DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.42067#0013
Preface
3
lines of thought that he will not follow, and words that he will not
utter, because the actions are emotionally objectionable, or the
thoughts find strong resistances and involve our innermost life so
deeply that they cannot be expressed in words. We are right in
calling these social taboos. It requires only a dogmatic standardi-
zation to transform them into true taboos.
And magic? I believe if a boy should observe someone spitting
on his photograph and cutting it to pieces he would feel duely
outraged. I know if this should have happened to me when I was
a student, the result would have been a duel and I should have
done my level best to do to my adversary in natura what he had
done to me in effigie and I should have considered my success as
a compensation for the harm done me;— all this without any psycho-
analytic meaning. I do not believe that my feelings would have
differed much from those of other young men. Again a standardi-
zation and dogmatization would bring us right back to “magical”
attitudes.
Dr. Tozzer’s 1 collection of superstitions of College students with
the enlightning remarks by those who hold the beliefs will be read
with profit by all those who are convinced of our mental superiority
and the lack of ability of clear thinking among the primitives.
Still other considerations should caution us against the assumption
of a radical difference between primitive and civilized mentality. We
like to see this distinction in greater individual mental freedom from
social bondage expressed in a free critical attitude that makes pos-
sible individual creativeness.
Our much admired scientific training has never proved a safeguard
against the seductiveness of emotional appeals, just as little as it has
prevented the acceptance as gospel truth of the grossest absurdities,
if presented with sufficient energy, self assertion and authority. If
anything, the late war with its organized governmental and private
propaganda should make us understand this truth. Opinions ener-
1 A. M. Tozzer, Social Origins and Social Continuities, New York, 1925, pp.
242 et seq.
3
lines of thought that he will not follow, and words that he will not
utter, because the actions are emotionally objectionable, or the
thoughts find strong resistances and involve our innermost life so
deeply that they cannot be expressed in words. We are right in
calling these social taboos. It requires only a dogmatic standardi-
zation to transform them into true taboos.
And magic? I believe if a boy should observe someone spitting
on his photograph and cutting it to pieces he would feel duely
outraged. I know if this should have happened to me when I was
a student, the result would have been a duel and I should have
done my level best to do to my adversary in natura what he had
done to me in effigie and I should have considered my success as
a compensation for the harm done me;— all this without any psycho-
analytic meaning. I do not believe that my feelings would have
differed much from those of other young men. Again a standardi-
zation and dogmatization would bring us right back to “magical”
attitudes.
Dr. Tozzer’s 1 collection of superstitions of College students with
the enlightning remarks by those who hold the beliefs will be read
with profit by all those who are convinced of our mental superiority
and the lack of ability of clear thinking among the primitives.
Still other considerations should caution us against the assumption
of a radical difference between primitive and civilized mentality. We
like to see this distinction in greater individual mental freedom from
social bondage expressed in a free critical attitude that makes pos-
sible individual creativeness.
Our much admired scientific training has never proved a safeguard
against the seductiveness of emotional appeals, just as little as it has
prevented the acceptance as gospel truth of the grossest absurdities,
if presented with sufficient energy, self assertion and authority. If
anything, the late war with its organized governmental and private
propaganda should make us understand this truth. Opinions ener-
1 A. M. Tozzer, Social Origins and Social Continuities, New York, 1925, pp.
242 et seq.