Anxiety
The philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, in "The Concept of Anxiety" (1844), described anxiety or dread associated with the "dizziness of freedom" and suggested the possibility for positive resolution of anxiety through the self-conscious exercise of responsibility and choosing. In "Art and Artist" (1932), the psychologist Otto Rank wrote that the psychological trauma of birth was the pre-eminent human symbol of existential anxiety and encompasses the creative person's simultaneous fear of – and desire for – separation, individuation, and differentiation.
Historical race concepts
The 20th-century criticism of racial anthropology were significantly based on the school of Franz Boas, professor of anthropology at Columbia University from 1899, who beginning in 1920 strongly favoured the influence of social environment over heritability. As a reaction to the rise of Nazi Germany and its prominent espousing of racist ideologies in the 1930s, there was an outpouring of popular works by scientists criticizing the use of race to justify the politics of "superiority" and "inferiority". An influential work in this regard was the publication of "We Europeans: A Survey of "Racial" Problems" by Julian Huxley and A. C. Haddon in 1935, which sought to show that population genetics allowed for only a highly limited definition of race at best. Another popular work during this period, "The Races of Mankind" by Ruth Benedict and Gene Weltfish, argued that though there were some extreme racial differences, they were primarily superficial, and in any case did not justify political action.