We hear much from the new moralists about the need of encouraging young men and young women to express themselves and of not letting society impose its will upon them, as we hear much from the psychoanalysts about the need of liberating them from secret inhibitions and of satisfying their repressed emotions. Both these movements are excellent. They are antidotes to the tyrannic soul-crushing, hypocrisy-breeding, and self-deceiving conventions of the old society. But a good overdone may become an evil, a virtue stretched too far may become a vice, and a method which ignores all the facets of the diamond of psychological truth except a single one may become unbalanced. The new morality may free people to the point where liberty is merely license and expression a dangerous disregard for the knowledge yielded by experience and age. The new psychoanalysis may free them to the point where mental liberation is mere lack of self control and emotional satisfaction is dangerously anti-social. This is not to say that we would belittle the value of either. Both standpoints may be philosophically used, which means they may be used in a balanced manner as a part of a wider one.
-- Notebooks Category 6: Emotions and Ethics > Chapter 3 : Discipline Emotions > # 8
