Man's Dilemma

This post takes a look at man’s irrational and self-defeating behavior based on the work of pioneers Sigmund Freud and Henry Murray.  In reality, we begin life with the trauma of birth. We are born helpless, anxious, alone and dependent upon another. To compensate for this fragile state of being, we developed strategies for survival, affiliation, development, growth, meaning in life, and our place in the world until death; thus our psychological needs  evolve and are established.

 In the late 19^th century, Freud began developing his theory. At that time, there was an absence of large-scale wars within European societies. However, in European societies, there existed puritanical, non-satisfying rigid sexual mores accompanied with guilt. Within that context, briefly, Freud’s model incorporated a psychosexual instinct or drive called Eros after the Greek God of Love. This was a life sustaining instinct, along with drive reduction, unconscious pleasure principle and reality principle as motivating forces. He accounted for aggression within the dynamics of sadomasochism. Then came World War I in the 20^th century. He realized that sadomasochism did not realistically account for all the devastating, cruel, horrific destruction and death that occurred during that unfortunate time in the history of Homo sapiens.

 In Freud’s dualistic model, he later hypothesized a second major or destructive instinct to account for man’s inhumanity to man. This self-destructive, aggressive, sadistic will for power or death instinct was later labeled Thanatos after the Greek God of Death.  Later on in the 20^th century, Henry Murray created, based on Freudian thinking, and hypothesized a number of needs, not instincts, as human motivational forces. Aggression was one of Murray’s needs. He briefly defined aggression as “To fight. To revenge as injury. To attack, injure or kill another. To oppose forcefully or punish another.” Another of Murray’s needs was called Abasement. He briefly defined Abasement as “To submit passively to external force. To accept injury, blame, criticism, punishment. To surrender. To blame, belittle or mutilate the self. To seek and enjoy pain, punishment, illness and misfortune.”

Let’s start with sport of football to partially explain participation in this dangerous, brutal endeavor. I have firsthand knowledge of NFL friends who excelled in that injury prone sport. These ex-players had terrific careers, received awards and developed a special camaraderie. Yes, Aggression and Abasement needs were prominent. However, they had additional needs met , such as affiliative [ To adhere and remain loyal to a friend]; achievement [To accomplish something difficult]; counteraction [ To overcome weakness and repressed fear]; defendance [ To validate the ego]; dominance [To control one’s human environment]; exhibition [To make an impression]; play  To participate in games, sports, dancing, drinking parties, cards]; sex [To have sexual intercourse]; and succorance [To be nursed, supported, sustained, surrounded, protected, loved, advised, guided, indulged, forgiven, counseled] by participating and being part of the special  fraternity of professional football players.