THE FOUNDATION FOR THE STUDY OF POLITICAL PSYCHOPATHOLOGY
presents

SOCIETAL IDEALS AND POLITICAL SELF-DESTRUCTION

Love of country and willingness to sacrifice for one’s nation are among society’s highest ideals. Yet it was precisely these ideals that generated destruction and self-destruction in Nazi Germany. Warfare is not separate from our highest ideals.

If we wish to diagnose the disease that gave rise to the epidemic of mass murder in the 20th century, we need to acknowledge the links among societal ideals, collective forms of violence—and political self-destruction.