Howard Bloom brings out the best in those he works with: Michael Jackson, Prince---and Richard Koenigsberg.

Please click the arrow below-right (CONTROL-CLICK) to listen to Bloom's discussion with Koenigsberg and Chad Dougatz at Hangar Studios.

In response to Bloom’s suggestion that violence is a bonding mechanism because killing is exhilarating and addictive, Koenigsberg argued that humankind values war primarily as an opportunity to sacrifice for something greater than oneself.

The violence of warfare is fundamentally masochistic. There is an object, one’s country, that makes violence meaningful and moral. Invoking Horace’s phrase, “It is sweet and honorable to die for one’s country,” Koenigsberg suggested that the ideology of sacrificial death is at the core of Western civilization.

Mei Ha Chan-Koenigsberg
Publicity Director
Library of Social Science
meichan1@Libraryofsocialscience.com
718-393-1075

Click the arrow below to play the podcast (CLICK or CONTROL CLICK) “What compels a group of soldiers to willingly run into a barrage of automatic weapons during World War I? How did the kamikaze pilots come to belief their actions were warranted? And what would happen if we completely abandoned the concept of nationalities? Blood, sacrifice and so much more are discussed in this week with special guest Richard A. Koenigsberg.”   Richard A. Koenigsberg is director of the Library of Social Science and author of several books including Nations Have the Right to Kill: Hitler, the Holocaust and War and Hitler's Ideology. One of the most successful publicists of his generation, Howard Bloom represented Michael Jackson and many others. To order his recently-published The Muhammad Code, click here.

Richard Koenigsberg participated in a  wide-ranging discussion with Howard Bloom and Chad Dougatz on the “Howard Bloom Saves the Universe” podcast. In response to Bloom’s suggestion that violence is a bonding mechanism because killing is exhilarating and addictive, Richard argued that humankind values war primarily as an opportunity to sacrifice for something greater than oneself. The violence of warfare is fundamentally masochistic. There is an object, one’s country, that makes the violence meaningful and moral.

Invoking Horace’s phrase, “It is sweet and honorable to die for one’s country,” he suggested that sacrificial ideology is at the “core of Western civilization.” However, Koenigsberg also finds non-Western examples of this ideology, which indicates that the masochistic phenomenon he has identified may be a universal human propensity.

After the Vietnam War, the sacrificial mechanism in this country deteriorated. Koenigsberg alluded to a “counter-sacrificial culture of the 1990s:” reluctance to sacrifice. George W. Bush tried to overcome this sensibility--persuading Americans to revisit the sacrificial ideology--by generating the Iraq War.