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Created August 12, 2002
Latest Update: August 12, 2002
jeannecurran@habermas.org
takata@uwp.edu
Violence as Submission
by Richard KoenigsbergCopyright: Jeanne Curran and Susan R. Takata and Individual Authors, August 2002.
"Fair use" encouraged.From: GreatThinkers1@cs.com
Date: Sun, 4 Aug 2002 21:08:26 EDT
Subject: VIOLENCE AS SUBMISSIONDear Colleague,
I wish to express thanks for the interesting and thoughtful responses to my post on "Self and (M) other." One question posed was whether the omnipotent object represents a projection of the maternal or paternal principle. Putting aside this question for now, I wish to explore a particular DYNAMIC that may lie at the root of political violence.
When the terrorists plunged to the ground with their victims in Pennsylvania, it is reported that their last words were "God is great." I wish to suggest (with Ruth Stein) that terrorism may be conceptualized as a form of SUBMISSION TO THE BELOVED OBJECT.
Progress in comprehending political violence has been impeded by our unwillingness to acknowledge the intimate connection between the will to destroy, on the one hand, and sacred ideals, on the other. We prefer to understand violence as a "breakdown of civilization," whereas forms of societal violence such as war, genocide and terror usually are undertaken IN THE NAME OF CIVILIZATION.
We also prefer to understand violence as a species of "male aggression"--suggesting activity, power and energy. Certainly, this is what one sees. Having studied the belief systems and personalities that generate societal violence for many years, however, I conclude that its source lies in the desire for ABJECT SUBMISSION. Political violence occurs when subjects compel OTHERS to submit to THE SAME OMNIPOTENT OBJECT TO WHICH ONE HAS SUBMITTED ONESELF.
The sacred ideal works within and through leaders and followers. Rudolf Hess often said, "Hitler is Germany, just as Germany is Hitler." Hitler committed acts of aggression in the name of the German people. He imagined that destruction was necessary in order to rescue or preserve the beloved object.
Hitler said, "We want to prevent our Germany from suffering, as Another did, the death on the Cross. We may be inhumane, but if we rescue Germany we have achieved the greatest deed in the world."
Bin Laden said, "Allah has ordered us to make holy wars and to fight to see to it that His word is the highest and the uppermost and that of the unbelievers the lowermost."
Acts of Terroristic aggression occur when the OMNIPOTENT OTHER TAKES CONTROL OF THE SELF. The great other acts on and in and through the leader and his followers. One can call this a "bad object" if one wishes to try to rescue the dream of liberal humanism. For the terrorist, however, the object in the name of which he commits aggressive acts is a good or beloved one. Violence is a result or consequence (the dependent variable). The source or cause of violence is PROFOUND ATTACHMENT TO THE OBJECT and refusal to abandon it. Sociologists and historians speak of obedience to authority and compliance. What is required, however (as Fred Alford has suggested) is an EXPLANATION FOR COMPLIANCE.
Ruth Stein studied the letter found in Mohammed Atta's luggage and concluded that the Terroristic project was undertaken in a spirit of love and devotion. We may not LIKE this conclusion, however it is correct. If we as psychologists, psychoanalysts, historians and social scientists are to impact upon the world, we must begin (as scientists do in every other field) by ARTICULATING THE NATURE OF THE PHENOMENON. Only then can intervention be effective.
Hitler affirmed, "We do not want to have any other God, only Germany." He said, "Our love towards our people will never alter, and our faith in this Germany of ours is imperishable." He stated that Deutschland uber allas is a "profession of faith, which today fills millions with a greater strength, with that faith which is mightier than any earthly might." He defined nationalism as a willingness to act with a "boundless, all embracing love for the Volk and, if necessary, to die for it."
Violence in war, genocide and terror is undertaken as a devotional activity whose purpose is to prove the depth of one's commitment. The devotee is irresistibly, compulsively attached to the object that he or she worships. Those who generate acts of violence are pervaded with the feeling and belief, "There is no other than the Other." Terror functions to VALIDATE this feeling or belief--proving that one's god or nation or culture is implacable and cannot be evaded.
Terrorism represents an effort to compel others to SUBMIT TO THE GOD TO WHICH ONE HAS SUBMITTED ONESELF. Both self and other become sacrificial victims.
With regards,
Richard Koenigsberg
Date: Sun, 28 Jul 2002 21:15:58 EDT
Sender: Association for the Psychoanalysis of Culture & Society
Subject: Self and (m)OtherIs one incorrect to speak of the "individual" as if it were "something other than its relationship to the Other?" Is the idea of the individual an "ideological category?"
I am reminded of Nazi theorist Fritz Reinhardt who stated that Hitler "had set his stamp on the word folk community (Volksgemeinschaft)." This word made it completely clear to the German people that "the individual is nothing when not a member of the community." Hitler himself put it this way, "You are nothing, your nation is everything."
It is true that Other and culture shape the subject, still there is something that compels one to be Other Than the Other.
In saying, "There is no other than the Other," is one articulating a theoretical truth or expressing a psychic need? This statement reminds me of a phrase I may have written on a Valentine's Day Card that I created for Mother when I was nine years old.
The statement, "There is no other than the Other" articulates a dimension of psychic experience, but also expresses emotions that are bound to this experience. This is the voice of Mother's Desire: "Thou shalt not separate. Thou shalt remain bound to me forever." The emotions are those of despair and terror.
The idea that the political is the personal--that there is no escape from society or culture-also reflects a psychic experience enunciated as description of reality. Belief in the power of culture stems from projection of the omnipotent Other. The pejorative term "capitalism" is the term currently used to express ambivalence. We want a breast that can generate an endless supply of milk; but don't want it shoved down our throat.
Human beings create many methodologies in the struggle to separate from the great (and not so great) m(Other). Meditation is one of these. The idea is to allow disconnection to occur and take a chance. Will one continue to exist if one is no longer attached?
Disconnection is a possibility, but "revolt against society" is a delusion. Revolution is a paranoid form of the religious impulse ("society" being the fundamental object of worship).
Of course, if it were true that there was "no other than the (m)Other," then the human relationship to the social could consist of only two postures: submission or rebellion.
Who is the one that experiences the desire of the (m)Other? From whence comes the wish to be free? If society is the mirror that creates the ego, who is the One that is looking into the mirror?
With regards,
Richard Koenigsberg
Date: Mon, 29 Jul 2002 15:15:26 EDT
Sender: Association for the Psychoanalysis of Culture & Society
From: Richard Koenigsberg
Subject: Re: Self and (m)OtherLacanians like to say that it is impossible be (one with) the Other, and that this is our "lack" or failure.
Dear Marcia,
Thank you very much for your (several) responses.
I will comment later in the week on the question of maternal ambivalence and its relationship to separation issues.
In the meantime, could you please clarify the meaning of the sentence above?
With regards,
Richard
Sender: Association for the Psychoanalysis of Culture & Society<,br> From: Marcia Ian
Subject: Re: Self and (m)Other
Hi Richard --
I don't know, but I'll try. To be sure I'm in the ballpark, I've just read Dylan Evans's entry for "lack" in the _Introductory Dictionary of Lacanian Psychoanalysis_, which describes the evolution of Lacan's use of the term from its earliest appearance as designating "lack of being," translated by Sheridan as "want-to-be", which for Lacan is "'the heart of the analytic experience.'" Next, Evans says, "lack comes to designate the lack of an object," a lack which comes in three varieties, "according to the nature of the object which is lacking." Castration is the most important of these, says Evans. Finally, "lack comes to designate the lack of a signifier in the Other. . . [T]he chain is always incomplete; it always lacks the signifier that could complete it. This 'missing signifier' . . . is constitutive of the subject." Throughout, as Evans points out, "[t]he term 'lack' is always related, in Lacan's teaching, to desire."
My comment generalized from these three senses of "lack" to express my overall impression that Lacan sees the subject as structurally produced and dynamically maintained by its difference from the Other, whether understood as mother or language or the object of desire. In a sense that's all the subject is -- that lack, that impossibility, or failure. I say "failure" because its seems that the imaginary fusion with the Other signifies an impossible plenitude, to be had only in an Edenic imaginary or (idealization of) psychosis. (Or in religious ecstasy.) As Kafka said, there is hope, but not for us.
Marcia
Richard Koenigsberg wrote: I
n a message dated 7/29/02 9:16:54 AM Pacific Daylight Time, gnudle@BELLATLANTIC.NET writes:
Lacanians like to say that it is impossible be (one with) the Other, and that this is our "lack" or failure.. . . could you please clarify the meaning of the sentence above?
"There was a time when religion ruled the world. It is known as the Dark Ages."
--Ruth Hurmence Green