by Joe Kandra (cartoonist) and Kathie MM
Tag: psychoanalysis
Is Peace a Taboo?
By Majed Ashy
Early anthropologists, such as Boas, and psychoanalysts such as Freud and Jung, discussed the anthropological and cultural origins of taboos. A taboo is “a social or religious custom prohibiting or restricting a particular practice or forbidding association with a particular person, place, or thing.” (Oxford Living Dictionary) Every society has taboos that are defined and reinforced, and sometimes exploited, by various social and political powers and cultural organizations, such as religions, media, educational systems, and governments. Generally, powers threaten and impose punishments on individuals and groups crossing the line of the prohibited taboo.
The same cultural and psychological dynamics at play throughout history to define something as a taboo can be seen as contributing to current obstacles to peace and peace making. In some societies, not only are whole classes of people or nations characterized as evil, but associating with them is a taboo, as are their cultural tools and practices, and the expression of positive thoughts and emotions towards them. Any effort towards peace with groups subjected to taboos can itself become a taboo, surrounded by various myths and fears.
Through their cultural tools, the powers in society create the illusion of a collective agreement on the prohibition of peace with those “others,” and enforce their taboos with theological rationales, selective portrayals of the historical and current relations between the groups, and the particular meanings they assign to their own behavior and that of the others.
The same dynamics that frightened pre-historical humans regarding unseen “evil” spirits, and convinced them that there were powerful protectors in society with special knowledge about and weapons against those “enemies,” are still at play in today’s modern societies.
Understanding these cultural and psychological dynamics of taboo-making can help us free ourselves from being manipulated into viewing peace as a taboo.
Note from KMM: Ask yourself: Have our governments and other organizations made peace a taboo? Have there been efforts to punish individuals and groups who “cross the line” and try to promote peace? Is peaceful association with some groups and nations and respect for their customs and beliefs a taboo? What do people in power gain by tabooing particular groups? What can people do to protest against efforts to taboo the pursuit of peace and social justice?
Psychoanalyzing human aggression and war
Psychoanalysts have had a long interest in war and other forms of human aggression. For example, the “father” of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud (1915), horrified by the outbreak of World War I, argued that the violence was convincing evidence that “A belligerent state permits itself every such misdeed, every such act of violence, as would disgrace the individual.”
Decades later, appalled by violence in the United States (which he identified as “the most violent of industrial societies”), psychoanalyst James Gilligan placed considerable blame on people’s moralistic motivation to punish others. In his view, rigid and hierarchical social structures produce shame in the downtrodden, and those victims strive to replace shame with pride. He cites German resurgence in the post-World War I era as an example of how punishment and shame can generate appalling violence.
More recently, an Israeli scholar, Niza Yanay, offers another psychoanalytic analysis of the psychological foundations of violence. In The Ideology of Hatred: The Psychic Power of Discourse, she explores the unconscious forces and conflicts that underlie political hatred, which she views as an ideology of power and control.
Disillusioned, like Freud, with governing groups, Yanay comments “Sovereign states and groups are usually motivated to construct a humane face and a just image for themselves” (p. 99). She goes on to suggest that hatred helps aggressors maintain their image of goodness by turning the victims into objects of blame deserving hatred.
What do you think of these psychoanalytic perspectives? Do you think governments seek a monopoly on violence and will commit acts of aggression that would be declared illegal when done by individuals? And do they try to present a “humane face” while using propaganda to promote hatred?
Kathie Malley-Morrison and Majed Ashy
An earlier version of this two-part review was recently published in the American
Psychological Association journal, PsycCRITIQUES, August 2013.