Inherent within an individual’s attachment to an object conceived as omnipotent--is ambivalence toward this object. Identification contains both a positive and negative valence. On the one hand, the individual imagines that his or her ego has become more expansive—bigger and more powerful—by virtue of attachment to the object. On the other hand, the individual may feel diminished or crippled as a result of binding his ego to an object seemingly so much greater than the self.

The essence of this ambivalent relationship to an omnipotently conceived object is expressed in a phrase that recurs in Hitler’s speeches. Hitler explained to his people, “You are nothing, your nation is everything.” The word “everything” contains the positive dimension of identification. At the mass rallies at Nuremberg, tens of thousands of Germans gathered in a single location—as if bound together to constitute a single, omnipotent body. Germans participating in these rallies may have experienced a sense of being fused with “everything.”

The word “nothing” contains the negative valence of imagining that one is connected to or fused with an omnipotent object. By virtue of binding one’s self to this object—conceived as gigantic and powerful—the individual’s ego shrinks by comparison. One becomes submerged within the object, losing one’s sense of individuality and agency.

When one identifies with an object conceived as omnipotent, ambivalence is inescapable. The same mechanism enhancing the sense of self simultaneously acts to cripple or paralyze the self. The mechanism allowing the individual to feel that he or she is everything--also generates the feeling that one has become nothing.

The believer begins to rebel against the object—to escape the feeling that one has become nothing—by separating from it. However, the believer may be too far gone. Too much of the self has become invested in the object. Even as one feels diminished by virtue of one’s attachment to the object, one may not possess the will to separate from it.

Yet the feeling of being crushed or crippled or diminished—remains. How can the individual cope with this experience of oppression without abandoning the object?

What often occurs is that the individual projects the feeling of being oppressed—hostility toward the object—into another group or class of people. This group or class of people—identified as an infidel or enemy—is imagined to be rebelling against the object, acting to destroy the sacred object with which one has become identified.

One’s desire to separate from the object transmogrifies into a belief that the enemy wishes to destroy the object.

The enemy symbolizes one’s own desire to abandon the object. The purpose of acts of violence is to squelch the desire to abandon the object—by crushing, defeating or killing a group or class of people that symbolizes rebellion against the object. What must be crushed—if one is to maintain one’s connection to the sacred object—is the desire to be liberated from the object to which one is attached (experienced as oppressing the self).
 

VI. Compelling Submission

Terroristic violence seeks to squelch doubt or disbelief—by affirming the omnipotence of the sacred object with which members of one’s group are identified. Death to the non-believer means: “How dare you doubt that the object we worship is omnipotent? How dare you disbelieve in the power of the nation or god or ideology that our group worships?”

Acts of collective violence declare: “We will teach you a lesson. This will show you what happens to people who doubt the power of our nation, god, or ideology.” Acts of violence function to affirm or reaffirm the power of the object with which members of one’s group are identified: to reconstitute the fantasy of the object’s omnipotence. The act of violence functions both to punish the non-believer, and to persuade him just how powerful the object is.

At the heart of Nazi ideology was the idea of national self-sacrifice. Hitler asserted that any man who loves his people proves it solely by the “sacrifices he is prepared to make for it.” Jews were conceived as “selfish individualists”—the opposite of people willing to sacrifice for a nation. The primary (racially given) characteristic of the Jew, according to Hitler, was the “absolute absence of all sense of sacrifice.”

The Final Solution sought to convey the following message to Jews: “Do not imagine you are exempt from the obligation to sacrifice your lives.” Acts of violence performed by one group are designed to terrorize members of another group: to compel them to bow down; submit to one’s own god, nation or ideology. Acts of violence seek to convert infidels or enemies into “believers.” 

The Final Solution was a massive terroristic performance designed to evoke shock and awe in the hearts and minds of Jews (the quintessential non-believer), as if Hitler was saying, “Do you Jews see now that we are capable and willing to perform this radical, extreme action in the name of our country? Do you still doubt that Germany is omnipotent?”

The Holocaust was a form of terroristic violence functioning to “give witness."

The World Trade Center and Pentagon bombings, similarly, were performed by Bin Laden and the suicide bombers as if to convey to America (and the world): “Do you disbelieve in the greatness of Allah? Do you doubt the depth of our belief—the sincerity of our devotion to God?” The suicide bombers became martyrs by virtue of their willingness to die and kill for Allah: giving witness to the greatness of their god.