Welcome to the [John] Garrett Jones Website
Sigmund Freud, in almost his last published work, wrote:
"After long doubts and vacillations we have decided to assume the existence of only two basic instincts, Eros and the destructive instinct ...the aim of the first of these basic instincts is to establish ever greater unities and to preserve them thus - in short, to bind together; the aim of the second, on the contrary, is to undo connections and so destroy things [Sigmund Freud, An Outline of Psychoanalysis, Hogarth/Institute of Psychoanalysis, 1949, pp5f].
Freud attributed the destructive instinct to the pull of the primal chaos. If we yield to that pull, we need strive no more and can just let the world go hang.
He found the other instinct, eros, difficult to account for. He would not use terms like "the irrepressible thrust of evolution" or the "eternal life-force" because they explain nothing. He preferred to allow eros to retain its secret - but had no doubt about its reality.
What this site aims to do is assert that the best way to foster destructiveness is to devalue love and creativity. Look at the way our Western tradition has viewed maleness: men who fight are heroes - "real men"; men who love each other warmly and physically are pathetic - "queers". Could this have anything to do with the current upsurge of knife stabbings on our streets?
Freud often used the Greek word for death (thanatos) to denote the destructive instinct. As we all know, thanatos is unstoppable; it happens to all of us sooner or later. Do we really need the war games and the nuclear warheads to help it on its way?
Our creativity, our love, our constant striving to improve our lot, is an unending struggle against the pull of the primal chaos. We may be tempted to ask if it is worth trying to stop it; is it not simpler to eat, drink and be merry? The only answer to that is: if we mean it when we say we love our children, we have no choice. Therefore, I would commend to you:
(visitors from Holland will find a Dutch translation of Coming Clean about Bisexuality at http://www.bikring.nl This can also be freely downloaded.)
But, at the same time as we seek to foster love in ourselves and those around us, we also need to do everything in our power to put paid to war, that greatest and most inhuman aider and abetter of death and destruction. War remains the greatest avoidable evil and the greatest source of all the other evils it brings in its train. Unlike cyclones and hurricanes, war really is avoidable - but only if we are able to radically change the mindset of centuries of 'civilised' conditioning. Again, if we do really love our children, let it be:
You will find information about other books I've written if you go to
If you would like
to know a bit more about the owner of this site, go to: If you want to
contact me, don't hesitate. You can email me at:
Please note that the blue underlining obscures the fact that the first part of this address is "gar_jon"
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