Cultural Factors in the Darker Passions

The ambiguity of our conference theme is an intriguing one. What is meant by “the darker passions”? Does it refer to the Seven Deadly Sins of biblical lore: pride, envy, sloth, intemperance, avarice, ire, and lust? Obviously, it can refer to all of these, and more. Moreover, paradoxically, some people's darker passions, such as lust or intemperance, are other people's brighter pleasures! In any event, I would be prepared to argue that cultural factors are relevant in all of these, and that human beings are neither innately evil, as Thomas Hobbes believed, nor innately good, as Jean Jacques Rousseau asserted, but that the passions they display are usually adapted to their needs for survival and satisfaction in the particular settings in which they find themselves.

In the remarks that follow, however, I shall focus on aggression and violence because of their special relevance at this point in our history. Parenthetically, it is interesting to note that the Academy of Psychoanalysis devoted an annual meeting to this subject almost 30 years ago, in 1962. Not much has changed since then, unfortunately. The recent Gulf War was only the latest and, I am sure, not the last reflection of this phenomenon, and we can all recall the ambivalent fascination with which we watched its progress on television. But beyond this, the relevance of the issue is highlighted by the degree of pervasive destructiveness that exists in our own nation. A report recently issued by the Senate Judiciary Committee (1991) stated that in 1990 the United States led the entire world in the incidence of murder, rape, and robbery. The report noted that the homicide rate in the United States was 4 times higher than that of Italy, 9 times that of England, and 11 times that of Japan. Violence against women was even more pervasive. The United States' rate for rape was 8 times higher than that of