By Margaret Aman, Winner of the Bailey Essay Medal
In this age of questioning and challenging, the general outcry is: “Whither are we going?” “Are we going or coming?” The broader and more liberal thinkers are abandoning the scramblings and scratching about the theory of evolution of man from arboreal creatures. They are concerned with where we are going. In this period of reaction, revolution, and general upheaval, they can see the justification of the question: “Where do we go from here? instead of “Where did we come from?”
Is not the present disintegration of civilization a throb of a new life, elemental vigor, the breaking of the encumbering crust of traditional restraint and custom, and an awakening to new possibilities, all of which point to ultimate reconstruction on a happier and more prosperous basis? Life has reached the point where the old wine has become too dynamic for the bottles. “Modernism,” which is vehemently condemned by Conservatives as a menace to civilization, as seen by the Liberals is merely a crude beginning of people to utilize the dominant hidden powers. Every art and industry has had to pass through that period of trial and opposition while in its rudimentary stage. It is the small minority of steadfast believers who are willing to break way from old rules and laws of opinion, to whom we must look for the progress of civilization. Is was said of Roger Bacon, who started the movement to put aside the old established teachings of Aristotle, that he lived two centuries ahead of time. it was so with such men as Martin Luther and John Calvin who had the courage of their convictions strongly enough implanted to start an innovation of the old forms of religion which led to the reformation and the founding of Protestantism.
The past century has been one of mechanical and physical progress wrought by science. The effect has been upon the country, city, and distribution of population. Landscapes have been gashed by railways and highways, factories, smoking engines, large structures, and the noise and uproar of a crowded city have usurped the quiet and serenity of our forest land.
Now the intellectual surface is crumbling. The foundations are being laid for the development of mental science. H.G. Wells says that now men must become introspective and turn from the machinery to selfhood, and bring mental science up to the level of contemporary physical science. How infinitely much more familiarly is a man with the detailed mechanism of his automobile than with tat great and most vital force of the human mind. The evolution of the progress of civilization has been made possible by means of physical scientific research and application.
We are now at the point where the much broader field both in attempt and accomplishment, is open, which is that of psychology. During the past 30 or 40 years, a great deal has been done in this phase of social science, upon which fruitful adaptation to life and fuller appreciation of the outcome of all scientific work depends. Freud and Jung, probably most noted of modern psychologists, have done much, but they have only formed a working basis for further development. It is just the blossoming of springtime, the harvest to be reaped in later years, after going through the trials of cultivation and adaption, during which there will be the blight and disease from frost and excessive heat caused by disbelief, non-support, and mockery.
To the person of far-sighted vision, the powers of a properly controlled intellect through the growth and study of the science of human latent motives is stupendous. In 1880 the fool laughed at the idea of a flying machine because he had known of no such thing before. The prophecy is just as incredulous to come without vision that in a century or a few decades there will be as much advancement in the state of human affairs because of the proper control and adaption of the latent mental powers as there has been in the past century in transportation and metallurgy because of the inventions which brought about the harnessing of the vast powers of steel, electricity, steam, and such things for the good of mankind.
The adjustment on a creative plane of this age of unrest, lawlessness, and revolution depends upon the workings of the mind in the right and proper relationship. All of the restraint of machinery of government and legislation tends to stir up more discontent instead of to reconcile.
The system of education is the primary factor to work in this innovation. In the schools it has its start, and through them it ultimately reaches the masses. After the science of human motives has been studied and carefully assimilated, we shall know why we hate this and like the other, why one thing is highly repulsive while another is equally inviting, and shall understand all the innate complexities and inclinations of hat most potent and vital force, the human mind. Then we shall be able to reach a sane and sober solution of the problems of unrest and seemingly social degeneracy that face us.
Some of the most outstanding among these baffling problems are irreconcilable hatred between nations, between capital and labor, and between other organizations, and even individual crime and social corruption. The hatred between nations can not be quelled by that much resorted to instrument of war. A reconciliation can be made only by some mutual plan of agreement. Such an agreement will be possible when psychology has reached the stage of development where the latent motives in the mentality are thoroughly understood and subsequently brought under sober control. The same principles that work with nations will work with other organizations. Crime is rarely the outcome of natural blackness of nature. The financial and economic insecurities that cause poverty and hunger engender crime against property. The violence of crime in murderous acts is due almost entirely to mental disorder, momentary and agitated through lack of proper understanding and deliberation. What the Conservates class as “social corruption” is a result of misunderstanding leading to misappropriation.
When the science of human motives has attained the goal of which its exponents now have a vision, the throb of battle drums will cease and war will fade into the memories of tradition; prisons, jails, and lunatic asylums will disappear gradually from the face of the earth. Lawyers, doctors, nurses, and such people who devote their energy and skill to the cause of remedying things so wrought by the disintegrating, destructive and misdirected forces of nature in man, will be out of business. They may then convert their lives to the work of construction and creation, and thus help to make the world a happier and more idyllic above for humankind. Their strength can be used to create and build rather than to prevent further destruction and to render relief to the suffering caused by the disintegrating and corroding forces.
A life such as can be brought into existence when the science of mentality has reached the highest point of development, adaptation, and appreciation will be quite idyllic and synonymous to the meanings given by the world “millennium” by the prophets. Present conditions when worked out on such a psychological basis of reconstruction and proper working relationship indicate a coming period of more harmony than discord instead of decadence of civilization. It may take centuries to reach it, but we are headed straight for the millennium!
From The Chowanian, Chowan University student newspaper, Murfreesboro, N.C., June 19, 1924, page 7
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