Freud and Einstein

In Jeffrey Gordon's article 'Is War Inevitable?' in Philosophy Now 66, I read Freud's assertion to Einstein that man is driven by two powerful instincts, one of creation and one of destruction. In other word, man has an inherent urge to create and then destroy. Freud was knowledgeable in the perversion of man.

Even though Freud was not optimistic that man would or could ever stop making war, Einstein seemed encouraged by Freud's instinctive explanation, perhaps because Einstein focused more on man's creative aspect than on the destructive. Perhaps Einstein thought that as man got more creative in his ability to destroy himself he would eventually lose a desire for war and use reason instead. And in a sense that is what happened, with the help of none other than Einstein himself. Ironically, his discoveries allowed the creation of the atomic bomb, which would stymie future wars. Because of its destructive power it became a deterrent instead of a weapon. Nations have not gone to war with each other as they once did.

I also thought of the economist Joseph Schumpeter, who labeled capitalism 'creative destruction'. After WW2 and with the advent of atomic weapons, capitalism ascended around the world. Man still had his instinct for destruction, but now capitalism manifested and channeled this instinct in less harmful, more productive ways: with capitalism, man's destructive instinct combined with his creative instinct shifted to a more benign but peaceful form. Einstein's optimism for mankind still triumphs over Freud's pessimism.

The world is replete with opposites, like the two poles of electricity, the genders of male and female, up and down, day and night and the two strands of DNA. Freud made us aware of another combination, humanity's penchants for creation and destruction, opposites that are as immutable as the others.

Einstein was one that showed that the splitting of the atom in two would unleash an astonishing amount of energy.