Quotations from J. B. S. HALDANE

Grey River Argus, 7 September 1939, Page 10

Quotations from J. B. S. HALDANE

We all have little patches of madness, mental cupboards containing skeletons of which we are secretly ashamed, and whose existence we hide from our conscious thought. Freud’s principle is to let in light and air into these cupboards, which is only possible' if we cease to be ashamed of the skeletons.

For example, I should derive considerable satisfaction from bashing in other people’s faces with a spanner. When I got the opportunity of killing other people during the war I enjoyed it very much, though it is now more fashionable to say that one hated every moment of it.

If I were ashamed of that,particular skeleton (which is really a quite respectable relic of primitive man,) I should hide my real motives from myself, invent excellent moral reasons for violence, and go forth in holy anger and pious grief to smite the wicked, or at least encourage others to do so.

As it is I view that kind of moral indigation in myself and . others with profound suspicion, and try to work off my steam in other ways. But if Freud had not encouraged foe to look a little below the surface of my mind I might be preaching war or class war. ;' .■*

Revolution and war are forms of collective lunacy. They may sometimes be the. lesser of two evils, as madness may be the alternative to suicide. But their psychological roots lie deep in bur natures, and they will only be abolished from within. In other words, we shall not understand the mad nation , until we know more about the made-Iman. —“The inequality of Man,” Penguin Books.