FAMILY INFLUENCES IN SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT
[Sidenote: Displacements of hate less complex than those of love]
In studying the hate aspects of the original Œdipus complex we saw that
these aspects, on their first appearance and in so far as they depend on
mere jealousy or envy, are secondary products, arising as a consequence
of the love aspects. When the cause of the jealousy is removed by a
successful displacement of the love impulse, there is no longer any reason
for the continuance of the hate. It is probably for this reason that
the displacements of the hate aspects appear to be, on the whole, less
numerous and less complicated than those of the love aspects.
Certain forms of love displacement, it is true, necessarily imply, to
some extent, correlative forms of hate displacement; as in the case
(studied in the last chapter) of the transfer of love exclusively to
married or betrothed persons or in the case of the rescue phantasy. In
these cases the rival with whom the lover competes for the possession of
the loved object or the tyrant from whose clutches the captive lady is
snatched by the skill or daring of the youthful hero, are (in the light of
psycho-analytic knowledge) manifest substitutes for the original rival or
tyrant who existed in the person of the father. The intensity of hostile
feeling of which these representatives become the objects may however
vary very considerably from one instance to another, according as the
emphasis of the whole phantasy is laid upon the elements of hatred or
of love. Sometimes the hostile rival may be present only in a vague and
shadowy form, constituting little more than a necessary background; as,
for instance, in cases where the existence of some kind of opposition is
essential to the arousal or enjoyment of love. In other cases, however,
the hate element may be equal in importance to the love element, or may
even constitute the predominant motive of the whole displacement.
[Sidenote: The development of hate]
In these latter cases it will usually be found that the hostility
brought about secondarily as the result of jealousy has been powerfully
reinforced by hatred of a more direct and independent kind, arising as a
reaction against a more general interference with the child's aspirations
or desires on the part of a tyrannous parental authority (or one that
is considered to be such). The presence, in some degree, of this form
of reaction is very prevalent, and this is not surprising when we bear
in mind the fact that the child has, during its early years, to be
continually moderated, guided, stimulated or restrained in its actions, or
tendencies to action, by the exercise of parental or of delegated parental
authority[140].
The exercise of such restraint or guidance, even within necessary and
desirable limits and with all the care, refinement and regard to the
child's own natural course of development which modern methods of training
may dictate, is bound to give rise to _some_ feeling of resentment,
especially in children of self-willed, obstinate or independent character
or in those with whom the tendencies in need of guidance or restraint are
unusually vigorous or persistent. Much more so even is this liable to be
the case where (as may often happen) the child's upbringing is carried
out with but little regard for, or understanding of, its own feelings,
susceptibilities or tendencies. In all such cases the hostile sentiments
aroused by the conflict of parental authority with the impetuous desires
of childhood may be such as to outlast the period of early life to
which they properly belong and to furnish a basis for a pathological
fixation at the stage of parent-hatred, as a result of which this hatred
may constitute an important--and usually maleficent--component of the
individual's character throughout his life.
[Sidenote: Displacement of hate on to parent substitutes]
We have already, in the earlier chapters, discussed the manner in which
parent hatred of early origin (together with most other aspects of the
young child's attitude towards its parents) should, in the course of
normal development, be overcome. We have already seen, however, that
certain of the secondary hatreds consequent upon incestuous love are in
many individuals incapable of being completely and satisfactorily resolved
in any of the normal ways, but become, instead, displaced on to parent
substitutes in the same way as the love impulses which they accompany.
The same fate of displacement awaits, in most cases, those more direct
and primary hatreds which are consequent upon the parent's interference
with the child's more general wishes and desires. In the course of the
individual's life, the authority over his expressions, activities and
general mode of living originally exercised by the parents, passes in
succession, wholly or partly, to a number of other persons; to whom
the feelings directed to the parents in virtue of the exercise of this
authority is then transferred. Among those to whom such transference most
frequently and regularly takes place are to be found--nurses, teachers,
school prefects, police officers, employers, professional or military
superiors, or persons occupying general positions of command, such as
magistrates, statesmen or kings.
[Sidenote: This displacement may lead to rebellion against authority and
the persons who exercise it]
There can be little doubt that much of the general resistance to, and
intolerance of, authority, that may be exhibited by certain individuals,
or at times by whole sections of a community (or even by whole peoples)
derives its motive power from a persistence in the Unconscious of parent
hatreds of this kind. A very considerable proportion of criminal actions
in the individual are also due to the same unconscious source, the still
existing desire to resist the authority of the parents finding outlet in a
displaced form in infringements of the laws, conventions, or regulations
imposed by the authority of society or of the State. Particularly
is this true of crimes against persons who embody or exercise this
authority--emperors, kings and other persons in high places, and it would
seem probable indeed that many cases of regicide or of attempts on the
lives of official personages have been committed by those suffering from
insufficiently controlled parent hatreds of unusual strength. Bearing in
mind the dangers that beset a community in which tendencies to anarchy,
lawlessness or unreasonable opposition to governmental authority are
widespread, it is obvious that the frequent occurrence of violent and
persistent parent hatreds in children, leading, as they so often do, to
displacements of this kind, is a matter of very serious sociological and
political importance[141].
[Sidenote: Displacements of respect and esteem]
These same persons in authority, who thus become the recipients displaced
enmity towards the parents, may however also serve in later life as
substitutes for those aspects of the parents in virtue of which these
latter were in childhood reverenced as the possessors of unlimited
power, wisdom, virtue or knowledge (_Cp._ above p. 54). Especially is
this the case perhaps with regard to ecclesiastical authorities; the
priest, as the interpreter of wisdom that transcends earthly knowledge
and the transmitter of commands that transcend earthly authority,
being peculiarly suitable as an object of this emotional attitude. The
head of the Roman Catholic Church has indeed, through the doctrine of
infallibility, been explicitly endowed (with reference to a certain sphere
of thought) with the character of perfect knowledge and perfect wisdom,
which the young child with the sense of its own immense inferiority in
these respects, is liable to attribute to its parents. The teacher too,
in his position of moral and intellectual authority, frequently becomes
the recipient of similar feelings; the additional influence which he
possesses over his pupils through the latter's childish over-estimation
of his knowledge and capacity often receiving frank acknowledgment in
the fact of his unwillingness ever to appear to have been mistaken or to
have been ignorant with regard to any matter, lest the realisation of his
fallibility should detract from the suggestive power that he has hitherto
enjoyed.
[Sidenote: Medical practitioners as parent-substitutes]
The displacement on to medical advisers and attendants originally directed
to the parents, has frequently been recognised. Here again, it is more
particularly the attribute of benevolent omniscience that is liable to be
transferred. Three factors contribute especially to this result:--(1) The
physician's knowledge on matters of the highest interest and importance,
about which others are relatively ignorant (particularly perhaps "medical"
matters, in the sexual sense of that euphemism); (2) the fact that the
situations in which his assistance is called in, for the most part
urgently demand some kind of action which he alone can adequately perform;
the sense of helplessness which others feel in these situations being
similar in many respects to that frequently experienced in early years
when, as children, we were dependent upon the efforts of our parents in
many of the important affairs of life; (3) the fact that this sense of
helplessness and the general attitude of suggestibility are still further
increased in the case of the patient by the general regression to a
relatively childish state of mind which illness so frequently brings in
its train. The physician's capacity to stimulate and maintain the power
of suggestion, which he possesses in virtue of this attitude on the part
of those who consult him, is undoubtedly the secret of much real success
in medical practice, inasmuch as the mental factors in disease--the
importance of which is now becoming fully recognised, although their
nature is not yet always clear--are to a large extent directly affected by
the patient's belief in his doctor's ability to understand and cure the
complaint from which he suffers.
[Sidenote: The rôle of parent-regarding tendencies in suggestion and
hypnosis]
This suggestive power plays of course a specially prominent part in
dealing with disorders of a directly psychopathic nature[142] and
peculiarly so where a condition of enhanced suggestibility is deliberately
induced and utilised with a view to the cure of such disorders, as in
the practice of hypnotism. The work which has been directed to the study
of hypnotism from the psycho-analytic point of view has brought out very
clearly the similarities between the condition in hypnosis and some of the
mental characteristics of early childhood; and has led to the conception
of the hypnotic trance as a regression to a relatively infantile state
of mind, the _rapport_ between operator and subject being regarded as,
in certain important respects, a repetition or revival of the relations
which had previously existed between parent and child. Ferenczi[143] has
gone so far as to regard the different methods of inducing hypnosis
as depending upon a revival in a displaced form of the child's typical
attitude towards its father or its mother respectively; the stern,
commanding, confident tone, adopted by some operators, tending to bring
about a relationship between them and their subjects that constitutes a
revival of the former relationship between father and child, the calming,
soothing, soporific methods of others serving to recall the attitude of
the child towards its mother, as when in early infancy it was lulled to
sleep by its mother with the aid of a very similar procedure.
[Sidenote: "Transference" in psychoanalysis]
In the practice of psycho-analysis, too, the displacement of emotional
attitudes originally adopted with reference to the parents has been shown
to play an important part, though the therapeutic effect of the method is
not, as has sometimes erroneously been supposed, due to the simple action
of suggestion[144]. Psycho-analysis aims at producing a state of greater
co-ordination in the patient's mind by giving him an understanding of
the nature and direction of his unconscious mental trends, thus putting
him in a position to bring about a state of relative harmony between the
different impulses which formerly, by their mutual antagonisms, were
responsible for the production of the neurosis. A mere understanding
of the nature of the unconscious processes involved is however, as has
frequently been shown, powerless to effect the desired result, unless the
conative and affective sides of these processes are also loosened from
their fixations in the Unconscious and made available for use in other
directions. It is here that the transference of tendencies originally
directed to the parents becomes important. Just as, in the first unfolding
and development of the child's emotional capacities, the direction of
the love impulses on to the parents was the means of bringing the child
beyond the primitive stages of auto-erotism and narcissism, so now in the
emotional re-education that psycho-analysis involves, the further process
of displacement of the parent love on to new objects is one of fundamental
importance and is often an essential condition of the necessary
readjustment and integration of the emotional life. Not of course that
the parent-love is the only impulse requiring displacement in this way,
but, inasmuch as the Œdipus Complex is (as Freud has put it) the nuclear
complex of the neuroses, it is just the emotions that centre round the
parents that usually constitute the most fundamental and far-reaching, as
well as in themselves the most massive and weighty, of those that need
readjustment as regards their object. In this process of readjustment,
the analyst himself--as is now well recognised--usually plays a highly
important, though a transitory, rôle; the emotions loosened from their
fixations by the process of analysis being temporarily displaced on to his
person, (on their way to more suitable and permanent objects) both because
he is the first available object, and because his position of authority as
the conductor of the analysis naturally suits him for the part[145].
[Sidenote: Transference and the cure of neuroses]
It is principally because a displacement of this sort can be much more
easily produced in certain kinds of neurosis than in others, that
neuroses differ from one another markedly in their amenability to
treatment; what Freud has called the Transference Neuroses[146] (such as
Hysteria or Obsessional Neurosis), in which the patient, though unable
to adjust his emotions to the level required for satisfactory adult
life, has nevertheless for the most part attained--and retained--the
stage of object-love, comparing very favourably in this respect with
the Narcissistic Neuroses (such as Paranoia), in which the patient has
regressed beyond the stage of object-love to the relatively infantile
level at which his emotional outlets are sought only in, or in connection
with, his own person.
[Sidenote: The displacement of parent-regarding feelings, on to objects
other than individuals]
All the displacements with which we have been hitherto concerned have
at least this one important feature in common, that the feelings and
tendencies originally directed to the parents are transferred to definite
individuals. There are, however, certain forms of displacement, of very
considerable sociological importance, in which this is no longer the case,
the parent substitutes being found, not in any individual persons, but in
groups, places, societies and institutions.
[Sidenote: Home]
Thus in many cases the home, as the place in which the parents lived
and in which the feelings of love, tenderness and admiration towards
the parents were first developed, acquires and retains throughout life
a peculiar attractiveness, in which piety, tenderness and pride are
intermingled and which is, it would seem, to a very large extent derived
from the emotional attitude of the child towards the parents themselves.
The attachment to the home in this sense frequently manifests itself in
home-sickness whenever the individual is compelled to leave his native
place or native land; those who suffer from home-sickness to an unusual
degree or for an unusual length of time being in most cases burdened with
an overstrong attachment to and dependence on their family, or certain
members of it, having failed to free themselves adequately from their
infantile fixations in this direction.
[Sidenote: Family or Clan]
In certain persons again--especially in members of an aristocratic caste
or in others who are able to trace their descent through a long line of
ancestors--some important aspects of the parent-love come to be attached
to the idea of the whole family of which they form a part; the tendencies
to esteem, obedience, admiration or idealisation originally aroused by
the child's immediate parents being transferred to the family or clan
regarded as a social group, which has existed in the past, exists now in
those of its members who happen to be living and will continue to exist in
their descendants. This kind of transference may constitute a sublimation
of considerable value, inasmuch as it may afford a powerful motive to
the individual for not falling below the level of attainment or civic
worth that is expected of the family, and generally for doing all that
may enhance, and avoiding all that may degrade, the family reputation;
on the other hand, it may sometimes be productive of an undue tendency
towards conservatism and may lead to the stifling of individual effort,
independence and initiative, through the imposition of a too uniform
standard of conduct and achievement or a too close adherence to tradition.
[Sidenote: School]
In many persons, again, the school, as the centre of influence that
succeeds in time (and often in importance) to that constituted by the
family circle, naturally draws to itself many of the emotions which
had hitherto found their exclusive outlet in the family; loyalty and
obedience to school traditions, together with respect, tenderness, pride
and admiration for the school as a collective body replacing to some
extent the corresponding feelings which had previously been experienced
principally or solely in relation to the parents.
[Sidenote: University]
At a later age, these same feelings may be again displaced on to a College
or University; the term _Alma Mater_, so frequently applied to the latter,
bearing witness to the extent to which a University is habitually endowed
with maternal attributes--being regarded as a kindly mother (often of
venerable age and experience) who imparts to her sons the learning and
wisdom that she possesses, and generally equips them for the tasks and
trials of life in the outer world.
[Sidenote: Town]
Towns[147] may also become the recipients of parentally, and especially
maternally, directed feeling; those who love and admire a town often
referring to it in terms which would be more directly appropriate to a
woman; a woman behind whom the mother image can usually be discovered.
The emotions aroused by the besieging, attacking or capturing of towns in
warfare are also in part derived from the same source.
[Sidenote: Other objects]
The same feeling too is often directed to houses, ships, churches (and
especially to the institution of the Church; _cp._ the phrase "Mother
Church"); also to trees, woods, mountains, lakes, rivers, the sea and
other natural objects.
[Sidenote: The attitude of the individual to the state:]
Probably the most important displacement of this kind from the
sociological point of view is that in which parental attributes are
transferred to the community, state, or country. The mental ties that
bind the individual to the community are of course complex in nature,
comprising emotional and intellectual factors belonging to a variety
of psychic levels. Among the most fundamental and deep seated of these
factors are, as Ernest Jones[148] has pointed out, those that take their
origin in feelings that regard the self, the mother and the father
respectively.
[Sidenote: Self-regarding tendencies]
The self-regarding tendencies are enlisted in the service of
patriotism;--on the conscious, intellectual level, through a recognition
of the community of interest between the individual and the state; on the
more primitive, emotional and unconscious level, through a process of
identification of the individual with the state, as a result of which
the former participates in the successes and failures of the latter in
much the same way as if they affected him directly and principally in
his own person. In these latter respects the feelings of the individual
towards the state are similar in many ways to those that are involved in
a corresponding identification of the self with the family, the school
or any other group with whose prosperity and honour the well-being and
self-respect of the individual is bound up.
[Sidenote: Mother regarding tendencies]
The displacement of the mother-regarding feelings on to state is, it would
seem, chiefly connected with the ideas of being nourished, trained and
protected, on the one hand, and of actively protecting, on the other. Thus
we tend to regard our native land as a great mother who brings into being,
nourishes, protects and cherishes her sons and daughters and inspires them
with respect and love for herself and her traditions, customs, beliefs and
institutions; in return for which her children are prepared to work and
fight for her--and above all, to protect her from her enemies; a good deal
of the horror and disgust which is inspired by the idea of an invasion of
one's native land by a hostile army being due to the unconscious tendency
to regard such an invasion as a desecration and violation of the mother.
[Sidenote: Father-regarding tendencies]
In the displacement of the father-regarding feelings on to the state, the
tendencies connected with the attitude of respect, obedience and loyalty
to the paternal authority are usually the most prominent. Great importance
is moreover almost invariably attached to the head of the state as its
embodiment and its supreme authority, the country over which he rules
being looked upon as his possession or estate, which it is the duty of his
children to uphold, to protect or to enlarge. Kings, as we have already
seen, are habitually identified in the Unconscious with the father, as are
other persons in positions of authority, and it is interesting to note
that the evidence of language and of certain common appellations applied
to these persons fully endorses the conclusions of Psycho-Analysis in this
respect. Thus, as Rank[149] and Jones[150], following Max Müller, have
pointed out, the word king is ultimately derived from the Sanskrit root
_gan_, meaning to beget, _ganaka_ being Sanskrit for father. The Czar of
Russia was until recently called the "Little Father," the same title as
the Hunnish Attila (diminutive of Atta = father). The title "Landesvater"
is commonly used in Germany just as the Americans still call Washington
the Father of his Country. The ruler of the Roman Catholic Church is
called the "Holy Father," or by his Latin name of "Papa[151]" (from the
root _pa_ to protect, nourish). Similarly, the word "queen" comes from
the Sanskrit _ganí_, which means mother (Greek [Greek: gynê], Gothic
_quinô_)[152] and a queen who has had children, is the mother of the
reigning monarch or has merely attained to a certain age, is frequently
spoken of as the "Queen Mother."
[Sidenote: Political importance of these tendencies]
There are considerable differences, both individual and national, as
regards the relative importance of the father and the mother elements
respectively in the general attitude adopted towards the state, and
it would seem probable that these differences are apt to lead to, or
at least to be correlated with, political characteristics of very
great importance. Thus England is looked upon almost entirely as a
mother, the father-regarding aspects of an Englishman's feeling for his
country playing but a very minor part in the formation of his total
attitude; the same is in the main true of modern--as distinct from
prerevolutionary--France (though, as Ernest Jones[153] points out, the
term 'la patrie'--combining as it does a feminine form with a masculine
connotation--implies to some extent the co-operation of both elements),
while the colossal female statue of Liberty at the entrance to New
York would certainly seem to indicate that the land of freedom which
the traveller is approaching is to be regarded as an embodiment of the
matriarchal, rather than of the patriarchal, aspects of human society.
Germany, on the other hand, is habitually spoken of as the Fatherland;
while in Russia the Czar was regarded, to a unique extent perhaps among
modern nations, as the Father of his country. The tendency to blind
loyalty and obedience manifested in these latter countries compared,
until recently, most markedly with the relatively free and unconstrained
affection exhibited by the citizens of the former states towards their
native land, and suggests the existence of a fairly close correspondence,
on the one hand between the maternal view of the state and the development
of democratic institutions and individual independence, and on the other
hand between the paternal view and the development and retention of
autocracy and a relatively strict subordination of the individual to the
authority of the government and of its representatives.
It would be possible also perhaps to point to a general tendency towards a
similar association of the mother-regarding attitude with a trend towards
change, progress or instability, and of the father-regarding attitude
with a corresponding trend towards stability and conservatism; though the
extreme progressiveness, in certain respects, of modern Germany has shown
that any such tendency does not hold for all cases or for all aspects of
culture.
Where the attitude towards the state, its institutions and authority
is not one of love, friendliness or reverence, but one of hate and
rebellion, it is of course the corresponding feelings of hostility towards
the parents which play a leading part in the unconscious motivation of
malcontents or revolutionaries. It is principally for this reason that
revolutions in autocratic paternal states (_cp._ the recent upheavals in
Russia and Germany and the French Revolution) are usually more violent and
extreme than in the case of the freer and more liberal maternal countries,
since the desire for rebellion in early family life is generally directed
against the authority of the father to a much greater extent than against
that of the mother.
[Sidenote: Family organisation and State organisation]
There probably exists, moreover, as Rank[154] and Jones[155] have already
suggested, a considerable degree of correspondence between the nature
of the family system as found in any country and some of the political
features to which we have referred. Thus the authority of the head of the
household--the _patria potestas_--was perhaps more developed among the
Romans than among any other western people, and the Romans elaborated a
military and civil administration of such strength and durability that
the whole of western civilisation has to a large extent been raised and
developed on the foundation and the model it afforded. With the Jews
also the patriarchal system was developed to its fullest extent and
this people has shown its inherent conservatism and stability by the
preservation of many of its characteristic physical, psychological, moral
and social qualities, though homeless for upwards of two thousand years.
Among Oriental nations, the Chinese are distinguished for their rigid
system of family rule and individual subordination to the parents and they
evolved a civilisation which lasted almost without change for a period
that is without parallel in recorded human history. On the other hand it
is notorious that in times of rapid social change or political upheaval,
family ties and family authority tend to be relaxed, the individual
asserting his freedom in domestic as well as in political matters; and it
is probable that there exists a tendency for all periods of national or
racial instability, whether leading to development or to degeneration, to
be characterised by a relaxation or throwing off of parental authority and
tradition; though it is obvious that, owing to the great complexity of the
factors involved in the rise or fall, expansion or decay of nations, the
correspondence cannot be an absolute one.
[Sidenote: Ambivalent attitude towards the king]
As regards the attitude adopted by the individual member of a state
towards the king or ruler, Freud has shown[156] that it tends to be, in
Bleuler's useful phrase, ambivalent, _i. e._, to be determined by two
motives of opposite character, in one of which hate is the principal
element, in the other love. This ambivalency manifests itself most clearly
in the many restrictions and taboos that are attached to, or connected
with, the office of king in different parts of the world, and that are to
some extent still operative even in civilised societies at the present
day. These taboos are in the main of two kinds:--
[Sidenote: Taboos affecting the king as manifestations of this attitude]
(1) Those that restrict the activities of the king himself, such as the
rules in virtue of which he may only live in certain places, go out at
certain times or eat certain foods, must avoid all situations involving
danger of any kind and must submit to a cumbrous, wearisome and often
exhausting system of court routine and ceremony. Taboos of this kind would
seem on analysis to have two main objects:--(a) to guard the king from
any harm, (b) to limit his power in a variety of ways, and generally to
make his life burdensome and unpleasant (under the guise of assuring
his dignity or safety). The exaggerated fear of some harm coming to the
king, which is manifested in (a), arises by way of a reaction against the
unconscious _desire_ that some harm _may_ befall him, in the same way as
an exaggerated and unreasonable anxiety as regards the health and welfare
of some relative usually indicates a repressed feeling of hostility
towards that relative (_cp._ above p. 57); while (b) even more obviously
involves elements of fear and of hostility.
(2) Taboos that affect the subjects in their relations to the king,
such as those which forbid looking at, or touching, the king, or the
touching or eating of his food, or the touching or removal of his personal
effects. These may likewise be traced to two predominant motives:--(a) the
desire, as before, to preserve the king from any harm--in this case more
especially from harm that may result from the actions of those about him;
(b) the desire to avoid any harm befalling the subjects as a result of
influences emanating from the king, the latter being regarded as a potent
but mysterious source of danger to all who rashly approach or come in
contact with him. The latter tendency, with its correlative belief, arises
as the result of a projection of the hostility felt towards the king;
this hostility (in accordance with the mechanism of Projection--now well
recognised both in normal and in abnormal psychology)[157], being falsely
attributed to its object, instead of to the person in whose mind it really
originates.
In both sets of taboos the presence of hostility towards the king is thus
made manifest, the taboos themselves arising chiefly as a result of this
hostility and aiming only secondarily, and by way of reaction, at an
increase of the king's safety, dignity or happiness.
[Sidenote: Hostility towards and murder of the king]
The reality of this hostile feeling is placed beyond all reasonable doubt
when we bear in mind the frequent occurrence of openly cruel practices,
such as imprisonment, enforced immobility[158], starvation[159], or
even beating[160], especially when we take into consideration the very
widespread custom of killing the king at the end of his period of office
or as soon as his strength or ability show signs of failing--a sinister
theme which Frazer has treated with such charm of manner and such wealth
of erudition in the twelve immortal volumes of the Golden Bough. Both
on account of the actual nature of many of its manifestations[161] and
because of the close unconscious identification of king and father, to
which we have already referred, it is evident that this hostility is
in many of its aspects a displaced form of the hate elements of the
Œdipus complex; the historical, sociological and political bearings
of which acquire in this light, and in the light of the other facts
and considerations brought forward in this chapter, a new, and in many
respects an altogether overwhelming, significance.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 140: _Cp._ Ernest Jones, "Papers on Psycho-Analysis," 2nd. ed.
540 ff. for a study of the manner in which restraint of the child in one
particular respect--with regard to the excretory functions--may lead to a
hostile attitude of this kind on the part of the child.]
[Footnote 141: Thus, as Mr. Burt has suggested to me, the influence of
displaced father-hatred is probably in large measure responsible for the
fact that strikes and other crude forms of rebellion against authority in
industry occur principally among the working classes, where the tyranny
of the father is often of a primitive and repressive type. For the same
reason the number of delinquents from these classes is almost certainly
relatively larger than that from the upper and middle classes, quite apart
from the influence of economic and educational factors. _Cp._ too in this
connection p. 128 below.]
[Footnote 142: _Cp._ Ernest Jones, "Papers on Psycho-Analysis," 2nd. ed.,
318 ff.]
[Footnote 143: "Contributions to Psycho-Analysis," trans. by Ernest Jones,
Ch. II, especially 57 ff.]
[Footnote 144: Ernest Jones, "Papers on Psycho-Analysis," 2nd. ed. 301.]
[Footnote 145: In technical psycho-analytic literature, the term
"Transference" is, as a rule, used to denote this particular kind of
displacement only.]
[Footnote 146: "Vorlesungen zur Einführung in die Psychoanalyse," 526 ff.]
[Footnote 147: O. Rank, "Um Städte werben," _Zeitschrift für Ärztliche
Psychoanalyse_, 1914, II, 50. B. Dattner, "Die Stadt als Mutter,"
_Zeitschrift für Ärztliche Psychoanalyse_, 1914, II, 59.]
[Footnote 148: "War and Individual Psychology," _Sociological Review_,
1915, p. 1.]
[Footnote 149: "Das Inzestmotiv in Dichtung und Sage," 83.]
[Footnote 150: "Papers on Psycho-Analysis," 143.]
[Footnote 151: Ernest Jones, _loc. cit._]
[Footnote 152: Ernest Jones, _loc. cit._]
[Footnote 153: "War and Individual Psychology," _Sociological Review_,
1915, p. 10.]
[Footnote 154: "Das Inzestmotiv in Dichtung und Sage," 414 ff.]
[Footnote 155: Ernest Jones, _loc. cit._]
[Footnote 156: "Totem and Taboo," 70 ff.]
[Footnote 157: For a brief general account of projection _cp._ Bernard
Hart, "The Psychology of Insanity," 117 ff.]
[Footnote 158: A certain priestly king in West Africa may not even quit
his chair, in which he has to sleep sitting. Frazer, "Taboo and the Perils
of the Soul," 123.]
[Footnote 159: Frazer, _op. cit._, 124.]
[Footnote 160: Frazer, _op. cit._, 18.]
[Footnote 161: We may briefly mention here a few of the main lines along
which the evidence for the identification of regicide and parricide
proceeds:--
(1) The very person who performs the deed of murder is frequently the one
who succeeds to the throne; taking this in combination with the fact that
it is usually the son or some other near relative who is the recognised
successor, it is evident that there exists a natural tendency for the
murderer to belong to the murdered king's own family.
(2) The birth of a son is very frequently associated with the idea of
danger to the father. This danger would appear to be the principal motive
for the widespread custom of killing the king's son, which seems to be
regarded as, in many respects, an alternative to the killing of the king
himself (see Frazer, "The Dying God," Ch. VI, 160 ff.) _Cp._ the very
frequent legends (of which the story of Œdipus is one) in which a kingly
father, to avoid threatened danger to himself, exposes or otherwise
attempts to murder his young son. See Rank, "The Myth of the Birth of the
Hero."
(3) There exist many cases in legend, and some in actual fact, in which
the son fights with his father for the privileges of chieftainship; while
in at least one case (Frazer, "The Dying God," 190) the king is made to
abdicate as soon as his son is born.
(4) In the many quaint practices of the Carnival type, which, as Frazer
has shown ("The Dying God," 205 ff.), usually represent, in one at least
of their aspects, the murder of the king in the shape of the spirit of
vegetation, the death of the old monarch is usually followed, immediately
or after an interval, by general rejoicing at the coming to power of his
successor (_cp._ the well known phrase, "Le roi est mort, vive le roi")
showing that the idea of the superseding of an outworn potentate is a
prominent underlying feature of the whole type of ceremony.
(5) Festivals of this kind, and indeed those connected with the succession
of kings generally, are usually associated with some kind of sexual orgy,
in which the relaxation of the usual prohibitions, especially those which
relate to incest, is often a prominent feature; this fact seems to point
to the existence of some connection between incest and succession to the
kingship, such as that which is manifested in the myth of Œdipus.
(6) This connection is indicated even more clearly by the widespread
custom of the new king taking over the wife of the king whom he has
succeeded, even if she should be his own step-mother, or in some cases
perhaps his real mother (See Frazer, "The Magic Art and the Evolution of
Kings," II, 283 ff., "The Dying God," 193 ff.). Where (as seems to have
happened not infrequently) this is combined with the murder, deposition
or defeat of the old king, we get both elements of the Œdipus complex in
intimate association, and openly expressed.
(7) Among the prohibitions and conditions to which a king is subject
during his tenure of office, not the least burdensome are those connected
with his sexual life. On the one hand his sexual activities are often
restricted, permitted only under certain circumstances and conditions or
even forbidden altogether; while on the other hand any failure or weakness
of sexual power may be made the reason for his deposition or execution. If
the sexual jealousy, which is such an important constituent of the Œdipus
complex, plays an active part in the attitude habitually adopted towards
kings (especially by those who are likely to become their successors),
such restrictions on the king's sexual activity or such a utilisation
of any sexual failing on his part as an excuse for his deposition or
execution are only what we might expect to find.
In bringing forward these arguments in favour of the operation of the
Œdipus complex in the treatment accorded to kings, we must not of course
shut our eyes to the co-operation of other important motives belonging to
the later and more conscious levels of the mind, such as that emphasised
by Frazer, according to whom the king is regarded as the embodiment of
natural fertility, so that, if he were to become old or enfeebled, Nature
(in virtue of the principles of homoeopathic magic) would suffer from a
corresponding weakness and produce less abundantly; this belief naturally
leading to the desire to kill the king while he is still in his prime,
lest in age or disease he should endanger the sustenance of the community.
Such a motive as this (and perhaps still others) may very well co-exist
with the motives connected with the Œdipus complex, in virtue of the
psychological mechanism of over-determination, just as--as Silberer, Rank,
and others have shown--many myths, legends and neurotic symptoms may give
direct or symbolic expression at the same time to two or more distinct
sets of tendencies.]