[1]

Psychoanalysis

And Culture

 

 

It is often assumed that psychiatry is the school of thought which focuses on the individual, that its main concern is , moreover, the various forms of mental illness which some individuals suffer from. This is not true. Freud wrote a book entirely devoted to Group psychology, and there are various studies which relied on the insights of psychiatry to explain such cultural phenomena as Literature,   the Cinema, and diverse cultural phenomena. Politicians today rely on the insights of psychologists to comprehend the motives for world leaders acting as they do.

 

Freud

 

Defense Mechanisms:

 

It is well known that Sigmund Freud based his analytic system on interaction with his patients. During the exchange, he discovered that patients resist telling him the truth about certain experiences from their past. He thought that this is intentional, at first, and then he came to discover that, sometimes, patients just forget, or deny, or repress,  the truth, because it is difficult to deal with.. The anxiety level of the subject rises considerably when reminded of such experiences, some of which being traumatic and frightening. Therefore, the defenses are methods of concealing, either from the psychiatrist, or from the self, at least some of these experiences which could well be partial causes of the illness the patient suffers from..

It is therefore important to stress that these defense mechanisms are rhetorical.. They express the self in language.. as the subject wishes to present him/herself to the world.

It is certain that most normal humans use them as much as mentally ill people do. As usual, what distinguishes the normal individual using defenses from the ill person is a matter of degree.. When these methods are used to guard the individual from real or potential harm, then he still controls the usage. However, when the usage confuses the user, when he gets caught up in the defenses he creates, then they become harmful, and the usage ought to be stopped.

This study seeks to explain the defense mechanisms of Sigmund Freud, and apply them to certain cultural phenomena. I will try to suggest that those defenses are rhetorical, that is, they are specific uses of language meant to defend the self from specific threats, and are therefore embedded with social values. One cannot, after all, defend any act or thought, without its being previously attacked, both the attack and defense being always related to social norms.

 What follows here is a list and a brief discussion of some of these defenses, with their applications to everyday lives, and political and social debates…

 

 

Denial:

We all deny certain facts which for us are difficult to deal with. Most commonly, human beings forget, or deny, the fact that they all will one day die.. cease to be.

We also deny views which are opposed to what we believe in. Darwin, in his autobiography, states:

 

I had during years followed a golden role, namely, whenever I came across a published fact, a new observation or idea, which ran counter to my general results, I made a memorandum of it without fail and at once. For I had found by experience that such facts and ideas were far more apt to slip the memory than favorable ones.[1]

 

Now, it is obvious, even from the description by Darwin here, that one denies mainly ideas : which ran counter to general results.. In short, one denies the ideas which oppose the ideology one believes in.

A very famous example of an important institution denying an established fact happened when The Catholic medieval church repressed  the thought of Galileo. He postulated that the earth rotates around the sun. The patriarchs denied the fact, and in order to prove to themselves the validity of the denial,  they burned, even forced Galileo to participate in the burning of , his books. They considered this display , the spectacle of the scientist burning basically the work to which he devoted his life, necessary to prove to the public that the man  renounced his views. However, since Galileo believed his own conclusions, which were based on scientific observation, and intelligent mathematical analysis, he stated, after finishing the burning of the books: Still, it turns. And the passage of years proved him right.

Now, was it wise for the patriarchs to deny the theories of Galileo in this fashion? Probably not. Since this way, the church commenced  the unnecessary conflict between science and religion which was to last for a long time to come. Part of the reason for the violence with which enlightenment dismissed much religion as myth, is the original denial of the church to science.

Denial of facts is therefore harmful to the individual, and if a community denies facts, it might weaken the validity of its views in the eyes of its members.

A political example: For many years after its creation, Arabic countries denied the existence of Israel. They denied that it is there, that it exists and refused to talk to Israelis. One wonders: Did they imagine that by refusing to acknowledge the existence of Israel, it would go away? When President Sadat decided to start negotiations with Israel in the late seventies, many Arabs considered him to be a traitor, and isolated him. Their reaction was the same as that of the patriarchs when they faced the theories of Galileo. It obviously felt very strange for many Arabs, in the early nineties, to see their representatives setting next to the representatives of the state which , according to their ideology, did not exist.

It is therefore better to acknowledge the existence of something we dislike than to deny it. At least, one might take the sad truth of affairs with a grain of salt, grin and bear it, but Wisdom dictates the one ought  to anticipate that  day when the truth comes out, and be prepared for it.

  To end where we began: What can be said about the denial of death? Ought we to deny that it will take from us our lives one day? Would the admission of death stop the individual from hoping for a better tomorrow, and gives him to despair, or would s/he love life even more?

Perhaps, it will be better and healthier if one remembers the fact of demise.. This way, s/he will take himself, and the difficult events of life, less seriously, be able to laugh about being embarrassed at work one day, for instance, instead of feeling sullen about it for weeks later. Life will be better appreciated when one admits its temporality.

 A very sad final example comes from the journals of Robert Falcon Scott, the English explorer of the south continent. Due to inevitable circumstance, he and his crew were trapped in the middle of a violent snow storm, and realized that they will all have to die.. How did they behave in this extreme situation? A letter, found eight months later, written by Scott to the wife of one of his crew members, Mr. Wilson, describes his final actions:

 

 

If this letter reaches you Bill and I will have gone away together. We are very near it now and I should like you to know how splendid he was at the end , everlastingly cheerful and ready to sacrifice himself for others, never a word of blame to me for leading him into this mess. He is not suffering, luckily, at least only minor discomforts.

His eyes have a comfortable blue look of hope and his mind is peaceful with the satisfaction of his faith in regarding himself as part of the great scheme of the Almighty. I can do no more to comfort you than to tell you that he died as he lived, a brave, true man, the best of comrades and staunchest of friends.[2] (259)

 

In this passage, one finds the ethics of dealing with death.. Wilson stays cheerful till the end, and is willing to help his friends in his last moments. Religion certainly helps the whole group deal with the disaster which befalls them. They do not deny the fact that they will die, but, by acknowledging it, set a standard for how to behave in such a situation for later generations.

It is  difficult to admit that beauty and intelligence will eventually turn to dust, but to deny it only makes matters worse.

 

 

Rationalization:

To rationalize is to offer others acceptable reasons for unacceptable acts.. Sometimes, one rationalizes unacceptable thoughts, giving to himself some form of justification.. Many times, in life, people make mistakes, act meanly to each other, husbands betray wives, children harm parents. One finds some form of justification for those kinds of unacceptable acts in order to survive.

The first question which a human being needs to deal with is that of his/her own existence. What am I doing here? Am I helpful to others, or am I doing harm?

Human beings need to find some form of justification for their existence which is daily contested by others. Why are You alive? What are you doing with your life? A famous existential philosopher, Bataille, puts it in a crude fashion:

 

At the basis of human life there exists a principle of insufficiency. In isolation, each man sees the majority of others as incapable or unworthy of being. There is found, in all free and slanderous conversation, as an animating theme, the awareness of the vanity and the emptiness of our fellowmen.. the sufficiency of each being is endlessly contested by every other. Even the look that expresses love and admiration comes to me as a doubt concerning my reality. A burst of laughter or the expression of repugnance greets each gesture, each sentence, or each oversight through which my profound insufficiency is betrayed.[3]

 

Most of us lead superficial lives. We fulfill duties which might not be significant. Our lives are dull. Yet, each one of us  loves life, and rationalizes his/her continuing to exist. When we commit errors, make mistakes, occasionally fatal ones, we have to find rationalizations.. I did not intend for that to happen. It was not my fault. I am a loser, so why don’t you kill me? How did Mr. Nobel justify his invention of the Atomic bomb and its children, deadly toys which damaged the lives of Millions of peoples worldwide? He created the Noble Peace Prize, as a kind of apology, which was all what he could have done. That was a rationalization, to himself more than to any of the victims of his invention.

 As one becomes increasingly aware of the insufficiency of his individual being, he seeks solace in the social system. One joins a party, Democrats, Republicans, even the Green party, or the KKK, any group which conceals the insufficiency of each individual entity, merges it in the group.. One finds Safety in Numbers.

However, groups need their rationalizations to exist as well. And one of the easiest is to degrade other groups.

A story entitled the Vigilante by John Steinbeck describes Mike, a white man,  rationalizing his participation in the lynching of a black man. Mike was one of the first men to attack the jail where the black man was imprisoned, and was the one to tie the knot around the neck.. His justification is: This will save the county a lot of money, and no sneaky lawyers getting in.. He explains further: Lawyers can get them out of anything. I guess the nigger was guilty alright. However, Mike does complain when the mob tried to burn the hanging body: He is dead now. That can not hurt him none. Yet, his narrating the tale again and again, describing with evident pleasure how the mob stripped the black man, and beat him until he is semi dead, and took his unconscious naked body and tied the rope around the neck, all this suggests a different motivation, which appears later in the story. For, when Mike gets home, his wife confronts him: You been with a woman.. and he acknowledges to himself: She is right. That is exactly how I do feel.[4]

The secret motivation of Mike is the pleasure of torturing another person, and watching them die..A sick hunger for power and control over others. His awareness of the insufficiency of his own being makes him participate in the killing of another, in the hope that this way, he will feel alive, significant. The idea that justice is served in this manner is the rationalization.

However, this story goes beyond the individual, since a whole group of people participate in the crime committed. Here there is a reminder of the slavery system, which was also rationalized by society to conceal basically greed and the pleasure of abuse of people by others.

A well known historic document, the Narrative of the life of Fredrick Douglas, describes in detail the rationalization used to justify slavery. For instance, the author recollects that the wife of his Master, Mrs. Auld, tried to teach him to read and write, but shortly her husband stops her from doing so, saying: A nigger should know nothing but to obey his masters. If you teach him how to read and write, he would at once become unmanageable.

The author also describes some masters who: find religious sanctions and support for their salve holding activities. As he puts it:

 

The man who robs me of my earnings at the end of each week meets me as a class leader on Sunday mornings, to show me the ways of life, and the path of salvation. He who sells my sister, for purposes of prostitution, stands forth as the pious advocate of purity. He who proclaims it a religious duty to read the Bible denies me the right of learning to read the name of the God who made me.[5]

 

Rationalization therefore is a system used to cover up the sense of insufficiency most individuals feel by justifying inhumane acts towards other people. As we have seen, from various examples, slave holding societies rationalized their abuse of slaves on grounds of religion, even as the very essence of that religion was transgressed. Sometimes, as in such instances as slave lynching, the individuals derive a perverse sick pleasure from participating in group violence against other groups. This was rationalized on the grounds of exacting justice..

Rationalization, for Freud, was a method of dealing with guilt, stemming from the super ego. And it is necessary occasionally to rationalize lies, faking excuses, betraying trust, etc. In such instances, one is forced to rationalize. However, one can go so far as to participate in killing other human beings illegally, and rationalize his participation later. Therefore, as with all other defenses, some rationalization is necessary, but excessive use of it is very harmful to the self and society.

 

 

Projection

Projection is a method of psychological defense characterized by the attributing of desires or qualities, the existence of which in himself the subject refuses to acknowledge, to others.

More than other defenses, projection reveals the fear of  pollution. The desire one feels is seen as negative, the quality a flaw, and thus becomes a character of him, her, them, but surely not me.

All wo/men want the same thing - might in actuality mean not being able to fulfill, or a desire for, that Same Thing.

The kids in school don’t like me could mean I don’t like the kids in school.

What is projected to others, in such examples, is ultimately a form of frustration. The projected qualities are often socially undesirable.

Actually, one might state that most social stereotypes are forms of projections. That is why, each stereotype influences various individuals in different degrees. Someone is more influenced by stereotypes against Blacks supposed excessive physicality.. Another might find the idea about Muslims smelling bad interesting, and a third might be obsessed with the stereotype that Jews are very rich, and they flaunt it.. Such stereotypes clearly show the fears and desires of the culture which produced them, rather than the characteristics of Minorities as the Jews, Muslims, and AfroAmericans.

The idea the Jews are rich, and live accordingly, shows the wishes of All Americans to get rich, and have a luxurious home, and lead an affluent life. As for the AfroAmerican, many people in Western culture wish to be more physical, even more aggressive, and sexual. Finally, smell is notoriously an American fear.. It is as though Western man wishes to be physical, without sweating. Thus, stereotypes are projections showing the fears and desires of the culture at large.

John Ruskin wrote illuminating pages about the nature of the individual who does the projecting in his aesthetic study of the Pathetic fallacy. Basically, Ruskin considers the projection of excessive emotions into objects to be: the sign of a morbid state of mind, and comparatively a weak one. He asserts that such projection of emotions reveal: the incapacity of  human sight or thought to bear what has been revealed to it. For him, therefore, the Pathetic fallacy shows a certain blindness to what things in reality are.

Ruskin states that the projective imagination adds to things qualities which reflect its own fears and aspiration, and he calls this characteristic in poetry the Pathetic fallacy, and defines it thus;

 

All Violent feelings have the same effect. They Produce in us a falseness in all our impressions of external things, which I would generally characterize as the Pathetic fallacy.

Now, we are in the habit of considering this fallacy as eminently a character of poetic description, and the temper of mind in which we find it, as one eminently poetical, because passionate. But, I believe, if we look well into the matter, we shall find that the greatest poets do not often admit this kind of falseness.[6]

 

For Ruskin, Great Poets are passionate, but they equally exert some form of control over their passion, so that their description of characters, for instance, reflect the feelings which might be characteristic of those characters, rather than the emotions of the writer. As for the Poet who commits the Pathetic fallacy, his work reveals only his confusion, and lack of control over the theme he tries to project his feelings unto. IT is as though his psychological upheaval is made to appear as characteristics of that object he describes.

It is possible to say that the excess of emotions evident in the pathetic fallacy, and in instances of Projection in general shows that what is projected reveals a very emotional issue which the subject cannot deal with. That Projection ultimately reveals excessive emotions often bordering on a morbid inner conflict is shown quite clearly in an interesting scene in Dostoevsfky s work, Brothers Karamazov.  Ivan, in an important scene, is very angry at his brother, Smerdyakov, since he hinted that both were involved in the murder of their father. Ivan is very angry, and is ready to hit his borther more than once for the false accusation. Later, however, he has to acknowledge his complicity:

yes, I expected if, I wanted the murder, I did want the murder. Did I want the murder? Did I want it? I must kill Smerdyakov! If I don’t dare kill Smerdyakov now, life is not worth living.[7]

The shift in Ivan s thoughts clearly shows how projection works. As he admits his complicity, or rather desire, for the death of his father, he immediately states: I must kill my brother. The thoughts of his stream of consciousness are disrupted. He therefore projects his sense of guilt to his brother, and wants to kill him instead of facing that difficult sense of complicity and guilt.

As we have seen, then, one uses projection as a defense to conceal his own sense of guilt, or physical or psychological flaws. Projection appears usually through the excessive emotions involved.

 

 

Reaction Formation:

Reaction formation is the development of a new point of view concerning an old desire which could not be fulfilled.

As Freud puts it:

 

 As the child becomes aware of sexual excitement which cannot be fulfilled, the sexual excitations evoke opposing mental forces which, in order to suppress this unpleasure effectively, build up the dams of disgust, shame and morality.[8]

 

Original feelings of happiness turn to the very opposite, almost as a thesis turns to its own antithesis.

Eugene Kinkead wrote a famous essay entitled American P O W s in Korea, which provides a very interesting example of Reaction formation. The author focuses on the indoctrination and Brain washing the P O W s were subjected to. He suggests that the majority of the American prisoners in Korea yielded in some degree to communist pressure, that is, their views on the conflict changed after the imprisonment, and to the extent that a rumor indicating the impossibility of defeating communist indoctrination was wide spread at home. This meant that each soldier did not have the morale necessary to resist the attempts at indoctrination in the first place.

On returning home, most P O Ws talked about Korea as a socialist, rather than a communist, country, which meant that they have accepted the terminology of the Koreans. Many of them also suggested that, while socialism might not work in a rich country as the States, it is necessary in poorer countries as China and Korea. This meant that those P O Ws have repudiated the causes which their country sent them to fight for.

So, how was this reaction formation achieved?

The Koreans created a new set of circumstances, which estranged the P O Ws from their environment, and each other. First, most Americans, even today, would be lost without a bottle of pills and a toilet that flushed.[9] (627)   In short, they are accustomed to a certain level of luxury which certainly did not exist in the prison camps. In response, the P O Ws lost respect to their military elders, as though they were responsible for the plight. The Koreans certainly did all they can to make P O Ws disrespect those elders. Sometimes, they would force an elder to confess to a small mistake, aloud, such as not washing one s teeth in the morning. A simple confession like that makes the soldiers lose respect for him.

To make matters worse, soldiers were trained not to rely on each other. The Koreans tried to get soldiers to inform on one another, for little awards, such as Cigarettes, and fruits, or some support and words of encouragement. Thus the soldiers lost their trust in one another and started relying on the Korean system. If any problem happens, soldiers report it to those responsible for them. While, in the war with China, soldiers depended on one another, and hated their captors for ill treatment, the Koreans did not as a general role abuse their prisoners. The food was not good, but healthy.

Consequently, the American soldier lost trust in his superiors, and in other P O Ws. He is now totally alone.

The sense of loneliness which soldiers faced increased to the level that some of them would refuse to leave their beds or eat. Because those soldiers lost the will to live, the disease was called - giveupity. It was recommended that, in case a soldier refuses to leave bed, he should be insulted to the extent that he is angry, and starts fighting. If he does, then the will to live will return to him. Otherwise, he will be dead in a matter of days.

What then is reaction formation? It is simply the development of a new attitude towards issues of importance to the life of the individual, through either coercion, or manipulation. When reaction formation occurs, the individual changes his views about the issue which he had strong feelings about. As we have seen, reaction formation indicates that the individual felt isolated for a long time, and almost lost the wish to live, before the change occurs.

There are a number of well known psychological effects which result from Reaction Formation. Psychologists noticed that, when soldiers returned, they were apathetic. Things which interested them before ceased to interest them now. The author indicates their characteristics:

 

They displayed much less than the average amount of interest in their environment; their outlook was a noticeably restricted one, and they expressed few, if any, demands or desires for the present, or plans and thoughts about the future. They discussed their lives in an extraordinarily flat and unemotional way, using stock phrases over and over. Their apathy was not unlike that seen in psychotics, who are often abject; the returned prisoners were capable of response, but their reaction time had been measurably slowed and they showed only a limited capacity for elaborating the ideas they expressed. Beneath this apathetic surface, however, they were turbulent, ready to be extremely aggressive, to tear into something in a rage. (628)

 

It is as though the reaction formation changed the psychological make up of the individual. He has now a superficial cold demeanor.  He does not seem to care much about the future, and is rather absent minded. His language relies on stereotypes, and therefore he can not develop original ideas. Yet, the effect of the change, which is a transgression on the dignity of the individual, is that he is very angry.. He might explode at any minute, for the slightest reason.

 

The problem with reaction formation is that it is a coerced change. One changes willingly, all the time, and is more creative, and happier, as a result. But, reaction formation is forced , therefore, the effects of it is to mentally cripple the individual.

 

Regression:

Regression is a return to an earlier state of development in order to escape the pressures and anxieties of the present. One of the most common examples of regression is nostalgia, the yearning for a supposedly better past; the grass was greener, the air was purer, the music was faster, life simpler. It is certain that not all forms of regression are harmful. Preferring the musicians or actors of an earlier period is normal.. One easily finds groups advocating the lifestyles of the 70s and 80s. As a matter of fact, so clear is the appearance of regression in society that common people speak of parties with regressive or progressive policies.

Now, regression does not always harm the individual, but it certainly shows discontentedness with the present. Thus, it can weaken the ego s defense mechanisms. In the long run, id and superego attack the ego and weaken it , until it almost disappears, while the superego gets larger. Then the superego too fades, and all what is left are narcissism and the desires of the id. Norman E Zinberg notes that regression tends:

Toward earlier developmental cencerns and away from later ones, toward primary process, and away from secondary process, toward pleasure principle and away from reality principle functioning.[10]

The regressive individual loses such qualities as patience, since he expects now to achieve his goals rapidly. His objectives are also personal; his ability to cooperate with others to achieve common goals is weakened by the strengthening of narcissism. Zinberg states that regressive individuality increasingly relies on the superego, which allows for: an alliance with the id which in turn appears in grandiose fantasies, extended and hollow claims in relation to others seen as unfriendly or rivals, and attempts at physical or psychological feats clearly beyond the person s power. (507)

Thus, the fantasy which is unveiled in regression is ultimately one of power and grandiosity. Perhaps, the subject feels threatened in the present, and , therefore, finds security in the past.

These regressive tendencies, while appearing to support the ego, in reality do it harm, by weakening its abilities to adjust with the demands of the present moment. Ultimately, Regression appears as resistance to the present, which the subject rejects and denies. Any effort one tries to improve the present situation is resisted, while a rhetoric advocating the beauty of yesterday, and the greatness of the humans who lived in yesteryear, strongly becomes maifest. As Zinberg notes:

 

Often this greater acceptance of the past can become a major resistance, because the patient can use the realistic concept of greater distance in time to express an attitude of helplessness and hopelessness. (508)

 

How can one relate the sense of helplessness with the grandiose fantasies? Each feeds on the other. The sense of present weakness endorses the strengths imagined to exist in the past. One might even state a rule: The more a culture obsesses over its past, and advocate its values, the more likely it is to be facing a major present crises.

Now, Freud suggests that regression can be socially created, and is, moreover, used by some social institutions, such as the army, in order to create conformity. The weakness of the ego allows one easily to surrender his will to the voice of the group, embodied in the voice of the leader. As a result, all members share the sense of pride and omnipotence in their believe in their group.

Freud also spoke here of strong male bonding among group members, and sublimated sexuality, which he thought women incapable of, in spite of evidence to the contrary at the present moment.

Another form of regression which manifests itself in group psychology is the inability to deal with abstract thought. The ideas the leader offers are concretized, made concrete with images and specific examples.

Now, the usage of regression in groups is not totally harmful. First, the individual feels a sense of belonging to a larger totality, and he is, therefore, secure. He also can sacrifice the self for the sake of the group which, in other circumstances, his narcissism might prevent him from accepting. He also might do some good, indeed, heroic deeds, if the leader of the group is an enlightened one who encourages its members to be useful. On the other hand, the regressive aspects of group psychology can be harmful. First, each individual in the group lacks the ability to assess its direction and goals, his sense of reality is weakened by the group. Secondly, it is well known that groups often exhibit an us vs them attitude, which can lead to violence, or at least, indifference, to others.

As a matter of fact, much of the darkest pages of human history consist of humanity resisting the grandiosity and power hunger of certain groups.

 

Repression:

                                                                   The famous story teller Edgar allen Poe wrote various stories about people walling in others in the hope of getting rid of what they represent. But to no avail. The Black Cat for instance might remind the narrator of his alcoholism, of his brutality with his wife, his loss of control. It was also present in his world ever since his the happy days of his early childhood, before his alcoholism ruined his life, since from early on,  he used to love Black cats. All these sad memories made  him remember, and he needed to forget.

Therefore, he walls the Black cat, right near the spot where he killed and buried his wife. But, later, the cats mewing , which sound to him like a screech from hell, brings the burial place to the attention of the police. So, they discover his crime, and take him away. This is a failed attempt at repressing something which provokes anxiety to the consciousness.

Now, this story parallels closely what Freud says about repression:  The essence of repression lies simply in turning something away, and keeping it at a distance, from the consciousness.[11]  

But, it is not that simple.. Since the repressed element is attached to ideas that are difficult for the subject to deal with, and is merely their material presentation. it therefore becomes very difficult for the individual to repress the ideas without spending much energy. As Fenichel puts it:

 

repression is never performed once and for all but requires a  constant expenditure of energy to maintain the repression, while the repressed constantly tries to find an outlet.[12]

 

I cannot think of a better example of modern attempts at repressing something than (who else?) Usama bin Laden..

Basically, America assisted Usama with military powers and training during the eighties, while he fought the Soviets in Afghanistan. At that stage, the idea of religion was used to support those militant men. They were told:  You should fight  the Russians because they are Communists invading an Islamic land.. Afghanistan is being invaded by the infidels..

Usama was praised in the Saudi Press during the eighties until the Russian forces withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989.. and in less than a year.. withdrew from Europe , and the Soviet system was dismantled..

Now, America decided after that to repress Usama, even though his role was vital in the victory against the Soviet Regime. To be fair: IT was impossible to deal with a  man who was taught to fight against the Russians just because they were infidels. Of course, he will turn against America later..

 It is reported that Usama wanted to develop his own business in Sudan, but the Americans insisted that he leaves that country, after investing millions of dollars there. He lost his money, and I believe, that he in part owned the medical factory which Americans destroyed in the mid- nineties.. without any evidence to show that the factory produced anything other than medicine.

So, he was the repressed.. And it was very costly to ward the threat of his coming back, especially as America was building military bases all over the Middle east.. it would have looked to him clearly as another infidel invasion.. the memories of what happened, his victory in the eighties, and Americans ignoring his role, and fighting him off in every possible way.. these facts led ultimately to what happened in November 11^th. 

Such stories as Poe s The Black Cat, Premature Burial, among others suggest that violence does not solve the issue.. One needs to bring the repressed to consciousness, through dialogue, learn to deal with the dark past somehow. Otherwise, one just gets sicker and sicker, spends more energy, until he is depleted, and neurosis sits in.

Now, when Americans talked to Bin Laden, there was an incredible force, which as used productively, for both partners to defeat a common enemy.. It is certain that the religious east needed to ward off the Communist threat as much as America did. But now, can that energy be used in an equally positive way? And what can be done about the fundamentalist ideology America created and supported to fight the communists? Or does it have to be repressed, the act of repression being so costly to the whole world?

It is important therefore to stress that Usama bin laden is the Black cat of Edgar allen poe. Both are symbols of something that needs to be repressed. To kill Usama, or to wall the black cat, does not resolve the issue. One needs to deal with the repressed which Usama and the balck cat are mere representations of , somehow.

So, does that mean we should negotiate with terrorists.. Yes. The most ancient example of successful taming is the carrot and the stick.. One fights with the stick, but keeps the carrot in the other hand.. That is how one negotiates with violent people. And negotiation is necessary because it is less costly. Otherwise, one is just expressing anger, and seeking vengeance, and succumbing to desires for violence never leads to any good for any one.

 

 

Isolation

    If a pedestrian  faces a gang standing on one side of the road, the easiest solution is to use the other side.

    Isolation is a method of dealing with a difficult issue by bracketing it, and not thinking about it at all. One imagines that the danger is not real. The worrying issue becomes isolated, not to be dealt with; when the individual speaks about that issue, s/he is very cold and detached, as though the matter is totally impersonal.

So isolation is an effort in order to get rid of the emotions attached to a person, or object; it is the desire to be desireless. 

    Isolation is not usually a good way of dealing with a problem. More often than not,  the bracketed issue is likely to expand, grew larger on a daily basis. One is scared of snakes, so one stops thinking about them. Then, one doesn’t wish to go to the zoo since it reminds him of snakes. Next, one fears all animals because they remind one of snakes. And so on, Until one gets blinded to numerous issues all relevant to the question one does not wish to deal with in the first place.

There is a one professional field where people proudly Isolate the object of their study.. because it is anxiety arousing. This is the field of literary studies. For instance, it is difficult to relate the author s relationship to his text. Therefore, literary theorists proudly state  the theory of the death of the author.. The author , according to this theory, is dead, totally irrelevant to the books he writes..

Another example: Since the late seventies, literary critics have started to doubt the existence of the literary text they are supposed to be analyzing and teaching. If understood in the context of Isolation, one can say that the literary text is anxiety arousing to the extent that literary critics have to bracket it, deny that it is there. This way, they have more freedom in interpreting it. The interpretation should not confirm to the text, but it should be strong. What the literary academy wants is a strong misreading.

Famous critic, Paul de man, defines the literary text as: an enigmatic appeal to understanding. As to how one understands it, and the relationship between the understanding and the understood phenomena, that is a matter for debate. De Man defines Interpretation as: the description of the understanding. And goes on to state:

 

The semantics of interpretation have no epistemological consistency and can therefore not be scientific. But this is very far from saying that what the critic says has no immanent connection with the work, that it is an arbitrary addition or subtraction, or that the gap between his statement and his meaning can be dismissed as mere error. The work can be used repeatedly to show where and how the critic diverged from it, but in the process of showing this our understanding of the work is modified and the faulty vision shown to be productive. Critics moments of greatest blindness with regard to their own critical assumptions are also the moments at which they achieve their greatest insight.[13]

 

One might wonder: Why does it have to be articulated in this fashion? One can not relate to the text directly, but has to reach it through the critic s diversion from it. One reads the text in order to prove that the other person who read it did not get it right.

 

This is how isolation works: First, one denies the existence of the anxiety arousing object. Then, his/her vision of that disappearing object is beclouded; but, for Paul de Man, this Faulty vision is productive. Presumably, a third person, whose vision is equally clouded, can now return to the critical text and check its closeness to the original.

Obviously, what you have here is a group of readers who isolate the phenomena they are trying to understand. The problem, obviously is that Literature, and all phenomena, is usually related to other phenomena, and to look at it in isolation is not an effective method of interpretation; it is a method which reminds one of the ideas of objectivity common during the 19^th Century. Much better it would be to deal with literature in a different way.. By thinking about the relationship between different texts for example, or about the relationship between literature and its historical contexts.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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