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 actual human being 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 diminish or cripple or paralyze the self. The mechanism allowing the individual to feel that he or she is everything--merged or fused with the omnipotent object--also generates the feeling 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 by the object to which one is attached—remains. How can one cope with the experience of oppression without abandoning the object?

What may occur 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.

The believer's desire to separate from the object--to abandon it--transmogrifies into a belief that the enemy wishes to destroy the object. The enemy symbolizes a projection of one's desire to separate from the beloved object.

The enemy symbolizes the believer's 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 or hostility toward 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).