Deflected Wants

Deflected wants may be described as the things such as fame, success, happiness, or power that a person wants for him- or herself, but the path toward achieving them has changed course. History is full of examples. Quite possibly the most famous illustration during the 20th century was Adolf Hitler. He was, without doubt, a troubled individual, but his desire to be an artist, starting as a young boy in Austria, stayed with him until the moment he committed suicide in his underground bunker in Berlin, as the victorious Russian troops approached. He himself said that anyone who wanted to understand him should realize that he was an artist, first and foremost, and that being chancellor of Germany took him away from his true desire—painting. Hitler's wants and desires to be an artist were deflected onto politics and in his crazed manner of thinking, his actions as “Der Führer,” were indicative of his artistic nature, such as the plans for the building of Germania and his mania to rid Germany of all modern art (Cubism, Dadaism, etc.).

A contemporary of Hitler, and his arch nemesis, was Winston Churchill. As a child, he strove greatly to win his father's love, but in vain as the elder Churchill (Randolph, the chancellor of the Exchequer at the time) openly disliked his son and found him a great disappointment. Winston wrote numerous letters, begging his father to visit, but Randolph usually ignored the requests. Churchill was incredibly lonely, a feeling that stayed with him the rest of his life; likewise, the heartfelt wish to earn his father's love never left.

His desire for a loving relationship with his father was deflected onto politics, where he cultivated the image of ultramasculinity (smoking up to nine cigars throughout the day, his frequent imbibing of Johnny Walker Red whisky, etc.) in the hope that he was the type of man his father would admire. During his first few years as a politician, and again during the 1920s, Churchill used the phrase first coined by his father, “Tory Democracy,” as a means of describing his political beliefs. Significantly, many of his colleagues saw young Winston as being obsessed with his father and were amazed at his drive to further his father's legacy.

Another example concerns quite possibly the greatest artist, as well as one of the preeminent thinkers, produced by Western civilization—Leonardo da Vinci. According to Sigmund Freud, Leonardo's wants and desires for homosexual contact were deflected first to his art, and second to his intellectual investigations. The key to understanding Leonardo (and other homosexuals), Freud wrote, was the relationship Leonardo had with his mother. Because of his mother's doting and his father's neglect, Leonardo experienced a powerful Oedipal conflict and saw women as dominant, [Page 167]“causing” him to become homosexual. In essence, Leonardo's strong desire for men was deflected and turned toward art and science. It has been argued that the personal power and determination of such individuals in their new fields develops from the strength of the their deflected wants.

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