sex and marriage

Chapter 29 Conclusion (2)
The morality I advocate is not simply saying to adults or teenagers: "Follow your instincts and do what you want." Its main requirements are: first, there must be consistency in life; Interests are not something that is attractive all the time, so we cannot slacken our efforts; third, we must consider others; fourth, we should have correct standards of right and wrong.Even so, I do not believe that self-control should be an end, and I hope that our institutions and moral habits will minimize the need for self-control.Using homebrew is like using the brakes on a train.If you're on track, self-control will come in handy; but if you're still on track, self-control can only be harmful.No one is arguing that the brakes are constantly being applied while the train is moving.In much the same way, wrong habits of self-control have a bad influence on those minds which lead to wholesome activities.Self-control causes these energies to be expended chiefly in inner struggles, rather than in outer activities.So while self-control is sometimes necessary, it is generally harmful.

How much self-control should we have in our lives?It all depends on the instinctive education received in childhood.The instincts of a child can produce both beneficial and harmful activities.This is just like the steam on the locomotive. It can not only deliver the train to its destination, but also derail the train, causing a vicious accident.The function of education is to direct instinct in such a direction as to lead to beneficial rather than harmful activities.Both men and women, if this task can be accomplished in childhood, can generally lead a useful life without strict self-control, perhaps with rare moments of crisis.On the contrary, if the content of early education is only to limit instinct, a part of behavior produced by instinct in later life.will become harmful, and these actions must be constantly restrained by self-control.

The reason why people use special power to suppress sexual impulse is that on the one hand, sexual impulse is very powerful, and on the other hand, it is because traditional morality makes sexual impulse a special thing.Most traditional moralists believe that if our sexual impulses are not strictly controlled, we will become mean, confused and vulgar.They hold this idea, I think, because they find that those persons, though often in childhood, have a restraint which they afterwards try to break free from.However, even if such people cannot restrain themselves well, the restraint of childhood will still work on them.The so-called conscience is the blind and unconscious acceptance of the precepts acquired in childhood.This conscience can make a person feel that what is forbidden by traditional customs is wrong, and this feeling will continue to exist in the case of intellectual beliefs exactly the opposite.That's it, it creates a paradoxical personality.It is a personality in which instinct and reason are incompatible, and instinct becomes a mean thing and reason becomes anemic.

In today's society, people have begun to oppose traditional preaching to varying degrees.One of the most frequent occurrences is that the opponent, who intellectually admits the morality of his childhood acquired morality, is always hypocritically confessing that he has not mustered up enough courage to conform to the tenets of that morality. Life.We dismiss such a man, and he had better change his behavior, or his beliefs, so as to unite the two.The performance of the second type of person is that although he consciously expresses disgust with the things he learned in childhood, his subconscious still accepts them in their entirety.Under the influence of strong emotions, especially fear, such a person can suddenly change his behavior.For example, a serious illness or an earthquake can cause him to uncharacteristically abandon his intellectual beliefs and suddenly believe in beliefs he learned in childhood.Even in ordinary circumstances there is a restraint in his manners, and this restraint may well take a form which should not be given.Although this restriction does not prevent him from acting in a manner condemned by traditional morality, it does not make his behavior sincere, and his behavior thus loses some valuable elements.

In order for the new morality to replace the old morality to be a very satisfactory thing, it must be sincerely accepted by that new morality, rather than merely forming part of the ideology.For most people, this is very difficult because of the old morals that were instilled in them in childhood.One can therefore do justice to the new morality only when it has been enforced in the education of childhood.

Although there are many differences of opinion as to the possible consequences of some of the principles on which sexual morality must be based, there is general agreement on the importance of these principles.First of all, there should be a deep and true love between a man and a woman. This kind of love should be able to contain all the personalities of both parties and integrate them into one, so that both parties can be enriched and improved.Secondly, children should receive adequate care both physically and psychologically.Commonplace as these two principles may seem, their effect is such that I cannot disapprove of certain modifications of traditional morality.Most men and women today are like inorganic things, and their marriages lack real and strong love.If they were less bound by taboos in childhood, it is entirely possible to have true and strong love.They lack the requisite experience, and if they have it, it is obtained in secret and undeserved ways.

Moreover, envy is so applauded by moralists that it is perfectly justified to spy on one another.Of course, it is a very happy thing if husband and wife absolutely love each other and have no second thoughts about each other.But even if infidelity does arise, it should not be regarded as a terrible thing.If it is thought that friendship cannot exist between the sexes, much less should it be.A good life cannot be built on fear, bondage, and interference with each other's freedom.It is all well and good if we can remain faithful without the above factors, but if we feel the price of being faithful is extremely high, we should forgive each other for occasional lapses.Undoubtedly, even with physical fidelity, the unhappiness of marriages caused by mutual jealousy may often be much greater than the unhappiness of mutual confidence in each other, and finally there is a strong and lasting love.

I do not agree with those who presume to be virtuous and consider the responsibility of parents to their children to be extremely small.Under the current family system with both parents.As long as there are children, parents have a responsibility to do their best to maintain a harmonious marriage relationship, even if it requires great self-control.But the self-restraint we need is not just the self-restraint that traditional moralists advocate for repressing the impulse to be unfaithful. We must also control impulses such as jealousy, anger, and dominance.There is no doubt that violent quarrels between parents are often the cause of a child's insanity, and should therefore be avoided as much as possible.At the same time, if one or both parties lack sufficient self-control and their conflicts cannot prevent the children from being affected, it is better to dissolve the marriage.From the perspective of the children, the dissolution of this marriage is not a bad thing.Indeed, at least this is much better than children in a bad family hearing their parents scolding and blaming each other, and even seeing them fight.

I do not think that what the enlightened minds of greater liberty hope for can be achieved all at once.At the same time, adults and even teenagers cannot vent their suppressed impulses due to the original strict prohibitions.This is an essential stage, and without such a stage, their children will grow up in a bad environment like them.Healthy liberty must be learned from an early age, otherwise, the liberty we get is likely to be a frivolous, apparent liberty: frivolous impulses lead to excesses of the body, while the mind remains in bondage.This so-called freedom is not the freedom of a complete personality.Instincts, rightly trained from the outset, can lead to far better actions than those which spring from a Calvinistic education in the belief in original sin, which, however, has produced evil effects, Therefore, it is extremely difficult for us to eliminate this effect in the future.

One of the greatest contributions of psychoanalysis to the world has been its discovery that restraint and intimidation in childhood can have such a nasty effect that it would take a long period of psychotherapy to completely undo it.This applies not only to those who are truly psychopaths, but to most ostensibly normal people as well.I firmly believe that nine out of ten people who have been educated traditionally in their childhood will not have a noble and healthy attitude towards marriage and sex.Such persons cannot possess what we regard as the most noble attitudes and behaviors, the best we can do is to make them aware of the harm they have suffered, and persuade them not to harm them in the same way as they have suffered. their child.

The doctrine we advocate is not a doctrine of indulgence, for it involves self-control not under conventional teaching.However, the purpose of using self-control is not so much to restrict one's own freedom as to not interfere with the freedom of others.I think that if a person has received a good education since childhood, it will be easier for him to respect the freedom and personality of others.However, for those of us who have been brought up to believe that we have the right to restrain others in the name of morality, it is undoubtedly very difficult, even impossible, to get them to give up this justifiable persecution.But this does not mean that the same is true for those who have received a relatively free moral education since childhood.The essence of a good marriage is respect for each other's personalities, and an extremely deep and intimate relationship, both physical and spiritual, which makes true love between a man and a woman the most beautiful of all human experiences.Like everything great and worthwhile, this love requires a morality of its own, and often requires the sacrifice of small interests for the greater good, but this sacrifice should be voluntary, or it would violate the morality of love. The intention of sacrifice.

(End of this chapter)