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Solitary Vice. Menninger finds the most dramatic change of this kind in society's attitudes toward masturbation. For thousands of years, he notes, masturbation was denounced by moralists in most societies. During the 19th century, even supposedly scientific men of medicine blamed "the solitary vice of self-abuse" for all manner of ills, from acne and anemia to cancer and of course insanity. Then the moral as well as the medical climate began to change. After Havelock Ellis and Freud, says Dr. Karl, the ancient "sin of youth" seemed not to be so sinful, perhaps not sinful at all, less of a vice than a pleasant experience. "And," he adds, "perhaps even a normal and healthy one." He continues: "Masturbation lost its aura of sinfulness because of new understanding, and this sudden metamorphosis in an almost universal attitude is more significant of the changed temper, philosophy and morality of the 20th century than any other phenomenon I can think of."
Not that Dr. Karl wants masturbation to be again considered a sin. But he regrets that the notion of all other sins seems to have vanished as well. Society's new views of sexual morality have not been accompanied by any fresh understanding of ruthlessness or cruelty, of rape and other forms of violence. To Moralist Menninger, these are not just crimes but sins as well, as are assaults upon the environment. Having grown up in harmony with nature, he insists that so-called civilized societies must do the same.
In his Chicago office last week, surrounded by Navajo rugs, kachina dolls, pre-Columbian objects and his own abstract paintings, Dr. Karl flipped through Sparks. Its title comes from Shelley's "Ode to the West Wind": "Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth/ Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!" Gruffly the doctor remarked, "Perhaps the title is too flattering to me." But the fact is that with his encyclopedic knowledge, insatiable curiosity, moral strictures and unflagging energy, Dr. Karl, in his 81st year, still throws off sparks aplenty.