The sickness known as the human being

Leonardo Boff

26/04/2011

Opinión

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This phrase comes from Friedrich Nietzsche and means that the human being is paradoxical, both healthy and sick: in the human being live the saint and the murderer. Bio-anthropologists, cosmologists and others affirm: the human being is at the same time sapiens and insane, angel and demon, dia-bolic and sym-bolic. Sigmund Freud would say that in the human being there are two basic instincts: one for life, that loves and enriches life, and the other for death, that seeks destruction and desires to kill. It is important to emphasize that these two forces coexist in the human being. Therefore, our existence is not simple, but complex and dramatic. Sometimes the will to live predominates, and then everything irradiates and grows. At other times, the will to kill is stronger, which results in violence, and crimes like the one that recently occurred in Rio de Janeiro.

Can we overcome this division within the human being? That is the question Albert Einstein put to Sigmund Freud in a July 30, 1932 letter: «Is it possible to direct psychic evolution to the point of making human beings more capable of resisting the psychosis of hate and destruction?» Freud answered with realism: «There is no hope of directly suppressing human aggressiveness. What we can do is to appeal to indirect venues, strengthening the life principle (Eros) against the principle of death (Thanatos).» And he ended with a phrase of resignation: «we are hungry, and think of the mill that grinds so slowly that we could die of hunger before we receive the flour.» Will this be our destiny?

Why do I write about these things? Because of the madman who on April 5th shot and killed 12 innocent students between 13 and 15 years of age, and left 12 wounded, in a school in a Rio de Janeiro neighborhood. There have already been countless analyses, and countless measures have been suggested, such as restricting the sale of weapons, mounting teams of police security in every school, among others. All of that has its meaning. But it does not touch the roots of the issue. Let's be concrete and humble: the dimension of the murderer inhabits each of us. We have instincts to attack and to kill. It is part of the human condition. The interpretations we offer are of little importance. Sublimation and negation of this anti-reality is of no help. It must be acknowledged, and we must seek ways of keeping it under control and preventing it from overwhelming our consciousness. We must fortify the life instinct and take control of the situation. Freud suggested: everything that helps create motional links between human beings, everything that civilizes, education, art, and the competition for betterment: they all work against aggressiveness and death.

The crime perpetrated at the school is horrendous. We Christians know about the slaughter of the innocents ordered by Herod. Afraid that the new born Jesus would later take away his power, he ordered all the infants around Bethlehem killed. The sacred texts bring the most moving expressions: «In Rama a voice was heard, lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning: Rachel wept for her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not.» (Mt 2,18). Something similar occurred with the families of these victims.

This criminal act is not an isolated one in our society. It is not just that our society has violence. It is worse than that. Our society is built on structures of permanent violence. Privileges are more important than rights. Marcio Pochmann in his Atlas Social do Brasil, gives us some disturbing data: 1% of the population (about five thousand families) control 48% of the GNP, and 1% of the largest property owners own 46% of the land. Can a society of peace be built on such social violence? They are the ones who hate talking about agrarian reform, and modifications of the Forest Code. Their privileges are more important than others' right to live.

The fact is that in psychologically disturbed persons, for thousands of underlying reasons, the death dimension can emerge and dominate the personality. They do not lose their reason. They use reason in the service of a twisted emotion. The most tragic case, carefully studied by Erich Fromm in The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness, (Anatomia de la destructividad humana, 1975), was that of Adolf Hitler. From his youth, he was seized by the death instinct. At the end of the war, aware of defeat, he asked his people to destroy everything, poison the waters, burn the fields, kill all the animals, destroy all the monuments, kill themselves as a race and destroy the world. In fact, he killed himself and all his closest followers. It was the empire of the principle of death.

It is up to God to judge the mental state of the killer of the students of that school. We must condemn what is objective, the gravely perverse crime, and place it in the realm of the human condition. We must also use all positive strategies to confront the Work of the Negative and understand the mechanisms that could subjugate us. I do not know a better strategy than to seek a just society, where right, respect, cooperation, education and health are guaranteed for all. And the method Francis Assisi shows us in his famous prayer: to bring love where there is hatred, forgiveness where there is offense, hope where there is despair and light where darkness dominates. Life cures life and love overcomes the hatred in us that kills.

- Leonardo Boff, Theologian, Earthcharter Commission

Free translation from the Spanish sent by Melina Alfaro, done at REFUGIO DEL RIO GRANDE, Texas, EE.UU.

https://www.alainet.org/en/articulo/149324