 What is Niemand's tone toward the 'stress-and-strain of modern life' theory?
This, be it understood, is fiction—nothing but fiction—and not, under any circumstances, to be considered as having any truth whatever to it. In the closing days of December, 1957, at the meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in New York, Dr. Niemand delivered a paper entitled simply, "On the Nature of the Solar S-Regions." These implications are discussed here in an exclusive interview with Dr. Niemand by Philip Latham. I suppose you might say my main job today is to find out all I can between activity on the Sun and various forms of activity on the Earth. What do you mean by activity on the Sun? NIEMAND. It means you can only approximately predict the future course of sunspot activity. There is unquestionably a correlation between sunspots and disturbances of the Earth's magnetic field ... Now, Dr. Niemand, I understand that you have been investigating solar and terrestrial relationships along rather unorthodox lines. I think our biggest advance was the discovery that sunspots themselves are not the direct cause of the disturbances we have been studying on the Earth. Whereas the real cause is an invisible filterable virus. I suppose the oldest problem in the world is the origin of human evil. Philosophers have wrestled with it ever since the days of Job. And like Job they have usually given up in despair, convinced that the origin of evil is too deep for the human mind to solve. Generally they have concluded that man is inherently wicked and sinful and that is the end of it. Well, disputes over boundaries ... economic rivalry ... border incidents.... NIEMAND. The truth of the matter is that men go to war because they want to go to war. Such a syndrome is characteristic of menopausal women and some men during the climacteric, but these people failed to fit into this picture. I'm afraid that old stress-and-strain theory has been badly overworked. In my opinion one of the most valuable contributions anthropologists have made in recent years is the discovery that primitive man is afflicted with essentially the same neurotic conditions as those of us who live a so-called civilized life. They have found savages displaying every symptom of a nervous breakdown among the mountain tribes of the Elgonyi and the Aruntas of Australia. No, Mr. Latham, it's time the stress-and-strain theory was relegated to the junk pile along with demoniac possession and blood letting.
 Dismissive
 Inconsistent  Ambiguous  Dismissive  Vehement