We don’t like to admit it, but the idea of losing control is one of those that fascinates controlled people like us more than anything else. All truly civilized peoples – the ancients no less than us – have become civilized thanks to the voluntary repression of the original animal self. Are we really, in this room, very different from the Greeks or the Romans? Obsessed with duty, pietas, loyalty, sacrifice? All those things, in short, that impress moderns? And it is a temptation for any intelligent person, and especially for perfectionists like the ancients and us, to try to kill the primitive, emotional, animal ego. But it is a mistake. Because it is dangerous to ignore the existence of the irrational. The more civilized a person is, the more intelligent he is, the more he will be repressed: and the more he will need a system to channel the primitive impulses that have been so much studied to kill. Otherwise, those powerful ancient forces will accumulate and become of such intensity as to be released violently, with greater violence due to waiting, and will often have such vigor as to completely wipe out the will.
THE PRODIGY OF IDEAS 