A Justice Site
Discussion Topics
Mirror Sites:
CSUDH - Habermas - UWP
California State University, Dominguez Hills
University of Wisconsin, Parkside
Soka University Japan - Transcend Art and Peace
Created: November 26, 2001
Latest Update: January 2, 2002
Faculty:
jeannecurran@habermas.org
Olivier at tapcourse@yahoo.com
takata@uwp.edu
"psychoanalysis has yet to be understood"
by Dr. Richard Koenigsberg, Director of the Library of Social Science,
Elmsburg, New YorkCopyright: Dr. Richard Koenigsberg, January 2002.
"Fair use" encouraged.On Tuesday, January 1, Richard Koenigsberg wrote:
Subject: Unconscious Sources of Terrorism and WarProfessor Jeanne Curran at California State University has an excellent web-site upon which she and several other instructors post writings for their classes. Professor Curran contributes her reflections, and requests that her students do so as well (see http://www.csudh.edu/dearhabermas/adversar06.htm).
She posted my recent pieces on SACRIFICIAL SELF-DESTRUCTIVENESS and added her own interesting observations. I wish to respond to a question that she posed for her students.
She asks, "What do you think Dr. Koenigsberg means by 'psychoanalysis has yet to be understood'?"
What I wish to convey by this statement is that although human beings pretend that the fundamental insights of psychoanalysis are known and have been integrated, this is not the case. In reality, persons barely recognize the power of unconscious motivation and its pervasive influence on human behavior.
Academic response to the World Trade Center incident has been surprising. What we have witnessed is the "return of the repressed Enlightenment." For all the scholarly discourse about the split subject and irrationality, the tendency has been to look for real situations in the world that may have "caused" this event. Persons assume that some more-or-less rational thought process was the source of the decision to explode buildings by flying airplanes into them.
When I say that psychoanalysis has yet to be understood, what I mean is that human beings have been unwilling to say that the SAME IRRATIONAL FORCES THAT GOVERN BEHAVIOR IN THE LIVES OF INDIVIDUALS ALSO GOVERN BEHAVIOR ON THE STAGE OF SOCIAL AND POLITICAL REALITY. The moment one enters the domain of the "external world," powerful resistance arises against acknowledging the role of the unconscious.
Perhaps we simply do not wish to face the fact that--as a consequence of unconscious fantasies that are not under control--it is possible that the world will come to an end. Professor Curran says that she selected Habermas as mentor for her class because of his faith that we can "salvage some part of the Enlightenment as we grope our way towards a global future." At least Habermas "moves toward hope." My colleague Francina Valk often has asked why I go on writing and speaking (presumably in a somewhat hopeful and rational way) if I am so persuaded that human beings are acting out of a posture of unconsciousness and irrationality.
Perhaps I too believe (with Freud) that consciousness of unconsciousness allows for some possibility of choice. Perhaps we are so deeply attached to our collective fantasies that we will refuse to abandon them even when we know the consequences (much as Americans not so many years ago were willing to risk the end of the world according to the logic, "better dead than red").
At this point, however, we don't have the option to choose because we haven't the slightest clue as to the source(s) of what is going on. In thinking about terrorism and war, we are so bound to conventional modes of perception.
Persons are willing to understand individuals in terms of the unconscious, even to apply psychoanalytic theory to literary and artistic personalities. However, as soon as human beings approach the realm of society or culture, profound resistance sets in--as if we are entering a sacred or transcendent realm and are NOT ALLOWED TO GO THERE.
Throughout history human beings have claimed that wars "break out" even though "no one wants them." War is experienced as outside the realm of human control. One may suggest that this psychic experience of inevitability is based on the fact that the institution is supported by powerful unconscious fantasies. These fantasies are perceived in the form of a paranoid projection. That which is internal is denied or disavowed--and returns from without.
We experience acts of terrorism and warfare as reasonable (rather than psychotic) because the ideologies that generate these behaviors resonate. One might even say that we love and desire terrorism and war. This is why we have been unwilling to "turn them over to analysis."
With regards,
Richard Koenigsberg, Ph. D.
Library of Social Science