Overflight, 133

“Things do not just happen. Things are caused.”
“Intention is cause.”
“There are certain characteristics and mental attitudes which cause about 20 percent of a race to oppose violently any betterment activity or group.
Such people are known to have antisocial tendencies.
When the legal or political structure of a country becomes such as to favor such personalities in positions of trust, then all the civilizing organizations of the country become suppressed and a barbarism of criminality and economic duress ensues. …
The social personality wants to survive and wants others to survive, whereas the antisocial personality really and covertly wants others to succumb. …
As they only comprise 20 percent of the population and as only 2½ percent are truly dangerous, we see that with a very small amount of effort we could considerably better the state of society. …
If society were to recognize this personality type as a sick being as they now isolate people with smallpox, both social and economic recoveries could occur.
Things are not likely to get much better so long as 20 percent of the population is permitted to dominate and injure the lives and enterprise of the remaining 80 percent.
As majority rule is the political manner of the day, so should majority sanity express itself in our daily lives without the interference and destruction of the socially unwell. …
Unless we can detect the social personality and hold him safe from undue restraint and detect also the antisocial and restrain him, our society will go on suffering from insanity, criminality and war, and man and civilization will not endure.
Of all our technical skills …, such differentiation ranks the highest since, failing that, no other skill can continue, as the base on which it operates — civilization — will not be here to continue it.