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Co-sponsored by the National Psychological Association for Psychoanalysis (NPAP) and the Philosophy Department of the Graduate Faculty of the New School for Social Research
- War is conceived as a good thing because people die and kill in the name of a beloved object, ones nation.
- W is loved because it provides the occasion for sacrificing lives to rescue a sacred ideal.
- If sacrificing one's life for a sacred ideal is good, how can war be bad? Sacrificing one’s life for a society’s sacred ideal constitutes the essence of goodness. War liberates the individual from all other forms of morality.
- The "X factor" is the sacred object. The sacred ideal is the "releaser," transforming violent acts--even acts of atrocity--into forms of goodness.
- The sacred ideal is the moral imperative justifying any and all actions.
- Each society is founded on a sacred ideal that it wishes
to defend, protest & promulgate.
- War is embraced as a positive thing because it enables one to prove that one loves one's country. Engaging in battle permits individuals to abandon the principle “thou shalt not kill.”
- No point to use terms like "psychopath" to describe human beings who perform violent acts in battle. The term "psychopath" implies the absence of morality. Violent acts undertaken in battle (in the name of one's country) constitute the height of morality.
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