fredag 24 februari 2012

Krig med Iran

Jag skickade ett brev till psykohistorikern Lloyd Demause som i sin forskning psykoanalyserar hela samhällen och historiska rörelser, speciellt deras benägenhet till våld och självspäkning. 

Hello Lloyd!

Now that the rhetoric/propaganda surrounding the Iran "conflict" intensifies, I remembered you writing somewhere that a war is instigated as a sort of therapy for a guilty conscience, i.e. a dialectical confrontation between the ego and the alter ego in order to relive the tension in their struggle. As you have also stated, war follows an era or period of societal expansion often containing progress in many areas - a sort of "growth anxiety". One must then ask why this guilty conscience persists in times of independence and relative plenty.

I personally think that this happens, not because people perceive the expansion as generally good but unpermitted by their elders (the childlike complex), but rather because they genuinely fail to see the benefits of the expansion, and focus solely on the negative aspects, aspects which are often fictionalized or imagined, but put forth or agreed to as true by almost everyone. This notion is then fueled by the media, intellectuals, politicians, war mongerers, and the general sophists among us. I think the most obvious current manifestation of this phenomenon is the fear of "globalization", which displays all the charateristics mentioned. I think globalization will evolve further into becoming the envelope for all that which people pericive as wrong with the world. In this envelope belong such major sub-categories as global warming, poisoning of the oceans, resource depletion, pollution, exploitation, and the largely martyrised characterisation of women by contemporary authoritarian feminism. It's truly scary but fascinating what we're going through at the moment, and surely things will intensify as the major economies around the world start to fall into depression. This depression by the way, is already being felt to its psychological extent, as people seem to lack hope for the imminent future. All this anxiety stems, I think, from the false dichotomy of the emotional management in the personal life, and that in the public sphere. Instead of dealing with the pain of examining the origins of your depression by introspection, all negative emotions are abstracted and projected onto the collective, which is the body that sacrificial action is then called for. This inturn is an effect of a broken childhood, where submissiveness to arbitrary parental authority is held as virtuous and rewarded with phrases and material goods, whereas independent thinking is ostracised, shamed and punished. Conformity to tribe mentality will rule the world up until full person hood has been extended to children. I myself am from Sweden, and this culture is often hailed as a trailblazer in this area, but let me tell you - day care, working parents, mandatory "schooling", stressed out mothers and absent fathers, passive aggressive relationships, mental instability. The so called welfare state is a colossal failure, and things are not so dandy over here either. The entire world has a long way left to go, and yet we are all never more than one generation away from enlightenment.    

So what do you think; Will the US go to war with Iran soon, will the fear-of globalization-phenomenon gain traction, leading to more sacrificial wars, authoritarianism and mass hysteria throughout the world. What is your take? I just watched the box office hits this week, since I recall that you also wrote something about violent women like killer mothers or femme fatales, taking up the screen as a culture prepares for war. Have you seen any such signs?


With kind regards,    

Jag fick ett koncist om än något korthugget svar. Hoppas det är fel.

"I would not be surprised to see a war between the U.S. and Iran soon."





2 kommentarer:

  1. WTF?! Den där Michael Savage är vrickad. Olyckligtvis finns det runt 8-10 miljoner (enligt Wikipedia) som lyssnar på hans program. Hoppas verkligen att de inte lyssnar på detta.

    Annars, Bruce Bueno de Mesquita diskuterade Iran-frågan på Econtalk för drygt tre år sedan. Behöver kanske uppdateras lite, men den politiska strukturen som han tar upp är fortfarande relevant. Det viktiga är att Ahmadinejad mest spelar på den anti-amerikanska opinionen i Iran, vilket jänkare tolkar som ett hot. Vilket Ahmadinejad dock inte har makt att utföra, eftersom han är bara kanske den 20:e viktigaste politikern i landet. Alltså, han har inte så mycket makt. Och landet är ju löjligt litet jämfört med USA och dess allierade.

    Lyssnade på Demauses bok "The Origin of War in Child Abuse" för ett år sedan. Jag vet inte hur väl hans psykologiska teori står, men hans historiska redogörelse för hur illa barn blivit behandlade i historien var chockerande. Det var inte så mycket som att det gav stöd åt hans psykologiska syn utan att det mer väckte en tanke "Något måste bli fel med en sådan uppväxt."

    SvaraRadera
    Svar
    1. Jag skulle inte tro att Irans politiska ledning vill ha något med USA att göra om de kan slippa. Handelsembargon och andra sanktioner lär dock reta upp dem, och möjligen radikalisera befolkningen som följd av stigande priser/sämre levnadsvillkor. Alltid finns det demagoger i USA som vill se krig, men jag trodde inte att etablisemanget skulle dra krigskortet nu igen eftersom det inte lär dölja de ekonomiska problemen mer än högst några månader extra.

      Ang. Demause. Vet inte heller hur väl hans analys håller, men som du säger, fokus på barns uppväxt måste vara avgörande för att förstå samhällens psykologiska välmånde och agerande.

      Radera