Freud explains Iraq

In response to an article in the NYT Magazine titled Freud and the Fundamentalist Urge by Mark Edmundson. It was published on April 30, 2006.

Mr. Edmundson has helped us to explain the why and wherefore in Iraq. My take on his article is that Sigmund Freud helps us to understand ANY totalitarian regime, whether in the former Soviet Union, in Iraq, or in Somalia. The dynamics of a corrupt and manipulative leader is the same. For those new to this blog... the premise is simple. The people are not all to blame for the violence. Although they perpetrate the violence and support the violence, both which are unacceptable, they perform these acts because of long-term manipulation of their world view by corrupt leaders. These leaders know (viscerally - they are NOT scholars) what 'the people' need and want.. and give it to them in spades. In return for this 'favor' they extract a horrific penalty - a broken society. Think Iraq. Think Somalia. Think Zimbabwe. What changed? Are the people suddenly more violent and depraved.. or have their leaders corrupted their very world-view to maximize the leader's benefits?

Here is what the article says - "Freud brought forward striking ideas about the inner dynamics of political life in general and of tyranny in particular.....In books like "Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego" and "Totem and Taboo," Freud predicted Hitler and his descendants almost perfectly. Now, in an age threatened by fundamentalisms of many sorts, Freud's thinking may be more usefully illuminating than ever before."

"At the center of Freud's work lies a fundamental perception: human beings are not generally unified creatures. Our psyches are not whole, but divided into parts, and those parts are usually in conflict with one another....Humanity, Freud says, has come up with many different solutions to the problem of internal conflict and the pain it inevitably brings. Most of these solutions, Freud thinks, are best described as forms of intoxication. What the intoxicants in question generally do is to revise the superego to make it more bearable. We like to have one glass of wine, then two, Freud suggests, because for some reason - he's not quite sure what it is in scientific terms - alcohol relaxes the demands of the over-I. Falling in love, Freud (and a thousand or so years of Western poetry) attests, has a similar effect. Love - romantic love, the full-out passionate variety - allows the ego to be dominated by the wishes and judgment of the beloved, not by the wishes of the demanding over-I. The beloved supplants the over-I, at least for a while, and, if all is going well, sheds glorious approval on the beloved and so creates a feeling of almost magical well-being. Take a drink (or two), take a lover, and suddenly the internal conflict in the psyche calms down. A divided being becomes a whole, united and (temporarily) happier one."

"Freud had no compunction in calling the relationship that crowds forge with an absolute leader an erotic one.....What he offers to individuals is a new, psychological dispensation. Where the individual superego is inconsistent and often inaccessible because it is unconscious, the collective superego, the leader, is clear and absolute in his values. By promulgating one code - one fundamental way of being - he wipes away the differences between different people, with different codes and different values, which are a source of anxiety to the psyche. Now we all love the fatherland, believe in the folk, blame the Jews, have a grand imperial destiny."

"To Freud, crowds on their own can be dangerous, but they only constitute a long-term brutal threat when a certain sort of figure takes over the superego slot in ways that are both prohibitive and permissive."

Did you catch that? Think Osama. Think Hitler. Think any puny warlord in that desolate country called Somalia. Doesn't Freud explain this well?

The article continues - and clarifies the point - "In his last days, Freud became increasingly concerned about our longing for inner peace - our longing, in particular, to replace our old, inconsistent and often inscrutable over-I with something clearer, simpler and ultimately more permissive. We want a strong man with a simple doctrine that accounts for our sufferings, identifies our enemies, focuses our energies and gives us, more enduringly than wine or even love, a sense of being whole. This man, as Freud says in his great book on politics, "Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego," must appear completely masterful. He must seem to have perfect confidence, to need no one and to be entirely sufficient unto himself. Sometimes this man will evoke a god as his source of authority, sometimes not. But in whatever form he comes - whether he is called Hitler, Stalin, Mao - he will promise to deliver people from their confusion and to dispense unity and purpose where before there were only fracture and incessant anxiety. But, of course, the price is likely to be high, because the simplifications the great man offers will almost inevitably involve hatred and violence."

An amazing article. Thank you Mr. Edmundson.

Freud explains Iraq v2

In response to an article in the NYT entitled "When the Personality Disorder Wears Camouflage" by Benedict Carey that was published on July 9, 2006.

Mr. Carey's intent, no doubt, was not to add to my explanation of terrorism in Iraq and of terrorism generally, but he clarified a key point with a totally different viewpoint and goal in mind. In my mind that validates this particular point I am trying to make. Notice how cleanly Mr. Carey's observations of psychopaths aligns with Freud's analysis of a leadership style that empowers terrorism by offering "individuals .. a new, psychological dispensation?" Here is some of the text of the article:

"These are hallmark traits of what some experts call psychopathy, a potent blend of antisocial instincts and grandiosity....

"...when you have a psychopathic offender, quite often he will manipulate others, he can be a puppet-master type," he said. "Others are attracted to his sense of certainty, his sense of power, to the fact that he can do things others have trouble doing." A person with psychopathic tendencies may appear to others as clearheaded as an elite soldier when under fire, or when on the attack. But the internal psychological reality is much different, research suggests."

This so closely aligns with the earlier Freud article, it could not go un-announced.

Lastly, a very pithy quote that applies to this same issue from David Brooks, a columnist for the NYT - "(These) assaults ... are ginned up by ideological masseurs who salve their followers' psychic wounds by arousing their rage at objects of mutual hate."

Doesn't Mr. Brooks' statement go right to the point of the Freud article and the article on psychopaths in the military? It helps to clearly identify the motivations and methodology of the leaders of the terrorism movement and all their ilk.