Word: humanizer
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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Last week, from his home in exile in London, this 83-year-old disturber of human complacency calmly turned his attention to another topic generally and understandably avoided. This time he psychoanalyzed antiSemitism. What, he asked, are the reasons for a phenomenon of such intensity and lasting strength as popular hatred of the Jews? Economic and political reasons Freud leaves to others; in Moses and Monotheism* he is concerned with hidden motives...
Most powerful force which drives human beings, said Freud, is a primeval sex instinct, the libido. During childhood the libido is bound up with such experiences as eating, excreting and thumbsucking. In later years the libido may be transferred to another person (marriage), may remain grounded in childish sex play (perversion), or may overflow as artistic, literary, or musical creation (sublimation). In fact, said Freud, greatest source of creative work is the sex instinct...
...Blend the wage scale with a profit-sharing differential and the same human being who was previously concentrating his attention on wages will discard the combative spirit-his self-preservation instinct previously centred only on a flat wage scale will cease...
Napoleon and Human Nature...
Napoleon Bonaparte, who needed great soldiers, was firmly convinced that a man would walk through hell for a ribbon to wear on his chest. So French soldiers are among the most decorated fighting men in the world. Finding that Napoleon had judged human nature right, France now gives 25 kinds of civilian decorations,* medals (and lapel ribbons) for rearing big families, turning out a good beet crop, running a business-like prison, doing an average job of teaching school (about half of all French teachers have the Palmes Académiques), putting out fires, collecting taxes...