: enjoyment of this common civilization was occasionally disturbed by voices
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Speaker 1: which warned that, in consequence of traditional differences, wars were unavoidable,
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Speaker 1: even between those who shared this civilization. One did not
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Speaker 1: want to believe this, But what did one imagine such
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Speaker 1: a war to be like if it should ever come about?
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Speaker 1: No doubt, it was to be an opportunity to show
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Speaker 1: the progress in man's community feeling since the days when
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Speaker 1: the Greek Amphictianes had forbidden the destruction of a city
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Speaker 1: belonging to the league, the felling of her oil trees,
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Speaker 1: and the cutting off of her water supply. It would
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Speaker 1: be a chivalrous bout of arms for the sole purpose
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Speaker 1: of establishing the superior pority of one side or the other,
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Speaker 1: with the greatest possible avoidance of severe suffering, which could
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Speaker 1: contribute nothing to the decision, with complete protection for the
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Speaker 1: wounded who must withdraw from the battle, and for the
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Speaker 1: physicians and nurses who devote themselves to their care, with
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Speaker 1: every consideration, of course, for non combatants, for the women
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Speaker 1: who are removed from the activities of war, and for
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Speaker 1: the children, who, when grown up, are to become friends
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Speaker 1: and co workers on both sides, And with the maintenance, finally,
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Speaker 1: of all the international projects and institutions in which the
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Speaker 1: civilized community of peace times had expressed its corporate life.
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Speaker 1: Such a war would still be horrible enough and full
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Speaker 1: of burdens, but it would not have interrupted the development
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Speaker 1: of ethical relations between the large human units, between nations
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Speaker 1: and states. But the war in which we did not
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Speaker 1: want to believe broke out and brought disappointment. It is
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Speaker 1: not only bloodier and more destructive than any foregoing war,
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Speaker 1: as a result of the tremendous development of weapons of
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Speaker 1: attack and defense, but it is at least as cruel, bitter,
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Speaker 1: and merciless as any earlier war. It places itself above
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Speaker 1: all the restrictions pledged in times of peace, the so
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Speaker 1: called rights of nations. It does not acknowledge the prerogatives
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Speaker 1: of the wounded and of physicians, the distinction between peaceful
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Speaker 1: and fighting members of the population, or the claims of
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Speaker 1: private property. It hurls down in blind rage whatever bars
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Speaker 1: its way, as though there were to be no future
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Speaker 1: and no peace after it is over. It tears a
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Speaker 1: sun under all community bonds among the struggling peoples, and
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Speaker 1: threatens to leave a bitterness which will make impossible any
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Speaker 1: re establishment of these ties for a long time to come.
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Speaker 1: It has also brought to light the barely conceivable phenomenon
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Speaker 1: of civilized nations knowing and understanding each other so little
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Speaker 1: that one can turn from the other with hate and loathing. Indeed,
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Speaker 1: one of these great civilized nations has become so universally
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Speaker 1: disliked that it is even attempted to cast it out
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Speaker 1: from the civilized community, as though it were barbaric. Although
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Speaker 1: this very nation has long proved its eligibility through contribution
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Speaker 1: after contribution of brilliant achievements. We live in the hope
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Speaker 1: that impartial history will furnish the proof that this very nation,
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Speaker 1: in whose language I am writing, and for whose victory
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Speaker 1: our dear ones are fighting, has sinned least to against
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Speaker 1: the laws of human civilization. But who is privileged to
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Speaker 1: step forward at such a time as judge in his
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Speaker 1: own defense. Races are roughly represented by the states they form,
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Speaker 1: and these states by the governments which guide them. The
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Speaker 1: individual citizen can prove with dismay in this war what
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Speaker 1: occasionally thrust itself upon him already in times of peace, namely,
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Speaker 1: that the state forbids him to do wrong, not because
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Speaker 1: it wishes to do away with wrongdoing, but because it
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Speaker 1: wishes to monopolize it, like salt and tobacco. A state
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Speaker 1: at war makes free use of every injustice, every act
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Speaker 1: of violence that would dishonour the individual. It employs not
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Speaker 1: only permissible cunning, but conscious lies and intentional deception against
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Speaker 1: the enemy, and this to a degree which apparently outdoes
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Speaker 1: what was customary in previous wars. The state demands the
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Speaker 1: utmost obedience and sacrifice of its citizens, but at the
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Speaker 1: same time it treats them as children through an excess
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Speaker 1: of secrecy and a censorship of news and expression of opinion,
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Speaker 1: which render the minds of those who are thus intellectually
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Speaker 1: repressed defenseless against every unfavorable situation and every wild rumor.
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Speaker 1: It absolves itself from guarantees and treaties by which it
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Speaker 1: was bound to other states, makes unabashed confession of its
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Speaker 1: greed and aspiration to power which the individual is then
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Speaker 1: supposed to sanction out of patriotism. Let the reader not
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Speaker 1: object that the state cannot abstain from the use of injustice,
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Speaker 1: because it would thereby put itself at a disadvantage for
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Speaker 1: the individual too. Obedience to moral standards and abstinence from
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Speaker 1: brutal acts of violence are, as a rule, very disadvantageous,
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Speaker 1: and the state but rarely proves itself capable of indemnifying
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Speaker 1: the individual for the sacrifice it demands of him. Nor
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Speaker 1: is it to be wondered at that the loosening of
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Speaker 1: moral ties between the large human units has had a
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Speaker 1: pronounced effect upon the morality of the individual. For our
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Speaker 1: conscience is not the inexorable judge that teachers of ethics
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Speaker 1: say it is. It has its origin in nothing but
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Speaker 1: social fear. Wherever the community suspends its reproach, the suppression
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Speaker 1: of evil desire also ceases, and men commit acts of cruelty, treachery, deception,
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Speaker 1: and brutality, the very possibility of which would have been
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Speaker 1: considered incompatible with their level of culture. Thus, the civilized world,
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Speaker 1: citizen of whom I spoke before, may find himself helpless
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Speaker 1: in a world that has grown strange to him when
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Speaker 1: he sees his great fatherland disintegrated, the possessions common to
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Speaker 1: mankind destroyed, and his fellow citizens divided and debased. Nevertheless,
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Speaker 1: several things might be said in criticism of his disappointment.
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Speaker 1: Strictly speaking, it is not justified, for it consists in
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Speaker 1: the destruction of an illusion. Illusions commend themselves to us
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Speaker 1: because they save us pain and allow us to enjoy pleasure. Instead.
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Speaker 1: We must therefore accept it without complaint when they sometimes
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Speaker 1: collide with a bit of reality against which they are
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Speaker 1: dashed to pieces. Two things have roused our disappointment in
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Speaker 1: this war. The feeble morality of states in their external relations,
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Speaker 1: which have inwardly acted as guardians of moral standards, and
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Speaker 1: the brutal behavior of individuals of the highest culture, of
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Speaker 1: whom one would not have believed any such thing possible.
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Speaker 1: Let us begin with the second point and try to
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Speaker 1: sum up the view which we wish to criticize in
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Speaker 1: a single compact statement, through what process does the individual
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Speaker 1: reach a higher stage of morality? The first answer will
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Speaker 1: probably be he is really good and noble from birth.
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Speaker 1: In the first place, it is hardly necessary to give
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Speaker 1: this any further consideration. The second answer will follow the
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Speaker 1: suggestion that a process of development is involved here, and
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Speaker 1: will probably assume that this development consists in eradicating the
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Speaker 1: evil inclinations of man and substituting good inclinations under the
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Speaker 1: influence of education and cultural environment. In that case, we
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Speaker 1: may indeed wonder that evil should appear again so actively
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Speaker 1: in persons who have been educated in this way. But
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Speaker 1: this answer also contains the theory which we wish to contradict.
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Speaker 1: In reality, there is no such thing as eradicating evil.
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Speaker 1: Psychological or strictly speaking, psychoanalytic investigation proves, on the contrary,
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Speaker 1: that the deepest character of man consists of impulses of
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Speaker 1: an elemental kind, which are similar in all human beings,
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Speaker 1: the aim of which is the gratification of certain primitive needs.
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Speaker 1: These impulses are in themselves neither good or evil. We
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Speaker 1: classify them and their manifestations according to their relation to
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Speaker 1: the needs and demands of the human community. It is
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Speaker 1: conceded that all the impulses which society rejects as evil,
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Speaker 1: such as selfishness and cruelty, are of this primitive nature.
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Speaker 1: These primitive impulses go through a long process of development
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Speaker 1: before they can become active. In the adult, they become
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Speaker 1: inhibited and diverted to other aims and fields. They unite
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Speaker 1: with each other, change their objects, and in part turn
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Speaker 1: against one's own person. The formation of reactions against certain
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Speaker 1: impulses give the deceptive appearance of a change of content,
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Speaker 1: as if egotism had become altruism and cruelty had changed
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Speaker 1: into sympathy. The formation of these reactions is favored by
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Speaker 1: the f the fact that many impulses appear almost from
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Speaker 1: the beginning in contrasting pairs. This is a remarkable state
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Speaker 1: of affairs called the ambivalence of feeling, and is quite
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Speaker 1: unknown to the layman. This feeling is best observed and
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Speaker 1: grasped through the fact that intense love and intense hate
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Speaker 1: occurs so frequently in the same person. Psychoanalysis goes further
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Speaker 1: and states that the two contrasting feelings not infrequently take
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Speaker 1: the same person as their object. What we call the
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Speaker 1: character of a person does not really emerge until the
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Speaker 1: fate of all these impulses has been settled, and character,
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Speaker 1: as we all know, is very inadequately defined in terms
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Speaker 1: of either good or evil. Man is seldom entirely good
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Speaker 1: or evil. He is good on the whole in one
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Speaker 1: respect and evil in another, or good under certain conditions
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Speaker 1: and decidedly evil under others. It is interesting to learn
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Speaker 1: that the earlier, infantile existence of intense bad impulses is
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Speaker 1: often the necessary condition of being good. In later life,
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Speaker 1: the most pronounced childish egotists may become the most helpful
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Speaker 1: and self sacrificing citizens. The majority of idealists, humanitarians, and
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Speaker 1: protectors of animals have developed from little sadists and animal tormentors.
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Speaker 1: The transformation of evil impulses is the result of two
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Speaker 1: factors operating in the same sense, one inwardly and the
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Speaker 1: other outwardly. The inner factor consists in influencing the evil
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Speaker 1: or selfish impulses through erotic elements the love needs of
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Speaker 1: man interpreted in the widest sense. The addition of erotic
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Speaker 1: components transforms selfish impulses into social impulses. We learn to
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Speaker 1: value being loved as an advantage for the sake of
22:17
Speaker 1: which we can renounce other advantages. The outer factor is
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Speaker 1: the source of education, which represents the demands of the
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Speaker 1: civilized environment, and which is then continued through the direct
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Speaker 1: influence of the cultural milieu. Civilization is based upon the
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Speaker 1: renunciation of impulse gratification, and in turn demand the same
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Speaker 1: renunciation of impulses from every newcomer. During the individual's life,
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Speaker 1: a constant change takes place from outer to inner compulsion.
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Speaker 1: The influences of civilization work through the erotic components to
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Speaker 1: bring about the transformation of more and more of the
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Speaker 1: selfish tendencies into altruistic and social tendencies. We may indeed
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Speaker 1: assume that the inner compulsion which makes itself felt in
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Speaker 1: the development of man, was originally, that is, in the
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Speaker 1: history of mankind, a purely external compulsion. Today, people bring
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Speaker 1: along a certain tendency disposition to transform the egotistic into
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Speaker 1: social impulses as a part of their hereditary organization, which
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Speaker 1: then responds to further slight incentives to complete the transformation.
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Speaker 1: A part of this transformation of impulse must also be
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Speaker 1: made during life. In this way, the individual man is
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Speaker 1: not only under the influence of his own contemporary cultural milieu,
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Speaker 1: but is also subject to the influences of his ancestral civilization.
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Speaker 1: If we call a person's individual capacity for transforming his
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Speaker 1: egotistical impulses under the influence of love, his cultural adaptability
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Speaker 1: we can say that this consists of two parts, one
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Speaker 1: congenital and the other acquired, and we may add that
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Speaker 1: the relation of these two to each other and to
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Speaker 1: the untransformed part of the emotional life is a very
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Speaker 1: variable one. In general, we are inclined to rate the
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Speaker 1: congenital part too highly, and are also in danger of
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Speaker 1: overvaluing the whole cultural adaptability in its relation to that
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Speaker 1: part of the impulse life which has remained primitive. That is,
24:49
Speaker 1: we are misled into judging people to be better than
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Speaker 1: they really are, for there is another factor which clouds
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Speaker 1: our judgment and falsifies the result in favor of what
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Speaker 1: we are judging. We are, of course in no position
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Speaker 1: to observe the impulses of another person. We deduce them
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Speaker 1: from his actions and his conduct, which we trace back
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Speaker 1: to motives springing from his emotional life. In a number
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Speaker 1: of cases, such a conclusion is necessarily incorrect. The same
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Speaker 1: actions which are good in the civilized sense, may sometimes
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Speaker 1: originate in noble motives and sometimes not. Students of the
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Speaker 1: theory of ethics call only those acts good which are
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Speaker 1: the expression of good impulses, and refuse to acknowledge others
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Speaker 1: as such. But society is on the whole guided by
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Speaker 1: practical aims, and does not bother about this distinction. It
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Speaker 1: is satisfied if a man adapts his conduct and his
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Speaker 1: actions to the precept of civilization, and asks little about
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Speaker 1: his motives. We have heard that the outer compulsion which
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Speaker 1: education and environment exercise upon a man brings about a
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Speaker 1: further transformation of his impulse life for the good, the
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Speaker 1: change from egotism to altruism. But this is not the
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Speaker 1: necessary or regular effect of the outer compulsion. Education and
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Speaker 1: environment have not only love premiums to offer, but work
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Speaker 1: with profit premiums of another sort, namely rewards and punishments.
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Speaker 1: They can therefore bring it about that a person subject
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Speaker 1: to their influence decides in favor of good conduct in
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Speaker 1: the civilized sense, without any ennobling of impulse or change
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Speaker 1: from egotistic into altruistic inclinations. On the whole, the consequence
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Speaker 1: remains the same. Only special circumstances will reveal whether the
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Speaker 1: one person is always good because his impulses compel him
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Speaker 1: to be so, while another person is good only in
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Speaker 1: so far as this civilized behavior is of advantage to
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Speaker 1: his selfish purposes. But our superficial knowledge of the individual
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Speaker 1: gives us no means of distinguishing the two cases, and
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Speaker 1: we shall certainly be misled by our optimism into greater
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Speaker 1: overestimating the number of people who have been transformed by civilization.
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Speaker 1: Civilized society, which demands good conduct and does not bother
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Speaker 1: about the impulse on which it is based, has thus
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Speaker 1: one over a great many people to civilized obedience who
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Speaker 1: do not thereby follow their own natures. Encouraged by this success,
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Speaker 1: society has permitted itself to be misled into putting the
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Speaker 1: ethical demands as high as possible, thereby forcing its members
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Speaker 1: to move still further from their emotional dispositions. A continual
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Speaker 1: emotional suppression is imposed upon them, the strain of which
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Speaker 1: is indicated by the appearance of the most remarkable reactions
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Speaker 1: and compensations. In the field of sexuality, where such suppression
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Speaker 1: is most difficult to carry out, it results in reactions
28:29
Speaker 1: known as neurotic ailments. In other fields, the pressure of
28:34
Speaker 1: civilization shows no pathological results, but manifests itself in distorted
28:40
Speaker 1: characters and in the constant readiness of the inhibited impulses
28:44
Speaker 1: to enforce their gratification at any fitting opportunity. Anyone thus
28:51
Speaker 1: forced to react continually to precepts that are not the
28:54
Speaker 1: expressions of his impulses, lives psychologically speaking above his means,
29:00
Speaker 1: and may be objectively described as a hypocrite. Whether he
29:05
Speaker 1: is clearly conscious of this difference or not. It is
29:11
Speaker 1: undeniable that our contemporary civilization favors this sort of hypocrisy
29:15
Speaker 1: to an extraordinary extent. One might even venture to assert
29:21
Speaker 1: that it is built upon such a hypocrisy, and would
29:24
Speaker 1: have to undergo extensive changes if man were to undertake
29:28
Speaker 1: to live according to the psychological truth. There are therefore
29:33
Speaker 1: more civilized hypocrites than truly cultured persons, and one can
29:39
Speaker 1: even discuss the question whether a certain amount of civilized
29:43
Speaker 1: hypocrisy is not indispensable to maintain civilization, because the already
29:48
Speaker 1: organized cultural adaptability of the man of today would perhaps
29:53
Speaker 1: not suffice for the task of living according to the truth.
29:59
Speaker 1: On the other hand, the maintenance of civilization, even on
30:02
Speaker 1: such questionable grounds, offers the prospect that with every new generation,
30:07
Speaker 1: a more extensive transformation of impulses will pave the way
30:11
Speaker 1: for a better civilization. These discussions have already afforded us
30:17
Speaker 1: the consolation that our mortification and painful disappointment on account
30:22
Speaker 1: of the uncivilized behavior of our fellow world citizens in
30:25
Speaker 1: this war were not justified. They rested upon an illusion
30:31
Speaker 1: to which we had succumbed. In reality, they have not
30:35
Speaker 1: sunk as deeply as we feared, because they never really
30:40
Speaker 1: rose as high as we had believed. The fact that
30:45
Speaker 1: states and races abolish their mutual ethical restrictions not unnaturally
30:50
Speaker 1: incited them to withdraw for a time from the existing
30:53
Speaker 1: pressure of civilization and to sanction a passing gratification of
30:58
Speaker 1: their suppressed impulses. In doing so, their relative morality within
31:05
Speaker 1: their own national life probably suffered no rupture. But we
31:12
Speaker 1: can still further deepen our understanding of the change which
31:15
Speaker 1: this war has brought about in our former compatriots, and
31:19
Speaker 1: at the same time take warning not to be unjust
31:22
Speaker 1: to them. For psychic evolution shows a peculiarity which is
31:27
Speaker 1: not found in any other process of development. When a
31:33
Speaker 1: town becomes a city, or a child grows into a man,
31:37
Speaker 1: town and child disappear in the city and in the man,
31:44
Speaker 1: only memory can sketch in the old features in the
31:47
Speaker 1: new picture. In reality, the old materials and forms have
31:51
Speaker 1: been replaced by new ones. It is different in the
31:56
Speaker 1: case of psychic evolution. One can describe this unique state
32:00
Speaker 1: of affairs only by saying that every previous stage of
32:03
Speaker 1: development is preserved next to the following one from which
32:07
Speaker 1: it has evolved. The succession stipulates a coexistence, although the
32:13
Speaker 1: material in which the whole series of changes has taken
32:16
Speaker 1: place remains the same. The earlier psychic state may not
32:22
Speaker 1: have manifested itself for years, but nevertheless continues to exist
32:27
Speaker 1: to the extent that it may someday again become the
32:31
Speaker 1: form in which psychic forces express themselves, in fact, the
32:36
Speaker 1: only form, as though all subsequent developments had been annulled
32:40
Speaker 1: and made regressive. This extraordinary plasticity of psychic development is
32:46
Speaker 1: not without limits as to its direction. One can describe
32:50
Speaker 1: it as a special capacity for retrograde action or regression.
32:55
Speaker 1: For it sometimes happens that a later and higher stage
32:58
Speaker 1: of development that has been abandoned and cannot be attained again,
33:04
Speaker 1: but the primitive conditions can always be reconstructed. The primitive
33:09
Speaker 1: psyche is, in the strictest sense, indestructible. The so called
33:17
Speaker 1: mental diseases must make the impression on the layman of
33:22
Speaker 1: mental and psychic life fallen into decay. In reality, the
33:28
Speaker 1: destruction concerns only later acquisitions and developments. The nature of
33:34
Speaker 1: mental diseases consists in the return to former states of
33:38
Speaker 1: the effective life and function. An excellent example of the
33:43
Speaker 1: plasticity of the psychic life is the state of sleep,
33:48
Speaker 1: which we all court every night. Since we know how
33:53
Speaker 1: to interpret even the maddest and most confused dreams, we
33:58
Speaker 1: know that every time we go to sleep, if we
34:00
Speaker 1: throw aside our hard won morality like a garment in
34:04
Speaker 1: order to put it on again in the morning, this
34:07
Speaker 1: laying bear is of course harmless, because we are paralyzed
34:12
Speaker 1: and condemned to inactivity by the sleeping state. Only the
34:17
Speaker 1: dream can inform us of the regression of our emotional
34:20
Speaker 1: life to an earlier stage of development. Thus, for instance,
34:25
Speaker 1: it is worthy of note that all our dreams are
34:28
Speaker 1: governed by purely egotistic motives. One of my English friends
34:33
Speaker 1: once presented this theory to a scientific meeting in America,
34:37
Speaker 1: whereupon a lady present made the remark that this might
34:41
Speaker 1: perhaps be true of Austrians. But she ventured to assert
34:44
Speaker 1: for herself and her friends that even in dreams they
34:48
Speaker 1: always felt altruistically. My friend, although himself a member of
34:54
Speaker 1: the English race, was obliged to contradict the lady energetically
34:58
Speaker 1: on the basis of his experience in dream analysis. The
35:02
Speaker 1: noble Americans are just as egotistic in their dreams as
35:05
Speaker 1: the Austrians. The transformation of impulses upon which our cultural
35:12
Speaker 1: adaptability rests can therefore also be permanently or temporarily made regressive.
35:21
Speaker 1: Without doubt, the influences of war belong to those forces
35:25
Speaker 1: which can create such regressions. We therefore need not deny
35:31
Speaker 1: cultural adaptability to all those who at present are acting
35:35
Speaker 1: in such an uncivilized manner, and may expect that the
35:40
Speaker 1: refinement of their impulses will continue in more peaceful times.
35:47
Speaker 1: But there is perhaps another symptom of our fellow citizens
35:50
Speaker 1: of the world which has caused us no less surprise
35:53
Speaker 1: and fear than this descent from former ethical heights which
35:57
Speaker 1: has been so painful to us. I mean the lack
36:02
Speaker 1: of insight that our greatest intellectual leaders have shown, their obduracy,
36:07
Speaker 1: their inaccessibility to the most impressive arguments, their uncritical credulity
36:12
Speaker 1: concerning the most contestable assertions. This certainly presents a sad picture,
36:19
Speaker 1: and I wish expressly to emphasize that I am by
36:22
Speaker 1: no means a blinded partisan who finds all the intellectual
36:25
Speaker 1: mistakes on one side. But this phenomenon is more easily
36:30
Speaker 1: explained and far less serious than the one which we
36:34
Speaker 1: have just considered. Students of human nature and philosophers have
36:40
Speaker 1: long ago taught us that we do wrong to value
36:43
Speaker 1: our intelligence as an independent force and to overlook its
36:47
Speaker 1: dependence upon our emotional life. According to their view, our
36:53
Speaker 1: intellect can work reliably only when it is removed from
36:56
Speaker 1: the influence of powerful incitements. Otherwise it acts simply as
37:02
Speaker 1: an instrument at the beck and call of our will,
37:06
Speaker 1: and delivers the results which the will demands. Logical argumentation
37:12
Speaker 1: is therefore powerless against affective interests. That is why arguing
37:18
Speaker 1: with reasons, which, according to Falstaff are as common as blackberries,
37:22
Speaker 1: are so fruitless where our interests are concerned. Whenever possible
37:29
Speaker 1: psychoanalytic experience has driven home this assertion, it is in
37:33
Speaker 1: a position to prove every day that the cleverest people
37:37
Speaker 1: suddenly behave as unintelligently as defectives as soon as their
37:41
Speaker 1: understanding encounters emotional resistance, but that they regain their intelligence
37:47
Speaker 1: completely as soon as this resistance has been overcome. This
37:52
Speaker 1: blindness to logic, which this war has so frequently conjured
37:57
Speaker 1: up in just our best fellow citizens, is therefore a
38:02
Speaker 1: secondary phenomenon, the result of emotional excitement, and destined we
38:07
Speaker 1: hope to disappear simultaneously with it. If we have thus
38:14
Speaker 1: come to a fresh understanding of our estranged fellow citizens,
38:19
Speaker 1: we can more easily bear the disappointment which nations have
38:23
Speaker 1: caused us. For of them we must only make demands
38:29
Speaker 1: of a far more modest nature. They are perhaps repeating
38:34
Speaker 1: the development of the individual, and at the present day
38:38
Speaker 1: still exhibit very primitive stages of development, with a correspondingly
38:43
Speaker 1: slow progress towards the formation of higher unities. It is
38:48
Speaker 1: in keeping with this that the educational factor of an
38:52
Speaker 1: outer compulsion to morality, which we found so active in
38:55
Speaker 1: the individual, is barely perceptible in them. We had, indeed
39:00
Speaker 1: hoped that the wonderful community of interests established by intercourse
39:05
Speaker 1: and the exchange of products would result in the beginning
39:09
Speaker 1: of such a compulsion. But it seems that nations obey
39:13
Speaker 1: their passions of the moment far more than their interests.
39:18
Speaker 1: At most, they make use of their interests to justify
39:22
Speaker 1: the gratification of their passions. It is indeed a mystery
39:28
Speaker 1: why the individual members of nations should disdain, hate, and
39:32
Speaker 1: abhor each other at all, even in times of peace.
39:39
Speaker 1: I do not know why it is. It seems as
39:43
Speaker 1: if all the moral achievements of the individual were obliterated
39:47
Speaker 1: in the case of a large number of people, not
39:49
Speaker 1: to mention millions, until only the most primitive, oldest, and
39:55
Speaker 1: most brutal psychic inhibitions remained. Perhaps only later developments will
40:01
Speaker 1: succeed in changing these lamentable conditions. But a little more
40:06
Speaker 1: truthfulness and straightforward dealing on all sides, both in the
40:11
Speaker 1: relation of people towards each other and between themselves and
40:15
Speaker 1: those who govern them, might smooth the way for such
40:18
Speaker 1: a change. And the disappointments of war first section Reflections
40:29
Speaker 1: on War and Death. This recording is in the public domain.
40:47
Speaker 1: Reflections on War and Death, Section two. This is a
40:54
Speaker 1: LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
40:58
Speaker 1: For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
41:05
Speaker 1: Reflections on War and Death by Sigmund Freud. Section two,
41:13
Speaker 1: our attitude towards death. It remains for us to consider
41:21
Speaker 1: the second factor, of which I have already spoken, which
41:24
Speaker 1: accounts for our feeling of strangeness in a world which
41:27
Speaker 1: used to seem so beautiful and familiar to us. I
41:32
Speaker 1: refer to the disturbance in our former attitude towards death.
41:38
Speaker 1: Our attitude had not been a sincere one to listen
41:43
Speaker 1: to us. We were, of course prepared to maintain that
41:46
Speaker 1: death is the necessary termination of life, that every one
41:50
Speaker 1: of us owes nature his death and must be prepared
41:54
Speaker 1: to pay his debt. In short, that death was natural, undeniable,
42:00
Speaker 1: and inevitable. In practice, we were accustomed to act as
42:04
Speaker 1: if matters were quite different. We have shown an unmistakable
42:08
Speaker 1: tendency to put death aside, to eliminate it from life.
42:13
Speaker 1: We have attempted to hush it up. In fact, we
42:16
Speaker 1: have the proverb to think of something as of death.
42:22
Speaker 1: Of course, we meant our own death. We cannot indeed
42:27
Speaker 1: imagine our own death. Whenever we try to do so,
42:30
Speaker 1: we find that we survive ourselves as spectators. The school
42:36
Speaker 1: of psychoanalysis could thus assert that at bottom, no one
42:40
Speaker 1: believes in his own death, which amounts to saying in
42:45
Speaker 1: the unconscious, every one of us is convinced of his immortality.
42:52
Speaker 1: As far as the death of another person is concerned,
42:55
Speaker 1: every man of culture will studiously avoid mentioning this possibility
42:59
Speaker 1: in the presence of the person in question. Only children
43:03
Speaker 1: ignore this restraint. They boldly threaten each other with the
43:07
Speaker 1: possibility of death, and are quite capable of giving expression
43:11
Speaker 1: to the thought of death in relation to the persons
43:13
Speaker 1: they love, as for instance, dear Mamma, when unfortunately you
43:19
Speaker 1: are dead, I shall do so. And so. The civilized
43:24
Speaker 1: adult also likes to avoid entertaining the thought of another's death,
43:27
Speaker 1: lest he seem harsh or unkind, unless his profession as
43:31
Speaker 1: a physician or a lawyer brings up the question. Least
43:38
Speaker 1: of all, would he permit himself to think of somebody's
43:40
Speaker 1: death if this event is connected with a gain of freedom, wealth,
43:43
Speaker 1: or position. Death is of course not deferred through our
43:49
Speaker 1: sensitiveness on the subject, and when it occurs we are
43:53
Speaker 1: always deeply affected, as if our expectations had been shattered.
43:59
Speaker 1: We regularly lays stress upon the unexpected causes of death.
44:04
Speaker 1: We speak of the accident, the infection, or advanced age,
44:09
Speaker 1: and thus betray our endeavor to debase death from a
44:12
Speaker 1: necessity to an accident. A large number of deaths seems
44:19
Speaker 1: unspeakably dreadful to us. We assume a special attitude towards
44:25
Speaker 1: the dead, something almost like admiration for one who has
44:29
Speaker 1: accomplished a very difficult feat. We suspend criticism of him,
44:36
Speaker 1: overlooking whatever wrongs he may have done, and issue the
44:39
Speaker 1: command de mortuis nil nisi bene. We act as if
44:45
Speaker 1: we were justified in singing his praises at the funeral oration,
44:50
Speaker 1: and inscribe only what is to his advantage on the tombstone.
44:56
Speaker 1: This consideration for the dead, which he really no longer needs,
45:01
Speaker 1: is more important to us than the truth, and to
45:04
Speaker 1: most of us, certainly, it is more important than consideration
45:08
Speaker 1: for the living. This conventional attitude of civilized people towards
45:14
Speaker 1: death is made still more striking by our complete collapse.
45:18
Speaker 1: At the death of a person closely related to us,
45:21
Speaker 1: such as a parent, a wife or husband, a brother
45:24
Speaker 1: or sister, a child, or a dear friend. We bury
45:30
Speaker 1: our hopes, our wishes, and our desires with the dead.
45:35
Speaker 1: We are inconsolable and refuse to replace our loss. We
45:40
Speaker 1: act in this case as if we belong to the
45:43
Speaker 1: tribe of the Astra, who also die when those whom
45:46
Speaker 1: they love perish footnote. Compare Heine's poem dah Astra and footnote.
45:58
Speaker 1: But this attitude of ours towards death exerts a powerful
46:02
Speaker 1: influence upon our lives. Life becomes impoverished and loses its interest.
46:08
Speaker 1: When life itself, the highest stake in the game of living,
46:13
Speaker 1: must not be risked, it becomes as hollow and empty
46:18
Speaker 1: as an American flirtation, in which it is understood from
46:21
Speaker 1: the beginning that nothing is to happen, in contrast to
46:25
Speaker 1: a continental love affair in which both partners must always
46:29
Speaker 1: bear in mind the serious consequences. Our emotional ties, the
46:35
Speaker 1: unbearable intensity of our grief make us disinclined to court
46:40
Speaker 1: dangers for ourselves and those belonging to us. We do
46:45
Speaker 1: not dare to contemplate a number of undertakings that are
46:47
Speaker 1: dangerous but really indispensable, such as aeroplane flights, expeditions to
46:53
Speaker 1: distant countries, and experiments with explosive substances. We are periled
47:00
Speaker 1: by the thought of who is to replace the son
47:02
Speaker 1: to his mother, the husband to his wife, or the
47:06
Speaker 1: father to his children. Should an accident occur. A number
47:12
Speaker 1: of other renunciations and exclusions result from this tendency to
47:16
Speaker 1: rule out death from the calculations of life. And yet
47:21
Speaker 1: the motto of the Hanseatic League said, navigare necesse est
47:27
Speaker 1: vivere non necesse. It is necessary to sail the seas,
47:32
Speaker 1: but not to live. It is therefore inevitable that we
47:38
Speaker 1: should seek compensation for the loss of life in the
47:41
Speaker 1: world of fiction, in literature and in the theater. There
47:47
Speaker 1: we still find people who know how to die, who
47:50
Speaker 1: are even quite capable of killing others. There alone, the
47:55
Speaker 1: condition for reconciling ourselves to death is fulfilled. Namely, if
48:01
Speaker 1: beneath all the vicissitudes of life, a permanent life still
48:05
Speaker 1: remains to us. It is really too sad that it
48:10
Speaker 1: may happen in life, as in chess, where a false
48:13
Speaker 1: move can force us to lose the game, but with
48:17
Speaker 1: this difference that we cannot begin a return match. In
48:22
Speaker 1: the realm of fiction, we find the many lives in
48:25
Speaker 1: one for which we crave. We die in identification with
48:31
Speaker 1: a certain hero, and yet we outlive him, and quite unharmed,
48:36
Speaker 1: are prepared to die again with the next hero. It
48:42
Speaker 1: is obvious that the war must brush aside this conventional
48:45
Speaker 1: treatment of death. Death is no longer to be denied.
48:51
Speaker 1: We are compelled to believe in it. People really die,
48:56
Speaker 1: and no longer one by one, but in large numbers,
49:00
Speaker 1: often ten thousand in one day. It is no longer
49:05
Speaker 1: an accident. Of course, it still seems accidental whether a
49:10
Speaker 1: particular bullet strikes this man or that, but the survivor
49:14
Speaker 1: may easily be struck down by a second bullet, and
49:17
Speaker 1: the accumulation of deaths ends the impression of accident. Life
49:25
Speaker 1: has indeed become interesting again. It has once more received
49:29
Speaker 1: its full significance. Let us make a division here and
49:36
Speaker 1: separate those who risk their lives in battle from those
49:40
Speaker 1: who remain at home, where they can only expect to
49:42
Speaker 1: lose one of their loved ones through injury, illness, or infection.
49:49
Speaker 1: It would certainly be very interesting to study the changes
49:51
Speaker 1: in the psychology of combatants, but I know too little
49:55
Speaker 1: about this. We must stick to the second group to
49:59
Speaker 1: which we are ourselves belong. I have already stated that
50:04
Speaker 1: I think the confusion and paralysis of our activities from
50:08
Speaker 1: which we are suffering is essentially determined by the fact
50:11
Speaker 1: that we cannot retain our previous attitude towards death. Perhaps
50:17
Speaker 1: it will help us to direct our psychological investigation to
50:20
Speaker 1: two other attitudes towards death, one of which we may
50:23
Speaker 1: ascribe to primitive man, while the other is still preserved,
50:27
Speaker 1: though invisible to our consciousness, in the deeper layers of
50:31
Speaker 1: our psychic life. The attitude of prehistoric man towards death
50:39
Speaker 1: is of course known to us only through deductions and reconstructions,
50:44
Speaker 1: but I am of the opinion that these have given
50:46
Speaker 1: us fairly trustworthy information. Primitive man maintained a very curious
50:53
Speaker 1: attitude towards death. It is not at all consistent, but
50:58
Speaker 1: rather contradictory. On the one hand, he took death very seriously,
51:04
Speaker 1: recognized it as the termination of life, and made use
51:08
Speaker 1: of it in this sense. But on the other hand,
51:11
Speaker 1: he also denied death and reduced it to nothing. This
51:17
Speaker 1: contradiction was made possible by the fact that he maintained
51:20
Speaker 1: a radically different position in regard to the death of others,
51:23
Speaker 1: a stranger or an enemy, than in regard to his own.
51:30
Speaker 1: The death of another person fitted in with his idea.
51:34
Speaker 1: It signified the annihilation of the hated one, and Primitive
51:38
Speaker 1: man had no scruples against bringing it about. He must
51:43
Speaker 1: have been a very passionate, being more cruel and vicious
51:47
Speaker 1: than other animals. He liked to kill and did it.
51:52
Speaker 1: As a matter of course, nor need we attribute to
51:57
Speaker 1: him the instinct which restrains other animals from killing and
52:00
Speaker 1: devouring their own species. As a matter of fact, the
52:07
Speaker 1: primitive history of mankind is filled with murder. The history
52:11
Speaker 1: of the world which is still taught to our children
52:14
Speaker 1: is essentially a series of race murderers. The dimly felt
52:19
Speaker 1: sense of guilt under which man has lived since archaic times,
52:23
Speaker 1: and which in many religions has been condensed into the
52:26
Speaker 1: assumption of a primal guilt. A hereditary sin is probably
52:31
Speaker 1: the expression of a blood guilt, the burden of which
52:34
Speaker 1: primitive man assumed. In my book entitled Totemen Taboo nineteen thirteen,
52:42
Speaker 1: I have followed the hints of W. Robertson, Smith, Atkinson
52:46
Speaker 1: and Charles Darwin in the attempt to fathom the nature
52:49
Speaker 1: of this ancient guilt, and am of the opinion that
52:54
Speaker 1: the Christian doctrine of to day still makes it possible
52:57
Speaker 1: for us to work back to its origin. If the
53:02
Speaker 1: Son of God had to sacrifice his life to absolve
53:05
Speaker 1: mankind from original sin. Then, according to the law of retaliation,
53:10
Speaker 1: the return of like for like, this sin must have
53:14
Speaker 1: been an act of killing, a murder. Nothing else could
53:19
Speaker 1: call for the sacrifice of a life in expiation. And
53:24
Speaker 1: if original sin was a sin against the Godfather, the
53:28
Speaker 1: oldest sin of mankind must have been a patricide, the
53:34
Speaker 1: killing of the primal father of the primitive human horde,
53:38
Speaker 1: whose memory picture later was transfigured into a deity. Primitive
53:44
Speaker 1: man was as incapable of imagining and realizing his own
53:48
Speaker 1: death as any one of us are today. But a
53:51
Speaker 1: case arose in which the two opposite attitudes towards death
53:55
Speaker 1: clashed and came into conflict with each other, with results
53:59
Speaker 1: that are both significvagant, and far reaching. Such a case
54:04
Speaker 1: was given when primitive man saw one of his own
54:06
Speaker 1: relatives die, his wife, child, or friend, whom he certainly
54:11
Speaker 1: loved as we do ours, for love cannot be much
54:15
Speaker 1: younger than the lust for murder. In his pain, he
54:19
Speaker 1: must have discovered that he too could die, an admission
54:23
Speaker 1: against which his whole being must have revolted, For every
54:27
Speaker 1: one of these loved ones was a part of his
54:29
Speaker 1: own beloved self. On the other hand, every such death
54:35
Speaker 1: was satisfactory to him, for there was also something foreign
54:40
Speaker 1: in each one of these persons. The law of emotional ambivalence,
54:46
Speaker 1: which to day still governs our emotional relations to those
54:49
Speaker 1: whom we love, certainly obtained far more widely in primitive times.
54:56
Speaker 1: The beloved dead had nevertheless roused some high hostile feelings
55:01
Speaker 1: in primitive man, just because they had been both friends
55:05
Speaker 1: and enemies. Philosophers have maintained that the intellectual puzzle which
55:13
Speaker 1: the picture of death presented to primitive man forced him
55:16
Speaker 1: to reflect and became the starting point of every speculation.
55:22
Speaker 1: I believe the philosophers here think too philosophically. They give
55:27
Speaker 1: too little consideration to the primary effective motive. I should
55:33
Speaker 1: therefore like to correct and limit the above assertion. Primitive
55:39
Speaker 1: man probably triumphed at the side of the corpse of
55:42
Speaker 1: the slain enemy without finding any occasion to puzzle his
55:45
Speaker 1: head about the riddle of life and death. It was
55:50
Speaker 1: not the intellectual puzzle or any particular death which roused
55:54
Speaker 1: the spirit of inquiry in man, but the conflict of
55:59
Speaker 1: emotions at the death of beloved and withal foreign and
56:03
Speaker 1: hated persons from this emotional conflict, psychology arose. Man could
56:11
Speaker 1: no longer keep death away from him, for he had
56:14
Speaker 1: tasted of it in his grief for the deceased, but
56:18
Speaker 1: he did not want to acknowledge it, since he could
56:21
Speaker 1: not imagine himself dead. He therefore formed a compromise and
56:27
Speaker 1: concealed his own death, but denied it the significance of
56:31
Speaker 1: destroying life, a distinction for which the death of his
56:35
Speaker 1: enemies had given him no motive. He invented spirits during
56:41
Speaker 1: his contemplation of the corpse of the person he loved,
56:44
Speaker 1: and his consciousness of guilt over the gratification, which mingled
56:48
Speaker 1: with his grief, brought it about that these first created
56:52
Speaker 1: spirits were transformed into evil demons which were to be feared.
56:59
Speaker 1: The changes wrought by death suggested to him to divide
57:02
Speaker 1: the individual into body and soul, at first several souls,
57:07
Speaker 1: and in this way his train of thought paralleled the
57:09
Speaker 1: disintegration process inaugurated by death. The continued remembrance of the
57:16
Speaker 1: dead became the basis of the assumption of other forms
57:19
Speaker 1: of existence, and gave him the idea of a future
57:23
Speaker 1: life after apparent death. These later forms of existence were
57:30
Speaker 1: at first only vaguely associated appendages to those whom death
57:34
Speaker 1: had cut off and enjoyed only slight esteem. Until much
57:39
Speaker 1: later times they still betrayed a very meager knowledge. The
57:45
Speaker 1: reply which the soul of Achilles made to Odysseus comes
57:48
Speaker 1: to our mind erst in the life on earth no
57:55
Speaker 1: less than a god we revered thee we the Achaeans,
58:00
Speaker 1: And now in the realm of the dead, as a
58:03
Speaker 1: monarch here thou dost rule. Then why should death thus
58:08
Speaker 1: grieve thee Achilles? Thus did I speak forthwith then answering,
58:14
Speaker 1: thus he addressed me, speak not smoothly of death. I
58:19
Speaker 1: beseech o famous Odysseus, better by far to remain on
58:24
Speaker 1: the earth as the thrall of another e'en of a
58:28
Speaker 1: portionless man. That hath means right scanty of living, rather
58:32
Speaker 1: than reign sole king in the realm of the bodiless phantoms.
58:37
Speaker 1: Unquote Odysseus, Chapter eleven, verses four eighty four through four
58:45
Speaker 1: ninety one, translated by H. B. COTTRL Hyine has rendered
58:51
Speaker 1: this in a forcible and bitter parody. Quote. The smallest
58:57
Speaker 1: living Philistine at Stuccart on the neckar is much happier
59:02
Speaker 1: than I am. Son of Pelias, the dead hero, shadowy
59:05
Speaker 1: ruler of the underworld. It was much later before the
59:12
Speaker 1: religions managed to declare this after life as the more
59:15
Speaker 1: valuable and perfect, and to debase our mortal life to
59:19
Speaker 1: a mere preparation for the life to come. It was
59:24
Speaker 1: then only logical to prolong our existence into the past
59:28
Speaker 1: and to invent former existences, transmigrations of souls and reincarnations,
59:35
Speaker 1: all with the object of depriving death of its meaning
59:38
Speaker 1: as the termination of life. It was as early as
59:44
Speaker 1: this that the denial of death, which we described as
59:47
Speaker 1: the product of conventional culture originated. Contemplation of the corpse
59:55
Speaker 1: of the person loved gave birth not only to the
59:58
Speaker 1: theory of the soul, the belief in immortality, and implanted
1:00:03
Speaker 1: the deep roots of the human sense of guilt, but
1:00:06
Speaker 1: it also created the first ethical laws. The first and
1:00:11
Speaker 1: most important prohibition of the awakening conscience declared thou shalt
1:00:17
Speaker 1: not kill. This arose as a reaction against the gratification
1:00:23
Speaker 1: of hate for the beloved dead, which is concealed behind grief,
1:00:27
Speaker 1: and was gradually extended to the unloved stranger, and finally
1:00:31
Speaker 1: also to the enemy civilized man. No longer feels this
1:00:37
Speaker 1: way in regard to killing enemies. When the fierce struggle
1:00:41
Speaker 1: of this war will have reached a decision, every victorious
1:00:45
Speaker 1: warrior will joyfully and without delay return home to his
1:00:49
Speaker 1: wife and children, undisturbed by thoughts of the enemy he
1:00:52
Speaker 1: has killed, either at close quarters or with weapons operating
1:00:56
Speaker 1: at a distance. It is worthy of note that the
1:01:03
Speaker 1: primitive races, which still inhabit the earth, and who are
1:01:07
Speaker 1: certainly closer to primitive man than we, act differently in
1:01:10
Speaker 1: this respect, or have so acted as long as they
1:01:13
Speaker 1: did not yet feel the influence of our civilization. The savage,
1:01:19
Speaker 1: such as the Australian, the bushman, or the inhabitant of
1:01:23
Speaker 1: Terra del Fuego, is by no means a remorseless murderer.
1:01:29
Speaker 1: When he returns home as victor from the war path,
1:01:32
Speaker 1: he is not allowed to enter his village or touch
1:01:34
Speaker 1: his wife until he has expiated his war murders through
1:01:38
Speaker 1: lengthy and often painful penances. The explanation for this is,
1:01:44
Speaker 1: of course related to his superstition. The savage fears the
1:01:48
Speaker 1: avenging spirit of the slain, but the spirits of the
1:01:53
Speaker 1: fallen enemy are nothing but the expression of his evil
1:01:56
Speaker 1: conscience over his blood guilt. Behind this superstition, their lies
1:02:02
Speaker 1: concealed a bit of ethical delicacy of feeling which has
1:02:05
Speaker 1: been lost to us civilized beings. Pious souls who would
1:02:12
Speaker 1: like to think us removed from contact with what is
1:02:15
Speaker 1: evil and mean, will surely not fail to draw satisfactory
1:02:20
Speaker 1: conclusions in regard to the strength of the ethical impulses
1:02:23
Speaker 1: which have been implanted in us from these early and
1:02:26
Speaker 1: forcible murder prohibitions. Unfortunately, this argument proves even more for
1:02:33
Speaker 1: the opposite contention. Such a powerful inhibition can only be
1:02:39
Speaker 1: directed against an equally strong impulse. What no human being
1:02:44
Speaker 1: desires to do does not have to be forbidden, It
1:02:47
Speaker 1: is self exclusive. The very emphasis of the commandment thou
1:02:54
Speaker 1: shalt not kill makes it certain that we are descended
1:02:57
Speaker 1: from an endlessly long chain of generations of murderers whose
1:03:02
Speaker 1: love of murder was in their blood, as it is
1:03:05
Speaker 1: perhaps also in ours. The ethical strivings of mankind, with
1:03:12
Speaker 1: the strength and significance of which we need not quarrel,
1:03:16
Speaker 1: are an acquisition of the history of man. They have
1:03:19
Speaker 1: since become, though unfortunately in very variable quantities. The hereditary
1:03:24
Speaker 1: possessions of people of today. Let us now leave primitive
1:03:31
Speaker 1: man and turn to the unconscious in our psyche. Here
1:03:37
Speaker 1: we depend entirely upon psychoanalytic investigation, the only method which
1:03:42
Speaker 1: reaches such depths. The question is what is the attitude
1:03:49
Speaker 1: of our unconscious towards death? In answer, we may say
1:03:55
Speaker 1: that it is almost like that of primitive man in
1:03:59
Speaker 1: this respect, as well as in many others. The man
1:04:03
Speaker 1: of prehistoric times lives on unchanged in our unconscious. Our
1:04:11
Speaker 1: unconscious therefore does not believe in its own death. It
1:04:14
Speaker 1: acts as though it were immortal. What we call our unconscious,
1:04:20
Speaker 1: those deepest layers in our psyche, which consist of impulses,
1:04:25
Speaker 1: recognizes no negative or any form of denial, and resolves
1:04:30
Speaker 1: all contradictions, so that it does not acknowledge its own death,
1:04:35
Speaker 1: to which we can give only a negative content. The
1:04:40
Speaker 1: idea of death finds absolutely no acceptance in our impulses.
1:04:46
Speaker 1: This is perhaps the real secret of heroism. The rational
1:04:51
Speaker 1: basis of heroism is dependent upon the decision that one's
1:04:55
Speaker 1: own life cannot be worth as much as certain abstract
1:04:58
Speaker 1: common ideals. But I believe that instinctive or impulsive heroism
1:05:06
Speaker 1: is much more frequently independent of such motivation and simply
1:05:10
Speaker 1: defies danger on the assurance which animated haunts the stonecutter,
1:05:15
Speaker 1: a character in Ansome Krube, who always said to himself
1:05:19
Speaker 1: nothing can happen to me, or that motivation only serves
1:05:25
Speaker 1: to clear away the hesitations which might restrain the corresponding
1:05:29
Speaker 1: heroic reaction. In the unconscious, the fear of death, which
1:05:34
Speaker 1: controls us more frequently than we are aware, is comparatively secondary,
1:05:40
Speaker 1: and usually the outcome of the consciousness of guilt. On
1:05:45
Speaker 1: the other hand, we recognize the death of strangers and
1:05:48
Speaker 1: of enemies, and sentence them to it just as willingly
1:05:52
Speaker 1: and unhesitatingly as primitive man. Here there is indeed a
1:05:58
Speaker 1: distinction which becomes decisive practice. Our unconscious does not carry
1:06:04
Speaker 1: out the killing. It only thinks and wishes it. But
1:06:09
Speaker 1: it would be wrong to underestimate the psychic reality so
1:06:12
Speaker 1: completely in comparison to the practical reality. It is really
1:06:17
Speaker 1: important and full of serious consequences. In our unconscious we
1:06:24
Speaker 1: daily and hourly do away with all those who stand
1:06:27
Speaker 1: in our way, all those who have insulted or harmed us.
1:06:32
Speaker 1: The expression the devil take him, which so frequently crosses
1:06:37
Speaker 1: our lips in the form of an ill humored jest,
1:06:40
Speaker 1: but by which we really intend to say death take
1:06:43
Speaker 1: him is a serious and forceful death wish in our unconscious. Indeed,
1:06:52
Speaker 1: our unconscious murders, even for trifles. Like the old Athenian
1:06:56
Speaker 1: law of Draco. It knows no other punishment for crime
1:07:00
Speaker 1: than death, and this not without a certain consistency. For
1:07:05
Speaker 1: every injury done to our almighty and self glorifying self
1:07:10
Speaker 1: is at bottom a kremen, lays Magistatis. Thus, if we
1:07:17
Speaker 1: are to be judged by our unconscious wishes, we ourselves
1:07:20
Speaker 1: are nothing but a band of murderers, just like primitive man.
1:07:26
Speaker 1: It is lucky that all wishes do not possess the
1:07:28
Speaker 1: power which people of primitive times attributed to them, for
1:07:34
Speaker 1: in the cross fire of mutual maledictions, mankind would have
1:07:38
Speaker 1: perished long ago, not accepting the best and wisest of men,
1:07:44
Speaker 1: as well as the most beautiful and charming women. As
1:07:50
Speaker 1: a rule, the laymen refuses to believe these theories of psychoanalysis.
1:07:55
Speaker 1: They are rejected as calumnies which can be ignored in
1:07:58
Speaker 1: the face of the assurances of consciousness. While the few
1:08:02
Speaker 1: signs through which the unconscious betrays itself to consciousness are
1:08:06
Speaker 1: cleverly overlooked. It is therefore in place here to point
1:08:10
Speaker 1: out that many thinkers, who could not possibly have been
1:08:13
Speaker 1: influenced by psychoanalysis, have very clearly accused our silent thoughts
1:08:18
Speaker 1: of a readiness to ignore the murder prohibition in order
1:08:22
Speaker 1: to clear away what stands in our path. Instead of
1:08:26
Speaker 1: quoting many examples, I have chosen one which is very famous.
1:08:32
Speaker 1: In his novel Perreglio, Balzac refers to a place in
1:08:37
Speaker 1: the works of Jean Jacques Rousseau where this author asks
1:08:42
Speaker 1: the reader what he would do if, without leaving Paris,
1:08:45
Speaker 1: and of course without being discovered, he could kill an
1:08:50
Speaker 1: old mandarin and pey king with great profit to himself
1:08:55
Speaker 1: by a mere act of the will he makes. Is
1:09:00
Speaker 1: it possible for us to guess that he does not
1:09:02
Speaker 1: consider the life of this dignitary very secure? To kill
1:09:07
Speaker 1: your mandarin has become proverbial for this secret readiness to kill,
1:09:12
Speaker 1: even on the part of people of to day. There
1:09:16
Speaker 1: are also a number of cynical jokes and anecdotes which
1:09:20
Speaker 1: bear witness to the same effect, such is the remark
1:09:23
Speaker 1: attributed to the husband, if one of us dies, I
1:09:27
Speaker 1: shall move to Paris. Such cynical jokes would not be
1:09:31
Speaker 1: possible if they did not have an unavowed truth to reveal,
1:09:34
Speaker 1: which we cannot admit. When it is baldly and seriously stated.
1:09:39
Speaker 1: It is well known that one may even speak the
1:09:41
Speaker 1: truth in jest. A case arises for our consciousness, just
1:09:47
Speaker 1: as it did for primitive man, in which the two
1:09:51
Speaker 1: opposite attitudes towards death, one of which acknowledges it as
1:09:55
Speaker 1: the destroyer of life while the other denies the reality
1:09:58
Speaker 1: of death, clash and come into conflict. The case is
1:10:04
Speaker 1: identical for both. It consists of the death of one
1:10:07
Speaker 1: of our loved ones, of a parent or a partner
1:10:11
Speaker 1: in wedlock, of a brother or a sister, of a child,
1:10:16
Speaker 1: or a friend. These persons we love are, on the
1:10:21
Speaker 1: one hand, a part of our inner possessions and a
1:10:24
Speaker 1: constituent of our own selves. But on the other hand,
1:10:29
Speaker 1: they are also in part strangers and even enemies. Except
1:10:35
Speaker 1: in a few instances, even the tenderest and closest love
1:10:40
Speaker 1: relations also contain a bit of hostility which can rouse
1:10:43
Speaker 1: an unconscious death wish. But at the present day this
1:10:48
Speaker 1: ambivalent conflict no longer results in the development of ethics
1:10:52
Speaker 1: and soul theories, but in neuroses, which also gives us
1:10:57
Speaker 1: a profound insight into the normal psychic life. Doctors who
1:11:03
Speaker 1: practice psychoanalysis have frequently had to deal with the symptom
1:11:06
Speaker 1: of over tender care for the welfare of relatives, or
1:11:10
Speaker 1: with wholly unfounded self reproaches after the death of a
1:11:14
Speaker 1: beloved person. The study of these cases has left them
1:11:19
Speaker 1: in no doubt as to the significance of unconscious death wishes.
1:11:25
Speaker 1: The layman feels an extraordinary horror at the possibility of
1:11:29
Speaker 1: such an emotion, and takes his aversion to it as
1:11:33
Speaker 1: a legitimate ground for disbelief in the assertions of psychoanalysis.
1:11:38
Speaker 1: I think he's wrong. There no debasing of our love
1:11:42
Speaker 1: life is intended, and none such has resulted. It is
1:11:48
Speaker 1: indeed foreign to our comprehension, as well as to our feelings,
1:11:51
Speaker 1: to unite love and hate in this manner. But in
1:11:55
Speaker 1: so far as nature employs these contrasts, she brings it
1:11:59
Speaker 1: about that love is always kept alive and fresh in
1:12:02
Speaker 1: order to safeguard it against the hate that is lurking
1:12:05
Speaker 1: behind it. It may be said that we owe the
1:12:10
Speaker 1: most beautiful unfolding of our love life to the reaction
1:12:13
Speaker 1: against this hostile impulse which we feel in our hearts.
1:12:20
Speaker 1: Let us sum up what we have just said. Our
1:12:23
Speaker 1: unconscious is just as inaccessible to the conception of our
1:12:27
Speaker 1: own death, just as much inclined to kill the stranger,
1:12:31
Speaker 1: and just as divided or ambivalent towards the persons we
1:12:35
Speaker 1: love as was primitive man. But how far we are
1:12:41
Speaker 1: removed from this primitive state in our conventionally civilized attitude
1:12:45
Speaker 1: towards death. It is easy to see how war enters
1:12:51
Speaker 1: into this disunity. War strips off the later deposits of
1:12:57
Speaker 1: civilization and allows the primitive man in us to reappear.
1:13:03
Speaker 1: It forces us again to be heroes who cannot believe
1:13:05
Speaker 1: in their own death. It stamps all strangers as enemies
1:13:09
Speaker 1: whose death we ought to cause or wish. It counsels
1:13:12
Speaker 1: us to rise above the death of those whom we love.
1:13:18
Speaker 1: But war cannot be abolished. As long as the conditions
1:13:22
Speaker 1: of existence among races are so varied and the repulsions
1:13:26
Speaker 1: between them are so vehement, there will have to be wars.
1:13:31
Speaker 1: The question then arises whether we shall be the ones
1:13:34
Speaker 1: to yield and adapt ourselves to it. Shall we not
1:13:39
Speaker 1: admit that, in our civilized attitude towards death. We have
1:13:42
Speaker 1: again lived psychologically beyond our means. Shall we not turn
1:13:48
Speaker 1: around and avow the truth? Were it not better to
1:13:52
Speaker 1: give death the place to which it is entitled, both
1:13:55
Speaker 1: in reality and in our thoughts, and to reveal a
1:13:58
Speaker 1: little more of our uncontent attitude towards death, which up
1:14:02
Speaker 1: to now we have so carefully suppressed. This may not
1:14:08
Speaker 1: appear a very high achievement, and in some respects rather
1:14:12
Speaker 1: a step backwards, a kind of regression. But at least
1:14:16
Speaker 1: it has the advantage of taking the truth into account
1:14:19
Speaker 1: a little more, and of making life more bearable again
1:14:25
Speaker 1: to bear. Life remains, after all, the first duty of
1:14:28
Speaker 1: the living. The illusion becomes worthless if it disturbs us.
1:14:33
Speaker 1: In this we remember the old saying seevis passem para bellum,
1:14:41
Speaker 1: if you wish peace, prepare for war. The times call
1:14:48
Speaker 1: for a paraphrase sivis vitam para mortem. If you wish life,
1:14:57
Speaker 1: prepare for death. End Section two Our Attitude towards Death end.
1:15:10
Speaker 1: Reflections on War and Death by Sigmund Freud. This recording
1:15:17
Speaker 1: is in the public domain.