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FROM THE SYMPOSIUM ON THE PSYCHOLOGICAL INTERPRETATION OF POLITICAL VIOLENCE presented at FORDHAM UNIVERSITY
Abstract: The normalization of mass-murder. It’s happening now and it has happened before--so how can what is occurring now be conceived as a form of profound psychopathology? Unless we allow ourselves to think of the entire Twentieth Century—with two-hundred million dead and probably an equal number wounded—as a century characterized by profound psychopathology. “Normal” history as psychopathology. The human psychosis. Living within a century of mass-murder (which continues at this present moment).
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I wish to lay out a structure of thought or logic underlying political violence. Forms of reality are structured according to ideological fantasies. Can we adopt a posture of clinical distance in order to analyze ideologies and our relationship to them? Why is it difficult to achieve such a posture? The problem is the intense identification that people have with particular ideas: How do we abandon identifications in order to interrogate ideological complexes?
It’s difficult think clearly in the political domain because people identify so deeply with symbolic objects such as nations and gods. Political thought builds upon paranoia. Paranoia in the life of an individual may be considered unusual or abnormal, but paranoia in the life of nations is par for the course. It is assumed that nations have enemies that seek to destroy them.
You will immediately say: "Well, of course, nations have enemies that wish to destroy them." I suggest that the entire domain of geopolitics builds upon an ideological template. I wish to interrogate or deconstruct the ideological fantasy that structures political violence.
Political discourse builds upon a binary structure. On the one hand, there is a nation or ideology with which individuals in a society identify. On the other hand, there is an enemy believed to be attacking one’s nation or ideology. Political violence occurs when leaders or people in a given society believe that an enemy is threatening or attacking one’s nation or ideology.
Political violence is based on a relationship between the sacred object with which one’s group identifies, and another group or class of people believed or imagined to be working toward the destruction of this sacred object. Violence is undertaken to crush or destroy a class of people perceived to be acting to destroy a sacred object.
In the case of Hitler and Nazism, Jews were imagined to be destroying Germany. In the case of communism, capitalists were imagined to be working to destroy “the people.” The United States in the 1950s embraced “communism” as the evil enemy that threatened to destroy the nation.
I hypothesize that the source of these beliefs is not “reality,” rather a fantasy projected into reality--shaping reality. Reality is socially constructed based on a shared fantasy. The shared fantasy defines, supports and sustains the ideology. This complex or shared fantasy is the same regardless of what the ideology is.
The ideological template is structured around the idea of a sacred object, on the one hand, absolutely good and omnipotent. And an enemy on the other hand, absolutely bad or evil. The nature of the good and evil object varies according to the society; but the structure of thought is the same. The belief that a bad object is threatening the good object necessitates the performance of acts of violence designed to destroy the bad object in order to rescue the good object.
Politics builds upon a rescue fantasy: Destroy the bad object in order to save the good object. Paranoia: Without a bad object, there is no need to rescue anything. The good object comes into being only when a bad object is perceived to be wishing to destroy the good object. The idea of the enemy gives rise to the belief in a goodness that might be destroyed if the enemy continues to exist.
Psychologists are trained to adopt a “clinical stance.” We don’t blame patients for their pathology, but rather try to understand the sources of pathology. The domain of politics has wrecked enormous destruction upon human beings in the last century: It is estimated that approximately 200 million people have been killed by acts of genocide, war and revolution initiated by nation-states.
Yet mental health professionals do not often enter the world of politics. They may deal with traumas that occur after political events occur, e. g., post-traumatic stress disorder. But rarely have psychologists analyzed the causes of these events. Most of us know about these events: One can’t miss them: World War I, the Holocaust, World War II, the nuclear arms race, wars in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan—and the current war waged by Russia against Ukraine,
Why have psychologists and rarely interrogated these events that have produced massive destruction in the 20th and now 21st century—perhaps far beyond the suffering that has been caused by the pathology of individuals? The fact that we do not conceive of these behaviors as forms of pathology—as symptoms of a vast mental illness—is a significant part of the pathology.
This is a mystery: Why we take these events for granted. As if they are unalterable dimensions of reality. Why do people fail to explore the sources of these event in the human psyche. As if political violence occurs in a domain of reality separate from human beings.
“Geopolitics:” Political events seem to occur at a place separate from the the human psyche. We look at socio-political events as if they are detached from the minds of individuals. It’s as if human beings are living within a dream or fantasy: All of this horrible, pathological destruction is occurring, yet it is taken for granted. The normalization of the fantastic.
Individuals are given labels indicating they are suffering from a form of psychopathology. There is a massive DSM-V that that identifies all kinds of "disorders." Professional aren’t shy about saying that problems of individuals are forms of pathology. Psychiatrists. for example, havehave identified a “social anxiety disorder,” i. e., shyness.
Yet rarely do people write or speak about a warfare or genocide as disorders. Why are people hesitant to look at massively destructiveness events within the political domain as disorder? I propose we conceptualize warfare and genocidal events as a disorders: forms of massive psychopathology contained within “ordinary” politics. Mass-murder is the result of a disorder.
Individual mass-murderers—such as Jeffrey Dahmer—are benign compared with the mass-murderers of the Twentieth Century. It’s occurring right now: a political mass-murderer at loose. However, this is conceived as a socio-political event. OK, the word “insane” is thrown about. But this is done casually, almost in a humorous way. The idea that a deeply disturbed individual is the source of these political events—head of a pathological society—is rarely entertained.
The normalization of mass-murder. It’s happening now, it happened before, so how can what is occurring now be conceived as a form of profound psychopathology? Unless we are willing to think of the Twentieth Century—with two-hundred million dead and probably an equal number wounded—as a century characterized by profound psychopathology. “Normal” history as psychopathology. The human psychosis. Living within a century of mass-murder which continues at this present moment.
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