Evening star., 1939-01-22

scolded or preached back to sanity. The
reason man is acting DECENTRALIZATION
the viewpoint of society-must be found
and eliminated. The psychotic does not
know why he thinks and acts as he does
The doctor must find it out for him.
One of William A. Whites great contri-
buttons was to extend this philosophy of
the man of medicine from the individual
to society as whole. This is the work
which the foundation established in his
memory is trying to carry on. 1t is not
case of doctors becoming politicians.
They usually make poor ones 1t is
almost the reverse-politics being brought
into the discipline of medicine and its
problems solved by comparison with
what has been learned from studies of
the most populous of the societies-the
countless billions of little citizen-cells
that make up the bodies and minds of
men.
Diagnosed As Hate Disease.
One Of the outstanding leaders who is
carrying on the traditions of DR.. White
is DR.. Harry Stack Sullivan, noted
American psychiatrist and one of the
directors of the foundation. DR.. Sullivan
has made one of the first diagnoses
of malady of society-an apparent
ly spreading malady which may have
terrible consequences unless the doctors
not the politicians nor the economists
nor the sociologists-can get at its roots
in time.
DR.. Sullivan describes it in the society's
journal as strange, weird hate disease
that is affecting the mind of Christen-
dom. 1t is precisely the same sort of
malady for which a person would be
locked up in ST. Elizabeth's-if only the
rare individual were afflicted by it rather
than the vast majority. st. Elizabeths
is not big enough to hold Christendom
and the sane elements of society are
pityfully inadequate to lock up the insane
elements.
DR.. Sullivan has diagnosed the disease.
1t is an axiom among followers of the
psychoanalytical school of psychiatry
that when the real cause of PATHOLOGICAL
behavior is revealed to the patient he
will usually recognize it and stop be-
having that way. DR.. Sullivan doesn't
expect to cure Christendom but he does
urge everybody to examine their own
minds obJectively, determine for them
selves whether what he says is not true,
and then stop acting that way.
Most Widespread Hatred.
The disease is race hatred-particu-
larly at the present moment. anti
Semltlsm. 1t is. he says, "the most wide
spread hatred in the Western World to-
day 1t has been made the national
creed by at least one state. A trend in
this direction is being manifested bv the
other totalitarian powers and there is
disturbing responsiveness to the formula
IN many of the citizens of more demo-
cratic countries.
Hatred under any circumstances can
scarcely be constructive. It is essentially
a destructive motivation. Irrational ha-
tired can be assumed to be detrimental to
the hater and the hated, and to others
among whom the hatred is manifested
Widespread hatred of group of citizens
who make up an important minority in
democracy is contravention of the phi
losophy of the state which stultifies the
haters and diminishes their feeling of
security in the governmental system un-
der which they are living.
Now, of course. anybody can denounce
race hatred, and that is all the good it
does. Folks who hate irrationally are not
greatly influenced by denunciation or
reasoning. DR.. Sullivan drops the role of
denouncer and preacher and becomes the
doctor. There are lots of individuals in
insane asylums who hate irrationally, the
major symptom of whose ailments Is ir-
rational destructiveness against society as
a whole or some element of it In the
case of suicides the hate and destructive
ness is turned on the self, and some of
the societies of the Western world lust
now are revealing pronounced suicidal
tendencies.
1t isn't very complimentary to the
German dictator and some of his fol-
lowers-but it is entirely possible that
the reason they hate their Jewish neigh
bors so intensely is because they really
hated their mothers and fathers, gagged
on this kind of hatred, and had to find
some convenient place to put it.
This sort of diagnosis may be, or may
not be, rather far-fetched Some psy-
chiatrists will agree with it whole
heartedly and others will disagree. It
is given here as an example of the sort
OF thing the William A. White Psychiatric
Foundation is trying to do-get at the
bottom of the ills of society in the way
OF the physician. DR.. Sullivan may have
made wrong diagnosis. The point is
that he has attacked the problem of
anti-Semitism in precisely the same way
that he would have attacked the problem
OF cyclothenia or cancer of the duo
denum or athletes xoot-and not in the
way Of the lawyer or the politician or
the sociologist.
1t is something new in the world-a
new science which will go ,haywire at
times but which is replete with marvellous
promise for the future. 1t is being de-
veloped in Washington and may we'll bs
DR.. Whites heritage to humanity.