“It would seem that the amount of destructiveness to be found in individuals is proportionate to the amount to which expansiveness of life is curtailed….life has an inner dynamism of its own, it tends to grow, to be expressed, to be lived.

It seems that if this tendency is thwarted the energy directed towards life undergoes a process of decomposition and changes into energies directed towards destruction;…..the more the desire towards life is thwarted, the stronger is the drive towards destruction; the more life is realised, the less is the strength of the destructiveness. Destruction is the outcome of unlived life.”

(Escape from Freedom by Erich Fromm, 1900 – 1980)

John Lentell

23rd April, 1969