Evening star., 1932-10-09
CIVILIZATION AND ITS DISCONTENIS. BY
Sipmund Freud. New York Jonathan Cape
and Harrison Smith.

phones bath rooms and electric ice
boxes, diphtherie anti-toxin and ad-
renalin, asphalt roads and radios now seem /.
SO indispensable that we wonder how our grand
fathers were able to endure the sad pilgrimage
of life without them. Yet the tangible accre-
tion to the sum total of happiness is negligible
Possibly the greater the progress OF civilization
the greater the misery of those who take part
in it.
In his latest work Freud ventures to at
tack. this paradox by an extension of his we'll
known theories His deductions are, at the
least, thought-provoking and cannot be ignored
by those who would go to the roots of society's
growing tensions.
It is largely a result, as the great Austrian
psychiatrist sees it, of the eternal struggle OF
Eros and Thanatos in the human breast. The
application of material advances brings about
increasing complexity of the social structure
This, in turn. requires a greater and ever
greater extension of Eros, the principle of love
and creation. in its sublimated form as ex-
pressed in the Golden Rule. Thanatos, the
drive to death, and its disguised form, the
drive to destruction, must be submerged. But
it cannot be submerged successfully. It takes
on other disguises and appears as worries, frets
and compulsions. AS satisfaction of ones
sadstic drives on ones neighbor is increasingly
frowned upon, 1t is turned on ones self.
Freud offers only an explanation-not So
luton He admits frankly that he personally
is unable to experience an element in the prob
seems to them a way out-through religion
FREUD AND HIS TINES Fritz Wittels
JUST at present being Freudian is out OF
- fashion in the United States. Only yester-
day the Oedpus complex, dream analysis am
bivalence and the result of the psychoanalytical
haberdashery constituted the proper philo-
sophical attire, without which self respecting
intellectual" would have allowed his mind to
appear in public. Tomorrow, it is likely, these
will all be back in style again.
The present American eclipse of Freudian-
ism seems to be an instance in part at least
Of that very ambivalence of the emotions surg
ing out of the unconscious which the great
Viennese himself is best equipped to explain.
It is not in any event, entirely rational-no
more so than the equally uncritical acceptance
of the psychoanalytical doctrines in this coun-
try decade or more ago.
For the time being American psychologists
declare that Freudianism is unscientific. Ply
sicians say it is Ineffective. Clergymen say it
is irreligious. Educators insist that it is i'm
moral Freud's books circulate surreptitiously
through boarding school dormitories. But 1t Is
too hard task even fer the sophomores
adolescent mind to read much nastiness into
the verbal outpourngs of the sage. Angry over
his inability to find something dirty, the soph-
omore joins with his pcychclogy professor in
condemnation.
Here is one element-ptrnaps not particu-
larly important one-in the condemnation Of
Freud. Few of his critics ever have read one
of his books. But that is only incidental.
American education has pretty well established
its position that reading a book in order to
form a critical judgment of it is superhuous.
Any good efficiency engineer-to whose profess
sion so many American psychologists have
bartered their minds-will vouch for the ridicu-
lous waste of time and energy involved in the
old-fashioned critical procedure of reading be-
fore criticizing
One might suspect that, in the present stage,
it is un-American and irreligious to 60 beyond
extracts and popularizers in forming opinion
regarding any school of thought. 1t constitutes
diSloyalty to the great god Superfciality. It is
curious to behold the behaviorist and the fun
damentalist joining hands in righteous con-
demnation of Freud.
Perhaps it is a truism that an accepted
philosophy is function of time and place, en-
tirely regardless of any objective validity. It
must fit into the wishful thinking of the gen.
Grafton which contemplates it. 1t must provide
material for naturalization of the objectives
of the mass Id to use a Freudan term.
Following the war there was breakdown of
Victorian morality. generation striving to
break through the moral code of its fathers by
naturalization was attracted by Freuds reputed
ideas on sex. 1t suspected that there was
supply of conscience-salve here. Freud was
briefly idolized because of the outpourings of
his wishful interpreters. Then some bold spirits
actually went to Freud himself and found, be-
meath his ponderosity, only support for cleanli-
ness and decency. In righteous rage the mob
started throwing stones at the erstwhie idol
Following the wa- America enjoyed an
exampled economic prosperity. In order to
enjoy this to the utmost it was necessary to
create about it an absurd illusion Of perma-
nence. The creation of this illusion required
the rigorous exclusion from consideration of
any factors lying below the surface of be-
havior. One must declare them unreal and re-
peat the declaration, in the fashion of the late
Emile Coue, until one actually believed it. One
must condemn as gross superstition belief in the