War, Sadism and Pacifism: Further Essays on Group Psychology and War
- Author:
Edward Glover, M.D.
George Allen and Unwin. 9s. 6d.
The original essays under this title, first published in 1933, now form only a small part of this book: three sets of further essays, written between 1938 and 1945, have been added, in which Dr Glover has elaborated his earlier contentions and answered his critics. He has also adduced more evidence from the study of psychological disorders in the past war.
His argument is, of course, primarily that the underlying causes of war are at base psychological, that their study should be on psychoanalytic lines; and that their removal depends on the earlier sublimation of aggressive instincts and the full understanding of the strength of the masochistic impulse.
He points out the inherent weaknesses of the present situation where war can depend on the (not necessarily stable) personalities of leaders?dictatorial or democratic?who have at least one common factor?a past history of a fight for power. He is exhaustive in his tabulated suggestions for research and prevention of war mindedness. He is remarkably restrained in his answers to criticism and indeed it is to be hoped that his mildness will not lead his opponents to under-estimate the reasoned force of his thesis, for it is a matter of life and death, or as he puts it: ” The atomic bomb is a triumph for the Death Instinct and it remains to be seen whether the Life Instinct can stage an effective comeback.”
This book should command interest from a far wider circle than the original essays: and its readers need not be analysts to see the force of Dr Glover’s arguments, or to adopt his suggestions for a constructive and consistent approach to the abolition of war. R.F.T. i
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