California Free Press

Off the Top of My Head

Einstein's Thoughts on Male Aggression

by John Lawrence

From the book, Einstein, His Life and Universe, by Walter Isaacson:

In November, Einstein published a three-page essay titled "My Opinion of the [First World] War" that skirted the border of what was permissible, even for a great scientist, to say in Germany. He speculated that there existed "a biologically determined feature of the male character" that was one of the causes of wars. When the article was published by the Goethe League that month, a few passages were deleted for safety's sake, including an attack on patriotism as potentially containing ""the moral requisites for bestial hatred and mass murder." 

The idea that war had a biological basis in male aggression was a topic Einstein also explored in a letter to his friend in Zurich, Heinrich Zangger. "What drives people to kill and maim each other so savagely?" Einstein asked. "I think it is the sexual character of the male that leads to such wild explosions."

The only method of containing such aggression, he argued, was a world organization that had the power to police member nations. It was a theme he would pick up again eighteen years later, in the final throes of his pure pacifism, when he engaged in a public exchange of letters with Sigmund Freud on both male psychology and the need for world government.

Also see The Mass Psychology of Fascism by Wilhelm Reich.

The Russell Einstein Manifesto

by Albert Einstein and Bertrand Russell

In the tragic situation which confronts humanity, we feel that scientists should assemble in conference to appraise the perils that have arisen as a result of the development of weapons of mass destruction, and to discuss a resolution in the spirit of the appended draft.

We are speaking on this occasion, not as members of this or that nation, continent, or creed, but as human beings, members of the species Man, whose continued existence is in doubt. The world is full of conflicts; and, overshadowing all minor conflicts, the titanic struggle between Communism and anti Communism.

Almost everybody who is politically conscious has strong feelings about one or more of these issues; but we want you, if you can, to set aside such feelings and consider yourselves only as members of a biological species which has had a remarkable history, and whose disappearance none of us can desire.

We shall try to say no single word which should appeal to one group rather than another. All, equally, are in peril, and, if the peril is understood, there is hope that they may collectively avert it.

We have to learn to think in a new way. We have to learn to ask ourselves, not what steps can be taken to give military victory to whatever group we prefer, for there are no longer such steps; the question we have to ask ourselves is: what steps can be taken to prevent a military contest of which the issue must be disastrous to all parties?

The general public, and even many men in position of authority, have not realized what would be involved in a war with nuclear bombs. The general public still thinks in terms of obliteration of cities. It is understood that the new bombs are more powerful than the old, and that, while one A-bomb could obliterate Hiroshima, one H- bomb could obliterate the largest cities, such as London, New York and Moscow.

Off the Top of My Head

Einstein's Revulsion at the Military

by John Lawrence

Alfred Einstein did not have w warm place in his heart for the military even as a child. Of course, years later he had to scramble to escape the Nazis. This is from the book, Einstein, His Life and Universe, by Walter Isaacson:

"Even in Munich, where the Bavarian spirit engendered a less regimented approach to life, the Prussian glorification of the military had taken hold, and many of the children loved to play at being soldiers. When troops would come by, accompanied by fifes and drums, kids would pour into the streets to join the parade and march in lockstep. But not Einstein. Watching such a display once, he began to cry. 'When I grow up, I don't want to be one of those poor people,' he told his parents. As Einstein later explained, 'When a person can take pleasure in marching in step to a piece of music, it is enough to make me despise him. He has been given his big brain only by mistake.'

"The opposition he felt to all types of regimentation made his education at the Munich gymnasium increasingly irksome and contentious. The mechanical learning there, he complained 'seemed very much akin to the methods of the Prussian army, where a mechanical discipline was achieved by repeated execution of meaningless orders.' In later years, he would liken his teachers to members of the military. "The teachers at the elementary school seemed to me like drill sergeants,' he said, 'and the teachers at the gymnasium like lieutenants.'"

Einstein's nonconformity and impudence (unverschaemt in German) led him to approach scientific topics in an unorthodox manner which lead directly to his work on special and general relativity as well as other creative and original work.

Off the Top of My Head

Einstein's Love of Music Facilitated His Work in Science

by John Lawrence

Einstein's mother gave him a gift that would last his entire life. She bought him a violin and arranged for him to have lessons. The following is from Walter Isaacson's book, Einstein: His Life and Universe:

... after being exposed to Mozart's sonatas, music became both magical and emotional for him. "I believe that love is a better teacher then a sense of duty," [Einstein] said, "at least for me."

Soon he was playing Mozart duets, with his mother accompanying him on the piano. "Mozart's music is so pure and beautiful that I see it as a reflection of the inner beauty of the universe itself," he later told a friend. Of course," he added in a remark that reflected his view of math and physics as well as of Mozart, "like all great beauty, his music was pure simplicity."

Music was no mere diversion. On the contrary, it helped him think. "Whenever he felt that he had come to the end of the road or faced a difficult challenge in his work," said his son Hans Albert, "he would take refuge in music and that would solve all his difficulties." The violin thus proved useful during the years he lived alone in Berlin, wrestling with general relativity. "He would often play his violin in his kitchen late at night, improvising melodies while he pondered complicated problems," a friend recalled. "Then suddenly, in the middle of playing, he would announce excitedly, 'I've got it!' As if by inspiration, the answer to the problem would have come to him in the midst of the music."

His appreciation for music, and especially for Mozart, may have reflected his feel for the harmony of the universe. As Alexander Moszkowski, who wrote a biography of Einstein in 1920 based on conversations with him, noted, "Music, Nature, and God became intermingled in him in a complex of feeling, a moral unity, the trace of which never vanished."

Off the Top of My Head

Creativity and Nonconformity

by John Lawrence

Some of the most creative thinkers are also nonconformists. Take Alfred Einstein, for example. He didn't do that well in school. At least one of his teachers categorized him as unvershamt. That's the German word for impertinent. As a consequence his professor would not recommend him for a job. He ended up as a clerk in the Swiss patent office. He only got that job through the intervention of his friend's parent. So it turned out that the person who discovered special relativity and made several other important contributions to physics in 1905, one of which he was awarded the Nobel prize for, was not a distinguished professor at a distinguished university but a lowly clerk in the Swiss patent office.

Einstein was a pacifist and a socialist although his pacifism was tempered by world events such as the Nazi takeover of Germany and, consequently, World War II. He had never given much thought to the fact that he was a Jew until Hitler started making life extremely difficult for them. He was never religious, but became very conscious of his "tribe" due to the fact of the Nazi persecution.

He ended up believing in world federalism by a body that would have the power to enforce its decisions. But he could never condone any form of government that censored freedom of thought and expression.

His nonconformity and impertinence caused him to challenge the revered Isaac Newton who believed in absolute time and space although other more distinguished professors such as Poincare and Lorentz almost had the solution. They just didn't have the impertinence to come right out and say it. Newton was wrong. At least he didn't have the whole truth. Einstein was up to the challenge.

Quoting Einstein by Walter Isaacson:

The opposition he felt to all types of regimentation made his education at the Munich gymnasium increasingly irksome and contentious. The mechanical learning there, he complained, "seemed very much akin to the methods of the Prussian army, where a mechanical discipline was achieved by repeated execution of meaningless orders." In later years, he would liken his teachers to members of the military. "The teachers at the elementary school seemed to me like drill sergeants," he said, "and the teachers at the gymnasium like lieutenants."