MANKIND'S NEW FEAR

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 88, 4 December 1931, Page 6

MANKIND'S NEW FEAR

MODERN MENTAL TERRORS CRUSHIXG OUR CIVI-LISATION. That the rush of modern life in the cities is crushing the people who create it, was tlie theory advanced by Dr. Leonard P. Loelchart at the British Medical Association Gonference al Eastbourne. "The fear of nature as an instrument of Divine wrath," said Ur. Lock-

hart, 'has been replaced by a new fear that of the complex meehanism ot modern life which crushes remorsely those who fail to pay it homage. "Fear, sense' of inferiority, and sense of^ guilt (not to be confused with rational conscience), relics of primitive religion throughout the ages, are still among the potent influences at work in our Western eulture. They lc-ad under modern eonditions to neurosis, warped judgment, loss of individuality, and to a tendency on the part of most of us to clutch fearfullv at the status quo as it slips inevitably from our gTasp." If the widespread increase of sickness were due to psychogenic causes, then ais a nation we were suffering from neurosia on a grand scale. It was impossible not to be struek by the number of eonditions sucli as "nerves," "neurasthenia," "debility," and "anaemia." "The vast machine of modern life," Dr. Lockhart went on, "is at times A Terrlfying Thing, "There is little doubt that the present restless oraving for sensation. pleasure and vicarious erotioism is no fnore than an over-compensation for a very widespread, if unconscious, apprecjation of this fact. "In the homes we find eeonomic difficulties in the way of early marriage leading to anxiety neuroses in the young. We find, owing partly.to the competitive raising of the standard of living, married couples labouring under the most serious financia' difiiculjjjes once their families exceed a very definite maximum numl)er.

'And we fmd, too, that in the absence of proper teaching on- sex hygiene and contraception there are very serious disorders of the love-life — Ihe basis on which the well-being of any community must ult.imately rest. "Modern life is a great strain on n\an. The pare is fast, and it is increasing, and we must fac-e the whole problem frankly and aslc ourselves whai we can do to restore the balance. In the face of the problcms oi modern life there appear to be two outstanding reactions of the mind — fear and the sense of inferiority. "The task amounts to this: To feach, encourage, and instruct everv one, especially the young, how to jgrow, intelleclually as individual men and women, self-dependent and selfsi'ff'cient. "Man has been proppcd by theology; dogma is. -e.ollapsing, ancl he flnds him-sc-lf in the darlc, prey to fear and to neurosis. Ilere the Cliurch can help i? set him on his feet, show him the • way to develop a dynamic religioue ^philosophy of the simplest kind, and by-restoring his morale encourage him to spiritual growtli and mental ; health."