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Introduction to the topic

The citizens in our countries are not satisfied with the present world situation: The West’s never-ending war against Russia, which could develop into a nuclear war between the two superpowers on European soil, and the many other wars: murder and manslaughter again and again. Add to this the increasing impoverishment of low-income groups and concerns about the future. See Paul C. Roberts, “Does America Have a Future? (1).

What to do? “Go to the barricades” or quietly accept the madness? But on this, Nobel Peace Prize winner Martin Luther King said in his historic speech of 4 April 1967: “There comes a time when silence is betrayal”(2).

According to Dr. Gerda Fellay, Swiss psychotherapist, Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno, two famous philosophers of the “Frankfurt School” are said to have resigned after the Second World War because of the caving in of Goethe’s and Schiller’s fatherland to the Führer. In response, Friedrich Liebling (1893-1982), the founder of the Psychological Teaching and Counselling Centre in Zurich (“Züricher Schule”), sent the two intellectuals the following psychological reply, according to Fellay’s notes: “Mankind must adopt the results of psychological research in order to create a life worthy of human beings.” (3).

The object of psychological research is the spiritual-emotional life of man, his nature, his mental condition and his behaviour. When man recognises himself and his fellow men, he changes his view of the state conditions and the entire social order. The results of psychological research point the way.

Therefore, as a psychologist, I will continue to enlighten people about the science of psychology in speech and writing and invite them to tread the path together. As a student of the Swiss psychotherapist Friedrich Liebling, I was able to personally experience what it means to embrace the results of psychological research. As a pioneer in the field of scientific psychology, Liebling’s main concern was to give people hope for a life worthy of human beings in every respect.

A change of the world requires a change of man

Since history is a work of human beings, the change of the world must come from within themselves. People must get to know their own nature, their mental make-up, their conscious or semi-conscious prejudices, as well as their own ways of reacting and also those of their fellow human beings.

In this way, they should be able to assess how they themselves and how their fellow human beings will react to conflict-prone crises and coming wars. What are the “fit for military service” men likely to do when the draft notice flutters through the door? Will they march off immediately or are there personalities who are able to resist an order “from above” and say NO so that they can be followed?

As a rule, we all agree: the war ministry, the politicians, the church, the theologians – and also we citizens.

So the mothers follow their reflex of obedience and let their ready sons go to the “field of honour” without grumbling. When the news of death arrives, the mother wears the black armband in “proud mourning”. Mother and son lack the courage not to go to war. Already the father or another member of the family has remained in some war on the so-called “field of honour”.

And the priest blesses the weapons of war that slay the others across the border who are also Christians. In doing so, he is tacitly following the instruction of his church, and with this act he is setting a miserable example to the youth. The unemployed also diligently sign up for military service because they think they have no other way out.

Yet every war in which other peoples are conquered and dominated is good business. The arms industry earns a “golden nose” while the citizens become visibly poorer. But armaments continue to be made; this is cultivated and not denied.

Everything is profit, wherever we look. There is nothing where this does not play in our social order. Why are our children involved with drugs, for example? How do they get into it? If it wasn’t good business, we wouldn’t have drugs and we wouldn’t have worries; the market would be empty. But no consideration is given to that. Many young people perish from drugs, they literally go to their death.

If we look around the world, we see that people, without exception, are not healthy but psychologically irritated by traditional education. They are not sick, they are just not properly enlightened. We don’t have to cure them, but help them to recognise themselves.

If we succeed in grasping the human problem in all its depth, we will learn to see correctly what is wrong with us human beings: whether, for example, only the rulers of the world and their politicians instigate and wage wars – or whether we citizens are also in favour of war.

A lot of time and patience is needed to explore this. All questions must be thought through “to the end”. However, this is of tremendous importance for the life and mental health of each of us. We then have a compass.

Results of psychological research point the way

Medicine only progressed when it was allowed to examine and learn about the function of the individual organs of the body. The Church was initially against researching the human being. It was only when the need was recognised that people could only be helped if the functions of the various organs were known that doctors stole corpses to find out.

While the science of medicine studies the human body, the science of psychology studies the spiritual and mental life of man.

The science of psychology is a science about man, about human nature: how he becomes, how he grows up and how he then finds his way in life. His experiences are imparted to him above all by his parents and teachers. The human being is then the product of his experiences and impressions in childhood.

Already in the first years of life – at the age of five to six – when the child enters kindergarten, it has a compass. It then knows how to behave. It also has an opinion about the other child, the father, the mother and the siblings. It already has its character traits and knows its position in the world.

But if the person is taught how he should and can solve his problems, he will get a different, a more realistic view. The most important problems are his attitude towards life, his opinion about himself, his partner, his attitude towards the children, his opinion about the neighbour, the community and the state. That would be education in the psychological sense.

Once you have recognised the feelings and ways of reacting of the human being and understood how he grows up, then you also understand yourself, the other person, society and the whole world. And when we learn to understand the human being, then we also understand the problem of war, because we can assess our own ways of acting and those of our fellow human beings and understand what is going on in us and in them. We then find an answer to the question: Is it people like us who are in favour of war or is it completely different people? We then have a different way of thinking and feeling.

Since people are programmed by all institutions – starting with education at home and school and going all the way up to recruit school and the “field of honour” – in their mind, it is difficult to point out unrealistic or “erroneous” views to them and help them.

They are programmed in such a way that they then do whatever those in power ask of them. Thus the German people of about 100 million – the people of poets and thinkers – fully agreed with and cheered Adolf Hitler. Everyone went along with him – from the Pope, the Catholic Church and the other churches to the scholars, the philosophers and psychologists, the workers and socialists. They were programmed so “well” that they allowed themselves to be led to their deaths.

Therefore, all people should be taught the psychological knowledge about themselves and their fellow human beings. But we still live in a world in which man has not recognised himself. He has explored everything, but he has not recognised himself, his nature, his mental condition and his modes of reaction.

Enlightenment and education as prophylaxis (prevention)

Since a humane life is prepared in people’s minds and hearts, people will act tomorrow in the way they think today. Therefore, enlightenment is of great importance. The purpose of enlightenment efforts is to purify human consciousness of individual and collective prejudices, the ideological background of many human disasters.

The future of our culture will largely depend on whether there are enough “enlighteners” who are capable of removing the relevant prejudices from the population. Intellectuals have a great responsibility in this. At a time when the threat of the atomic bomb makes the self-destruction of humanity seem possible, we need “free spirits” more than ever to teach us what is truth and what is a lie.

Even more important than enlightenment is the problem of education. Depth-psychological research has made clear the immense scope of education. Today we know that man is to such an extent the product of his upbringing that we can hope, through psychological methods of education that dispense with the authoritarian principle, to be able to educate people who will be immune to the entanglements of power madness.

By renouncing fear-inducing authority, the use of violence and inappropriate pampering in the home and school, and by turning to the child’s soul with true understanding, education will produce a type of person who no longer has a “subject mentality” and who will therefore no longer be a docile tool for those in power in our world.

The educator’s respect for the child’s personality and his friendly devotion to the educator will make a valuable contribution to the building of a humane social order and the creation of a life worthy of human dignity.

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Dr. Rudolf Lothar Hänsel is a school rector, educational scientist and graduate psychologist. After his university studies he became an academic teacher in adult education. As a retiree he worked as a psychotherapist in his own practice. In his books and professional articles, he calls for a conscious ethical-moral education in values as well as an education for public spirit and peace. In 2021, he was awarded the Republic Prize “Captain Misa Anastasijevic” by the Universities of Belgrade and Novi Sad for services to Serbia.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Notes

(1) https://freeassange.rtde.me/international/167034-denkt-nicht-an-die-zukunft-es/

(2) https://www.globalresearch.ca/this-madness.must-cease/4460

(3) Fellay, Gerda (1997 / 2010). Friedrich Liebling. Life and work – an introduction. (Dissertation). New York, Paris, Bern and Sitten (Switzerland), p. 16.