Having been a close friend and ardent admirer of Silvan Tomkins for the last 20 years of his life it gives me keen satisfaction to see the Institute that Nathanson and Kelly founded in his name gaining ground in the forbidding task of convincing people that the affect system is the biological locus of motivation. Tomkins's work on the roots of ideology is so relevant to our contentious era. The interface of affect/script theory with religion and other symbolic behaviors needs thorough examination and explication. Seeing the project with clergy on the relation of shame to violence is very gratifying and we can all hope it is a harbinger of further such projects with other professions crucial to personality development and conscience formation. Nothing less than the growth of civility in public life can save us from ourselves, and nothing less is the implicit aim of the Institute. My most cherished intellectual recognition was receiving the Michael Franz Basch Memorial Lectureship Award and I continue grateful to the Institute for that honor.
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