Psychoanalysis: the hidden I
Psychoanalysis: the hidden I
Is there a way of freeing humankind from the threat of war? Can human aggression be channeled to help protect people against the impulses of hatred and destruction? These questions were put to Sigmund Freud in an anxious letter from Albert Einstein dated 30 July 1932, when Fascist and Nazi violence was spreading in Europe. The father of psychoanalysis, whom Einstein described as an "expert in the lore of human instincts", replied two months later, spelling out his thoughts on the psychical foundations of behaviour and defining possible ways in which the conflicts rending humanity could be brought to a halt.
Their correspondence was published in 1933, under the title Why War?, by Unesco's precursor, the International Institute of Intellectual Cooperation. With a number of other exchanges between leading thinkers of the day, it constitutes one of the most remarkable initiatives taken by the League of Nations (whose mission was taken over by the United Nations Organization in 1946) to preserve the spirit of peace at a time when it was increasingly under threat.
Sixty years on, this littleknown document has lost none of its interest or validity. Salient extracts from Einstein's letter appeared in the May 1985 issue of the Unesco Courier entitled "Forty Years After, commemorating the end of World War II". Now for the first time we publish Sigmund Freud's reply, in slightly abridged form.
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Discover also Albert Einstein's letter to Sigmund Freud
