bance that the chairman had to dismiss the session. It was a frightening premonition of things that may lie ahead for this nation when even a professional group like that of the psychiatrists can have their meet- ings disrupted by the radical wing of various minority groups.
During the five days of the convention I got in some good licks with various M.D.s around and feel that I did my bit for the cause. The radical caucus of younger psychiatrists had a number of meetings most of which I couldn't make but I got into the tail end of one paper to hear one line which has stuck in my mind ever since. I'll pass it on to you and think it over as it has great significance to everybody, but particularly to men because they usually seek to advance their ego through argument and discussion (I ought to know, Charles built his personality on logic, reason and knowledge and sought to use these in discussions with others.). The speaker said, "You cannot change a person's opinion on any subject in which he has an emotional invest- ment by the simple expedient of providing him with new information." That bit of wisdom bids fair to change my life considerably since most of the things we discuss with others come under the heading of emotion-laden concepts and all we are doing in discussions and argu- ments is trying to bring to bear new bits of logical, reasonable informa- tion so that the other person will see the error of his point of view and adopt ours. Ask yourself, how often have you heard either opponent in a good discussion back down and concede the others correctness? You don't need many fingers to count them. So now I'm trying to train myself to discern the emotional committment people have to a subject. If their position is anything other than factual I'll try not to do more than ask if they are interested in what I think. If they say yes then I'll tell them and stop there without trying to rebut their rebuttal and on and on. It won't be easy but at least I am aware of it.
I had the pleasure of meeting with the Alpha Epsilon group in the bay area on Saturday afternoon and seeing a lot of old friends again. I stayed over that night and flew back home on Sunday. I had Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday to catch up on personal and Chevalier busi- ness and then on Thursday took off for Idaho for the annual meeting of the Kappa-Lambda FPE regions. The northwest group had chipped in to pay my airfare up and back and I'd like to take this occasion to express my thanks to them for doing so.
We had a marvelous weekend at Annette's house, talking, eating, drinking, and general visiting. Some of our girls were pretty dedicated in their determination to make it to the meeting. Three of them flew
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