The Exploding Self: The Creative and Destructive Nucleus of the Personality

There may be in each of us an impulse, however fleeting, to destroy the world with its evil, its problems and conflicts, either in momentary anger or in the hope of starting afresh. Now that we have the technical means to make this fantasy come true, it behooves us to explore its sources in a very serious way.

It is obvious that groups, like individuals, sometimes enact the dark part of their nature in mass movements or "accidental" events, even when this dark part is only a small part of a whole with the best intentions and genuine ideals.

In spite of detente, therefore, the destruction of the world by nuclear means, massive pollution, or political explosion remains a distinct possibility unless our hidden destructiveness is better understood.

Creative regression, living closer to one's fun­damental nature, is what we are learning about today. But how to apply our knowledge on a world scale so as collectively to avoid violent swings and explosions is., of course, the unsolved problem of our era of massive blindness and consequent mass behaviors.