May 3 & 4, 2008, Washington, DC
"Political Extremism and Psychopathology"
LOCATION:
THE FAIRMONT WASHINGTON
Executive Forum, Ballroom Level
2401 M. Street, NW, Washington, DC. Phone: 202-429-2400
THERE IS NO FEE FOR ATTENDANCE.
NO REGISTRATION REQUIRED.
Click Here For Complete Program
Presentation by Richard Koenigsberg,
"Political Violence and the Concept of Collective Psychopathology"
PSYCHOPATHOLOGY OF MASS-SLAUGHTER IN THE 20TH CENTURY
Because of radical Islam and suicide bombings, people have begun to look at the relationship between psychopathology and politics. However, the monumental episodes of mass-slaughter that occurred in the West during the Twentieth Century dwarf what terrorism has generated. In this presentation, I examine the psychopathology of collective forms of political destruction and self-destruction given names like as war, genocide, democide and murder by government.
Paul Berman writes that it is very odd to think that millions or tens-of-millions of people might end up joining a pathological political movement. Individual madmen might step forward, but surely, "Millions of people are not going to choose death, and the Jonestowns of this world are not going to take over entire societies."
Looking at the historical record, one is compelled to conclude that indeed millions of people have chosen death, and on many occasions Jonestowns have taken over entire societies. Over two-hundred million people died in the Twentieth Century as a result of political violence initiated by nations and ideological movements. Where are clinical studies of these enormous cultural events that brought death and injury to millions of human beings?
For additional information please send an email to oanderson@ideologie sofwar.com or call 718-393-1081.
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THE SACRED REALM OF COMPETING NATIONS AND IDEOLOGIES
Within the sacred political domain, human beings shoot one another, blow each other up, torture one another, drop bombs on cities and murder tens-of-thousands of people. We're dealing with something extraordinary, these recurring episodes of collective violence. But the historical craft does not allow for a concept of psychopathology.
Wars, revolution, acts of genocide and acts of terror seek to glorify, promote and propagate nations, ideologies, and religion. Within the domain of struggles between sacred ideologies, anything and everything is permitted. Sacred ideologies release human beings from moral structures and strictures that govern other dimensions of societal existence.
Within this sacred realm--where struggles between competing nations, ideologies and Gods occur--no space is allowed for the language of psychopathology. This domain is imagined to be "beyond good and evil." Because this sphere is imagined to contain something that transcends ordinary human life, standards used to judge other domains of existence are not applied.
Read the online publication:
and the Concept of Collective Psychopathology"
WE ARE IN THE PATHOLOGY AND THE PATHOLOGY IS WITHIN US
The pathology that infuses the historical process is pathology that we are unwilling to recognize as pathology. What is happening stares us in the face--we can't help noticing what is always goes on--but we hesitate to say that we know. A mechanism of denial is contained within the very concept of history, which depicts monumental, extreme episodes of destruction and self-destruction as if normal.
A concept of collective psychopathology emerges at the moment we begin to disengage from the fantasy or shared nightmare with which we all have become identified. Once we perceive or recognize that we are living within a pathological domain--that we are in the pathology and the pathology is within us--then we begin to separate from it. At the moment of separation, diagnosis begins.
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Richard Koenigsberg is an author, lecturer and teacher focusing on the roots of collective forms of violence. He received his Ph.D. in Social Psychology from the Graduate Faculty of the New School for Social Research. He is a Faculty Member of the Institute for the Study of Violence at the Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis. New editions of his books--Hitler' s Ideology: Embodied Metaphor, Fantasy and History and The Nation: A Study in Ideology and Fantasy--recently have been released by Information Age Publishing.
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