Initiation and initiative : an exploration of the life and ideas of Dimitrije Mitrinović

THE SENATE INITIATIVE 159

let women treat men as brothers. And let each make a pact about the child, so that both together live for the future.

The new male should be good; he should care more for failure and goodness than for success and truth. Would this not be a novelty? A man who would dare to fail; to go on failing like Christ in the World? And the new Woman: is there a woman who is not essentially a liar, does not Woman express enigma instead of truth? The new Woman should care for truth. Of course men must not cease to be true and women good. Both must attain a higher level of truth than ever before. The new female should have as straightforward a desire to know and speak truth as a male. Such individuated females and males could start the new civilization.'®

The basic formation of male and female groups was cross-cut by a subdivision along age lines, whilst another relatively stable basis for allocation to groups was on the basis of one’s ‘colour’ and personality. Mitrinovic was well-versed in the field of psychology and psycho-analysis. He was, of course, especially familiar with the ideas of Alfred Adler. Apart from Jung and Freud he also derived considerable insight from lesser known figures such as the American Trigant Burrow, author of The Social Basis of Consciousness from whose work much of the theory behind the practice of group work was derived; Fritz Kiinkel, who gave a lecture, introduced by Mitrinovic, at 115 Gower Street on August 14th, 1938; and Georg Groddeck, author of The Book of the It and a warm friend of Mitrinovié.!7 In addition to his firm grasp of the theoretical area, people who came into contact with Mitrinovié were impressed, if not shaken, by his profound psychological insight. Time and again people remarked that they sensed that he could see right into, and through, the deepest recesses of their being.

One diagnosis of character which Mitrinovié introduced to group members was based on what he considered to be an individual’s sense of time. Thus, ‘Whities’ were people who experienced time as continuous and who therefore possessed a strong sense of the past. Consequently they were less volatile, less mercurial than others because they were aware of the long evolutionary future ahead. They thus kept a more even keel than their fellows, less swayed by their emotions. “Blackies,’ in contrast, lived in the present, experiencing time as a series of discrete moments. They were not so concerned with what had happened in the past nor what might happen tomorrow, the immediate moment was what mattered. According to Mitrinovi¢ such people were always swayed by their emotions, and were always running away from them. ‘Monsters’ were those who were always looking to the future, always working towards some future goal. The purpose of such an analysis was to help the different types appreciate each other better, to enable group