The Wilmington morning star., 1946-12-14
Emotional Deficiency

A
Fond mothers who ruin their children's lives
by blocking the young peoples proper emo
tional growth are the subject of a new book
largely based on draft statistics from the late
war. The figures show halt a million draft
dodgers, more than 1900, 900 men rejected at
ine:'c.'"1 as psychoneurotics and another
|H \ and women discharged after in
the same reason. Here are three
a. --.nesses to a tragic failure OF Ameri-
can pa ents, Cor the greater part American
mothers.
This morning we are not interested in the
writer's main thesis but in the arithmetic. The
three million emotionally unstable young 1nen
and women Of the Second World War send
the mind back at once to the famous Army In.
telligence Tests of an earlier World War. The
1918 figures revealed a catastrophically low
intelligence q~uotient. There Is no room here
for detail, but many a reader viii recall how
frequently in the years after the 1918 arms
tice we we're asked to think about the Arneri-
can people as a nation with the Average men
tai age Of a 12-year-old child, with the dire
consequences which such a mentality implied.
so what happened to this American nation
Of 12-year Odds between the First World War
and today? Here there is no room for detail
or even for anything like an adequate outline.
We can only set down three main heads Of
discourse.
/. In this field Of literature and the arts this
period after 1918 is now proudly described as
our national Renaissance. America came q
age in those years, casting off the. infantilest
leading strings Of its colonial-Puritan past.
2. In public life we have gone Tar toward
creating a new structure of economic relations
based on the immutable principles o. social
justice. 1t has been an era Of gratifying social
progress.
3. Toward the end Of this period the Aneri-
can people were confronted with the task of
helping to win a second World War against
the worst threat which civilization has ever
had to face. We made a magnificent contribu-
ton to the joint victory over Hitler, exhibiting
in the process a miracle o. industrial discipline
and organization.
So here you have thirty years ago an Ameri-
can nation supposedly made up OF mental H.
year-olds who somehow c~ontrive to build up a
mature adult intellectual life. and carry
through a w~ideransing social New Deal, and
do their full share in winning a World War.
That is why some of us may find ourselves
just a bit doubtful about all those three million
psychoneurotics of today. Thirty years ago
there were severe critics Of al Army intelli-
gence test applied to a nation in peace, and
today WI may have the same reservations
about the difference between peace and war
in estimating the number Of our psychoneu-
rotics.
And then again we find ourselves pausing
over a page in the White-Jacoby Thunder
VI ILL HID IcAlSSsAIS uOW AlCdNAJ JIG
game is fixed against the common man by
modern psychology. Our authors, having
drawn a grim and moving picture Of Chinese
peasant toll and poverty, go on 10 mention two
alleviating factors in which foreigners find
an intoxicating charm" It is the national
humor and the love Of gossip. "An almost
Puckish sense OF humor is wonderfully Ingram
ed in the Chinese national character. "A
Of people in the streets or village tea
houses ripples with rollicking laughter. They
have a broad practical sense OF fun that de.
lights in the humiliation of pcmpous chsrsct-
ers, the cut Of foreigners clothes, intricate
plays on words" As Cor gossip, it runs like
quicksilver from hut to hut and whispering
to listening ear. 1t covers the entire |
range of human affairs"
But then the reader is brought to a stop
when the following paragraph begins as fol-
ows 'The substratum Of this lie is emotional
Since most Of the peasants are il
they can enjoy neither books nor
They have no moving pictures,
no radios"
At this point one reader found himself think
ing how often he has. seen the argument turn
ed just the other way against cur own Ameri-
can common people. They 20 in so much for
pictures and radios, Cor newspaper
and silly books because they are emo
.tionally starved. They cannot find release in
the healthy primitive exercise Of loud laughter
and lusty gossip at the village fountain. That
is how modern psychology has you going and
Having made up its mind that prac-
tically everybody is emotionally starved, it
finds that Americans are emctionally starved
when they turn for vicarious release to the
radio and the movies, and Chinese peasants
are emotionally starved even if they laugh
their heads off listening to indicate Jokes
and comic limitations at the crossroads.-New
York Times