http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Sidis

This guy seems to have been very influential, and unfortunately forgotten in the development of modern psychology; a pupil and friend of William James, whose influence is apparent-- and was himself possibly later quite an influence on James. I think Sidis was swept to the side largely due to his uncompromising attacks on Freud (psychoanalysis is to psychology what astrology is to astronomy) and other innovative and uncompromising beliefs.

I'm not to what extent all his theories are correct-- but from what I've read so far, many of them seem compelling, and are likely avenues of psychological research to pursued further. He relies on case studies a lot, which can be unreliable, as well as his use of hypnotherapy which I'm very skeptical of (though not wholly dismissive). Nonetheless, he's certainly a lot more scientific than many of his contemporaries were (and sometimes today's psychologists). He was about as vigorous as he could have been given what was available to him at the time. He also has a pretty thorough knowledge of biology and evolutionary theory which helps him out a lot.

His writings: http://www.sidis.net/boris_sidis_archives.htm

I've briefly read portions of all his available works and am now focusing on Nervous Ills and then shall go to Source and Aim of Human Progress. I find his thesis compelling-- that all psychopathological neuroses are at the root caused by fear. He includes more cognitive approaches as well, i.e. certain cognitive schemata are set up by reactions to fear that gradually begin to dominate the higher cognitive though processes; extreme neuroses are cases of conscious thought processes being dominated almost entirely by fear-based schemata-- or more often: discarded almost entirely in favor of subconscious, instinct-based quasi-thought processes.

He extends this idea further and concludes that wars, religious fanaticism, political absolutism and other large scale social ills are based largely on the fear instinct and giving up thought in favor of instinct.

It seems to be a colossal blunder of psychology to have swept this individual away to the point where he's virtually unknown today.

Anyhow, there's a lot more he had to say than what I'm telling you. A lot of his ideas parallel those of modern libertarians; he's quite an individualist.

some quotations:

"I pointed out an important law in Social Psychology, namely, that greatness of individuality is inversely proportional to the mass of the social aggregate. Great genius appeared not in the empire of Assyria, Babylonia, or Persia, but in the small city-states of Greece and Judea. It is not immense modern China that gives great men, but the small states of Chinese feudalism. This Law of Mass versus individuality falls in line with my work on the subconscious and its conditions of dissociation: Limitation of Voluntary Activity, Monotony, and other conditions, requisite for the weakening and final disaggregation of the primary, upper self from the lower, subconscious self leave the latter bereft of control and critical sense."

"The insecurity, the instability of militaristic empires is brought out strongly in aggregates held by force for a few generations: the catastrophe of the empire. The empire falls at one blow, and is gone forever. The Assyrian, the Persian, the Carthaginian in ancient times, the Austrian, the German, the Russian empire in our own times are cases in point. The empires go to pieces, they crumble into dust. From a superficial standpoint it may be said that an empire upheld by the sword perishes by the sword. This, however, is not the full truth. A deeper insight discloses the fact that the spirit of the empire building citizen has been dead long before the final collapse. In fact it is this death of individuality that is the real cause of the fall of the empire."


"The fear instinct, which originally is a stimulating agent for self-defense, when in excess becomes a danger hastening the dissolution of the animal organism into its constituent parts. The intensity of the fear instinct is the expression of the fact that the organism is in imminent danger of destruction. The fear instinct in its extreme state is decidedly to the disadvantage of the animal."

Fear and worry are different. Fear is when there is a legitimate threat. Worry is when there isn't or at least the threat isn't probable. So the last passage is pointless. "The fear instinct in its extreme state is decidedly to the disadvantage of the animal." It is obvious that to be under threat is a disadvantage.
I guess what this is about is "worry" or "paranoia". That is the state of being afraid when there is no legitimate threat.
The only way for a citizen to understand the difference is to challenge authority which is tricky. Go to far and you are locked up. But not go far enough and you can't see what power you really have. Due to opportunity costs of overstepping prevents even most anarchists from trying.
Its about investing in loss. From individual psychosis to a public psychosis, until people challenge and sometimes lose, the boundaries shrink. Especially since the ones in authority will take what is yielded.

The last one was a poor choice of quotation, as it's hard to know what he means without proper context. What he's referring to with "in excess" and "in its extreme state," is a fear reaction that leads to a freezing up reaction rather than fight or flight. He gives examples of animals that sometimes freeze completely in states of extreme fear and as a result are eaten by predators. Think "deer in the headlights," or that scene from "Saving Private Ryan," where the soldier becomes a sobbing hysterical mess and misses his chance to kill a German soldier when he has a gun and his enemy doesn't.

Those are extreme examples of imminent destruction, where fear is appropriate, but as you see, if fear leads to breakdown and inaction it isn't an advantage where action is appropriate.

Not all cases of this type of fear (according to Sidis' theory) in humans are caused by life threatening situations. In his theory, what happens is that certain threatening situations lead people to stop thinking rationally about what's best for them and just go with the flow; this is what leads people to neuroses, compulsive behaviors, etc. They've become more used to subconscious reaction and obeying orders in frightening situations than using their capacity for rationality. Gradually people become more and more used to "freezing up," when they feel threatened by anything and thus live life on autopilot to deleterious effect.

Good points.

I guess I would have to read more about what he considers threatening situations. I wasn't really disagreeing with the whole topic but only what is defined as fear.
I think Gavin Debecker has done great things with defining fear. https://www.gavindebecker.com/bios-gavin_de_becker.cfm which is a great tool in understanding it.
Peter Ralston has done alot to in defining response and reaction. http://www.chenghsin.com/chenghsin-main.html
It seems like what you say Sidis' work is about is building up a conditioned reactive reponse from either fear or worry to the point where they have lost the ability to respond. I will have to look into his work.

Thanks for the links, I'm interested now very interested in reading all sorts of things relating to fear so I can compare them.

Phlogiston wrote:

It seems like what you say Sidis' work is about is building up a conditioned reactive reponse from either fear or worry to the point where they have lost the ability to respond. I will have to look into his work.

That's pretty much correct. Though it's not always the case that they can't respond; more precisely that they instinctively shut down higher cognitive processes (rational decision making) and respond based on subconscious and instinctual procedures.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_James_Sidis
His son is interesting, too.