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It was disappointment, gloom, and hopelessness; it was fear, pessimism, and a sense of helplessness that sent me to the library in search of some clues to the meaning and causes of our current sociopolitical conditions. I had lost faith in our citizens' “Will Ascendant.” In 1915 Freud at first had been more optimistic than I have been recently. He had seen “the prospect… in each new generation for a more far-reaching transformation of instinct1 which shall be the vehicle of a better civilization” (p. 285). Lamentably, it did not happen then, and even now has not yet occurred. At the time, Freud (1915) consoled himself with the thought that “our mortification and our painful disillusionment on account of the uncivilized behaviour of our fellow-citizens of the world during this war were unjustified. They were based on an illusion to which we had given way. In reality our fellow-citizens have not sunk so low as we feared, because they had never risen so high as we believed” (p. 275). It is no consolation to me that today, almost one hundred years later, the latter of Freud's words still ring true.
I invite you to retread the path I took as I attempted to clarify the state of affairs for myself. I will begin with some quotes from several texts I sampled on my journey. The language used by some of the authors may be jarring and the implications offend our current values. I suggest we read the words and their meanings with tolerance—perhaps in the spirit of the Talmud. What I mean is, we should interpret and reinterpret the statements in light of modern conditions and perhaps also with depth-psychological understanding.
I read the following two sets of quotations in 2003, prior to the presidential election.