Sigmund Freud's Psychology of War

Sigmund Freud responded to the question, "Is there any way of delivering mankind from the menace of war?" In principle, violence resolves man to man conflict. In the beginning, brute force was implemented to resolve
conflicts. Then some improved adjuncts were developed and replaced brute force to prevail in the conflicts. These were under the primitive conditions of man.
In groups, superiority comes with numbers and common sentiments of community prevail over the less in numbers and less integrated. Conflicting interests cause man to wage war. Is this fervor to wage war inherent in man? That is the basic question posed by Freud in the essay.

Freud invoked instincts to explain the phenomenon. He gave two kinds of human instincts; those that conserve and those that destroy. Instincts that conserve are those that care and show benevolence and love to live on. He equated this instinct with sex, of course. On the other hand, instincts that destroy are those that kill and show aggression to end or maim life. This second kind of human instincts is the responsible for the war thinking of man. However, Freud did not present these two instincts as mutually exclusive. There are situations that both instincts are operative, blending together in human actions and reactions. Thus to suppress these instincts is unlikely.

However, to prevent wars, man can divert these aggressive instincts to some channels that show care and love. Religion has also used this diversion when the Bible says, "love your neighbor as yourself, " or "love your enemies." These are attempts to turn the aggressive instincts to the other side which cares for man. Another proposition to prevent war is to subordinate instinctive life into a community life reigned by reasons or laws. This is where the State can play a role in establishing peace and order in society.

Freud stated that man has abominable sentiment against war. He explained that war destroys life with which every man has a right over it. War destroys life with its promises and potentials.

Cultural development, according to Freud, has a role to play in the prevention of war. Culture enhances man''s intellect which masters his instinctive life. Also, culture influences the expression and forms of aggressive impulses within man. It defines the boundaries and borders of accepted actions and reactions. The hope against war and its occurence lies in man''s cultural disposition towards war. Understanding culture can make a stop in man's propensity towards war.

Some Theories on Conflict and Violence

Hannah Arendt’s On Violence discusses philosophically the relationships of power, violence, and authority in conflict situations. It dissects the concept of power in relation to violence and authority. When it comes to justification, power and authority need no justification because they are inherent in the existence of political communities. What they need though is legitimacy. However, violence needs justification, but “it will never be legitimate.”

Thucydides’ The Peloponnesian War interestingly presents a dialogue that features the motivation behind alliance-building, expansion of territories, and perception and attitudes towards the Other.

Tony Karpo’s lecture presented theories of conflict, such as Galtung’s idea, sociobiology, frustration-aggression theory, social learning theory, social identity theory, relative-deprivation theory, basic human needs, Gilpin’s theory of hegemonic war, Modelski’s long-cycle theory, and Wallertein’s world systems theory. The lecture provided an overview and application of those theories. For example, Gilpin’s hegemonic war talks about a war that is between a dominant power and a rising challenger. The dominant one wants to retain status quo but its decline in power is an opportunity for the rising challenger to take the leadership in the international system. The example given was the US as the dominant power while China is on the side to take the dominance in due time.

In applying these theories to actual cases of conflict situations, we found out that there is more to be done theoretically to really explain and provide deep understanding of the actual conflicts. These theories are not like shirts that can be fit into a body of certain conflict. I think these theories are useful in giving us starting points and certain perspectives in the approach of conflict analysis and assessment. That’s why they are called theories – attempts to explain a phenomenon.