Brad+Mitchell+Entry+7

Although I firmly believe in Albert Einstein’s view that people and nations must settle their differences through diplomacy and communication, logic tells me that Freud is correct. Violence is inevitable. Deep within the psyche of every human being there is a love of violence and destruction. It is the reason why there have been so many wars, why so many crimes are committed, and why so many movies and video games with excessive violence and destruction are excessively popular. There is simply no way around the fact that we are creatures of violence. Bloodlust is in the blood of all mankind no matter they know it or not. “Conflicts of interest between man and man are resolved, in principle, by the recourse to violence. It is the same in the animal kingdom, from which man cannot claim exclusion; nevertheless, men are also prone to conflicts of opinion, touching, on occasion, the loftiest peaks of abstract thought, which seem to call for settlement by quite another method.” Man is simply just a highly evolved beast whom can suppress his violence under normal circumstances. When we go to war it is a sign that we have lost that control and we do all we can to beat our opponent so we can return to peace.

Einstein’s biggest political view was that an organization of Nations needed to be formed to prevent the continued breakout of violence through international diplomacy. Unfortunately, something like the League of Nations that Einstein believed so strongly in is really nothing but a farfetched dream. Even now our times equivalent of the League, the United Nations, has no real power. They barely succeed in their humanitarian efforts let alone prevent war. I'm not saying it’s not helpful, I mean having so many countries represented in one place helps to improve diplomatic relations, but it is not Einstein’s end all cure all. He believed that if a group of important intellectuals, including himself, through their weight behind the league it would succeed. "In our time, the intellectual elite does not exercise any direct influence on the history of the world; the very fact of its division into many factions makes it impossible for its members to co-operate in the solution of today's problems. Do you not share the feeling that a change could be brought about by a free association of men whose previous work and achievements offer a guarantee of their ability and integrity? Such a group of international scope, whose members would have to keep contact with each other through constant interchange of opinions, might gain a significant and wholesome moral influence on the solution of political problems if its own attitudes, backed by the signatures of its concurring members, were made public through the press." This was a noble idea but sadly one that will probably never work as he envisioned.