Worldviews and Politics

T. E. Lawrence’s Vision for the Middle East: How Does It Look Now?

by John E. Mack, M.D.

When we consider the fame of T. E. Lawrence and what has drawn people, including myself, to the man and his legend, we look to his achievements as a military strategist during the Arab Revolt in World War I and his influence in shaping the boundaries of the Middle East in the post-war period. But it is his vision of possibilities for the region’s future which has, above all, accounted for Lawrence’s enduring interest for many people. In this talk I will look at this vision and relate it to the present circumstances in the Near East. I will also offer suggestions about what might be done to bring the reality closer to the possibilities that Lawrence foresaw.

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Corporate Leadership with a Global Perspective

John E. Mack, M.D.

It is commonly acknowledged that individuals tend to behave differently in a private or family setting than they do as members of institutions. This split, or fragmentation of self, may be so great that people seem, at times, to live double lives. If, in our inescapable identification with the institutions in which we work, and the inevitable pressures we experience within them, we live in violation of privately held values and ideals, the result may be vague but profound discontent whose source may not be readily identifiable. It is only through overcoming these divisions in the self – through an aligning of our private and collective selves – that genuine satisfaction and well-being may be possible. Much of the interest displayed by contemporary Americans in psychotherapeutic techniques and spiritual paths which stress healing, integration, and wholeness grows out of the distress caused by the fragmentation of the self.

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Taking Action: The Higher Law of the Nuclear Age

by John E. Mack, M.D.

During the past several years I have tried to reconcile my activist imperatives with the academic and psychiatric life I also lead. Henry David Thoreau, in his 1849 essay on resistance to civil government, said, “There are thousands who are in opinion opposed to slavery and to the war (he was referring to the war with Mexico), who yet in effect do nothing to put an end to them.” The nuclear arms race calls for us to do something about it. In my case, however, as a psychiatrist in academic life, there are problems with activity. Some actions create tensions and conflicts, perhaps even incompatibilities and contradictions. Action, I suspect, may be a bigger problem for psychoanalysts than for others because we are trained from the beginning not to be active, not to do too much.

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An Interview with John Mack

by the staff of The Harvard Psychological Review

February 26, 1987

After the blows to egocentrism of Copernicus, Darwin and Freud, the myth of rationality in the conduct of relations between nation states remains – a last bastion of man’s collective narcissism.
— John E. Mack, MD

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Putting It On The Line In Nevada

Test site arrests reach new high

By Cathy Cevoli

John Mack, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and Harvard psychiatrist, was the first member of his family to hear of the Nevada Test Site demonstration. After consulting with his wife, Sally, the couple called their three sons – Ken, Dan and Tony, all in their 20s – and following discussions that lasted “every night for two weeks,” decided to head west from Massachusetts together. “We thought it was important to take a stand as a family,” explained Sally, a social worker. They also knew their joint appearance would make good media copy.

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A Way to Halt the Arms Race

by John E. Mack, M.D.

A New York Times op/ed by Dr. John Mack recounting his family’s protest at a nuclear test site in Nevada during the height of the nuclear arms race.

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Epilogue: Aggression and Its Alternatives in the Conduct of International Relations

by John E. Mack, M.D.

Long before the nuclear superpowers began to extend their competition into space Bertrand Russell (1959) wrote, “When I read of plans to defile the heavens by the petty squabbles of the animated lumps that disgrace a certain planet, I cannot but feel that the men who make these plans are guilty of a kind of impiety” (p. 19). Russell’s words lead us to a central dynamic, the arrogance of power of nations spiritually adrift, terrorized by the destructive energy that their scientists have released from particles of matter.

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If We Ended the Arms Race

by Robert Coles and John Mack

A 60-year-old friend told us that he was beaten up in his own home in Washington, D.C., not long ago when he surprised a large man who was ransacking the apartment. The man was looking for television equipment he could sell to buy drugs. He was also one of more than 10,000 people on parole in that city, most of whom are drug offenders. Many of these men have been let out of prison because there are not enough jail cells to hold them. At the same time, parole officers carry heavy caseloads, and funds for rehabilitation and treatment are drying up.

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Nuclear Winter Is Already Here – A Cold Winter of the Soul

by John E. Mack, M.D.

February 18, 1985

There have been a number of films in the last two years such as The Day After, Testament, The Road Warrior and Threads – that confront the threat of nuclear war by providing visions of life after the weapons have been detonated. But it occurred to me while watching Repo Man (the title refers to the employees of a company that repossesses cars) that we live in a post-nuclear world even though the bombs have not gone off. Nuclear weapons are taking a moral, spiritual, psychological and physical toll.

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Lawrence and the Armenians

by John E. Mack

The name of T. E. Lawrence (“Lawrence of Arabia”) is not generally associated with the history of Armenia. This is understandable, since the activities which brought Lawrence world renown were confined to the Hedjaz and to the lands of the Middle East bordering the Mediterranean and the Red Sea. He does, however, have a connection with Armenian history that is little known, insufficient to warrant the title of Lawrence of Armenia, but perhaps not without some interest.

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