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The topic of this Symposium is Psychoanalysis and the Constructive Forces in Man. With my opening remarks I wish to introduce the subject and indicate the spirit of its meaning.
In an article in the March 4, 1951, Sunday New York Times entitled, “The One Question: Agreement with Russia?”, the writer, Mr. Taylor, an Oxford Don, said: “To put the argument on a more general plane, the way to reach agreement with the Russians is to have confidence in ourselves—confidence that we can conduct our political affairs with wisdom; confidence that human beings will not fall victims indefinitely to the fallacies of Communism; confidence that the democratic cause can always afford to be tolerant and patient … Nothing is lost by argument even if it goes on forever; after all argument is itself a form of agreement.”
How can we identify and increase our confidence in ourselves and in our fellow men? What is the nature of the democratic cause? How is it that argument is a form of agreement? These questions can best be answered by identifying some of the attributes of the democratic way.
For one thing the democratic process not only implies but clearly affirms the right and the responsibility to become informed. As you become informed you have the right to see alternatives. You have the responsibility to dare to make choices and to speak up and be heard according to your own convictions. You have the right to be silent or, put otherwise, you cannot be forced to be a false witness against yourself or others. It is not only your privilege but your responsibility to fight for the right of others to do likewise. And as you gain for others those privileges you will feel free to agree with them or to fight them on all issues pertaining to the best means not only for preserving, but deepening and extending, the democratic way of life. Then your arguing will in fact be a form of agreement.
Democracy will not become a reality by thinking of it as a beautiful abstraction, or by believing that as i