In the April issue I had discussed “Right View” as the basis for satisfactory human conduct and in the Buddhist “Eightfold Noble Path” it is followed by “Right Thought.” The official text lists as its aspects: the resolution not to cherish desires, not to be greedy, not to be angry, and not to do any harmful deed. While these four “don’ts” are useful universal guidelines, which can be followed by different people to different extents, there are also some additional practical aspects of wrong thinking which we encounter in our daily lives. These need to be exposed because conduct depends on it and when it occurs in persons who are in leadership positions immeasurable harm results.

One is the idea that if I think or feel in a given way so does, or at least should, everybody else. I have linked thinking and feeling because there is always, as has been mentioned in April, an emotional undercurrent to our thinking which, although unperceived, is nevertheless real. “Wishful thinking” is not an exception but more commonly the rule although it is usually not acknowledged as such and hidden behind a variety of rationalizations. It can pervade even what is regarded as objective science and expresses itself in unwarranted generalizations.

Another faulty thought pattern is the either-or, true-false, right-wrong, good-evil dichotomy, for which there is no middle ground. It has, of course, its appropriate uses but when it becomes the dominant thought form it is bound to lead to false conclusions and potential disasters. The presidency of George W Bush is an obvious example of where it can lead to. Although he is out of office now the thinking pattern persists in some influential minds and its fallacy needs to be exposed. Although unwarranted generalizations and either-or thinking are here treated separately it will be apparent that they frequently occur together in regard to some specific occurrences.

Let me now give some examples for inappropriate generalizations which have created a great deal of harm. One is from medicine and specifically psychiatry, where the uncritical acceptance of Freud’s theories has not only set the field back by nearly one hundred years but has also produced undesirable social consequences. While psychiatry is now finding its way back to where the biologic origin of the major mental illnesses is again recognized as fact, the social consequences will haunt us for years to come. When I started my specialty training in this country the idea that aspects of brain function should be explored as potential causes of mental illness was regarded as anachronistic because psychoanalysis was thought to have conclusively shown that aberrant behavior was a result of early childhood trauma, usually sexual, which had been repressed but had led to the current symptoms of the patient. The ubiquity of the Oedipus complex as the root of all, rather than some, neurotic behavior was accepted as scientific fact not only by the psychiatric profession but through movies and popular literature by the general population.   Because Freud had been conflicted in regard to his early desires for his mother and had experienced his father as a rival, he assumed that everybody else must have shared these feelings. In a letter of October 1897 he wrote to his friend Wilhelm Fliess about the progress in his self-analysis,

“Being entirely honest with oneself is a good exercise. One single idea of general value [emphasis added] has occurred to me. I have found love of the mother and jealousy of the father in my own case, and now believe it to be a general phenomenon of early childhood. . . . If that is the case, the gripping power of Oedipus Rex, in spite of all the rational objections to the inexorable fate that the story presupposes, becomes intelligible. . . . Every member [emphasis added] of the audience was once a budding Oedipus in phantasy, and this dream fulfillment played out in reality causes everyone to recoil in horror, with the full measure of repression which separates his infantile from his present state.”

 The quote was taken from Schur’s book, Freud: Living and Dying. It is a very valuable resource because Max Schur was Freud’s physician during his long illness from 1928-1939 and the book includes not only personal data but also previously unpublished letters which shed light on the genesis of Freud’s thoughts.  

Freud’s living arrangements during infancy and early childhood were far from typical. Sigmund’s mother Amalie was not the father’s first wife but there is no information whether she had died or there had been a divorce. There had, however, been two boys from that marriage who by the time of Sigmund’s birth in 1856 were already in young adulthood. What is more important is that Jakob and Amalie Freud lived in a rented room of a house where the lower floor contained the owner’s workshop, who was a locksmith, while the upper floor had two rooms. One was for the owner and his wife the other for the Freud family. Sigismund Schlomo (his birth name) spent the first three years of his life in that house and the single room witnessed first the birth and death of his brother Julius (1857-1858) and subsequently Anna’s birth in 1858. The older sons lived with their families nearby. It is obvious that young Sigismund had been exposed to “the facts of life” at an unusually early age which may well have made an indelible impression. It is, however, equally obvious that this type of living arrangement is uncommon, especially in our society, and that ideas which result from these experiences need not have general validity.

The above cited letter, without the ellipses which have condensed the content without doing violence to the context, is also reproduced in The Origins of Psycho-Analysis. Letters to Wilhelm Fliess, Drafts and Notes: 1887-1902 by Sigmund Freud, which is likewise most helpful in our understanding of how Freud arrived at his theories. Just as in the case of Nietzsche one cannot get a flavor of the person when one reads only his publications and critiques of them. Letters by the individual are of critical importance because, although to some extent also self-serving, they reveal the doubts and conflicts the creative individual has to undergo and which do not appear in official biographies.

Wilhelm Fliess (1858-1928) was a well known ENT specialist in Berlin who had, however, wider interests especially in the area of sexuality which formed the nexus with Freud. Fliess believed that the nose was also a sexual organ and he insisted that the bisexuality of human beings should be taken greater cognizance of. In addition he had developed the idea of biologic rhythms beyond the well known 28 day cycle. It made a brief reappearance in the 60s and 70s of the past century and one was able to determine, via a simple calculator, auspicious days in one’s cycle for various endeavors. It can still be found on the Internet where one is encouraged to try it for oneself. For the years of 1887 to about the summer of 1900, when the last personal meeting between them took place, Fliess had become the main sounding board for Freud’s nascent psychoanalytic ideas. 

The 1890’s were the critical period; Freud’s neurological interests had ended with the publications on Aphasia as well as Cerebral Palsy in 1891 and the collaboration with his friend and mentor Josef Breuer on the Studies of Hysteria began thereafter. The negative reaction of the Viennese psychiatric establishment to his presentation of the data was mentioned in a letter to Fliess (April 6, 1896) where Freud regarded his colleagues as asses (Eseln) because they did not recognize that he had shown them “the solution of a thousands of years old problem, a caput Nili. [the origin of the Nile, had been a hotly debated subject until firmly established by Stanley in 1872].” The unkindest cut of all came from Krafft- Ebbing, the author of the widely read Psychopathia Sexualis, with the statement that, “it sounds like a scientific fairy tale.”

But Freud persevered and upon the death of his father in October of 1896 he embarked on his self-analysis which culminated in The Interpretation of Dreams, published in 1899. In 1902 he received his professorship and how this event came about is documented in a letter to Fliess which he wrote on November 3 of that year. But this success also marked the end of the friendship which had, as mentioned, begun to fray in the summer of 1900. At their last meeting Fliess had expressed the opinion that temporary improvements in Freud’s patients were not necessarily the result of therapy but could be related to cyclical events which must also occur in the mind as well as the body. Furthermore, he had commented that “the thought reader reads only his own thoughts in those of others.” This was regarded by Freud as an unpardonable affront and Freud began to collect his own disciple for whom he became the father figure. Fliess was no longer needed.

Nevertheless, Fliess had been right and the identification of one’s own thoughts with those of others is an unfortunate common fact of life. I don’t deny that Freud had made major contributions to the understanding and especially popularization of the Unconscious, but he neither invented the concept nor could the theories be validated by the treatment results of actual patients. As mentioned in War&Mayhem, Schopenhauer (1788-1860) had already discussed unconscious motives underlying behavior and his ideas were subsequently fleshed out by Nietzsche (1844-1900). But when I wrote the mentioned book I had been unaware that there had existed in addition the massive Philosophie des Unbewussten by Eduard von Hartmann (1842-1906) which had been published in two volumes in 1869. In his youth Freud had been a voracious reader of philosophical subjects and he had also attended courses on philosophy at the university. He was, therefore, quite familiar with the major philosophical trends of the time. Thus, the Unconscious, which Freud took up as his life’s work was a hotly debated issue at the time and the major limitation of Freud’s efforts was what may be called its exclusive “sexualization.” For him libido was the one and only determinant, although he played for some time with the thought of a death drive to balance the concept.

This materialistic outlook on life was also responsible for Freud’s atheism, which is another example of, “because I do not experience what you say you do, you must be wrong.” One hundred years ago Freud regarded religion as an “illusion” while Dawkins relegated it to the realm of “delusion” in this century. The books by Hitchens, Harris as well as Dawkins, which were discussed in last month’s installment, are a typical example for modern times. They demonstrate not only the thought pattern as described above but additionally the either-or thinking. Furthermore, there is frequently no distinction made between religion as a personal experience versus the exercise thereof as a member of a specific denomination with its articles of faith. This muddled thinking makes good polemics but is not helpful in creating understanding between people with different belief systems. In addition it leads to intolerance of the views of others, as so clearly expressed in the mentioned books.

The problem is compounded when one does not distinguish between “experiential truths,” as known by all human beings, and “revealed truth” which is the subject of religious discussions. The latter is personal and belongs to what William James has discussed in The Variety of Religious Experiences. Confirmed militant atheists do not want to see this distinction and harp on the documented abuses of religion for secular purposes, as if these were the only aspects. In addition, the idea of God is regarded as a relic of mankind’s past which does not withstand the rigors of modern science. I have discussed the limitations of science on other occasions and need, therefore, add only one additional comment. Our science is based on vision and even when we listen via SETI for messages from outer space, we watch wiggles on a computer screen. Furthermore, scientific work demands measurement which likewise requires eyesight. The notion that something cannot exist because it cannot be visualized and measured, is unsustainable.

In Dennett’s book, Breaking the Spell, which I discussed last month, I found an interesting sentence in regard to evolution of the brain and the potential survival value of a “God center.” He quoted from Dawkins’ The God Delusion, “If neuroscientists find a ‘god center’ in the brain, Darwinian scientists like me want to know why the god center evolved.” Dennett continued, “… we don’t have an innate chocolate-ice cream center in the brain, after all, or a nicotine center.”  This statement immediately triggered a thought, “Yes Professor Dennett, the search for a God “center” would indeed be just as fruitless as that for a nicotine center, but we do have nicotine “receptors.” The extent to which they are connected to pleasure centers in our brains determines whether or not a given person will become addicted to nicotine or can readily give up smoking after a few trials because it doesn’t have any positive effect, as happens to be the case in my own situation.” This is again an example were unfounded generalizations break down and our statements need to be nuanced in order to be truthful. Could individuals with genuine mystical experiences have what may be called “God receptors” in their brain, which enable them to receive meaningful messages which are not perceived by others? Do all of us have them but in various degrees of expressivity? There is no way of knowing, but to categorically state that this could not be so is also unwarranted.

The anthropological explanation of religion as expressed in the previously mentioned books neglected an additional factor. When we look at the history of today’s major world religions we are told about a founder who had some type of revelation. Moses was confronted by the Lord in the burning bush, the symbolism of which seems not to be fully appreciated. According to legend Prometheus brought fire to the human race which he stole from Hephaestus smithy.  But there may also be an additional celestial fire which illuminates and invests but does not consume, as symbolized in the Bible story. Once an individual has an experience of this sort it needs to be put into words. Rationalizations occur thereafter and the individual may set out on a new path in life. For Moses the task was to bring the Hebrews out from Egypt; for the prophets including Jesus to bring the wayward Jews back to God, and for Muhammad to bring the message of the One God to his polytheistic people. It is at this stage where the original message can become garbled and human ambition can dictate further events leading to the establishment of a given religion, with all of its human faults. 

If we define God as “an unseen spiritual force that has a personal interest in us and can influence our lives in a variety of ways” atheists seem to have two main objections. One is that God is privy to all of our thoughts, which a number of people find intolerable. This problem is, however, strictly attitudinal. Instead of being afraid of what God will find in the hidden recesses of our minds one can also say, “Look at this mess; now please help me to clean it up!” The other stumbling block is the “supernatural” quality of God. In this instance we may again be prisoners of our words and thoughts. Physicists tell us that any number of parallel universes could exist in addition to ours. Might we, therefore, be better off to consider what we now call supernatural as “paranatural?” Can there be a parallel universe where its sentient beings are not dominated by the sense of vision and therefore locked onto forms, but where energy, including psychic energy, is the dominant principle? Might the thoughts of these beings sometimes intrude into our world? These are questions to which there are no answers; but why foreclose the issue?

While psychology and religion were examples for the “because I feel a given way, therefore everybody else does so,” the phenomenon is also observable in politics where it has even graver consequences in the form of war. Last week PBS aired a program on the destruction of the French fleet by the British Royal Navy at Mers el Kebir. This is a little known episode of WWII but was at least in part responsible for America’s entry into the war. When Churchill became Prime Minister on June 10 1940, the day Hitler had started the invasion of Holland, Belgium and France, he thought that the French and British armies could contain the German advance. But this idea became untenable within a few days and Churchill saw himself confronted with the specter of the German army looking at him from across at the channel. He knew that if France fell England would not be able to win the war and American assistance became, therefore, essential. This is the point where habitual thought patterns led to decisions which had fateful outcomes. Assuming what the adversary will do on basis of what you would do was one of the miscalculations which led to WWII in the first place.

The war originated largely in the minds of four people: Hitler, Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt. The rest of the world’s population had become pawns in their hands to suffer the consequences of their thoughts. I am bringing this up now because Americans still believe that they have a voice in the foreign policy decisions which are being made for them. The facts are, however, that not only has history been distorted by political propaganda but what we receive today as “news” in the media is not only slanted for political purposes but becomes the history of the future.

Contrary to current popular belief Hitler harbored no animosity against the British and their empire because as part of the Nordic race they would keep the rest of the world’s “inferior races” in their place. His mind was that of a soldier who had served during WWI in the infantry and his goal was the destruction of the Soviet Union in order to gain Lebensraum (living space) for the German people. He had no interest in a war with England, let alone America, and had made this quite clear in the 1935 naval agreement with Britain where he voluntarily limited the size of his fleet. The Navy did not interest him and the purpose of the Air Force was to support the troops on the ground rather than engage in strategic bombing of the enemy’s cities. With other words he wanted strictly a land war where superior forces and technology would overcome the weaker enemy by surprise and with lightning speed. Because he was thinking in terms of “land” and wanted nothing from the British he assumed that they would understand and let him have his way. When they failed to follow his line of thinking and instead declared war on September 3^rd there was profound disappointment in Berlin because none of the Nazi bigwigs from Hitler on down had wanted this to happen. The war in the West was truly forced on Hitler against his will.

Hitler’s main adversary in England was Churchill who harbored a visceral disdain against him, which was heartily reciprocated by Hitler, and precluded any type of agreement. But up until September 3^rd 1939 he was out of power and could only vent his feelings in the press and the House of Commons. The essential point is that in contrast to the continent bound Hitler, Churchill, who was born and raised on an island, loved the Navy (he had been for some time First Lord of the Admiralty during WWI) and saw the world in global terms. For him naval power was the way to win wars by blockading the enemy, thereby depriving him of vital supplies, including food for the civilian population. This would be aided by air power which would destroy the enemy’s industrial capacity, terrorize the civilian population, and thereby induce surrender without having to fight major land battles for which the British were not equipped.

Since Churchill firmly believed in strategic bombing he had urged from 1935 on for Britain to build a bomber fleet and he used exaggerated numbers of German airplane production to gain his goal. With other words: since he thought that this was the best way to win a war he assumed that Hitler would think the same way. This was not the case and Germany started to build long range bombers only after the Brits had done so. Naval supremacy was likewise an essential aspect of Churchill’s thinking which had no counterpart in Hitler’s. Yet, it was this idea which led Churchill to issue the order for the Mers el Kebir attack.

With the impending fall of France, Churchill had become increasingly concerned about what he regarded as an imminent invasion danger, and he appealed to Roosevelt, as another “navy man,” to send him fifty destroyers to help counteract the threat. But Roosevelt had an election to win in November and his campaign, just like that of Wilson in 1916, stressed that he would keep America out of a European war. When the destroyer request was denied Churchill was in serious difficulty. France had surrendered on June 22^nd and Churchill’s main concern was the fate of the French fleet. For him it was obvious that it would now come under German command. Jointly with the Italian navy the British would be heavily outgunned and the island could indeed be readily invaded. But this was not a fact; it was only a reasonable assumption by a person who thought in terms of naval power. 

As mentioned above, Hitler was not interested in navies, which was again demonstrated in the armistice agreement of June 22^nd.  I have, so far, been unable to get a copy of the original German and French texts and have had to rely on Wikipedia’ s English version. The salient aspects of Article VIII are reproduced below,

“The French war fleet is to collect in ports to be designated more particularly, and under German and/or Italian control to demobilize and lay up -— with the exception of those units released to the French Government for protection of French interests in its colonial empire. 

Clause 1 The peacetime stations of ships should control the designation of ports. Clause 2 The German Government solemnly declares to the French Government that it does not intend to use the French War Fleet which is in harbors under German control for its purposes in war, with the exception of units necessary for the purposes of guarding the coast and sweeping mines. Clause 3 It further solemnly and expressly declares that it does not intend to bring up any demands respecting the French War Fleet at the conclusion of a peace. Clause 4 All warships outside France are to be recalled to France with the exception of that portion of the French War Fleet which shall be designated to represent French interests in the colonial empire.”

In addition to these provisions, which clearly stated that the Germans only wanted the French fleet to be neutralized for the duration of the war, Admiral Darlan, Commander of the French Navy, had given his assurance to the British that he had ordered the fleet to be scuttled in case Germany violated the agreement. Nevertheless, Churchill issued on July 3 an ultimatum to the French commander at Mers el Kebir,

“… His Majesty's Government have instructed me to demand that the French Fleet now at Mers el Kebir and Oran shall act in accordance with one of the following alternatives; (a) Sail with us and continue the fight until victory against the Germans. (b) Sail with reduced crews under our control to a British port. The reduced crews would be repatriated at the earliest moment. If either of these courses is adopted by you we will restore your ships to France at the conclusion of the war or pay full compensation if they are damaged meanwhile. (c) Alternatively if you feel bound to stipulate that your ships should not be used against the Germans unless they break the Armistice, then sail them with us with reduced crews to some French port in the West Indies–Martinique– for instance  where they can be demilitarised to our satisfaction, or perhaps be entrusted to the United States and remain safe until the end of the war, the crews being repatriated. If you refuse these fair offers, I must with profound regret, require you to sink your ships within 6 hours [emphasis added]. Finally, failing the above, I have the orders from His Majesty's Government to use whatever force may be necessary to prevent your ships from falling into German hands.”

            The French dithered, the Brits opened fire, disabling the fleet apart from the battleship Strasbourg which managed to escape to Toulon. Twelve hundred and ninenty seven French sailors died on that day and about 350 were wounded at the loss of one British aviator. It was a massacre and deeply resented by the French. One may argue, of course, that Churchill had no reason to trust the Germans or Darlan. Yet, when Germany occupied the rest of France in November of 1942, in response to the Allied invasion of North Africa, the fleet in Toulon was scuttled as Darlan had promised. Militarily the affair was a disgrace for the Britsh but for Churchill it was a political victory because he had shown to Roosevelt that regardless of morality or cost of lives the British were determined to fight and that they deserved American help.

With continued propaganda about Hitler’s non-existent threat to America, Roosevelt joined Churchill immediately after his November re-election in the war effort, although he had promised during the campaign, just as Wilson had done in 1916, that he would keep America out of war. Although Pearl Harbor is officiallly regarded as the cause of America’s entry into the war, the policies which led to that disaster for the U.S. Pacific fleet had been laid down years earlier. Nevertheless, history as told to the American people still continues to be influenced by propaganda. Although the PBS version of the Mers el Kebir tragedy was essentially accurate it did leave the impression that Germany had wanted the French fleet for its war effort, which was not the case. Although Hitler had violated other agreements when it was to his advantage, the navy was useless against his main enemy, Stalin, and there was no reason to inflame the French from whom he only wanted neutrality for the rest of the war.

This is not ancient history, as some might feel, because the thought patterns which led to these catastrophes still pervade the minds of some who are in today’s leadership positions both here and abroad. False generalizations abound in our attitude to current international problems ranging from the mislabeled “War on Terrorism,” through Iran’s perceived nuclear threat and Israel’s assumed vulnerabilty, the unresolved war between North and South Korea, to the entire rationale for American bases around the world. All of these problems have their roots in assumptions held by a few people who enforce their views through the media on the rest of the world. We the citizens of this “free country” are relegated to the sidelines and, as mentioned on other occasions, are only good for paying with money and some of us with blood for the misjudgments by others. The only difference between us and our adversaries is that we can voice our concerns openly. Nevertheless, as the history of how America was dragged against its will into WWII has shown, expressions of popular discontent have no decisive influence.

President Obama’s administration seems to be trying to bring a degree of sanity to international relations in order to defuse the powder keg, which is even larger and more dangerous than in 1914 and 1939. The Middle East can fully explode at any moment. But Israel’s conduct must still not be officially questioned, although President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu have completely different ideas about how the needs of both countries can best be met. Obama is nuanced in his approach, while Netanyahu represents the camp of those whose false thinking has been the point of this article. We can expect no help from Congress because its members have the November election as their first priority. Elections have become immensely expensive and money from pro-Israel sources is bound to flow freely. Thus Right Thought, although enunciated 2500 years ago, has still not reached the people who hold our fate in their hands. False ideas have always been camouflaged behind grand slogans, such as Wilson’s “making the world safe for democracy,” and the situation is no different today. Unfortunately, even if President Obama tries to stem the tide against these false arguments he may not have the power to do so. This is the sad conclusion on this Memorial Day, which is full of patriotic slogans about the “Fallen” in wars which could readily have been avoided.