Fernando Alcoforado*
This article aims to analyze the thinking of Albert Einstein, the father of the Theory of Relativity, and Sigmund Freud, the father of Psychoanalysis, exposed in the letters exchanged between them in 1932, in the interregnum between the 1st and 2nd World War on the causes of wars and the solutions to avoid them. The content of these letters is contained in the website <https://moodle.ufsc.br/pluginfile.php/1033690/mod_resource/content/1/Aula%2B026%2B-%2BFreud%2B%2BEinstein.pdf>. Albert Einstein asked Freud if there is any way to rid humanity of the threat of war and if it is possible to control the evolution of man’s mind so as to make him proof of the psychoses of hatred and destructiveness? In his letter to Freud, Einstein stated that all attempts to free humanity from the threat of war ended in regrettable failure, which is why he asked the father of Psychoanalysis to elucidate the problem with the help of his profound knowledge of man’s instinctive life. When asking Freud to analyze man’s instinctive life, Einstein seems to admit that violent human behavior results to a greater degree from his animal instinct and not from the social environment in which he lives.
The questions posed by Einstein in a letter addressed to Freud were the following:
1. When dealing with the issue of wars, Einstein considered the need, through an international agreement, to structure a legislative and judicial body that could arbitrate any conflict. According to Einstein, “each nation would submit to obedience to the orders issued by that legislative body, to resort to its decisions in all disputes, to unrestrictedly accept its decisions and to put into practice all the measures that the court considered necessary for the execution of his decrees”. Einstein stated that, “Currently, however, we are far from having any competent supranational organization to issue judgments of undisputed authority and guarantee absolute compliance with the execution of its verdicts. Einstein considers that the pursuit of international security involves the unconditional renunciation, by all nations, to a certain extent, of their freedom of action, that is, their sovereignty. It is worth noting that in 1932 there was a supranational body, the League of Nations, which was supposed to mediate in international conflicts and failed by not preventing the outbreak of the 2nd World War.
Einstein’s thesis that the pursuit of international security involves the renunciation of national sovereignty is, however, mistaken because it could be possible to implement a world government representative of all the peoples of the world that would deal only with the mediation of international conflicts without interference in the internal affairs of each country whose sovereignty would be respected. The preservation of peace would be the first mission of every new form of world government. For this to happen, there must be a democratic governance of the world with a world government elected by all countries in the world. Its role would be to build the governance of the global economy and environment and the maintenance of world peace. Through it, the defense of the general interests of all the countries of the planet in terms of international relations would be pursued. A democratic world government would ensure that the sovereignty of each country is respected because it would act to prevent any country from intervening in the internal affairs of others, especially with military interventions. Contrary to what many people think, the existence of a world government would not be a threat to national sovereignty, on the contrary, it would guarantee that no country would intervene in the internal affairs of other countries.
In order to permanently remove new risks of a new world war and for perpetual peace to materialize on our planet, it would be necessary to reform the current international system, which is incapable of guaranteeing world peace. The UN, which was constituted after the 2nd World War, has been as inoperative as the League of Nations in the mediation of international conflicts that preceded it between the two Great Wars. The new international system should work based on a Planetary Social Contract that would be the Constitution of planet Earth in which the rules of international coexistence would be established. For the preparation of the Planetary Social Contract, there should be a convening of a Constituent World Assembly with the participation of representatives of all the countries of the world elected for this purpose. The Planetary Social Contract should establish the existence of a World Government whose president should be elected with more than 50% of votes of the World Parliament to be, also, constituted with elected representatives in the different countries of the world.
In addition to the World Government and the World Parliament, the World Supreme Court should also be constituted, which should be composed of high-level jurists from the world chosen by the World Parliament, who would act for a determined time. The World Supreme Court should judge cases that involve disputes between countries, crimes against humanity and against nature committed by national States and by rulers in the light of the Planetary Social Contract, judge conflicts that exist between the World Government and the World Parliament and act as guardian of the Planetary Social Contract. The new rule of international law would be enforced by the three constituted powers: World Government, World Parliament, and World Supreme Court. World power would rest with the World Government, the World Parliament and the World Supreme Court. The World Government will not have its own Armed Forces, having to rely on the support of the Armed Forces of the countries that would be summoned when necessary. With this proposed configuration for the democratic governance of the international system, no country would be a vassal, therefore, of the world government.
The World Government would act only to make the international system evolve in an environment of peace among nations. Each country must be sovereign to act within the limits of its territory and not to intervene in the internal affairs of other countries. What would not be accepted is any country intervening with the use of force in the internal affairs of other countries, as has happened throughout history. The World Government would be the guarantee of respect for the sovereignty of the countries of the world, especially the weakest ones. The absence of a World Government is what would pose a threat to the national sovereignty of most countries because they would be at the mercy of the strongest as has been the case throughout history. If any country jeopardizes the environment of peace between nations, intervening in the internal affairs of another country, the World Government would act to prevent the aggressor from consummating his purposes through diplomatic action or, in case of failure, even with the use of force. To this end, the World Government would summon the armed forces of certain countries to fulfill the role of preventing any country from intervening in another using force.
2. Einstein stated that there is no room for doubt that important psychological factors are at play that paralyze efforts aimed at ending wars. Some of these factors, according to Einstein, are easier to detect because the intense desire for power, which characterizes the ruling class in every nation, is hostile to any limitation of its national sovereignty.
Einstein is absolutely correct, because the great powers oppose any limitation of their national sovereignty in order to be able to act without limitations in their imperialist actions on weaker countries. Einstein is correct in stating that a small but determined group existing in each nation, composed of individuals, are indifferent to social conditions and controls, because they consider war, the manufacture and sale of weapons simply as an opportunity to expand their personal interests and expand your personal authority. This is the case of the United States, which benefits most economically from armed confrontations, since the largest arms exporters in the world are North American. In addition to the sale of ammunition and weapons, the United States also monetizes with security contracts and military training, which makes many members of the US Congress understand wars as a job and money machine for the country. Peace, for the United States, could cost it dearly.
3. Einstein asks: how is it possible for the small flock that governs a country to bend the will of the majority, who are resigned to losing and suffering in a war situation, at the service of the ambition of a few? When speaking of the majority, Einstein does not exclude soldiers, of all graduations, who chose war as a profession, in the belief that they are serving the defense of the highest interests of their race and that the attack is often the best means of defense. According to Einstein, it seems that an obvious answer to this question would be that the minority, the current ruling class, has the schools, the press and, generally, also the Church, under its power that makes it possible to organize and dominate the emotions of the masses and make them instrument of the same minority. Einstein also asks: how do these mechanisms manage so well to awaken in men an extreme enthusiasm, to the point of sacrificing their lives? Einstein thinks there can be only one answer because man contains within himself a desire for hatred and destruction. In normal times this passion exists in a latent state, it emerges only under abnormal circumstances; it is, however, relatively easy to awaken it and raise it to the potency of collective psychosis. Einstein affirms that, perhaps, this is the crux of the whole complex of factors that we are considering, an enigma that only a specialist in the science of human instincts can solve, like Freud.
Einstein is right when he says that the current ruling class has schools, the press and, generally, also the Church, under its power that makes it possible to organize and dominate the emotions of the masses and make them an instrument of the same minority. According to Althusser, in school, in addition to reading and writing, the rules of “good behavior” are also learned, that is, one learns to be submissive to the prevailing order, making people submissive in relation to the dominant ideology [ALTHUSSER, Louis. Aparelhos ideológicos de estado (Ideological state apparatuses). 6th Ed. Rio de Janeiro: Graal, 1985]. The state’s ideological apparatus (school, press, church and the media in general) work on people’s minds. The system of different churches, the school system (both public and private), the family system, the legal system, the political system, the trade union system, the information system and the cultural system are integral parts of the ideological state apparatuseso. Not only schools, the press and the Church collaborate with the ruling classes to place the majority of the population at the service of war. In the first half of the 20th century, radio played a fundamental role in the mystification of the masses by political propaganda. Today, it is social networks and the media in general that play the role of mystifying the masses through political propaganda.
Einstein asks Freud if it is possible to control the evolution of man’s mind, in order to make him proof of the psychoses of hate and destructiveness? Here, Einstein is not referring only to the so-called uneducated masses. Einstein claims that experience proves that it is rather the so-called ‘Intelligentsia’ that are most inclined to give in to these disastrous collective suggestions. Einstein asked Freud to present the problem of world peace in the light of his most recent discoveries, as such a presentation could well pave the way for new and fruitful methods of action.
Freud’s responses in a letter addressed to Einstein were as follows:
1. Freud states that wars will only be avoided with certainty if humanity unites to establish a central authority, which will be given the right to arbitrate all conflicts of interest. Two distinct requirements are clearly involved in this: creating a supreme instance and endowing it with the necessary power. One without the other would be useless. The League of Nations is intended to be an instance of this kind, but the second condition has not been fulfilled: the League of Nations has no power of its own, and can acquire it only if the members of the new union, the different states, are willing to give it away. And there is currently no idea that one hopes will exercise such unifying authority. In reality, it is all too evident that the national ideals, by which nations govern themselves today, act in the opposite direction.
Freud defends the existence of a supreme body endowed with the necessary power, that is, a world government that would be given the right to arbitrate all international conflicts. The criticism he made of the League of Nations that existed between the 1st and 2nd World War also applies to the UN created after the 2nd World War and which is powerless to deal with international conflicts.
2. Freud states that inflaming men’s enthusiasm for war introduces the suspicion that there is an instinct for hatred and destruction in them that cooperates with the efforts of war merchants. Freud believes in the existence of an instinct of this nature which, during the last few years, has really been occupied with studying its manifestations. Freud claims that human instincts are of only two kinds: those that tend to preserve and unite — which we call ‘erotic’, in exactly the same sense in which Plato uses the word ‘Eros’ in his Symposium, or ‘sexuals’, with a deliberate broadening of the popular conception of ‘sexuality’—; and those who tend to destroy and kill, which he grouped together as an aggressive or destructive instinct when human beings are incited to war, may have a whole range of motives for getting carried away – some noble, some vile, some frankly declared, others never mentioned. This instinct is at work in every living creature and seeks to bring it to annihilation, to reduce life to its original condition of inanimate matter. Therefore, for Freud, it deserves, in all seriousness, to be called the death instinct, while the erotic instincts represent the effort to live. The death instinct becomes the destructive instinct when, with the help of special organs, it is directed outward towards objects. The organism preserves its own life, so to speak, by destroying the life of others. According to Freud, a part of the death instinct, however, remains active within the organism, which he has tried to attribute numerous normal and pathological phenomena to this internalization of the destruction instinct. This would serve as a biological justification for all the damnable and dangerous impulses we fight against.
Freud’s view is that violence represents the dominance of the animal instinct that we possess. This is not the opinion of eminent thinkers such as Raymond Aron (French philosopher and sociologist), Henry Bergson (French philosopher and diplomat, Carl Rogers (American precursor of humanistic psychology), Jean-Jaques Rousseau (Swiss writer and philosopher) and Karl Marx (German economist, philosopher, historian and political scientist) who consider that the aggressive behavior of human beings results from the social context. This would explain the escalation of criminality and wars in all times around the world. For millennia, scientists and philosophers have raised the following question: Is it genetically determined as Freud admits or by the society where the human being lives or both? Why does the world become more violent every year? there is an increase in the number of armed conflicts on the globe, as people themselves are more violent. What is the explanation for this? It is not uncommon to affirm that since the world began, there has always been violence between human beings. It will be difficult to find anyone today who does not believe this statement. And yet it is false. In the beginnings of humanity there was no violence that manifests itself today in relations between individuals and between human communities.
According to Raymond Aron, no human being, no people from that distant time would have had the idea of attacking their fellow man [ARON, Raymond. Paz e Guerra entre as Nações (Peace and War among Nations). Editora Universidade de Brasília, 1962]. Nor would they be able, for example, to annex their neighbor’s land against their will, through brute force. It is difficult to try to establish a parallel between the way of life of human beings back then and humanity today. At that time, living in peace and harmony with your fellow human beings was something as natural to human beings as breathing, eating and sleeping. Human beings once lived on Earth, without offending or mistreating each other, much less warring with each other. That, however, was a long, long time ago. No record from that time has come down to the present day, so it is assumed that this situation did not exist.
According to Raymond Aron, as man’s life is organized into families and bands, the less probable conducts that are properly bellicose might seem to us. Most animals fight, but rare are the species that practice war, understood as collective and organized action. Aron claims that homo sapiens appeared about 600,000 years ago. The Neolithic revolution, regular agriculture and animal husbandry date back some 10,000 years. Complex civilizations or societies emerged about 6,000 years ago. This means that the so-called historical period represents one hundredth of the total duration of humanity’s existence on planet Earth. According to Aron, no anthropologist has ever found any evidence that men developed an organization or combat tactics before the Bronze Age (3300 BC to 1300-700 BC). It is not surprising, therefore, that the first indisputable signs of armies and war date back to the Bronze Age, which is a period of civilization in which the development of this metal alloy resulting from the mixture of copper and tin took place.
Aron states that, in the human species, manifestations of aggressiveness are inseparable from collective life. Even when it comes to the reaction of one individual against another, aggressiveness is influenced in many ways by the social context. The emergence of a properly social existence was not the only cause of the new dimensions that the phenomenon of aggressiveness assumed: the frustration and inadaptation that lead the individual to an aggressive reaction constitute the most important fact in human relationships. Aron defends the thesis that frustration is a psychic experience, revealed by consciousness. All individuals feel frustrations from childhood. Frustration is first and foremost the experience of deprivation, that is, a good desired and not achieved, an oppression painfully felt. The chain of causality that leads to emotions or aggressive acts always originates in an external phenomenon and not internally to the individual. There is no physiological proof that there is a spontaneous incitement to fight, originating in the individual’s own organism, as stated by Freud. Physical aggression and the desire to destroy is not the only possible reaction to frustration. The difficulty in maintaining peace is more related to man’s humanity than to his animality.
Just as for the first human beings the idea of causing any harm to your fellow man would be inconceivable, today, it sounds like an illusion, fantasy, the idea of a world without conflicts, because we consider violence as an inherent characteristic of human beings. One can speculate whether there might not have been an intermediate phase between the many millennia during which man lived under the threat of wild beasts and the much shorter period in which the threat to his safety began to originate in other men. It would be a time when men had sufficient technical means for defense against wild beasts and without engagement in the pursuit of riches and class struggles, conquests and dominions. It has been demonstrated that small societies, without metallic instruments, isolated, still do not show characteristic traits of bellicose societies. Raymond Aron states in his work Peace and War among Nations that biologists call aggressiveness the propensity of an animal to attack another of the same or different species. In most (but not all) species, individuals fight each other. Some are not aggressive (that is, they do not take the initiative to attack), but will defend themselves when attacked. Among primates, humans are at the bottom of the aggressiveness scale.
Henry Bergson, in turn, states that the origin of violence and war is the existence of property, individual or collective, and since humanity is predestined to property, by its structure, violence and war would be natural (BERGSON, Henry. Les Deux Sources de la Morale et de la Religion. French & European Pubns, 1976). The article by Sonia Maria Lima de Gusmão under the title A natureza humana segundo Freud e Rogers (Human nature according to Freud and Rogers) posted on the website <https://encontroacp.com.br/textos/a-natureza-humana-segundo-freud-e-rogers/> shows that Carl Rogers has an opposite view to that of Freud, because he believes that it is precisely in a coercive context, where the individual cannot expand, or better, update his potential, that makes him hostile or antisocial, otherwise, nothing we have to fear, because his behavior will tend to be constructive. Rogers observes that when man is truly free to become what he is in the depths of his being, when he is free to act according to his nature, as a being capable of perceiving the things that surround him, then he , is clearly heading towards globality and integration.
Dalva’s article by Fatima Fulgeri under the title Conceito de natureza em Rousseau (Concept of nature in Rousseau) posted on the website <http://www.paradigmas.com.br/parad12/p12.6.htm> shows that J.J. Rousseau thought that wars arise, or at least expand, with the expansion of collectivities and that class inequality and individual property are linked to wars of conquest and domination by warriors. It could not be otherwise, since political units were forged for combat and the price of victory was always land, slaves and precious metals. For Marx, what characterizes man is not just rationality, but the fact that he is the architect of his own development. Humans are capable of changing the world around them, and in doing so, they change themselves. The article A Natureza do Homem Segundo Karl Marx (The Nature of Man According to Karl Marx), posted on the website <http://nomosofia.blogspot.com.br/2011/10/natureza-do-homem-segundo-karl-marx.html>) informs that Marx presented a definition of the essence of human nature in the Philosophical Manuscripts, characterizing human beings as free and conscious activity, in contrast to the nature of the animal. Marx states that social conflicts result from the division of society into classes with the emergence of private property replacing the collective ownership of the means of production prevailing in primitive societies. It appears, from the above, that the great thinkers analyzed are opposed to Freud’s thesis that the destructive animal instinct, the death instinct, is the cause of violent behavior in human beings.
3. Freud states that there is no point in trying to eliminate men’s aggressive inclinations. If the desire to join the war is an effect of the destructive instinct, the most obvious recommendation will be to oppose its antagonist, Eros. An example of men’s innate and irremovable inequality is their tendency to classify themselves into two types, leaders and followers. The latter constitute the vast majority; they need an authority to make decisions for them and to which, for the most part, they devote unlimited submission. This suggests that more attention should be given than has hitherto been given to the education of the upper stratum of men who are independent-minded, not amenable to intimidation, and desirous of holding true to the truth, whose concern is to direct the dependent masses.
Freud considers that men’s aggressive inclinations cannot be eliminated. He only suggests the education of leaders to the exclusion of followers. To make human beings have constructive behavior and be able to change the world around them, it is necessary to educate everyone with the culture of peace and promote changes in the social context that contribute to satisfy human needs, given that acts of man’s aggressiveness always originate in an external phenomenon and not internally to the individual. Kant, the philosopher, thus understands education: to develop in the individual all the perfection of which he is susceptible, such is the finality of education. Pestalozzi, the pedagogue, says: to educate is to progressively develop man’s spiritual faculties. John Locke, a great preceptor, expressed himself in this way on the subject: to educate is to make spirits straight, disposed, at all times, not to practice anything that is not in accordance with the dignity and excellence of a sensible creature. Lessing, no less illustrious authority, compares the work of education to the work of revelation, and says: education determines and accelerates the progress and perfection of man.
For the above, Einstein and Freud defend the existence of a world government to mediate international conflicts. Einstein admits it and Freud defends the thesis that there is an animal instinct in human beings that contributes to their aggressiveness. Unlike Einstein and Freud, Raymond Aron (French philosopher and sociologist), Henry Bergson (French philosopher and diplomat, Carl Rogers (American forerunner of humanistic psychology), Jean-Jaques Rousseau (Swiss writer and philosopher) and Karl Marx (economist, German philosopher and political scientist) defend the thesis that human aggressiveness results from the social environment in which human beings live. In order for human beings to behave constructively and be able to change the world around them, it is necessary to educate everyone with a culture of peace and promote changes in the social environment that contribute to satisfying human needs, given that acts of man’s aggressiveness always originate in an external phenomenon and not internally to the individual.
* Fernando Alcoforado, awarded the medal of Engineering Merit of the CONFEA / CREA System, member of the Bahia Academy of Education, of the SBPC- Brazilian Society for the Progress of Science and of IPB- Polytechnic Institute of Bahia, engineer and doctor in Territorial Planning and Regional Development from the University of Barcelona, college professor (Engineering, Economy and Administration) and consultant in the areas of strategic planning, business planning, regional planning, urban planning and energy systems, was Advisor to the Vice President of Engineering and Technology at LIGHT S.A. Electric power distribution company from Rio de Janeiro, Strategic Planning Coordinator of CEPED- Bahia Research and Development Center, Undersecretary of Energy of the State of Bahia, Secretary of Planning of Salvador, is the author of the books Globalização (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 1997), De Collor a FHC- O Brasil e a Nova (Des)ordem Mundial (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 1998), Um Projeto para o Brasil (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 2000), Os condicionantes do desenvolvimento do Estado da Bahia (Tese de doutorado. Universidade de Barcelona,http://www.tesisenred.net/handle/10803/1944, 2003), Globalização e Desenvolvimento (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 2006), Bahia- Desenvolvimento do Século XVI ao Século XX e Objetivos Estratégicos na Era Contemporânea (EGBA, Salvador, 2008), The Necessary Conditions of the Economic and Social Development- The Case of the State of Bahia (VDM Verlag Dr. Müller Aktiengesellschaft & Co. KG, Saarbrücken, Germany, 2010), Aquecimento Global e Catástrofe Planetária (Viena- Editora e Gráfica, Santa Cruz do Rio Pardo, São Paulo, 2010), Amazônia Sustentável- Para o progresso do Brasil e combate ao aquecimento global (Viena- Editora e Gráfica, Santa Cruz do Rio Pardo, São Paulo, 2011), Os Fatores Condicionantes do Desenvolvimento Econômico e Social (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2012), Energia no Mundo e no Brasil- Energia e Mudança Climática Catastrófica no Século XXI (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2015), As Grandes Revoluções Científicas, Econômicas e Sociais que Mudaram o Mundo (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2016), A Invenção de um novo Brasil (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2017), Esquerda x Direita e a sua convergência (Associação Baiana de Imprensa, Salvador, 2018), Como inventar o futuro para mudar o mundo (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2019), A humanidade ameaçada e as estratégias para sua sobrevivência (Editora Dialética, São Paulo, 2021), A escalada da ciência e da tecnologia e sua contribuição ao progresso e à sobrevivência da humanidade (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2022), a chapter in the book Flood Handbook (CRC Press, Boca Raton, Florida United States, 2022) and How to protect human beings from threats to their existence and avoid the extinction of humanity (Generis Publishing, Europe, Republic of Moldova, Chișinău, 2023).
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