Review of Our Age of Unreason

Reviews the book, Our Age of Unreason by Franz Alexander (see record 1943-00214-000). This book is an eminent psychoanalyst's "study of the irrational forces in social life." The author undertakes a psychological analysis and historical survey of the factors that have operated to produce the present cultural and political era, one "characterized by the deterioration of international relations by a defeatist pessimism about democratic principles and by a belief in violence as the ultimate arbiter of human affairs." The author considers the democratic society the ideal breeding place for envy and snobbishness, largely on account of the competitive basis on which it has been constructed. Democracy is menaced by an emotional factor, namely, by a regressive tendency toward a dependency which ultimately tends to destroy the democratic structure through a neglect of the individual responsibility of the citizenry. This is a book of today. Whether one agrees entirely with the author's political theory is of little consequence; he makes clear human factors and forces, the neglect and lack of understanding of which have contributed heavily to the present disorder in human affairs. What he has to say should be understood by those who must plan a peace after the present global war. He not only insists that men must be prepared emotionally to live in a new world order, but himself makes a sturdy contribution to a realistic envisioning of the nature of that preparation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved)