Albert Einstein was a staunch pacifist. In search of an answer to the question of whether it is possible to end wars, he turned to what he considered the main expert on human nature — Sigmund Freud. Correspondence began between the two geniuses.
In 1931, the Institute for Intellectual Cooperation, at the suggestion of the League of Nations (the prototype of the UN), invited Albert Einstein to exchange views on politics and ways to achieve universal peace with any thinker of his choice. He chose Sigmund Freud, with whom he briefly crossed paths in 1927. Despite the fact that the great physicist was skeptical of psychoanalysis, he admired the work of Freud.
Einstein wrote his first letter to a psychologist on April 29, 1931. Freud accepted the invitation to the discussion, but warned that his view might seem too pessimistic. During the year, the thinkers exchanged several letters. Ironically, they were only published in 1933, after Hitler came to power in Germany, eventually driving both Freud and Einstein out of the country.
Here are some excerpts published in the book “Why do we need war? Letter from Albert Einstein to Sigmund Freud in 1932 and reply to it.
Einstein to Freud
“How does a person allow himself to be driven to such wild enthusiasm that makes him sacrifice his own life? There can be only one answer: the thirst for hatred and destruction is in man himself. In peacetime, this aspiration exists in a hidden form and manifests itself only in extraordinary circumstances. But it turns out to be relatively easy to play with him and inflate him to the power of a collective psychosis. This, apparently, is the hidden essence of the whole complex of factors under consideration, a riddle that only an expert in the field of human instincts can solve. (…)
You are amazed that it is so easy to infect people with war fever, and you think that there must be something real behind it.
Is it possible to control the mental evolution of the human race in such a way as to make it resistant to the psychoses of cruelty and destruction? Here I do not mean only the so-called uneducated masses. Experience shows that more often it is the so-called intelligentsia that tends to perceive this disastrous collective suggestion, since the intellectual does not have direct contact with «rough» reality, but encounters its spiritualistic, artificial form on the pages of the press. (…)
I know that in your writings we can find, explicitly or hintedly, explanations for all manifestations of this urgent and exciting problem. However, you will do us all a great service if you present the problem of world peace in the light of your latest research, and then, perhaps, the light of truth will illuminate the way for new and fruitful ways of action.
Freud to Einstein
“You are amazed that people are so easily infected with war fever, and you think that there must be something real behind this — an instinct of hatred and destruction inherent in the person himself, who is manipulated by warmongers. I fully agree with you. I believe in the existence of this instinct, and quite recently, with pain, I watched its frenzied manifestations. (…)
This instinct, without exaggeration, acts everywhere, leading to destruction and striving to reduce life to the level of inert matter. In all seriousness, it deserves the name of the death instinct, while erotic desires represent the struggle for life.
Going to external targets, the death instinct manifests itself in the form of an instinct of destruction. A living being preserves its life by destroying someone else’s. In some manifestations, the death instinct operates within living beings. We have seen many normal and pathological manifestations of such a conversion of destructive instincts.
We even fell into such a delusion that we began to explain the origin of our conscience by such a «turning» inwards of aggressive impulses. As you understand, if this internal process begins to grow, it is truly terrible, and therefore the transfer of destructive impulses to the outside world should bring relief.
Thus, we arrive at a biological justification for all the vile, pernicious tendencies with which we wage a relentless struggle. It remains to be concluded that they are even more in the nature of things than our struggle with them.
In those happy corners of the earth, where nature bestows its fruits on man in abundance, the life of nations flows in bliss.
A speculative analysis allows us to state with confidence that there is no way to suppress the aggressive aspirations of mankind. They say that in those happy corners of the earth, where nature bestows its fruits on man in abundance, the life of peoples flows in bliss, not knowing coercion and aggression. I find it hard to believe (…)
The Bolsheviks also seek to end human aggressiveness by guaranteeing the satisfaction of material needs and by prescribing equality between people. I believe that these hopes are doomed to failure.
Incidentally, the Bolsheviks are busily improving their weapons, and their hatred of those who are not with them plays a far from least important role in their unity. Thus, as in your statement of the problem, the suppression of human aggressiveness is not on the agenda; the only thing we can do is try to let off steam in a different way, avoiding military clashes.
If the propensity for war is caused by the instinct of destruction, then the antidote to it is Eros. Everything that creates a sense of community between people serves as a remedy against wars. This community can be of two types. The first is such a connection as attraction to the object of love. Psychoanalysts do not hesitate to call it love. Religion uses the same language: «Love your neighbor as yourself.» This pious judgment is easy to utter but difficult to execute.
The second possibility of achieving generality is through identification. Everything that emphasizes the similarity of people’s interests makes it possible to manifest a sense of community, identity, on which, by and large, the entire building of human society is based.(…)
War takes away a hopeful life; she humiliates the dignity of a person, forcing him to kill his neighbors against his will
The ideal state for society is, obviously, the situation when each person submits his instincts to the dictates of reason. Nothing else can bring about such a complete and such a lasting union between people, even if it creates gaps in the network of mutual community of feelings. However, the nature of things is such that it is nothing more than a utopia.
Other indirect methods of preventing war are, of course, more feasible, but cannot lead to quick results. They are more like a mill that grinds so slowly that people would rather starve to death than wait for it to grind.” (…)
Every person has the ability to surpass himself. War takes away a hopeful life; it humiliates the dignity of a person, forcing him to kill his neighbors against his will. It destroys material wealth, the fruits of human labor and much more.
In addition, modern methods of warfare leave little room for true heroism and can lead to the complete annihilation of one or both belligerents, given the high sophistication of modern methods of destruction. This is so true that we need not ask ourselves why the waging of war has not yet been prohibited by a general decision.