In 1932, Albert Einstein, already world famous for his work in physics and mathematics, wrote a letter to another distinguished thinker, Sigmund Freud.  Einstein was deeply troubled by the memory of World War I, which had ended only fourteen years before.  Ten million men had died on the battlefields of Europe, for reasons that no one could logically explain.  Like many others who had lived through that war, Einstein was horrified by the thought that human life could be destroyed on such a massive scale and worried that there might be another war.  He considered that Freud, the world’s leading psychologist, might throw light on the question ‘Why do men make war?’

“Dear Professor Freud,” he wrote.  “Is there any way of delivering mankind from the menace of war?”  Einstein spoke of “that small but determined group, active in every nation, composed of individuals who …  regard warfare, the manufacture and sale of arms, simply as an occasion to advance their personal interests and enlarge their personal authority.”  And then he asked, “How is it possible for this small clique to bend the will of the majority, who stand to lose and suffer by a state of war, to the service of their ambitions?”

Einstein volunteered an answer, “Because man has within him a lust for hatred and destruction.”  And then he put his final question to Freud, “Is it possible to control a man’s mental evolution so as to make him proof against the psychoses of hate and destructiveness?”

Freud responded, “You surmise that man has in him an active instinct for hatred and destruction, amenable to such stimulations.  I entirely agree with you …. The most casual glance at world-history will show an unending series of conflicts between one community and another.”  Freud pointed to two fundamental instincts in human beings: the erotic, or love, instinct and its opposite, the destructive instinct.  But the only hope he could hold for the erotic triumphing over the destructive was in the cultural development of the human race, including “a strengthening of the intellect, which tends to master our instinctive life.”

But what is Freud’s evidence for the existence of such an instinct?  There is something curious in his argument.  He offers no proof from the field of his expertise, psychology.  His evidence is in “the most casual glance at world-history.”

- Howard Zinn – Declarations of Independence

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The seventeenth-century philosopher Thomas Hobbes said, “I put forth a general inclination of all mankind, a perpetual and restless desire for power after power, that ceaseth only in death.”  This view of human nature led Hobbes to favor any kind of government, however authoritarian, that would keep the peace by blocking what he thought was the natural inclination of people to do violence to one another.  He talked about “the dissolute condition of masterless men” that required “a coercive power to tie their hands from rapine and revenge.”

Beliefs about human nature thus become self-fulfilling prophecies.  If you believe human beings are naturally violent and bad, you may be persuaded to think (although not required to think) that it is “realistic” to be that way yourself.  But is it indeed realistic (meaning, “I regret this, but it’s a fact ….”) to blame war on human nature.

- Howard Zinn – Declarations of Independence

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“Of all the vulgar modes of escaping from the consideration of the effect of social and moral influences upon the human mind, the must vulgar is that of attributing the diversities of conduct and character to inherent natural differences” – nineteenth century English philosopher John Stuart Mill.

- Howard Zinn – Declarations of Independence

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For the idea that any means – mass murder, the misuse of science, the corruption of professionalism – are acceptable to achieve the end of national power, the ultimate example of our time is Hiroshima.  For us, as citizens, the experience of Hiroshima and Nagasaki suggests that we reject Machiavelli, that we do not accept subservience, whether to princes or presidents, and that we examine for ourselves the ends of public policy to determine whose interests they really serve.  We must examine the means used to achieve those ends to decide if they are compatible with equal justice for all human beings on earth.

- Howard Zinn – Declarations of Independence

Wondering what has changed? Read about it here.