Emotionele her-educatie

No matter how normal a person may be, he has been taught, from earliest childhood, to evaluate his own behaviour by the measuring stick of convention. What his father did before him, and what his neighbours are now doing around him, constitute the standard of normalcy. And this ridiculous method of evaluation is, to a considerable extent, sanctioned by the so-called "social scientists " of to-day evidently because psychology, so far, has failed to furnish any tangible description of a normal human being, save a statistical one*. A bold psychiatrist, not so long ago, frankly stated that if a young girl attended a school where a majority of the other girls smoked and drank, she would be eligible for psychiatric examination if she refused also to smoke and drink. I take it that the eminent doctor who made this assertion did not mean to suggest smoking and drinking as a test of social submission to girl friends, but rather as an emphatic laying down of the rule that average behaviour of a given group constitutes a proper standard by which the normalcy of any member of the group may be scientifically measured. No principle for study and improvement of the individual could be more pernicious than this.

People Only See the Least Normal Part of Other People's Behaviour

It is pernicious for several reasons, but principally for this. The part of the behaviour of any member of a group of human

beings which any other member of the group is able to observe, constitutes a small and unrepresentative fraction of the other person's total conscious activities. The part of any individual's behaviour which he permits other individuals to observe is that part which he believes will find most merit in the observer's eyes and, therefore, will probably procure the

maximum benefit, of one sort or another, for the person observed.

People are taught, from earliest childhood, that the " right thing to do " is what they are told to do by those who are able to give them rewards. Children tend, therefore, to behave, in the presence of their parents, according to the rules of behaviour set by the parents. With other children, their behaviour is quite different. Still, their responses are not wholly normal, because they have already learned to shape their actions in such a way as to produce the effect upon other children most advantageous to themselves. In absolute secret, however, with no other individuals present, the child behaves in a radically different manner. This secret conduct is most normal. Yet the child quickly learns to regard it as most abnormal. As the individual grows older, his explicit behaviour becomes more and more controlled by what he thinks other people will approve of, and will reward him for most handsomely. His own normal self, determined as it is by his physical body structures, continues to express itself in

secret, but gradually this normal behaviour becomes almost wholly implicit, in order not to reveal itself in some action not beneficial to the subject in the eyes of his fellows. Thus human beings, by adhering to the general type of observable behaviour in their own group, learn to regard more than one half of their normal selves as abnormal. In order to continue to be thought normal, they must continue to regard their own natural, secret behaviour as abnormal. Moreover, though they may have a shrewd suspicion that other members of their particular group are behaving in secret very like themselves, they quickly learn to regard such secret normalcy of their fellows, whenever discovered, as disgustingly abnormal also. Upon learning that neighbour John Smith is secretly enjoying a true love relationship with a woman who could not advantageously be presented as Mrs. Smith, each secretly normal individual quickly denounces Smith's conduct with all the virulence at his command. Another stone has been added to the burden of abnormality under which humanity is labouring.

The " Inner Conviction " of Abnormality

All of which means, so far as emotional re-education goes, that the stupendously difficult task confronting the clinical

psychologist is to convince normal people that the normal part of their emotions is normal. The more normal they are, the more people tend to entertain an " inner conviction " of abnormality. It is very easy, therefore, to detect some normal love longing which the subject already believes to be

utterly abnormal, and to convince him (or more likely her), that his secret emotion must be " sublimated " into learning to play church music, or writing essays on art, which will never be published. But it is ridiculous to suppose that these so called " sublimations " will really do anything more than deprive the woman of part of her normal self which, prior to the " analysis ", she had at least a fighting chance of ultimately expressing overtly in a normal way.

Psycho-Neural Normalcy of Behaviour Does Not Depend Upon What One's Neighbour Does

The only practical emotional re-education consists in teaching people that there is a norm of psycho-neural behaviour, aot dependent in any way upon what their neighbours are doing, or upon what they think their neighbours want them to do. People must be taught that the love parts of themselves, which they have come to regard as abnormal, are completely normal. More than this, people must be taught ultimately, that love (real love, not " sex appetite "), constitutes, in the human organism, the ultimate end of all activity, and that to gain this end appetite emotion must first, last, and always be adapted to love.

When this teaching is suggested, the emotional re-educator is at once faced with the problem of freeing the individual sufficiently from the existing standards of appetite-controlled society to permit him to express his psycho-neural self normally. Emotional abnormalities perpetuate themselves principally through compulsory compliance with things. Modern appetites are monstrously developed. To satisfy them, even partially, we must have things, and more things,

and to get things we are obliged to comply with the people who now possess them. They set the standards. And they set standards, naturally, which enforce compliance with their own thing-getting activities, and which tend to make those activities more successful. The doctrine of taking the average, observable behaviour of any group as the definition of normal behaviour, really means that the degree of compliance with

things which any person manifests is the measure of his normality. What an astounding doctrine ! You are normal, according to this doctrine, in proportion to the amount of yourself that you are willing to give up, or to consider abnormal, in order to get more things.

How, then, can we free the normal part of our subject from the necessity of complying with an abnormal standard in order to satisfy his appetite ? People must be taught, first of all, that the compliance required for the getting of things is not a compliance with the abnormal parts of the thing-possessors, but with the normal appetitive portions of these individuals. These men, themselves, or their ancestors, won their possessions by never complying with any superior 'antagonistic force, except in a way calculated to dominate that very opponent. Applying this first rule of appetitive success to the very problem of over-coming the false standard of normalcy which owners of things seek to enforce, the person who would be normal must be advised to regard such individuals not as superior allies, to whom it is necessary to submit, but as temporarily superior an-

tagonists, with whom it is necessary to comply in order ultimately to dominate them.

Appetitive Leaders Are Not Love Leaders

The fact is that persons of appetitive superiority have usurped the position of love leaders by virtue of their superior appetitive strength. They assume to dictate not only what other people must do in order to receive a share of their wealth and power, but also what the public in general must do, supposedly for its own good, without any hope of sharing in the spoils. It is impossible for a man who has spent his life in appetitive activity, or whose pre-eminent position depends upon successful maintenance of vast possessions, to prescribe any rules of conduct other than appetitive rules. It is likewise impossible for him to avoid using his dominant supremacy to compel less powerful people to act in a way favourable to his own interests. If, then, the public at large accept men of this type, not only as appetitive dictators but also as supposed love leaders of humanity, the present utterly abnormal suppression of love must continue.

If, however, it is within the power of the emotional reeducator to teach people in general that they should comply

with rules of conduct dictated by appetitive leaders, only to a sufficient extent to dominate the source of supply, and obtain independent meSns of their own, there is hope. Then people will be free to recognize their own normalcy, and to establish, gradually, a new code of conduct, based upon love

supremacy and appetitive subserviency. I 4iave tested this programme in the cases of male clinical subjects sufficiently to know that it can be made to work.

But what happens to the man during this process of reeducation ? By the time he has acquired his first appetitive success, he is well on his way to the same dominant inhibition of all love emotion that obtains in the controlling emotional set of all thing-getters and possessors. There is, apparently, no dependable intra-organic love stimulatiorr within the male organism. There is a strong intra-organic appetitive stimulus mechanism, hunger pangs, operating several times each day. As a result of this physical condition of 'affairs successful males invariably acquire a tremendous over balance of appetitive emotion response. By the time this appetitive drive is employed to the point of becoming successful in competition with other males, the preponderance of appetite over love has become still further exaggerated, and no amount of love stimulation administered by a woman, or women, under ordinary conditions, seems able to restore love to the place of importance which it may have held in the man's total emotional pattern when he was less successful.

In those rare instances were this does not occur, and where the man, after becoming successful, seeks to alter the appetitive code to permit some part of love to be recognised as normal, he is quite likely to suffer appetitive disaster as a result of his temerity in championing love. A case in point seems to be that of Judge Ben Lindsey, of Denver, who recently lost his judgeship, apparently as a result of his activities directed toward freeing love from appetitive control. 1 As a result of my own observations so far, I have reached the tentative conclusion that male love leadership

is virtually impossible, for the two reasons stated. First, a man's body is not designed for active love, and does not, therefore, keep him sufficiently love stimulated to control his over developed appetite. Second, if he attains appetitive

1 Judge Lindsey 's opinions on the subject are to be found in his two books, The Revolt of Modern Youth, and The Companionate Marriage.

leadership, he is unable to turn this into love leadership, because other people will not submit to him sufficiently.

Qualifications of a Love Leader

What are the qualifications of an active love leader, in the situation under 4 discussion ? There are four requisite attributes. First, an organism whose intra-organic stimulus mechanisms cause active love emotion to be evoked, preponderantly over passive love (passion), or any phase of appetite emotion. Second, sufficient appetitive power for self-support, without dependence, directly or indirectly, upon the persons who submit to the leader's direction. Third, a person with sufficient wisdom to understand all the emotion mechanisms 'of the adult organism. Fourth, a person with sufficient 'practical knowledge of existing social and economic institutions to be able to adapt the necessary measures of social reorganization, so as to evoke a maximum normalcy of emotional response from the public.

These four requirements probably cannot be met by any one in the world to-day. But they represent a wholly practical pattern of personality, which can be evolved, within a few generations, if emotional education is directed specifically towards the training and development of love leaders; and simultaneously, toward development of a corresponding attitude of passive love on the part of the people who are in need of love leadership.

Emotional Re-education of Women To Become Love Leaders

Where can the emotional re-educator look for persons capable of being trained toward ultimate love leadership ? We have already seen that males cannot be counted on, unless the male organism changes radically. The only possible candidates for love leader training, therefore, are women. But of the four qualifications specified above, women of the present day possess only the first, namely, an organism containing adequate intra-organic love stimulus mechanisms.

It seems to me by far the most hopeful symptom of emotional evolution within the period of recorded human history, however, that women are beginning to develop both the power and willingness to support themselves. When this power is developed to three or four times its present

capacity, some women, at least, will have acquired the second essential attribute of actjve love leadership, namely, appetitive self reliance. The necessity for such appetitive independence

in a real love leader should be emphasized again at this point. It is by virtue of appetitive supremacy, alone, that males have ruled the world during the major portfon of our racial history.

Presumably, it is because women so vastly preferred love responses to appetitive activity that they refrained so long from developing dominance to the point of appetitive self dependence. For example, I asked a class of thirty girls, recently, to express their preference between having an ideal love affair and possessing a million dollars. These girls are students in a physical training school, and have "shown themselves, in other tests, to be much more dominant than the average female group. Twenty-five expressed preference for the love affair, and five for the million dollars. Despite this preference for love, however, modern women are realizing, at last, that love relationship in the home is utterly impossible,, so long as they must use their love for appetite in obtaining support from husband or lover. They are equipping themselves accordingly; and there is great hope that love will begin to free itself from its present abnormally reversed relationship to appetite, as soon as women not only win sufficient dominance power to support themselves, but also demand the right to continue to support themselves throughout all relationships with.males. The creation of children is not justifiable in a majority of unions between the sexes; but when the creation responses are justifiably undertaken, there is sound psychological ground for advising the woman to provide, before-hand, sufficient funds of her own to carry both herself and the child through the period of her physical incapacity for appetitive work. There is sound psychological ground, also, for requiring the male to share equally, at least, in the home work and the care of children.

Woman's attainment of the last two qualifications for love leadership is still far in the future. The emotional re-educator, however, must take the responsibility for discovering and describing human emotional mechanisms, and for instructing women carefully in their meaning and control. In my experience, at least, I have found that whatever practical knowledge we already possess, especially concerning the love and

creation mechanisms, is intellectually assimilated far more rapidly by girl students than by me$. The reverse is true, of course, at the present time, with regard to knowledge of the appetitive mechanisms. But when women require this knowledge, also, for the purpose of teaching their own children (the existing type of female love leadership), they seek it eagerly, and study it diligently, as evidenced by the extraordinary growth of " Child Study " organizations in recent years.

The final requirement for active love leadership of humankind by women, namely, that of a practical knowledge of political and social methods and present institutions, should develop from woman's increased dominance development, and from her consequent active participation in appetitive activities of all kinds. Women have already undertaken participation in public life, though not yet with satisfactory results, at least in America. It should be an important part of the emotional re-educator's constructive programme for women,,to offer emotional analyses of existing political and social methods and procedures.

Emotional Re-education of Men and Women to Follow Love

Leadership

It seems apparent that the second part of the suggested programme of emotional re-education, namely, the training of males and less actively developed women in passion response to the active love leaders, must be left to woman herself. No task could be found more compatible with woman's normal emotional equipment, once its normalcy is publicly acknowledged. But woman must be taught to use her love power exclusively for the benefit of humanity and not for her own destructive, appetitive gratifications, as so many women are doing, under the present appetitive regime.

Men dislike intensely the idea of submitting to women. Yet, at the same time, they exert themselves to the utmost to establish just such passionately submissive relationships with women who have captivated them. If, when such a relationship is accepted by the woman, she has been taught to continue her captivatress' love supremacy throughout the entire duration of her love relationship with the male, great happiness must result for both. The man's passionate enjoyment of submission can be evoked continuously, throughout

the relationship, instead of lapsing, lugubriously, as now happens so frequently, when the woman is compelled to shift to a submissive role after marriage.

Compliance, if it springs from submission, may be pleasantly learned. This is an incidental benefit to be derived from such an emotional re-education programme as that suggested. For both compliance and dominance, if exercised for the sake of carrying out a passion response, gain all the pleasantness of the passion in place of their previous unpleasantness, without losing their appetitive efficacy in the slightest degree. The emotional re-education programme suggested, therefore, nolds the potentiality of appetitive success as well as love happiness. For, in place of the reversed conflict relationship of happiness adapted to success, which, at the present tiijie, partially defeats both, success must be adapted to happiness.