Everyday Evils: A Psychoanalytic View of Evil and Morality 1138819190, 9781138819191

Table of contents :
Cover
Praise
About
Title
Epigraph
Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction to Evil
References
1. Evil and Destructiveness: A psychoanalytic view
Introduction
The role of narcissism
Destructiveness as primary
The perversion of destructiveness/perverse destructiveness
Note
References
2. Hannah Arendt, Evil and the Eradication of Thought
Introduction
What it means to be a person
The meaning of memory
Clinical example
The ego ideal and totalitarianism
The moral personality
Conclusion
Note
References
3. Invisible Handcuffs: The masochistic pact in capture-bonding and the struggle to be free
Introduction
Clinical material
Background
Becoming captive
To be bad is to be alive
Release from captivity
Breaking the spell
Discussion
Some technical considerations
Masochistic attachment
Belief systems, trauma and identity
Morality and the role of the observing ego
Conclusion
Notes
References
4. The Origin of Morality
Introduction
Brief theoretical background
Empathy and the formation of the observing ego
What is truth?
Rupture, dissonance and dissociation
Conclusion
Notes
References
5. Witnessing Evil
Introduction
Private witnessing
Collective witnessing
Belief systems, ideology and trauma
Distancing and cooperation
Conclusion
References
6. Demonization and Mass Killing: The other as evil
Introduction
The narcissism of minor differences
The legacy of terror
The antecedents of massacre: Why one place and not another?
Notes
References
7. The Problem of Forgiveness and Reparation in the Aftermath of Evil
Introduction
The psychoanalytic view of forgiveness and reparation
Evil and its aftermath
Case study
Forgiveness as social denial
Not forgiving
In place of forgiveness
Note
References
8. The Islamic State and the Glory of Death
Introduction
Apocalypse now
The lure of submission
Savagery and the glory of death
Conclusion
Notes
References
9. Do We Need a Theory of Evil?
Introduction
Thinking the unthinkable
The order of things
Ideology and the ego ideal
Tipping over into evil: Killing death
A theory of evil?
Notes
References
Conclusion
Reference
Index

Citation preview

EVERYDAY EVILS A Psychoanalytic View of Evil and Morality

Coline Covington

“This book is ground-breaking and one of the most important interdisciplinary studies to appear in many years. Drawing on and integrating her profound knowledge of psychoanalysis, group psychology, modern history, political systems and ethics, Coline Covington has given us that rarest of works; one that is not only highly original and thought provoking, but that offers invaluable insights into some of the most compelling moral, and ethical issues of our time.” –Theodore J. Jacobs, M.D., Clinical Professor of Psychiatry (Emeritus), Albert Einstein College of Medicine; Training and Supervising Analyst, The New York Psychoanalytic Institute and the Institute for Psychoanalysis “Coline Covington’s brilliantly penetrating study brings the age old problem of evil up to date. Her subjects range from Islamic terrorism to domestic violence, showing how modern technology, global communication, and the twenty-four hour news cycle confront us with evil on a daily basis. At the same time, Covington’s clinical experience as a psychoanalyst permits her to drill down deeply in each instance she considers. This is an unsettling, but invaluable book. It forces us to recognize how the evils that men do, while dehumanizing in their intent and effect, are all too human in their motivations.” –Owen Renik, M.D., Editor Emeritus, The Psychoanalytic Quarterly, Training and Supervising Analyst, San Francisco Center for Psychoanalysis “In this outstanding book, Covington courageously looks at the ‘black hole’ of evil in the eye without pretending to a final understanding of its complex nature. Expressed through varied and evocative lenses, her shared quest strongly grips the reader. Her passion and scholarship epitomize the kind of reflective thinking that provides hope for dethroning evil in its many guises. I highly recommend this well-written work to all who share a deep concern for our present and our future.” –Ladson Hinton, MA, MD, New School for Analytical Psychology, C. G. Jung Institute of San Francisco “In spite of decades of reflection on aggression and destructiveness, psychoanalysis has had surprisingly little to say on the idea and experience of evil. Coline Covington’s fascinating and important book reminds us just how serious an omission this has been. Synthesizing her formidable philosophical and historical erudition with her rich store of clinical experience, Covington offers an original psychoanalytic account of evil. Drawing on a range of thinkers from Freud and Winnicott to Arendt and René Girard, as well as literary figures such as Houellebecq and Littell, she argues persuasively that the most dehumanizing effect of evil is to destroy thought in its victims and perpetrators alike. In so doing, she recovers evil as an object of thought, albeit one that exceeds and disturbs its parameters.” –Josh Cohen, Psychoanalyst, BPAS and Professor of Modern Literary Theory, Goldsmiths University of London “Recent incredible advances in science and technology have changed the way we live. Human nature with both its loving and destructive aspects basically remains the same. Suicide bombings, decapitations, tortures, rapes and sex trafficking remind us that ‘everyday evils’ are here to stay. We are obliged to understand the reasons for inhumane individualized and societal deeds. This book is timely and deserves serious attention.” –Vamık Volkan, Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry, University of Virginia, and the author of Psychoanalysis, International Relations, and Diplomacy: A Sourcebook on Large-Group Psychology

EVERYDAY EVILS

Everyday Evils takes a psychoanalytic look at the evils committed by “ordinary” people in different contexts – from the Nazi concentration camps to Stockholm Syndrome to the atrocities publicized by Islamic State – and presents new perspectives on how such evil deeds come about as well as the extreme ways in which we deny the existence of evil. Concepts of group behaviour, morality, trauma and forgiveness are reconsidered within a multi-disciplinary framework. The psychodynamics of dissociation, and the capacity to witness evil acts while participating in them, raise questions about the origin of morality, and about the role of the observing ego in maintaining psychic equilibrium. Coline Covington examines how we demonize the “other” and how violent actions become normalized within communities, such as during the Rwandan genocide and Polish pogroms. The recent attraction of the millenarian theocracy of the Islamic State also highlights our fascination with violence and death. Covington emphasizes that evil comes about through a variety of causes and is highly contextual. It is our capacity to acknowledge the evils we live with, witness and commit that is vital to how we manage and respond to violence within ourselves and others and in mitigating our innate destructiveness. In conclusion, the book addresses how individuals and societies come to terms with evil, along with the problematic concept of forgiveness and the restoration of good. Everyday Evils blends psychoanalytic concepts together with the disciplines of sociology, history, anthropology, philosophy, theology and studies of violence in order to develop a richer, deeper and more comprehensive understanding of evil. Intending to make the unthinkable thinkable, this book will appeal to scholars from across those disciplines, as well as psychoanalysts, psychotherapists and anyone who has ever asked the question, “How could anyone do something like that?” Coline Covington is a Jungian analyst in private practice in London. She previously worked as a consultant to local authorities and the Metropolitan Police in the UK on juvenile justice policy. She is former Chair of the British Psychoanalytic Council and a Fellow of the International Dialogue Initiative.

First published 2017 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2017 Coline Covington The right of Coline Covington to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Covington, Coline, 1953– author. Title: Everyday evils : a psychoanalytic view of evil and   morality / Coline Covington. Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2017. |   Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2016022523| ISBN 9781138819191 (hardback : alk.   paper) | ISBN 9781138819207 (pbk. : alk. paper) |   ISBN 9781315744742 (e-book) Subjects: LCSH: Good and evil–Psychological aspects. |   Ethics–Psychological aspects. Classification: LCC BF789.E94 C68 2017 | DDC 170–dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016022523 ISBN: 978-1-138-81919-1 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-138-81920-7 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-74474-2 (ebk) Typeset in Bembo by Apex CoVantage, LLC

EVERYDAY EVILS A psychoanalytic view of evil and morality

Coline Covington

To GK

If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart? —Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago 1918–1956

CONTENTS

Acknowledgementsxi

Introduction to evil

1 Evil and destructiveness: A psychoanalytic view

1 4

2 Hannah Arendt, evil and the eradication of thought

15

3 Invisible handcuffs: The masochistic pact in capture-bonding and the struggle to be free

39

4 The origin of morality

63

5 Witnessing evil

82

6 Demonization and mass killing: The other as evil

100

7 The problem of forgiveness and reparation in the aftermath of evil

124

8 The Islamic State and the glory of death

145

x Contents

9 Do we need a theory of evil?

160

Conclusion

181

Index183

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank Richard Carvahlo, whose generous friendship, unstinting patience, humour, intelligence, and gently critical eye have kept me going throughout my writing. Paul Rock, Ted Jacobs, and Owen Renik have also travelled the course of this book with me. Paul Rock has been an intellectual mentor and guiding light throughout my academic life until the present; his comments and questions now, as in the past, have been invaluable.Ted Jacobs, whose lucid and eloquent writing has been so inspiring to me, served as my principal sounding board for this book. Our discussions and the encouragement he gave me are lasting gifts. Owen Renik’s maverick questioning of psychoanalytic dogma has deeply influenced my own development and his comments have been acute, provocative, and affirming. Special recognition is due on certain chapters. Josh Cohen’s thoughtful comments enriched my chapter on Hannah Arendt, Evil and the Eradication of   Thought; Ted   Jacobs, Owen Renik and Frank Ochberg, with his extensive experience of advising the police and the army on hostage situations, helped me to develop Invisible Handcuffs into its present form; David Black sharpened my thinking on The Origins of Morality; and Emily Paddon and Omar McDoom have been my primary sources on the Great Lakes Region and Rwanda in Demonization and Mass Killings. Colin Murray-Parkes, recounting his experience of post-genocide Rwanda in his garden, led me to write about the problem of forgiveness.Thanks also to Jenny Beddington for introducing me to Sir John Chilcot who gave me his rich historical and political insights on conflict in the Middle East in The Islamic State and the Glory of Death. My thanks go to Richard Johnson for casting an expert eye over my manuscript and for his helpful advice and to Barbara Wharton, a much valued

xii Acknowledgements

editorial partner for many years, for her meticulous and careful reading of the manuscript. Brief quote [“If only it were all that simple! . . . willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”] from The Gulag Archipelago 1918–1956 by Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn. Authorized Abridgement with a New Introduction by Edward E. Ericson, Jr. Copyright © 1985 by The Russian Social Fund. Perennial Classics Introduction copyright © 2002 by Edward E. Ericson, Jr. Reprinted by Permission of HarperCollins Publishers. Also from The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksander Solzhenitsyn, translated by Thomas P. Witney, published by the Harvill Press and reproduced by permission of The Random House Group Ltd. The epigraph at the start of chapter 1 is taken from Home Is Where We Start From: Essays by a Psychoanalyst by D.W. Winnicott (1986) and reprinted by permission of the publisher, W.W. Norton. Chapter 2 was first published as ‘Hannah Arendt, evil and the eradication of thought’ in The International Journal of Psychoanalysis, Volume 93, Issue 5, pages 1215–1236, October 2012. Reprinted in this book with the kind permission of the Journal. The chapter 3 epigraph is reprinted with the permission of Simon & Schuster, Inc., from The Drowned and the Saved by Primo Levi. Copyright © 1986 by Giulio Einaudi editore spa, Torino. English Language copyright © 1988 by Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved. Chapter 4 was first published as ‘The Origin of Morality’ in The British Journal of Psychotherapy, Volume 32, Issue 1, pages 3–20, February 2016. Reprinted by kind permission of the Journal. Chapter 5 was first published as ‘Witnessing Evil’ in Humanizing Evil: Psychoanalytic, Philosophical and Clinical Perspectives, edited by Ronald C. Naso and Jon Mills (Routledge, 2016). Reprinted by permission of Taylor & Francis, LLC. The chapter 5 epigraph is an excerpt from Sepharad by Antonio MunozMolina. Copyright © 2001 by Antonia Munoz Molina, English translation copyright © 2003 by Margaret Sayers Peden. Reprinted by permission of Clarion Books, an imprint of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved. Chapter 6 epigraph © Rene Girard, 1977, Violence and the Sacred, reprinted by permission of Bloomsbury Academic, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing plc. Also Girard, René (trans. Patrick Gregory). Violence and the Sacred. p. 99. © 1972 Editions Bernard Grasset. English translation © 1977 The Johns Hopkins University Press. Reprinted with permission of The Johns Hopkins University Press.

Acknowledgements  xiii

Chapter 7 epigraph taken from Amery, Jean. Sidney Rosenfeld and Stella P. Rosenfeld, trans. At the Mind’s Limits: Contemplations by a survivor on Auschwitz and Its Realities, p. 72 © 1980. Reprinted with permission of Indiana University Press. If the author has inadvertently failed to seek permission for any content featured in this book for which it is required, please contact the publisher so that this can be arranged immediately.

INTRODUCTION TO EVIL

Evil acts are an everyday occurrence that most of us read about, see on television news, or, depending on bad luck, witness or are victim to. In the popular press, the term “evil” is commonly used to describe acts that are morally reprehensible, applied to wide-ranging events, from school shootings to sex trafficking to a mother murdering her children to IS terrorist attacks to genocide in Africa to torture in Abu Ghraib.These are acts that breach social norms and are deeply shocking. Some of these acts can be attributed to psychosis, e.g. the mother who kills her children during a psychotic episode of post-natal depression, or psychopathy, e.g. the isolated young man who guns down children in a local school or university.The individual who runs amok is frightening but is seen more as an anomaly within our ordered world and as such does not threaten our sense of ourselves as human or the belief systems that provide us with meaning and structure. The evil acts that are far more shattering and difficult to understand are those that arise within the social groups that we look to for welfare and protection, whether it is the family, the local community, or the state. It is within these contexts that the idea of an ego ideal, i.e. who the person wants to be in relation to others, takes shape and becomes a fundamental feature of group behaviour, confirming or altering social norms. Evil rears its head when groups begin to demonize and dehumanize others.Taking this as my starting point, I am defining the term “evil” to mean an action that is intended to dehumanize another and to use the other as a means to an end. While the intention of evil is to dehumanize, this is not to say that all evil acts are intended or premeditated. Much of what transpires to be evil is not planned consciously but arises spontaneously through what seems like

2  Introduction to evil

a quirk of circumstances coming together at the same time. The most vivid recent historical example of this is Hitler’s rise to power and the evolution of the concentration camps and eventual policy of racial extermination.Two recent studies, Nicholas Wachsmann’s KL (2015) and David Cesarani’s The Final Solution (2016), meticulously illustrate the vagaries of time and place that resulted in the most horrific large-scale genocide in our history. The fact that so much of what we think of as evil occurs, seemingly, by surprise or out of the blue makes it even more terrifying. It cannot always be predicted or prevented or controlled. And when it does appear, it may be met with outright denial or resistance to intervene.The post-Holocaust admonition “never again” has already been broken in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Kosovo, Cambodia, Indonesia, and the Middle East. Evil is like the many-headed hydra; once one head is amputated, another springs forth to take its place. It is clear that we cannot eradicate evil nor can we necessarily lessen its impact, but we nevertheless remain responsible for it happening. In this respect it is also our responsibility to try to understand evil in its various manifestations. This book comprises a series of chapters written over the past three years that look at evil from different perspectives. The order of the chapters follows the questions that arose in my mind over this period of time. The first chapter, “Evil and Destructiveness,” locates the roots of evil in innate human destructiveness. This chapter focuses on the psychoanalyst D.W. Winnicott’s idea that our aggression and hatred are primary forces of early psychological development that are crucial in enabling us to form relationships. However, just as aggression can lead us to relationship, it can also be destructive. The following two chapters, on those who follow orders (“Hannah Arendt, Evil and the Eradication of Thought”) and on the phenomenon of capturebonding (“Invisible Handcuffs”), focus on the importance of belief systems and ideology as they co-opt perpetrators and victims alike into engaging in destructive and dehumanizing acts.These examples raise questions in chapter four, “The Origin of Morality,” about how we form a sense of morality and how we construe what is moral in the face of a world that has been turned upside down. Chapters five, “Witnessing Evil,” and six, “Demonization and Mass Killing,” look at evil from the perspectives of those who witness atrocities but are unable or fail to intervene and those who participate in mass killing. Such horrific crimes of violence inevitably lead to questions in chapter seven, “The Problem of Forgiveness and Reparation in the Aftermath of Evil,” about whether it is possible to forgive or make reparation for what has happened and how we manage to live with the knowledge of evil. There is also the temptation to fight despair and humiliation in turn by dehumanizing the enemy. Chapter eight, “The Islamic State and the Glory of Death,” examines the appeal of totalitarian regimes and fundamentalist religious

Introduction to evil  3

groups such as the Islamic State as a reaction to despair and impotence. After looking at evil from these different perspectives, I ask in chapter nine, “Do we need a theory of evil?” In this final chapter, I define what constitutes evil and argue that conceptualizing evil is difficult precisely because its very nature defies our capacity to think. I was prompted to write about evil in response to the recurring questions, “How can these things happen?” and “Who can do such things?” The easy answer is to ascribe the quality of evil to a particular person or leader, e.g. Hitler was evil. This is a tempting argument because in locating evil in one person, it gives an illusion that others are absolved, innocently duped into supporting an evil leader. It also reduces the roots of evil to a single cause. As Solzhenitsyn exclaims, “If only it were all so simple!” What I hope I have made clear in the chapters that follow is the complex set of dynamics, fuelled by histories of fear and humiliation and impotence, which can so unexpectedly tip over into atrocity. Evil arises out of the everyday exigencies that determine our lives; it is not a phenomenon that comes from without but a virus that infects communities from within. The occurrences of evil highlight the fluidity of our social norms and belief systems and how much our identity is affected by them. We live within an ideological framework and are rarely aware of its powerful influence on our thoughts and behaviour. Our ability to survive, individually and socially, is contingent on our adaptability to our environment; this can be a creative process, but it can also be a destructive one. Ironically, it is our fundamental need to be attached to others in order to survive, starting from early infancy, which makes us equally susceptible to conforming or adhering to perverse ideologies, even to the point of our own extinction. The denial of evil is also a function of ideological conflict. As Comrade Duch, commander of the infamous S-21 prison camp under the Khmer Rouge, explains, “Of course I see, but my unconscious prevents me from seeing” (Panh, 2013, p. 106). For Duch, as for us all, the possibility of evil lies in the disconnected space between what we see and what we dare not see. References Cesarani, D. (2016). Final Solution:The Fate of the Jews 1933–49. London: Macmillan. Panh, R. (2013). The Elimination: A Survivor of the Khmer Rouge Confronts His Past and the Commandant of the Killing Fields. London: The Clerkenwell Press. Wachsmann, N. (2015). KL: A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps. London: Little, Brown.

1 EVIL AND DESTRUCTIVENESS A psychoanalytic view

What is good is always being destroyed. D.W. Winnicott, Home is Where We Start From: Essays by a Psychoanalyst

Introduction Evil is an extreme form of destructiveness that dehumanizes people, reducing them to objects without minds and feelings, to be used by others as means to an end and disregarded as ends in themselves. Evil also entails choice. It is different from an act of nature that arbitrarily wipes out individuals and groups of people. It is an act that targets its victims or class of victims and requires the force of decision. While evil is by its nature destructive, destructiveness is not necessarily evil. It may be accidental or, if it is premeditated, it may be an act of revenge, self-protection, or the result of unmanageable conflict. At the root of both destructiveness and evil is aggression and sadism, i.e. the pleasure we derive from destructive or harmful acts. The early history of psychoanalysis was profoundly influenced by both world wars. The large scale destruction and slaughter of World War I raised fundamental questions about human destructiveness. Already struggling to integrate masochism within his theory of the pleasure principle, Freud viewed the destructiveness of war as evidence of an innate death instinct by which we are tragically driven toward destructiveness of others and ourselves. Freud postulated his theory of the death instinct in Beyond the Pleasure Principle, published in 1920. Since this time, the idea of the death instinct has been widely disputed and debunked both philosophically and scientifically.1 The fact that

Evil and destructiveness  5

the psychoanalytic community continues to debate its viability signifies that our understanding of the roots of our aggression and destructiveness remains incomplete if not controversial. However, we cannot begin to think about the nature and origin of evil without first addressing the question of our impulse toward both destructiveness and creativity and how the two are inter-related. Freud postulates that the libido contains the seeds of love and hate.While Freud defined libido specifically as the energy derived from sexual instinct, we can extend the idea that our basic instincts for survival, e.g. hunger, warmth, sex, and so on, are dependent on and cause us to establish relationships and attachments to others. Our first instinctual act can be seen in the infant’s rooting for the breast. In this introductory chapter, I will focus on Winnicott’s idea that the infant’s act of sucking is a basic, and fundamental, act of aggression that at the same time destroys what it seeks. It is this act of destruction that, paradoxically, leads to an awareness of external reality and otherness and creates the basis for relationship. Winnicott’s observation, “What is good is always being destroyed” (Newman, 1995, p. 160), provides us with a starting point in thinking about the psychological root of evil and our individual capacity to commit evil. The role of narcissism Freud’s theory of the death instinct was derived principally from his experience in grappling with repetition compulsion and the negative therapeutic reaction, but he also lays the foundation for the death instinct in early narcissism. Freud first used the phrase “narcissism of minor differences” in his essay titled “The taboo of virginity,” which he wrote in 1917, toward the end of World War I, in which he observed that “. . . it is precisely the minor differences in people who are otherwise alike that form the basis of feelings of strangeness and hostility between them” (Freud, 1917, p. 48). Freud subsequently elaborated his ideas on the narcissism of minor differences and applied these to the difference between the sexes and within the context of group psychology. In his essay, “Civilization and its discontents,” written in 1930, Freud makes the link between narcissism and intolerance explicit. He explains aversion toward strangers as a defensive function of narcissism in the service of self-preservation – but the self-preservation is concerned with fending off or diverting innate aggression into the “other”, whether it is an individual or a group. It is also possible to understand innate aggression in terms of an aversion or hostility to strangers as an integral aspect of primary narcissism. The early infantile experience of omnipotent fusion with the other – a return to a homeostatic state – has an enormous pull on us all. We all know

6  Evil and destructiveness

what it is to fight against or deny the constraints and separation required by reality. Ron Britton postulates that human beings have “an inbuilt impulse to annihilate otherness” (Britton, 2003, p. 127). He calls this the “xenocidal impulse” and argues that it is a component of the destructive instinct, just as the destructive instinct is a necessary component of envy. In its extreme form, the impulse is murderous toward the “other” and in its mild form it is merely misanthropic. While Freud identifies an innate hostility to “otherness” and regards this as a manifestation of the death instinct, linked directly to narcissism, Andre Green extends this idea to the ego’s resistance to the unconscious. Green states that narcissism binds together the component parts of the ego and provides a “formal identity” and “sense of existence” (Green, 2001, p. ix). In his view, this explains why narcissism is “one of the fiercest forms of resistance to analysis” (Green, 2001, p. ix).The fundamental “other” is the unconscious. As the unconscious is beyond the ego’s control, recognition of its existence is therefore perceived to be a threat to the “empire of the ego” (Green, 2001, p. ix). However, as Green points out, narcissism also gives the ego a sense of itself as a separate entity, or perhaps what Winnicott would describe as a sense of me. In this respect, narcissism plays a positive role in differentiating self from other and in creating an identity that can tolerate what is other and beyond the control of the ego. This entails the presence of an internal, intermediary space within the mind that can allow for fantasy. When this process goes wrong, the destructive aspect of narcissism, what Green describes as death narcissism, gains the upper hand and develops into a rigid edifice in which aggression can only be used in the service of destroying the other and destroying life itself. There is no internal space available in which a healthy narcissism, or what Green refers to as life narcissism, can develop. In short, there is a huge difference between the sense of me that is derived from and encompasses relation to others from the sense of me that comes about in the absence of relation to others. What determines the balance between life narcissism and death narcissism within the psyche raises the question as to how a space for “otherness” is created in the first place – or not – and how this affects narcissistic development, not simply in relation to the tolerance of difference, or otherness, but in relation to its incorporation. An integral aspect of this question is the role of aggression in narcissistic formation and the way in which aggression is mediated and experienced. Destructiveness as primary Winnicott addresses this question in his, “Comments on my paper ‘the use of an object’ ” (Winnicott, 1989, p. 238) and arrives at a particular view of aggression and the death instinct, refuting and refining Freud’s earlier views.

Evil and destructiveness  7

For Winnicott, it is the destructive impulse or drive that allows the ego to discover “otherness” through its destruction and hence to discover reality. The necessary ruthlessness of the infant in seeking and attacking the breast is seen by Winnicott as an elementary act of aggression that is essential to the survival of the infant. For the infant, the object does not yet exist in its own right but it is nevertheless there to be used and it is only through the experience of using the object and its consequences that the infant can begin to experience the object as a separate entity and to have a sense of me as a result. In this respect, the infant’s aggression serves to establish not only external reality but the capacity to experience internal psychic space (i.e. the unconscious). Winnicott describes this process as follows: Should a philosopher come out of his chair and sit on the floor with his patient, however, he will find that there is an intermediate position. In other words, he will find that after ‘subject relates to object’ comes ‘subject destroys object’ (as it becomes external); and then may come ‘object survives destruction by the subject.’ But there may or may not be survival. A new feature thus arrives in the theory of object-relating. The subject says to the object: ‘I destroyed you,’ and the object is there to receive the communication. From now on the subject says: ‘Hullo object!’ ‘I destroyed you.’ ‘I love you.’ ‘You have value for me because of your survival of my destruction of you.’ ‘While I am loving you I am all the time destroying you in (unconscious) fantasy.’ Here fantasy begins for the individual. The subject can now use the object that has survived. It is important to note that it is not only that the subject destroys the object because the object is placed outside the area of omnipotent control. It is equally significant to state this the other way round and to say that it is the destruction of the object that places the object outside the area of the subject’s omnipotent control. . . . In other words, because of the survival of the object, the subject may now have started to live a life in the world of objects, and so the subject stands to gain immeasurably; but the price has to be paid in acceptance of the ongoing destruction in unconscious fantasy relative to object-relating. (Winnicott, 1989, pp. 222–223) Winnicott goes further than Freud’s theory of the death instinct or Britton’s xenocidal impulse because he sees destructiveness as primary: it is necessary for creating both the experience of externality and the capacity to love. For Winnicott, the destruction of an object is the first creation of an object – as long as it survives – and is categorically different from the aggression experienced at a later stage that is caused by frustration. Destructiveness is

8  Evil and destructiveness

a drive that compels the infant to become alive, it is not a reaction to the environment, such as rage with an object that already exists. It is the infant’s aggression that first brings the object into existence as an internal object in (unconscious) fantasy, and in this way object relating is established. This is in contrast to the Kleinian view in which object relations are there from the beginning, the object exists ipso facto, and it is the infant’s innate envy that must be mediated. Hannah Segal, in her seminal paper, “On the clinical usefulness of the concept of the death instinct”, states this position very clearly and makes the important link that not only is there an impulse to destroy the object but also to destroy the self that perceives the object so any awareness of otherness is obliterated. She writes: “I think that the destructiveness towards objects is not only a deflection of self-destructiveness to the outside, as described by Freud – important though it is – but that also from the very beginning the wish to annihilate is directed both at the perceiving self and the object perceived, hardly distinguishable from one another” (Segal, 1993, p. 56).Winnicott, however, turns this equation on its head and argues that the object only comes into existence because of the impulse to destroy it. While the object comes into existence in this way, similarly, so does the perceiving self in Winnicott’s formulation.This marks a significant theoretical departure from both Freud and Klein. For Winnicott, aggression is innate and contains within it the libidinal component, the life instinct, in a fusion. Winnicott echoes Pliny’s comment on fire: “Who can say whether in essence fire is constructive or destructive?” (Winnicott, 1989, p. 239). In writing about Freud’s life and death instincts, Winnicott in his essay “A primary state of being” begins with the premise that “at the start (of life) is an essential aloneness” (Winnicott, 1988, p. 132).Winnicott is also describing a state of oneness with the environment. He explains that “this aloneness can only take place under maximum conditions of dependence” (Winnicott, 1988, p. 132). However, prior to this state of aloneness is what Winnicott refers to as “unaliveness”. He writes: “the wish to be dead is commonly a disguised wish to be not yet alive. The experience of first awakening gives the human individual the idea that there is a peaceful state of unaliveness that can be peacefully reached by an extreme regression. Most of what is commonly said and felt about death is about this first state before aliveness, where aloneness is a fact and long before dependence is encountered” (Winnicott, 1988, p. 132). Winnicott then goes on to discard Freud’s theory of the life and death instinct except for “the original idea”, i.e. Freud’s formulation of “an inorganic state from which each individual emerges and to which each returns.” Winnicott neatly argues that it is only natural for the human individual to want to return to the state of pre-dependent aloneness and that this state should be linked in our minds with a conception of the “unknowable death that comes after life” (Winnicott, 1988, p. 133).

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In this same essay,Winnicott criticizes Freud’s theory of the death instinct and introduces a fresh understanding of the death instinct and destructiveness that is highly relevant today. Winnicott writes: The recognition of this inherent human experience of pre-dependent aloneness is of immense significance. Freud’s later development of the theory of Life and Death instincts introduces perceived death, the perceived distinction between organic and inorganic states, and even the idea of destructiveness, and at the same time Freud omits reference to the original dependence, double because not yet sensed, and to the gradual sensing and perception of dependence. In the end his theory becomes a false theory of the death that comes as an end to life, and also a theory of aggressiveness which is also false because it avoids two vitally important sources of aggression: that which is inherent in the primitive love impulse (at the pre-ruth stage, apart from reaction to frustration) and that which belongs to the interruption of the continuity of being by impingement that enforces reaction. The development of psycho-analytic theory to cover these (and probably other) early phenomena has perhaps made Freud’s theory of Life and Death instincts redundant, and Freud’s own doubt about the vitality of the theory seems to me to have become more important than the theory itself. It is always possible, however, that I have misunderstood Freud’s true meaning. If the sequence is to be found, aloneness, double dependence, instinctual impulse in a state prior to ruth, then concern and guilt, it seems not necessary to introduce a “Death Instinct”. If on the other hand there is no aggressive element in the primitive love impulse, but only anger at frustration, and if therefore the change from ruthlessness to concern is of no importance, then it is necessary to look round for an alternative theory of aggression, and then the Death Instinct must be re-examined. (Winnicott, 1988, pp. 133–134) Winnicott points out the inadequacy of Freud’s idea of the death instinct on the basis that Freud failed to recognize what Winnicott refers to as the “primitive love impulse.” Winnicott redefines the instincts along ontological and epistemological lines and fundamentally disagrees with Freud’s metapsychological formulation of instinct or ‘Trieb’. He bases his theory of instinct on his observations of the experiential “need to be” and an “innate tendency towards integration” (Fulgencio, 2007, p. 449). Winnicott argues that Freud’s theory of the life and death instincts is redundant, but he then questions this on the premise that we nevertheless need to recognize the importance of the

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“aggressive element”. In this respect,Winnicott calls for a re-examination or a re-formulation of the death instinct. As with Pliny’s observation on fire, the aggressive drive is neither destructive nor creative; it simply is. But in linking the idea of death with aggression, Winnicott unravels a new conceptual thread with which we can approach the idea of the death instinct and which also, most significantly, leads to a theory of the origins of psychosis and the roots of evil. Both of these ideas I will come back to. Andre Green reiterates Freud’s view that the destructive tendency is characteristic of infantile sexuality. Within the context of drive theory, Green, like Winnicott, argues that aggression and love necessarily go hand in hand and counterbalance one another throughout life (Green, 2001). At one point in “On the use of an object,”Winnicott refers to this as the “combined lovestrife drive” (Winnicott, 1989, p. 245). Green also takes care to emphasize the role of Eros in this combined – or as he expressed it “fused” – drive, and is highly critical of the Kleinians for their emphasis on destructiveness and their failure to recognize the importance of the pleasure principle (Green, 2001). Winnicott disagreed with Klein who saw the pleasure principle as a survival issue as opposed to a statement of fact. Green asserts that Freud’s theory of drives, including the death drive, the silent partner of the two, became a firm conviction “as a result of clinical experience as well as social phenomena” (Green, 2001, p. xi). What we also see from clinical experience is what Green describes as the fusion and de-fusion of the drives, the process of their conjunction and dis-conjunction that can lead either to psychic awareness or denial. There is a significant difference between what I will refer to as a benign destructiveness and a malignant or perverse one. Here I would like to refer to Winnicott’s ideas about primary destruction, what he describes as the “combined love-strife drive”, and the crucial relation of the environment in influencing the infant’s experience of its destructiveness and in its subsequent experience of its internal world. Winnicott writes: The fate of this unity of drive cannot be stated without reference to the environment.The drive is potentially ‘destructive’ but whether it is destructive or not depends on what the object is like; does the object survive, that is, does it retain its character, or does it react? If the former, then there is no destruction, or not much, and there is a next moment when the baby can become and does gradually become aware of a cathected object plus the fantasy of having destroyed, hurt, damaged, or provoked the object. The baby in this extreme of environmental provision goes on in a pattern of developing personal aggressiveness that provides the backcloth of a continuous (unconscious) fantasy of destruction. Here we may use Klein’s reparation concept, which links

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constructive play and work with this (unconscious) fantasy backcloth of destruction or provocation (perhaps the right word has not been found). But destruction of an object that survives, has not reacted or disappeared, leads to use. The baby at the other extreme that meets a pattern of environmental reaction or retaliation goes forward in quite a different way. This baby finds the reaction from the environment to be the reality of what should be his or her own provocative (or aggressive or destructive) impulse. This kind of baby can never experience or own or be moved by this personal root for aggression or destructive fantasy, and can therefore never convert it into the unconscious fantasy destruction of the libidinal object. It will be seen that I am trying to rewrite one limited part of our theory.This provocative/destructive/aggressive/envious (Klein) urge is not a pleasure-pain phenomenon. It has nothing to do with anger at the inevitable frustrations associated with the reality principle. It precedes this set of phenomena that are true of neurotics but that are not true of psychotics. To make progress towards a workable theory of psychosis, analysts must abandon the whole idea of schizophrenia and paranoia as seen in terms of regression from the Oedipus Complex.The aetiology of these disorders takes us inevitably to stages that precede the three-body relationship. The strange corollary is that there is at the root of psychosis an external factor. . . . (Winnicott, 1989, pp. 245–246) Winnicott’s central point is that the object’s reaction, and specifically its survival, affects how the baby goes on and is at the root of psychosis. By giving so much valence to the object’s reaction, Winnicott both acknowledges the importance of attachment theory and deepens our understanding of how aggression, and ultimately the individual’s experience of his own destructiveness, is formed and mediated at the start of life by the response of the object. It is in this much more primitive stage that the space for (unconscious) fantasy is developed, and when the experience of destructiveness can be transformed into ongoing (unconscious) fantasy, then the Oedipus Complex can be broached and managed – the father can be killed in fantasy or metaphorically and remain alive in reality. Winnicott’s point about how the baby’s destructiveness is mediated, or not, by the environment gives us an insight not only into the roots of psychosis but it also sheds light on the related subject of the perversions and perverse states of mind.The perversions aim to obliterate difference in order to revert to a primal world of chaos – or oneness. But it is possible now to

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view this desire as not simply a reaction to the reality principle or a reality that cannot be psychically tolerated, but as a fundamental lack or failure in processing and containing (in Bion’s sense of transforming beta elements into alpha) destructiveness. The perversion of destructiveness/perverse destructiveness Chasseguet-Smirgel, in her essay “Perversion and the universal law”, illustrates this perverse aim through the work of de Sade in which the Sadian hero is compelled to destroy everything in order to create a new reality, a reality essentially of seamless shit (Chasseguet-Smirgel, 1985). All form that is distinguishable and differentiated is destroyed, broken down and transformed into its original chaotic mass. Chasseguet-Smirgel writes: “The equality of man with an oyster, the equality of all human beings, the equality of Good and Evil, the equality of life and death . . . reveals but one basic intention: to reduce the universe to faeces. . . .” (Chasseguet-Smirgel, 1985, p. 4). ChasseguetSmirgel goes on to quote a fragment of Bressac’s conversation with Justine (from de Sade’s The New Justine), before he slays his own mother: . . . The creature I am destroying is my mother; so it is from this standpoint that we shall examine murder. . . . The child is born: the mother feeds it. In performing this service for the child, we may be sure she (the mother) is directed by a natural feeling that prompts her to get rid of a secretion that might otherwise prove dangerous for her. Thus it is not the mother who is doing the child a service when she feeds him: on the contrary, it is the child who is performing a service for his mother. . . . What! Must I owe a person something for doing me a favour I could perfectly well do without, something that fulfils a need in him alone? So it is clear that, on every occasion in life a child finds himself in a position to dispose of his mother, he should do so without the slightest scruple; he should even do so purposefully, because he cannot but hate such a woman, and revenge is the fruit of hate, and murder, the means of revenge. So let him pitilessly slay this creature to whom he wrongfully imagines he owes so much; let him, without consideration, tear apart this breast that has suckled him. (Chasseguet-Smirgel, 1985, p. 5) Chasseguet-Smirgel comments that “. . . this destruction represents the creation of a new dimension where undifferentiation, confusion and chaos prevail. The Sadian hero actually becomes the grinding machine, the cauldron in which the universe will be dissolved” (Chasseguet-Smirgel, 1985, p. 5).

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The Sadian hero is engaged in the destruction of the Creator/mother/breast from which all other murders follow. Destructiveness is not survived, there is no capacity for (unconscious) fantasies of destructiveness, there is only actual destructiveness that the Sadian hero is compelled to repeat over and over again – as in Freud’s repetition compulsion. In its extreme, the need to destroy, the innate destructive drive that Winnicott has described so clearly, has become perverted so that the life drive, or Eros, cannot unfold and take on the task of counter-balancing the death drive. The importance of Winnicott’s view of aggression is that it emphasizes the plastic nature of destructiveness and to what extent it is shaped by the infant’s interaction with his environment.While the infant is not a tabula rasa and has certain psychological predispositions, the conditions within which he struggles to live and develop inevitably affect his sense of potency as either being able to use his aggression in the service of creativity or to use it to destroy. Without some notion of innate destructiveness, we run the risk of “sidestepping”, as Hannah Arendt puts it, or “explaining away human wickedness” (Arendt, 2003, p. 72). However, as I hope to illustrate in subsequent chapters, the set of conditions in which evil, as opposed to destructiveness, arises is both complex and highly contextual. While our capacity to commit evil actions is derived from our innate destructiveness and the sadistic pleasure that may be attached to destructiveness, this does not mean that evil is caused by destructiveness alone. Note 1 Kernberg gives an overview of the death drive, relating it to clinical phenomena and arguing that it is not a drive per se but that the will toward destructiveness arises from aggression gone awry. He concludes, “a combination of intensity of aggressive affect and the particular structuralization of internalized object relations of narcissistic personalities emerge as leading aspects of the malignant transformation of aggression into a dominant motivation for self-destruction.” (Kernberg, O. 2009. “The concept of the death drive: A clinical perspective.” International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 90: 1019.)

References Arendt, H. (2003). Responsibility and Judgment. Edited by J. Kohn. New York. Schocken Books. Britton, R. (2003). Sex, Death, and the Superego. London: Karnac. Chasseguet-Smirgel, J. (1985). Creativity and Perversion. London: Free Association Books. Freud, S. (1917). “The taboo of virginity.” SE, 11: 191–208. Freud, S. (1920). “Beyond the pleasure principle.” SE, 18: 7–23. Freud, S. (1930). “Civilization and its discontents.” SE, 21: 64-148. Fulgencio, L. (2007). “Winnicott’s rejection of the basic concepts of Freud’s metapsychology.” International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 88: 443–461.

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Green, A. (2001). Life Narcissism Death Narcissism. London: Free Association Books. Newman, A. (1995). Winnicott’s Words: A Companion to the Work of D.W.Winnicott. London: Free Association Press. Segal, H. (1993). “On the clinical usefulness of the concept of the death instinct.” International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 74: 55–61. Winnicott, D.W. (1988). Human Nature. London: Free Association Books. Winnicott, D.W. (1989). Psychoanalytic Explorations. London: Karnac Books.

2 HANNAH ARENDT, EVIL AND THE ERADICATION OF THOUGHT

How fit he is to sway/That can so well obey. Andrew Marvell, “An Horatian Ode upon Cromwell’s Return from Ireland 1650”

Introduction This chapter is an attempt to understand Hannah Arendt’s idea of the “banality of evil” from a psychoanalytic perspective. In addition to the evil that is a product of madness, badness or outright sadism, I am proposing, following Arendt, that there is another form of evil that is the result of a particular sort of mindlessness, a failure to be a person which is the result of surrendering one’s mind, memory or capacity for self-reflection and therefore shame to a totalitarian regime or leader. Arendt calls this “banal evil” as opposed to the evil perpetrated with the intention of making the other superfluous that she terms “radical evil”, as it is rooted in individual omnipotence. This chapter will concentrate on “banal evil” and will not address the issue of “radical evil” except as a counterpoint to what is “banal”. While the totalitarian leader may be motivated by excessive sadism and/or a drive to power due to his own narcissistic needs – and in these respects may be differentiated from the totalitarian “follower” – there is nevertheless the allure of an ideology of illusion that we are all susceptible to, particularly when individual or group identity is threatened or when the development of identity has been impaired in the first place. This is the deathly allure of becoming a “nobody”, existing without a mind and without roots in the world.The “nobody” does not experience alienation; he incarnates it. For Arendt this is the greatest evil.

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What it means to be a person In March 2009, Comrade Duch stood trial for supervising the torture and killings of some 16,000 men, women and children at the Cambodian prison known as S-21. A devoted member of the Khmer Rouge, Duch’s defence was that he was following orders from higher-ups and it would have been fatal to disobey. He emphasized the blind loyalty that was required in Pol Pot’s regime to the point that its members would not flinch at denouncing their relatives and closest loved ones. Loyalty was to the hierarchy, while individual ties were broken in the service of routing out internal enemies. Duch summed up his position neatly, explaining, “When I was forced to supervise (the prison), I became both an actor in criminal acts and also a hostage of the regime (Covington, 2014).” Watching clips of Duch’s testimony in court, what is so chilling is that this 66-year-old former maths teacher, who was responsible for atrocities on such a massive scale, appears to be so ordinary. He could be any one of us. We tend to associate evil deeds with evil intentions and to expect this to be reflected in an individual’s physiognomy. But, as Arendt so vividly portrays in her description of Eichmann, this link between deeds and intentions is often not the case in reality. It is the man who follows orders who becomes the most terrifying because he has placed himself in the hands of others. Now a wiry man, with a lined face and crooked teeth, Duch joins the ranks of “ordinary” men who in the last century were the conduits for mass exterminations under orders from oppressive political regimes. How can we make sense of people who commit such evil deeds? Can what we normally think of as a “person” commit such deeds at all – or are we dealing with someone who is not a “person” but is in fact a “monster”? And how does a “person” become a “monster”, or is this a distinction that we can make at all? Are we not all capable of committing monstrous deeds? What it means to be a person is a question posed by Hannah Arendt in trying to understand the roots of evil. The question is taken from her essay “Some questions on moral philosophy” (Arendt, 2003), written five years after her groundbreaking work, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, published in 1961 (Arendt, 1963). We like to think of evil as something that is not human, as an aberration of human nature. We tend to create two basic narratives in which to understand evil actions – one based on trauma and perversion, as a response to unbearable environmental conditions, and the other based on psychopathy that is innate and more or less outside the realm of social relations. Either the evil doer is mad or bad. But there is a third narrative that is far more difficult to understand – and to accept – which is exemplified by Duch. This is “the follower”, someone who gets caught up in a perverse regime and “follows orders”, who conforms

Arendt, evil and eradication of thought  17

to the group ideal and is swept up in an illusion of total protection and care. “Following orders” is in itself a complicated idea set within an institutional or group context. It may be used as a defence in denial of reality, as a mechanism of repression, or it may represent a self-justifying account after the fact. Whatever the underlying reasons may be, the process of becoming a “follower” entails a gradual relinquishment of being a person – this is why it is both mystifying and horrifying. The German anthropologist, Wolfgang Sofsky, in his study of societal relations within the concentration camp, identifies the conditions within which an order of terror can take root. He writes, “The members of the camp SS were, for the most part, removed from the world of their former civilian social roles and relations. They had been transplanted into a milieu that was beyond external control” (Sofsky, 1997, p. 228). Despite the fact that most of the camps relied on local resources, e.g. food and specialist labour, to operate and were integrated in different ways within their local areas, they maintained absolute license over what went on inside. While Sofsky depicts the camps as self-enclosed, timeless microcosms, isolated from external influences, Wachsmann, in his history of the concentration camps, demonstrates that the regimes within the camps evolved dynamically in relation not only to the changing dictates of the Reich but also to the developing culture of power and autonomy within the KL (from the German Konzentrationslager) system itself, spread by the migration of officers transferred from one camp to another (Wachsmann, 2015, p. 16). As the KL system expanded, there was a corresponding increase in brutality, actively encouraged by the Reich in its attempts to purge itself of one enemy after another. Overcrowding was also becoming a serious problem. Between 1941 and 1942, during the mass extermination of Soviet POWs, the SS within the camps became the instrument for executions, styling themselves as “political soldiers”. Wachsman notes,“The feeling that the Nazi leadership had entrusted them with such a vital mission must have filled many Camp SS killers with pride and a sense of purpose” (Wachsmann, 2015, p. 271). The levels of brutality became especially marked in the camps towards the end of the war as the Reich was facing defeat (Wachsmann, 2015, p. 471). Sofsky’s view of the camps, however, illustrates how brutality within the confines of the camp came to be prized as the ultimate achievement and mark of distinction – the demonstration of total power over life. This system of terror was reinforced through internal ritualized dramas whereby perpetrators were required to stage spectacles of excess as a means of maintaining their positions of power and status within the regime. Even violence behind closed doors has an audience. Sofsky emphasizes that the excesses of torture and violence were not, by and large, committed out of sadism or hatred, but were acts that sustained

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existence within the confines of the camps. Excesses “provided a distraction and source of amusement” for perpetrators and spectators alike while victims were no more than de-humanized pawns in a recurring ritual of power (Wachsmann, 2015, p. 471).The identity of the victim was not simply immaterial, it was something to be demolished altogether as it presented the greatest threat to brutality. Freud, in “Group psychology and the analysis of the ego” (Freud, 1921), describes how the conditions of the group can allow for the dissolution of the individual superego and the release of unconscious instinctual impulses. He writes, “The apparently new characteristics which he (the individual) then displays are in fact the manifestations of this unconscious, in which all that is evil in the human mind is contained as a predisposition. We can find no difficulty in understanding the disappearance of conscience or of a sense of responsibility in these circumstances. . . . In obedience to the new authority he may put his former ‘conscience’ out of action, and so surrender to the attraction of the increased pleasure that is certainly obtained from the removal of inhibitions” (Freud, 1921, pp. 74–75, 85). The destruction of the “other”, whether it is motivated by narcissistic gratification or otherwise, paradoxically entails a destruction of the self. The self, with its limitations, needs and weaknesses – those characteristics that together constitute what it means to be a person – must also be negated. In the different context of civilians serving as German reserve policemen, Christopher Browning in his book, Ordinary Men, describes the psychological processes by which individuals within the battalion became increasingly inured to the brutalities they were ordered to commit (Browning, 1992). Although there was a small number who opted out of the battalion, the majority did not and explained their participation in terms of “doing their duty”, ambition and pride (i.e. not wanting to appear weak in front of their peers). The single most important binding factor within the group was the objectification and de-humanization of the Polish Jewry who were targeted for extermination. In each of these situations, the explanatory rhetoric is that those who killed did so under duress, out of loyalty to and fear of the regime, from ambition or to save face. But it is insufficient to consider these explanations outside the context of the socio-political environment within which individuals live and need to adapt. The anthropologist, Alexander Laban Hinton, writing about the Khmer Rouge, links the occurrence of genocide to socio-political transformations that revamp the structure of society. Hinton stresses that these socio-political changes “must be accompanied by a violent ideology . . . that adapts traditional knowledge to its lethal purposes” (Hinton in Scheper-Hughes and Bourgois, 2004, p. 167). The prevalent slogan within the Democratic Kampuchea regime was, “Destroy the garden of the

Arendt, evil and eradication of thought  19

individual; build a united garden” (Hinton in Scheper-Hughes and Bourgois, 2004, p. 165). It is the establishment of a totalitarian regime that creates the ground for genocidal behaviour. In her Report on the Banality of Evil, Arendt tries to understand the moral psychology of the individual operating within such a regime (Arendt, 1963). She argues that Eichmann, along with countless other Nazis and Nazi sympathizers, was not motivated to commit the atrocities of the Nazi regime through hatred and malevolence but rather through lack of thought, imagination and memory. As someone who eschewed empathy, Arendt nevertheless concluded that Eichmann was incapable of empathizing with his victims’ suffering because he lacked the judgement needed to perceive this. Eichmann was able to give and carry out orders of genocide because he lacked the imagination to understand emotionally the consequences of his actions. If he had acted out of hatred, this would, ironically, have made him human or at least someone whom most of us could identify with. Hatred acknowledges that there is a person to hate. What was inhuman was the absence of hatred – an absence that signified the annihilation of the other. These acts were not motivated by sadism and the sexual gratification accompanying sadism; they were motivated primarily by what DeVos, in writing about the Japanese extreme form of commitment and identification to duty, called “role narcissism” (DeVos, 1973), or what can be understood in psychoanalytic terms as the ego’s identification with the ego ideal. Arendt has been criticized for her view of Eichmann as “ordinary” by others who consider that he could have only been covering up and denying a pathological sadism that was the driving force behind his extreme acts of violence. Whether or not Eichmann’s character was excessively sadistic, Arendt was attempting to identify a state of mind, rather than a moral judgement, in which an extreme form of what we may now describe as “splitting” takes place between the self and other. This is a state of mind in which the de-personalization of the other takes over and paves the way for licenced brutality. Arendt’s central point is that because it is a state of mind, we are all susceptible to it. Arendt disagrees with Kant’s notion that evil is rooted in man’s selfishness, and viewed the holocaust as a modern crime that lay beyond traditional moral inhibitions. She identifies three fundamental components that together constitute the characteristics of totalitarianism and the ground for evil to occur. The first component is “making human beings as human beings superfluous”, meaning not only that human beings are de-humanized but that they are deprived of that which confers belonging and recognition, i.e. of community and of rights. They exist outside the group and outside the law. The second component is the elimination of unpredictability and spontaneity, what Arendt later defines as natality. This is the elimination of individual human freedom

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and specifically the freedom to create and to initiate the new. Finally, there is the component of the delusion of omnipotence that is not derived from a lust for power but rather a narcissistic elimination of difference. The individual or single view that cannot encompass otherness destroys the concept of plurality. The final triumph of totalitarianism is that not only are its victims treated as superfluous, but the perpetrators also become superfluous. They become the faceless vehicles that carry out the ideology of the regime and, as such, are the most dangerous. Arendt disentangles the concept of evil from motivation and claims that the greatest evil is indeed without motivation. She writes about Eichmann, “Except for an extraordinary diligence in looking out for his personal advancement, he had no motivation at all. . . . He merely, to put the matter colloquially, never realized what he was doing” (Arendt, 1963, p. 287). In her essay, “Thinking and moral considerations,” written ten years after the trial, Arendt elaborates that “it was not stupidity but a curious, quite authentic inability to think.” She comments on Eichmann’s testimony as bound by clichés and “language rules”. She writes: The longer one listened to him, the more obvious it became that his inability to speak was closely connected with an inability to think, namely to think from the standpoint of someone else. No communication was possible with him, not because he lied but because he was surrounded by the most reliable of all safeguards against the words and the presence of others, and hence against reality as such. (Arendt, 2003, p. 49) In commenting on Eichmann’s testimony, Richard Sonnenfeldt, chief US translator at the Nuremburg trials, echoed Arendt’s observation that Eichmann and his fellow defendants seemed without intellect or insight, distinguished only by their servility and ambition. He concluded, “Dictators have no peers, only sycophants to do their bidding” (Times, 2009). For Arendt, the presence of evil arises in the failure “to think from the standpoint of someone else.” In not being able to imagine the existence of the other, a deathly narcissism reigns in which concern and empathy for the other are precluded. The difficulty with Arendt’s hypothesis is that it does not take into account the fact that, although Eichmann may not have been able to think from the standpoint of someone else when it came to issuing orders for the extermination of prisoners in the camps, he was seemingly able to be concerned about the lives and welfare of his family, as most of the SS officers were. On the surface, the problem was not that Eichmann was a “nobody” in every respect but that he was a “nobody” only in certain respects.

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The principle flaw in Arendt’s argument is that she confuses the apparent lack of hate with a lack of motivation. Following theological and philosophical/moral tradition, Arendt makes the assumption that evil deeds presuppose evil intentions or motivations. The conundrum is when this equation does not apply. Recently released “declassified” files containing interviews with Eichmann clearly indicate his regret at failing to achieve the “final solution”. He laments, “We didn’t do our work correctly.” He also boasts that he “was no ordinary recipient of orders” but was instead “part of the thinking process; an idealist.” Fellow SS officers testified that Eichmann was not following orders but emphasized that his absolute belief in National Socialism led him to act to the most extreme limits to fulfil party doctrine. Eichmann’s own statements verify the suspicion that he was not simply following orders – but whether this means he was a psychopath who had found an acceptable outlet to unleash his sadism on others is still questionable. It is, however, possible to view Eichmann as being fully cognizant of what he was doing and to understand this as consistent within an overarching totalitarian ethos. In light of Eichmann’s professed intentions, it is important to take into account the Nazi ego ideal that permeated German culture. The idea of purifying and strengthening the noble qualities of the Aryan race – an ego ideal that became perverted to an idealized ego – had arisen as a response to increasing economic and political threats to German hegemony prior to the Nazi movement. Out of what was essentially a crisis of national identity, there developed a perverse regression to the fantasy of narcissistic omnipotence. Hitler’s own pathology fitted into this cultural fantasy as he stepped into the role of the charismatic, omnipotent leader supporting an illusion of internal purity and ultimate security. Hitler became what ChasseguetSmirgel refers to as the “magician” who promises to the group a return to the maternal matrix in which the infant is the centre of the world and there is no father and no reality with its limitations (or morality) to intervene (Chassequet-Smirgel, 1976). In this respect, Eichmann’s statement that he was an “idealist” could not be more accurate. This kind of illusory/idealistic regime requires total faith and narcissistic ruthlessness to succeed in the face of reality’s pitfalls and constraints. While Eichmann, like some Nazi leaders, may have been abnormally sadistic, the important point – that Arendt is reaching for within her own intellectual system of thought – is that within a totalitarian regime the individual cannot exist sui generis. Eichmann’s actions, like Comrade Duch’s, must therefore be understood as consistent with his identification with a collective ego ideal, or “role narcissism”, that was instrumental in maintaining what was in effect an ideology of violence. Eichmann could not imagine because he could not have an internal dialogue with himself that would have permitted self-awareness of the nature of his deeds. To imagine would have meant stepping out of role, it would have

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created a fissure within his own internal ideology and a destruction of his narcissistic defences. Without an internal dialogue, there is no self-reflection and no space to think. These are also the preconditions for the realization of a moral dimension. Such extreme narcissism is marked by a lack of empathy, or what Arendt refers to as lack of imagination – an experiential awareness of the position of others – and is the danger zone in which evil is born. Arendt’s understanding of Eichmann’s relation to his actions is enormously important in thinking about the roots of evil and how it is perpetrated. Arendt saw Eichmann as a man lacking in thought and the capacity for self-reflection as opposed to someone who was merely a psychopath or motivated by selfishness. This distinction is vital because without it we are tempted to relegate evil exclusively to the psychopaths or the tyrants and in this way to absolve ourselves of our destructive impulses and actions. Indeed, critics of Arendt wipe out her distinction in disbelief – how can a sentient human being commit such atrocities? The alternative explanation is that evil is a result of trauma that has been internalized and re-enacted. In this scenario it is not just a situation of learned behaviour but of experience that cannot be mentalized and is therefore expelled compulsively in repetition. In either case, what is evident is that evil deeds are necessarily committed by an “other”, not one of us. The philosopher Gillian Rose, in writing about how the Holocaust is represented, refers to “Holocaust piety” as an example of the way in which the ineffable is reduced and distorted to fit certain conceptions of reality – specifically, to maintain the split between what is human and inhuman. Such piety, Rose argues, mystifies “something we dare not understand, because we fear that it may be all too understandable, all too continuous with what we are – human, all too human” (Rose, 1996, p. 43). Piety offers us the illusion that we can be immune to evil. Arendt’s view of Eichmann forces us to acknowledge our own capacity for destructiveness and not to split this off into the “mad” or the “bad”. Arendt places moral responsibility at our feet and essentially argues that it is our capacity to make moral judgements about our actions that enables an individual to be a “person” who can grow and develop mentally and emotionally in his relations with others. In psychoanalytic terminology, this is equivalent to the importance given to the depressive position in psychological development when the infant becomes aware of others as separate people in their own right, outside of his control. Underlying Arendt’s explanation of the banality of evil, is the premise that, as humans, we have the capacity for evil just as we have the capacity for love. Here we have Freud’s death and life instincts transposed into the political context of Nazi Germany. Arendt was not approaching the roots of evil from a psychoanalytic perspective; she was specifically challenging

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the tradition of moral philosophy that has little place for the recognition of evil. She writes: “If the tradition of moral philosophy (as distinguished from the tradition of religious thought) is agreed on one point from Socrates to Kant and, as we shall see, to the present, then that it is impossible for man to do wicked things deliberately, to want evil for evil’s sake” (Arendt, 2003, p. 72). Arendt argues that the danger in not being able to countenance evil for evil’s sake is that we run the risk of side-stepping, as Arendt puts it, or explaining away human wickedness (Arendt, 2003, p. 72).We are then at risk of turning a blind eye not only at the potential for evil within others but, most importantly, within ourselves and abnegating moral responsibility for our actions. Arendt cites the exception (in moral philosophy) of Jesus, who, despite his love of sinners, singles out those who cause skandala, or disgraceful offences, “for which ‘it were better that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea’ ”(Arendt, 2003, pp. 73–74). Arendt comments that although “Jesus does not tell us what the nature is of these scandalous offences: we feel the truth of his words but cannot pin it down” (Arendt, 2003, p. 74). Arendt makes the important observation that evil is often portrayed in literature, as it is in philosophy, as stemming from despair and the envy that accompanies despair. It was Kierkegaard who espoused the view that radical evil comes from the depths of despair. This view rests on the assumption that despair arises out of some external circumstance that is overwhelming and creates an internal condition of psychic despair. Satan, the diabolos, is also Lucifer, the light-bearer, a Fallen Angel (Arendt, 2003, p. 74). This romantic view of evil confers nobility on the evil-doer purely because of his “despairborn envy.” Diabolos turns the evil doer into a victim – “the Devil made me do it!” Reality and the pain of evil and destructiveness are thus negated. Arendt argues that “the greatest evil is evil committed by nobodies, that is, by human beings who refuse to be persons.Within the conceptual framework of these considerations we could say that wrongdoers who refuse to think by themselves what they are doing and who also refuse in retrospect to think about it, that is, go back and remember what they did (which is teshuvah or repentance), have actually failed to constitute themselves into somebodies. By stubbornly remaining nobodies, they prove themselves unfit for intercourse with others who, good, bad, or indifferent, are at the very least persons” (Arendt, 2003, p. 111). One of the key differences between a “nobody” and a “somebody” for Arendt lies in repentance or remorse, which in turn is based on an ability to remember and to reflect on past actions, to evaluate actions within some kind of moral framework. The “nobody” is unable, according to Arendt, to do this. But this does not make the “nobody” psychopathic – there is no malevolent intent or impulse that spurs the nobody to commit skandala. It is more precisely an action committed in

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default of thought and memory. Eichmann’s own personal insignificance was noted at his trial. Hugh Trevor-Roper compared the experience of witnessing Eichmann to the Nuremberg trials, describing it in The Times in 1961 as “a trial for shrunken puppets hiding behind a master who had disappeared.” What is most marked in Arendt’s description of a “nobody” is her statement that, “by stubbornly remaining nobodies . . .”, in which she assumes that being a “nobody” is a question of will – or stubbornness. In her rational framework, Arendt suggests that being a person versus being a “nobody” is a matter of conscious choice. Evil is therefore not the intention to cause hurt; it is the decision to be a “nobody” that is evil because it opens the way to hurtful deeds. It is an ironic, contradictory view given Arendt’s idea of “natality” as the spontaneous capacity of each individual to act and hence to begin something new. She does not acknowledge the unconscious forces that are both the wellspring of creativity and the “new” and that compel us to act out destructive impulses without our awareness of them. If we put the unconscious back into the picture, is the seeming “stubbornness” of the “nobody” in fact a regressive pull to an ego ideal that has overridden the superego in favour of total subservience to a collective fantasy? The obliteration of the mind then becomes a necessary evil in support of an idealized leader or ideology that offers total care and the illusion of omnipotence. The meaning of memory Arendt specifically links being a person to the acts of thought and memory. She explains: . . . I am certain that the greatest evils we know of are not due to him who has to face himself again and whose curse is that he cannot forget. The greatest evildoers are those who don’t remember because they have never given thought to the matter, and, without remembrance, nothing can hold them back. For human beings, thinking of past matters means moving in the dimension of depth, striking roots and thus stabilizing themselves, so as not to be swept away by whatever may occur – the Zeitgeist or History or simple temptation. The greatest evil is not radical, it has no roots, and because it has no roots it has no limitations, it can go to unthinkable extremes and sweep over the whole world. (Arendt, 2003, p. 95) Arendt’s act of memory has a complex meaning. We can liken it to the way in which memory is experienced and thought about within psychoanalysis, in which there is a space for memory and thought provided by the analyst’s

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mind, much as the maternal environment facilitates the development of a sense of me in the infant and, over time, the perception of the other. But what is perhaps most important about the way in which Arendt uses the idea of memory is that it cannot exist internally without some form of internal dialogue.This is apparent in her explication of Eichmann’s ability to commit evil without, apparently, feeling. The internal dialogue takes place through the presence of what we would call the observing ego along with the superego. It is the observing ego that watches over and acknowledges destructiveness; through this process, an internal dialogue can take place in which thought and the life impulse can be realized. This process is eloquently described by Imre Kertesz in his book Kaddish for an Unborn Child, his homage to loss and hope (Kertesz, 2004). He writes: I write because I have to write, and if one writes, one engages in a dialogue . . .; as long as god existed, probably one engaged in a dialogue with God, but now that He no longer exists most likely one can only engage in a dialogue with other people or, in the better case, with oneself, or in other words talks or mumbles, as you like, to oneself. . . . (Kertesz, 2004, pp. 18–19) Kertesz is acknowledging that, even when a higher order of belief, or an external object, has been destroyed or lost through irreparable disillusionment, there is nevertheless the necessity to continue an internal relationship that involves an “other”, that creates some degree of self-reflectiveness and judgement. The internalization of the “other”, necessary for creative life, is born out of elemental destructiveness. This links to Winnicott’s idea that the object becomes an entity in its own right when it has survived the infant’s destructiveness (Winnicott, 1971). In this respect, the awareness of “otherness” is our first creative act that opens a dialogue with the self, while it perpetually re-creates the object in our mind. This internal dialogue is the expression of innate morality. It is perverted through self-deception. Kant identified the “sore or foul spot” in human nature as the capacity to lie to oneself. It can also be perverted through a deliberate ignoring of the internal dialogue – a wiping out of the internal “other” in the service of mindlessness and ultimately of the pleasure obtained in the destructive impulse. When there is no internal dialogue, there can be no awareness of an internal world or unconscious and no space for thought or memory. The pain of reality is wiped out – no feelings have meaning because they are dissociated and obliterated. This is perhaps why the “nobody” is so susceptible to taking orders unquestioningly – like an automaton. It is the automaton in nature that raises such repulsion and horror – as Freud describes so powerfully in his essay on the Uncanny, as the unheimlich,

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or the double that is familiar and yet a simulacrum of the real thing, Freud refers to the doubt caused by “whether an apparently inanimate being is really alive; or conversely, whether a lifeless object might not be in fact animate,” such as “waxwork figures, ingeniously constructed dolls and automata” (Freud, 1919, p. 225). What is frightening “is the impression of automatic, mechanical processes at work behind the ordinary appearance of mental activity” (Freud, 1919, p. 225).The distinction between being human and being an automaton collapses as the uncanny elides the two and reveals to us this hidden dimension of our psyches. The “monster” appears with the same face as ours. Clinical example The “nobodies” we see in our consulting rooms are strikingly evident because of just this lack of internal dialogue alongside unquestioning deference to an internal “higher authority.” The ego has become entirely subordinated to a collective superego that gives orders relentlessly and rigidly.The orders serve to suppress feelings that cannot be thought. It is a totalitarian internal landscape that obliterates spontaneity and symbolization.There is no internal awareness of time or space and therefore no observing ego. The ego itself exists in the shadow of the parental, collective superego. A middle aged woman, Mrs. Smith, came to see me a few years ago because she had had a series of sexual affairs. She did not know why she had had the affairs, she only knew that she had felt compelled to have them. Mrs. Smith was feeling stifled by her “tyrannical” husband and at the same time extremely anxious that her marriage would break down. I thought she was primarily anxious about having a breakdown herself, especially as it became increasingly evident that she had operated throughout most of her life and within the confines of her marriage on “automatic pilot,” as she described her state of mind. It took a considerable time for any kind of an observing ego to develop and to mitigate the stranglehold of her tyrannical superego. What became painfully apparent as time went on was that, as a child, there had been virtually no thought given to her as a person by either parent. She had not even known her name until she started school. Mrs. Smith was one of six children from a poor family in which both parents worked continually. Initially, she described their family life as happy and loving although she had no specific memories from her childhood. It was only later that she could remember the violence between her parents and could experience her extreme fear about being reliant on parents who were unable to think about their children other than where it concerned their immediate basic physical needs. It seemed that everyone in the family

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operated on automatic pilot. While this may have been a defence against my patient being aware of what was missing in her life and in her inner world, she had also never experienced with any consistency a relationship in which she could become aware that she existed within someone else’s mind. It was a totalitarian family structure in which, as long as she did what was expected of her, she would be cared for. However, any challenge to the system, whether in the form of disagreement, rebellion or expressing special need, was at the threat of expulsion. Mrs. Smith recalled that her older sister, who suffered from asthma, was too difficult to care for and was therefore sent away to a state boarding school where she later died. Mrs. Smith inevitably replayed her compliant relationship with her parents in her transference to me. She performed the role of the “perfect” patient, always coming to her sessions on time, paying on time, appearing to think about my interventions and accepting them with gratitude but then later “forgetting” them, and acting very much like a polite and obedient automaton. After six months of this behaviour, I began to despair that I would ever be able to reach any person inside Mrs. Smith. It was only following a session that I had had to cancel suddenly that I noticed Mrs. Smith appeared paralysed, unable to speak or move. I guessed that my sudden disappearance had made Mrs. Smith feel terrified to the point of paralysis. It was at this point that Mrs. Smith was gradually able to confess that she had felt her complete trust in me had broken and she dared not acknowledge this because it would mean the end of everything. The crack in our analytic regime had inadvertently released Mrs. Smith from her role as the “perfect” patient but it had also threatened to open up a terrible void – “the end of everything.” This experience, paradoxically, became the moment when Mrs. Smith started to become a “somebody” within the analysis. As a consequence of this analytic lapse, Mrs. Smith could begin to describe how she had been treated as a nobody within her family – something that she experienced subsequently as ineradicably shameful. Although she had a sense of morality and could differentiate between right and wrong, it was unmediated within her so that she had no moral voice or position of her own. She had to defer to others on every decision, and her blanket compliance had allowed her to extinguish thought and desire so that she could carry on with a kind of pseudo-existence and maintain an illusion of total security The one aberration in Mrs. Smith’s history was that she had insisted, much against her husband’s will, to have a child. I thought of this as her insistence to be allowed to be creative – in the face of having to suppress and destroy all other forms of creativity. I also wondered whether she could insist on this because it was essentially the only creative life that was allowed between her parents.

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Kertesz describes the necessity to remember and to have a history in order to go on being a person, emphasizing that this is a far more painful choice than being an automaton. He writes: ‘No!’ something bellows, howls, within me, I don’t wish to remember, . . . remembering is knowing, we live in order to remember what we know, because we cannot forget what we know, . . . not out of some kind of ‘moral duty’ . . . it’s simply not at our discretion, we are not able, to forget, that is the way we are created, . . . the reason why we know and remember is in order that somebody should feel shame on our account . . . in any case you’re always partly to blame, that’s all there is to it, I have stuck around and therefore I am, I thought; no, I didn’t even think, I just was, simple as that, like a Survivor from Warsaw, like a hanger-on from Budapest who sets no store on his hanging on, who feels no need to justify his sticking around, to attach notions of purpose to his having hung on, yet, to turn his having hung on into a triumph, however quiet, however discreet and intimate, yet essentially still the only genuine, the only possible triumph, as the prolonged and propagated perpetuation of this hung-on-to existence, namely my own self, in descendants – in a descendant. . . . (Kertesz, 2004, pp. 27–28) Despite the narrator’s wish to forget, it is, as he writes, not at our discretion. “The essential point,” continues Kertesz, “is that we should remember, know and remember, that somebody – anybody – should feel shame on our account and (possibly) for us” (Kertesz, 2004, pp. 27–28). The shame is not only that the narrator has “hung on”, whilst others have not, but a more profound shame that “you’re always partly to blame.” In acknowledging this, the narrator insists that moral consciousness – different from ‘moral duty’ – is essential to being alive, to “hanging on”, and is inextricably linked with memory and shame. It is significant that the narrator places such emphasis on shame as the emotion that is paramount in defining our humanity. Shame implies an exposure of lack, of inadequacy and of injury that is extremely painful and precludes empathy and guilt. Shame is the pain that accompanies our first awareness of ourselves as separate from others – an existential awareness of incompleteness. It is about oneself as a person, whereas guilt arises later and is about the impact of one’s actions toward others. For Kertesz, self-awareness entails a painful recognition of the unknown, of the unconscious or secret self that is beyond our control and at the same time confers a sense of self-agency. With shame, our capacity to be both victim and perpetrator is awakened; as Kertesz writes, “you’re always partly to blame.” It is ultimately our awareness of our

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own destructiveness (in fantasy) that enables us to think and to imagine and to be a person. The triumph over destructiveness, as Kertesz makes so clear, is to create life – “in a descendant.”The tragedy is that the narrator has failed to do this; his lament is for an unlived love.Yet creativity is kept alive in the dialogue of writing itself – the inner dialogue that forms a creative internal couple that survives destructiveness. For Kertesz, we cannot choose to forget. “Remembering is knowing, we live in order to remember what we know.” However, the nobody, as Arendt argues, has no memory, there is no inner dialogue with which memories can be assessed and judgement formed. Without hindsight there is no foresight. Being on “automatic pilot” requires no thought, just blind obedience. It can also be used as a method of denial and self-exculpation. In the case of Mrs. Smith, her compliance and mindlessness had to some extent evolved as defences to protect her from the emptiness of her parents. The effect of this on Mrs. Smith was that she was unable to form any judgments about people or situations because she had to stick to the “rules” and when these did not apply, she was lost. She was, like Arendt’s description of Eichmann, unable to imagine what it was like to be in someone else’s shoes. To have imagined would have made not only her own suffering as a child unbearable but it also would have meant feeling overwhelmed by her mother’s suffering in particular.With the exception of her insistence on having a child, she could not risk having an internal dialogue or an imagination without the anxiety of being annihilated and without becoming aware of her own self-destructiveness. The severity of her unconscious guilt was eclipsed by the severity of her superego. She nullified her past by remaining emotionally regressed within it. Mrs. Smith had learned from her father how to restore and copy paintings and this was to become the only semi-professional activity that she undertook. But, as she was the first to state, she did not know how to paint and she considered her work to be like following the numbers – for her it was merely copying with very little thought involved and no creativity. When she began after some time in analysis to paint her own paintings, she became afflicted with paralysing anxiety. Mrs. Smith then remembered coming home from school with a small clay tableau she had made. Her mother, whom she thought of as a kind woman, had picked up the clay figure and said they didn’t have any room for “clutter” and had put it in the rubbish bin. From this memory, Mrs. Smith was aware of how dangerous it was to be creative in any way within the family because of the vicious envy it would provoke, especially from her mother. The harsh chorus of her superego ensured that she stay within proscribed parameters and clamped down on any spontaneous thought or fantasy. As she became more and more conscious of her internalized envious parents, Mrs. Smith was then compelled to experience her terror about

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being dependent, although paradoxically her behaviour had been mindlessly dependent throughout much of her life. It was in fact a kind of pseudodependence that had protected her from being dependent on a mother who was herself an automaton, producing children, conducting domestic chores, suffering her husband’s attacks, without feeling, complaint or thought. Whereas initially I had been in the transference the idealized mother to whom Mrs. Smith could retreat from the harsh criticisms of her superego, this suddenly changed as she was no longer able to split off her own criticisms and negative feelings towards her parents. I then became the tyrant who wanted to control her, to stop her from being independent and from having her own thoughts. She suddenly fled from the analysis, leaving me feeling both controlled and ruthlessly abandoned – feelings that I linked to how Mrs. Smith had herself been treated on numerous occasions by her mother. It was not until I agreed to stop the analysis and asked her to return for a final session to say goodbye that Mrs. Smith was able to resume her sessions and to understand and work through her destructive need to adhere to her internal totalitarian state. With an increasing ability to observe herself and to think, Mrs. Smith was able to experience her terror of being in the presence of a mindless mother – a terror that is so boundless it destroys the possibility of thought. Although Mrs. Smith had not committed any evil deed in reality, she acknowledged that there had been times in her life when “I was so programmed not to think – not to exist as me – that I would have done anything I was told to do, even if it came to killing someone or myself for that matter.” Mrs. Smith’s capacity for evil was founded in her terror of being at the mercy of a mindless mother. For most of her life Mrs. Smith had tryannised herself, existing in a mindless Gulag – a form of evil that is perhaps more dangerous by being less visible. Her description of being programmed not to think is a powerful testament to her sense of being superfluous. Arendt argues very precisely that it is not only the treatment of others as superfluous that is a feature of evil but, even more importantly, it is the belief in one’s own being as superfluous that is the triumph of totalitarianism, for it is this that finally destroys the possibility of spontaneity, creativity and psychic life. This form of mindless tyranny is not to be confused with Freud’s idea of dissociation in which the subject simultaneously knows and does not know so that the self is split and certain aspects of perception are repressed.Within Mrs. Smith, perhaps like Eichmann, there was no such internal conflict evident. There was no co-existence of a “me” and a “not-me” that had to be managed because she had little, if any, self-reflective capacity so that she could only see herself through the eyes of others and, hence, could have no empathy for others either. Whitmer re-formulates the idea of dissociation

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as a different way of knowing oneself through another. He explains, “In dissociation, the subject constructs his or her own experience through the meaning that another gives to the subject’s own experience. . . . Dissociation consists in turning that act of interpretation over to another” (Whitmer, 2001, p. 812). Whitmer views dissociation as an “impairment in subjectivity”, caused primarily by a failure in the mother’s capacity to mentalize her infant’s experience and in this way to create within the infant a sense of its own subjectivity. Whitmer goes on to explain that, “the patient’s sense of dividedness in dissociation is not the result of a split self (which is, after all, a metaphor acting on a reification), but instead, the subjective sense of dividedness stems from a division of labor: the task of knowing is divided between two different minds: that of the subject who perceives, and that of another who names that perception” (Whitmer, 2001, p. 812). Whitmer’s view of dissociation helps us to understand how certain behaviour which may appear incongruous to us, e.g. Eichmann’s dedication to genocide alongside his love of his family, has an internal congruity because the interpreter of perception and meaning is abrogated to a higher authority or ideal.1 The psychic structure is not intrinsically altered – in other words, it is not simply, as Freud suggested, that the inhibitions of the superego are temporarily lifted, thereby releasing primitive, unmediated aggression, or that certain aspects of reality are repressed. It is “the task of knowing”, as Whitmer describes, that is parcelled out in the service of maintaining a unified and unifying perception that prevents awareness of difference and separation. The ego ideal and totalitarianism The psychological experiments conducted by Stanley Milgram at Yale University in the 1960s graphically illustrate how the “normal” person can be induced to inflict increasing degrees of pain under orders from an authority figure (Milgram, 2010). Ten years later, Philip Zimbardo replicated a prison environment at Stanford University in which students imprisoned fellow students within a closed system (i.e. they made up their own rules). This experiment demonstrated vividly that the student “prison officers” became increasingly sadistic in their treatment of prisoners, following the authoritarian leadership established by Zimbardo at the outset (Zimbardo, 2007).What these experiments show is the process by which the superego functions is relinquished to a higher authority within a particular ideology that the leader represents and promotes. As we have seen, the ideology of totalitarianism is especially dangerous and seductive as it holds out the promise that the individual, in his identification with the group and its leader, can become subsumed into an organism

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that is all-powerful.This is the regressive pull we experience as infants of the desire to merge with the mother in order to avoid the pain and frustration of separation, as signified by the Oedipus complex. This regressive state is alluring because it conjures up the fantasy of the infant being at the centre of the universe – of a time when the ego was its own ideal. It is only with the working through of the Oedipus complex and the gradual separation from the mother that the child is able to develop an ego ideal that is separate from the ego and, most importantly, that is mediated by the presence of a benign superego. Following Freud’s observations of group behaviour, Sandler, writing on the superego, points out that the ego will override the precepts of the superego in situations in which it can find sufficient narcissistic support elsewhere. “We see this impressive phenomenon in the striking changes in ideals, character, and morality which may result from an identification with the ideals of a group, or with the ideals of a leader, then the superego may be completely disregarded, and its functions taken over by the group ideals, precepts, and behaviour. If these group ideals permit a direct gratification of instinctual wishes, then a complete character transformation may occur; and the extent to which the superego can be abandoned in this way is evident in the appalling atrocities committed by the Nazis before and during the last war” (Sandler, 1960, pp. 156–157). Sandler ascribes the character transformation that can seemingly occur under certain circumstances to a disregard, or takeover, of the superego. However, it is more likely that what has changed within the psyche is the nature of the ego ideal along with the perceived threat to the ego. These two factors may in themselves affect the way in which the superego functions. It is not simply that there is no more superego at work, it is rather that the superego is working for a different master. Chasseguet-Smirgel elaborates on Sandler’s observation, emphasizing the important role played by the ideology of the group and its leader, particularly when the ideology is aimed at narcissistic triumph, as in the case of totalitarianism. The ideology of the group supports the illusion of an idealized preoedipal ego. As Chasseguet-Smirgel argues, “Everything that interferes with the success of the illusion must be swept away. And since idealization of the ego is the purpose of illusion and since projection always accompanies the idealization of the ego, the objects of the projection must be destroyed. I do not think that the murder that then results occurs in the name of the superego – as a means for its justification. I believe it occurs in the name of the ideal – like the murder of the infidels by the Crusaders. Hence, any rebirth of illusion in a group is followed by a blood bath if the group possesses external means equal to its internal violence” (Chassequet-Smirgel, 1976, p. 362). Returning to Eichmann’s confession that he was an “idealist”, what is important about Chasseguet-Smirgel’s analysis is that it shifts the locus of

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motivation from sadism to narcissism. In other words, the atrocities that occur are not simply the result of a disinhibition or excessive amount of sadism, they are founded on our narcissistic desire to re-create an illusion of omnipotence and an avoidance of development. This is what Andre Green describes as death narcissism in its regressive pull toward oneness and the destruction of anything that is outside, and therefore out of the control, of the ego, including the unconscious (Green, 2001). The narcissistic attraction of the idealized ego is also equivalent to what Michael Sebek describes as the “totalitarian object” and its accompanying dynamics. Some of the distinguishing characteristics of the totalitarian object are: • A totalitarian object (external and internal) is one that uses power to force the self to total compliance and obedience. • The totalitarian object has little or no tolerance for the differences of other objects and stresses unity and sameness. Those who are different are manifest or hidden enemies. • The external totalitarian object blocks normal development toward the Oedipus complex and gender differentiation. Instead of facilitating normal development it presents a preformed and static solution consisting of an identification with an omnipotent object or a preformed ideology. Those who identify with it may obtain some protection and safety in the shadow of the totalitarian object. • Totalitarian objects (external and internal) may also bring some safety to immature persons who like to merge with the strong authority in order to get a feeling of importance and false wholeness. The idealization of totalitarian objects may be an important defence against fear of destruction. (Sebek, 1998, pp. 296–297) Sebek’s description of the “totalitarian object” highlights its defensive function. When the identity of the individual or the group is in jeopardy, the tendency is to close ranks against that which is perceived as a threat. It is at this point that the individual and the group become most vulnerable to the charismatic leader who promises an illusion of power and security. Although Sebek does not refer specifically to the function of the superego, the totalitarian system must of necessity enlist and convert (or pervert) the superego in its service. The totalitarian superego, identified with the totalitarian order, acts to enforce this order at the peril of the ego and of reality. As the political theorist George Kateb, writing about Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism, states, “totalitarianism is disclosed as the disposition to live a

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fiction or live by a fiction or enact a fiction or make the world over into a fiction. Totalitarianism is a systematic way of refusing the given reality and remaking it with an absolute lack of restraint” (Kateb, 1984, p. 70). It is a form of exorcism in which the enemy who threatens the system of total control and who threatens the fiction of such a system is exterminated. It is also an obliteration of mind. This attack on thought, as I have tried to illustrate in the case of Mrs. Smith’s internal totalitarian state of mind, perhaps comes closest to what Bion refers to as -K, those powerful beta elements that remain untransposed by mentalization and that serve to denude, negate and devalue persons, experiences and ideas. In Bion’s terms, minus K serves as both a firewall against conflict and pain and an obliteration of consciousness (knowing) and thought (Bion, 1962). In The Origins of Totalitarianism, Arendt views thoughtlessness as the space in which evil exists and comes into being. She writes, “It is indeed my opinion now that evil is never ‘radical,’ that it is only extreme, and that it possesses neither depth nor any demonic dimension. It can overgrow and lay waste the whole world precisely because it spreads like a fungus on the surface. It is ‘thought-defying’ . . . because thought tries to reach some depth, to go to the roots, and the moment it concerns itself with evil, it is frustrated because there is nothing. That is its ‘banality’. Only the good has depth and can be radical” (Arendt, 1963, p. 252). The moral personality In the case of the “nobody”, the subject is eradicated so that others along with the subject are reduced to things. This is different from Freud’s notion of the “narcissism of minor differences” whereby the “other” becomes demonized and dehumanized (Freud, 1918). In this scenario, it is not only the object that is treated in this way, the subject is as well. The “nobody”, who follows orders and retreats into mindlessness, also derives a perverse unconscious pleasure from killing the life (i.e. thought and subjectiveness) in others. It is an externalization or enactment of the envious internal attack (minus K) that attempts to destroy creativity, imagination and thought in the subject. The “nobody”, like Duch, is caught within a totalitarian system that abnegates moral responsibility and thought by a rigid adherence to collective authority (i.e. what I have described as the totalitarian superego) that allows for no individual perception or imagination. We can see this in the behaviour of the guards photographed torturing the inmates at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay – the same guards who defended their actions through the rhetoric that they were merely obeying orders. Of course, these were sadistic attacks but it would be a mistake to categorize them as such without taking

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into account not only the organizational culture within which they were promulgated but also the all-too-ready capitulation to collective authority that seems to occur when there is insufficient mental space to manage overwhelming feelings. This is the territory of the “nobody” and the “follower”. The historian Lessek Kolakowski, in a Harvard lecture in 1987 titled “The Devil in History,” argued forcefully against Marx’s view that “all human shortcomings are rooted in social circumstances” (Judt, 2009, p. 6). Kolakowski accused Marx of “entirely (overlooking) the possibility that some sources of conflict and aggression may be inherent in the permanent characteristics of the species.” He continued to argue, “Evil . . . is not contingent . . . but a stubborn and unredeemable fact” (Judt, 2009, p. 6). (The same could be said of goodness.) Kolakowski lived through the Nazi occupation of Poland and the Soviet takeover and was no stranger to witnessing evil. He makes the important point that, “A mere feeling of responsibility is a formal virtue that by itself does not result in a specific obligation: it is possible to feel responsibility for a good cause as well as an evil one” (Judt, 2009, p. 8). This is especially relevant in the case of the “follower”. The “cause” can become dangerous, or evil, when the power of the regime – once perceived as good – is eroding and then becomes susceptible to perversion and violence. Arendt argues “that to speak about a moral personality is almost a redundancy. Taking our cue from Socrates’ justification of his moral proposition, we may now say that in this process of thought in which I actualize the specifically human difference of speech, I explicitly constitute myself a person, and I shall remain one to the extent that I am capable of such constitution ever again and anew. If this is what we commonly call personality, and it has nothing to do with gifts and intelligence, it is the simple, almost automatic result of thoughtfulness. To put it another way, in granting pardon, it is the person and not the crime that is forgiven; in rootless evil there is no person left whom one could ever forgive” (Arendt, 2003, p. 95). Arendt is once again emphasizing the fact that it is thought and our capacity to symbolize in speech that constitutes the person – and hence the moral personality. Furthermore, she introduces the idea that if there is a crime committed by a person, then it is possible to forgive the person, whereas it is not possible to forgive the “nobody” who has committed evil. Although Arendt does not elaborate on this idea, I think she is making an important distinction that rests on the capacity for remorse and guilt – neither of which can be experienced by a “nobody” or by the automaton operating within a tyrannical regime. According to Arendt, forgiveness is predicated on the perpetrator’s expression of self-agency (i.e. of remorse and guilt) that tells us that person has the qualities of imagination, thought and memory. Without these qualities, there is no person to forgive and there is no person we can have empathy with, or as Kertesz would say, “no one to feel shame for.” When

36  Arendt, evil and eradication of thought

there is no remorse, there is also no possibility of a relationship extending to the future because there is also no basis for trust. Without shame there is no internal moral consciousness to bind us together and no trust. Conclusion I have tried to describe some of the rudimentary conditions that play a part in reducing the person into a “nobody” by eradicating thought and memory. I have also tried to portray, in the case of Mrs. Smith, how she was able to begin to become a “person” as she was able to introject the analyst’s capacity for thought and memory over time and to develop her own observing ego. The process of transforming a “nobody” into a “person” is vividly depicted in the film The Lives of Others through the fictional character of Stasi captain Wiesler. Wiesler is the perfect Stasi whose sole ambition is to perform his duties impeccably and to serve his Führer. He is assigned the job of spying on a famous playwright, suspected of having pro-Western sympathies, and his girlfriend, whom, as it transpires, Wiesler’s boss would like to make his mistress. In the course of Wiesler’s many hours of spying, confined in the attic of the playwright’s house and overhearing the intimacies of the playwright’s relation with his girlfriend, we see Wiesler very slowly beginning to take an emotional interest in what is happening between the couple and to begin to feel protective toward them. His professional distance seems to collapse when we see him listening to a recording of Sonata for a Good Man. The love between the couple has moved Wiesler and opened a space within him for imagination – in the sense that it is clear that he is imagining himself in the position of the couple. This basic act of imagination allows Wiesler to see himself as a subject from the perspective of an “other” and gives birth to the Good Man in Wiesler, as evoked in the sonata. Wiesler becomes a somebody.We see his automaton state of mind beginning to erode and break down as he becomes increasingly engaged emotionally with the objects of his spying. As the playwright and his girlfriend become “persons” in his eyes, Wiesler is also being transformed into a “person.” The process becomes a virtuous circle to the point that Wiesler crosses the line that divides him from his objects and risks his life to try to save them from impending disaster. His role as spy and informer – playing out the envious attack on the good intercourse – is turned on its head. Wiesler becomes a “person” at the price of his position in the Stasi. He is demoted to doing menial, tedious work but there is a sense that he has nevertheless come alive because he is not just a cog in a machine but has realized he has a will and choices that give his life meaning and subjectivity. It is never clear at what point Wiesler begins to change or why this happens to him. While the film implies that witnessing the love between

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the couple has had a powerful transformative effect, it is also apparent that Wiesler cannot ignore his growing awareness of Stasi corruption. This realization is a profound disillusionment for Wiesler that opens his eyes to the blind tyranny – and fiction – that he has been complicit in. In the end, the film reads like a morality play – the final message being that the abiding flaw of tyrannies is that they cannot stop the automatons they create into becoming “persons”. Of the options open to Wiesler, he chooses to step out of the perverse world in which he has been enmeshed. For Arendt, only a “person” could make such a decision. Note 1 Lifton, in his study of Nazi doctors working in the concentration camps, refers to the psychological splitting that was necessary in order to do their jobs. He describes a “doubling” of the self, whereby one part of the self, attached to the family, remained pure and another part, the “Auschwitz self ”, was filthy. Continuing to kill then became, paradoxically, an attempt to purify that could never succeed but could only necessitate further killing (Lifton, p. 213). However, Lifton does not acknowledge the importance of the ideal of purity in driving these apparently incongruent behaviours. See Lifton, R.J. (1986). The Nazi Doctors. New York: Basic Books.

References Arendt, H. (1958). The Origins of Totalitarianism. Rev. ed., Cleveland: Meridian. Arendt, H. (1963). Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. New York: Penguin. Arendt, H. (2003). Responsibility and Judgment. New York: Schoken Books. Bernstein, R.J. (2002). Radical Evil: A Philosophical Interrogation. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bion, W.R. (1962). Learning from Experience. Exeter: A. Wheaton & Co., Ltd. Browning, C.R. (1992). Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland. London: Penguin. Chasseguet-Smirgel, J. (1976). “Some thought on the ego ideal: a contribution to the study of the ‘Illness of Ideality’.” The Psychoanalytic Quarterly, 45: 345–373. Covington, C. (2014) Shrinking the News: Headline Stories on the Couch. London: Karnac Books. Freud, S. (1918). “The taboo of virginity (contributions to the psychology of love III).” SE, 11: 191–208. Freud, S. (1919). “The ‘uncanny’.” SE, 17: 217–252. Freud, S. (1921). “Group psychology and the analysis of the ego.” SE, 18: 69–143. Green, A. (2001). Life Narcissism Death Narcissism. London: Free Association Books. Hinton, A.L. (2004). “Why did you kill? The Cambodian genocide and the dark side of face and honor.” In Violence in War and Peace: An Anthology, ed. by Scheper-Hughes, N. and Bourgois, P. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. Judt, T. (24 September 2009). “Lessek Kolakowski (1927–2009).” New York Review of Books, pp. 6–8. Kateb, G. (1984). Hannah Arendt: Politics, Conscience, Evil. Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Allanheld. Kertesz, I. (2004). Kaddish for an Unborn Child. New York:Vintage Books.

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Milgram, S. (2010). Obedience to Authority. Pinter & Martin, Ltd. Rose, G. (1996). Mourning Becomes the Law. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sandler, J. (1960). “On the concept of the superego.” In The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child. Vol. 15, XV. New York: International Universities Press, Inc. Sebek, M. (1998). “Posttotalitarian personality – old internal objects in a new situation.” The Journal of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis and Dynamic Psychiatry, 26: 295–309. Sofsky, W. (1997). The Order of Terror: The Concentration Camp. Princeton: Princeton University Press. The Times (2009). “Richard Sonnenfeldt: Chief US translator at the Nuremburg trials.” October 22, 2009. Wachsmann, N. (2015). KL: A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps. London: Little, Brown. Whitmer, G. (2001). “On the nature of dissociation.” The Psychoanalytic Quarterly, 70: 807–837. Winnicott, D.W. (1971). “The use of an object and relating through identifications.” In Playing and Reality. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books Ltd. Zimbardo, P. (2007). The Lucifer Effect: How Good People Turn Evil. London: Rider.

3 INVISIBLE HANDCUFFS The masochistic pact in capture-bonding and the struggle to be free

. . . the harsher the oppression, the more widespread among the oppressed is the willingness to collaborate with the power. Primo Levi, The Grey Zone

Introduction This chapter presents clinical material of a female patient who was effectively held hostage during a period of her youth. Although she was in reality free to escape, she was under constant surveillance by her captor and his gang who threatened to kill her if she told anyone about them or attempted to escape. She was also held captive in her mind – not only out of fear but out of love. Despite her terror, she was convinced that without her captor she would cease to exist psychically. In the course of treatment, my patient’s difficulty in extricating herself from the invisible emotional handcuffs that bound her to this abusive relationship raised certain fundamental questions, both theoretical and clinical. The relation between adaptation to abuse and loss of identity and self-agency was central in trying to understand the origins and nature of my patient’s captivity, how her captivity was perpetuated, and how her attachment, while apparently masochistic, differed from the psychoanalytic view of masochism, as defined by the obligatory conjunction of sexuality and suffering. In accord with Tuch’s (2010) view of perversion as arising from an attempt to psychically manage irreconcilable realities, my patient’s masochism seemed to be her way of resolving the conflictual realities of her internal and external worlds.

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My patient’s history and psychopathology called for particular technical modifications in her treatment along with considerable awareness of the dangers of unconscious enactment within the therapy. Adopting a more flexible clinical approach, while adhering to psychoanalytic principles, also had therapeutic benefits. Finally, my patient’s material has striking similarities to the phenomenon of Stockholm Syndrome, also described as capture-bonding, in which hostages develop strong positive feelings towards their captors, to the point of falling in love with them.1 The conditions of captivity and threat of death induce a near total infantile dependency on the captor who becomes an allpowerful parental figure. In this context, the strong attachment to the captor is commonly understood as a deal that has been made on an unconscious level to submit one’s psychic life to another in return for an illusion of security. In my patient’s mind, it was not only a question of security, it was her attempt to exist in the first place by entering into someone else’s mind. While my patient was not held in forced captivity, the parallels in her experience may shed further light on the psychodynamics of Stockholm Syndrome and its treatment. Clinical material Background Alexa was referred to me by her doctor following Alexa’s recent decision to file for divorce. She came from a highly religious, immigrant community in which divorce is censured; this in itself meant she was stepping out of accepted behaviour within the group and isolating herself. When Alexa arrived for her first session, she greeted me with a broad smile, sat down, smiling continuously, and said she didn’t know what to say and then apologized for herself. She was an overweight, plainly dressed woman in her late 40s, living with her 13-year-old daughter who was physically handicapped. A son, aged 23, lived and worked in another city. I had been told that she had been married for 25 years and had suffered constant and horrific abuse from her husband. She had been too ashamed to tell anyone about her torment. Finally, at the point when she found evidence that her husband was having an affair, she went to see a lawyer who was associated with her community. I suspected that there was more behind the 25 years of marital abuse and wondered about her childhood and family background. At the start, Alexa made it clear that she could only come once a week due to her work and child care commitments as well as financial constraints. I decided not to question this as I sensed that the constraints Alexa referred to, while real, were also a defence against her unconscious anxiety

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about being overwhelmed by what might come out in her sessions as well as her fear of becoming attached to me. Alexa also insisted on being able to see my face. As with other patients who have suffered abusive relationships, I thought she did not trust me to maintain the boundaries of our relationship and was frightened of allowing herself to be submissive. On an unconscious level, however, I wondered if Alexa needed to defend herself from a breakdown. She later clarified that she needed to see my facial expression to know whether or not I liked her and, more importantly, to know whether she existed in my presence. Given the terrifying memories she was to reveal, I became acutely aware that Alexa’s memories were not located in the past but were still alive and indistinguishable from her present reality. I later thought it was important for her to see me so that she could begin to differentiate events in time through her experience of a different reality in the present – a reality that I confirmed with my physical presence. Alexa’s story unfolded gradually; her broad smile finally relaxed into an expression of uncertainty as she recounted her past while periodically checking to see whether it was all right for her to continue to speak, apologizing for what she was saying. There were long silences when she was searching for exactly the right word to describe her feelings. Her outward, smiling appearance was not irritating, as it can be with very compliant patients, but served more as a mask to prevent others from seeing how much she felt was wrong inside her. Alexa had been the youngest child, with two older brothers who were constantly praised and adored by both parents, while she was continually criticized and told to be silent. When she was ill or had an accident, she was invariably blamed for it and made to feel that she was demanding. Alexa remembered when she was ten falling off her bike after her brakes failed as she was going down a hill. She crashed into a lamp post and broke her nose. When she returned home, she was punished for damaging her bike, and no attention was paid to her injury. She has no memory of being physically held or comforted by either parent or of any affection or interest that was given to her. She retreated to her bedroom when she was punished or when she was frightened of being in the way; she never cried. She described her mother as punitive and dominating, needing to be the centre of attention at all times, while her father was critical and cold, an accomplice to the cruelties his wife inflicted on their daughter. Any problem or difficulty Alexa had during her childhood would be seen as bringing shame or as a burden to her mother. Alexa managed to exist by keeping her head down, being a shadowy figure with no voice of her own, and anticipating what was expected of her as much as possible.

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Alexa had grown up with no close relationships or friendships. She knew how to smile and to say the right things, to perform out of a false self, but, as she said, “I don’t know how to be normal – I look normal, but I have no idea what that feels like or means. I don’t trust anyone and I don’t know how to talk to them.” She lived in virtual isolation. After a short time, Alexa hinted that there was something far more important to talk about that she had never told anyone and she wasn’t sure I would want her to tell me. She told me that she had been raped – not once, but repeatedly over the course of a year and a half and not by one man but by many. She then smiled, said she felt pathetic telling me this, apologized and said she shouldn’t have told me. She also made it clear that all the years of abuse from her husband were relatively trivial in their significance to her, describing her husband as a mere “emissary” of Marius, the man who had first raped her. This man was far more important to her in the present than anyone else. The full story of her entanglement with Marius, the war hero, came out slowly over the next few months. Becoming captive Alexa explained that she had met Marius, a young army veteran from Alexa’s country of origin, at a local event when she was sixteen. She told me, He had been wounded, he had suffered a lot. He was a hero – everyone admired him. I couldn’t believe he liked me. He began writing to me, intimate letters, and I fell under his spell.2 Each letter was precious to me; they were a sign that someone noticed me and liked me. I kept them all secret under my mattress. I fell for him from the moment he first talked to me. We corresponded for about a year. When I finished school, I found a job and moved to his country to be near him. I remember he met me at the airport and took me to the flat that came with my job and settled me in. For the first couple of weeks we met for coffee at the end of each day; he wanted to know everything about me and how I was getting along. No one had ever shown this kind of interest in me before. He also mentioned, quite casually, that he was married. But I still wanted to be with him – I had fallen in love with him. Whenever he entered the coffee shop, I felt faint. I couldn’t believe he was coming to see me and all I thought of was how I could please him. My greatest anxiety was that he would stop seeing me and that it would be because of something I had done or because I was bad.Then one evening, Marius suggested we have coffee in his flat and explained that his wife was away staying with relatives. I knew there

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was something wrong about this, but I was also excited at the prospect of being closer to Marius. When we arrived at his flat, he led me into the bedroom and, without a word, forced me on the bed and raped me. I was a virgin. Alexa stopped herself and turned anxiously to me, saying, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be telling you this.You will just get fed up with me. I’m so sorry. Maybe I should go now.” I felt strangely tantalized by Alexa’s threat to leave but responded by saying that I thought Alexa was telling me that she was anxious that her story would be too much for me to bear, just as it was so painful for her. The thought also occurred to me that Alexa might be testing me to see whether I could contain her – and my – feelings of excitement. I did not refer to this but suggested that the only way she had managed to deal with what had happened to her was to cut herself off, just as her mother had done when she was little and in distress. Alexa seemed relieved and went on with her story. “After it was over, Marius said to me, ‘This was your fault. You are to blame. You are filthy scum – get out of here before my wife sees what you have done’. I felt numb. I remember walking out of Marius’s flat. I had a powerful image in my mind of walking down a dark flight of stairs into nothingness. I was terrified. When I got back to my flat, Marius rang me to complain that I had bled over his clothes and the bed sheets and he would have to destroy them all so his wife wouldn’t find out what I had done. He said, ‘You will have to pay for this’. I felt so ashamed and desperate and agreed to do anything as long as Marius would forgive me and continue to see me.” Alexa looked at me intently and said, “Although this happened thirty years ago, if Marius walked into the room now, even though I know it would be wrong and what happened was wrong, I would not be able to resist him. He connected me to life. He still does.” I felt a terrible foreboding that Alexa was warning me that I would be powerless to exorcise Marius from within her as if she had sworn her soul to the devil. After her rape, Alexa started living in terror every day and became truly enslaved. Marius came to her flat in the evenings, occasionally alone, but most often with a group of two to three men. Marius watched as the men did what they wanted to her. Then Marius stopped coming each time and strange men would show up, saying Marius had sent them. The visits occurred irregularly, so Alexa never knew from one night to the next what would happen or who would come to her flat. Alexa said, “I didn’t know if I was an object, a plaything or a prostitute. I’ve always been an object and

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not a person. I don’t know if he was being paid by his friends or not to come see me. I never saw any money change hands, but I thought something like this might be going on.” She said, “The men were all soldiers, he knew them from the army.They all probably had girlfriends and wives. I was a vehicle for their fantasies. I did what I was told to do. I had to perform for their fantasies, whatever they were.” Alexa went on to explain, “I was always terrified before anyone came to the flat.The waiting was unbearable. And when someone or a group of them came, it was at least a kind of relief because I knew the terror would be over soon, that it would all be over and they would leave. But when it was over and I was alone again, then I would become anxious about whether Marius would come back. It became all I lived for, even though somewhere inside I also knew he was using me and it was wrong.” Alexa had told me several times that she knew what was happening was wrong and yet she had been unable to act for herself. I thought her acknowledgement that there was something “wrong” with her behaviour indicated that she was able to observe herself, even if it was only in her recognition that what was happening to her was not “normal.”This made me hopeful that she had enough of a sense of self to engage with her analysis. In listening to Alexa’s harrowing accounts, I became not only a witness but felt at times held captive myself. There was no escape from the next awful scene along with an ever-present fear that there was still something worse to come. I imagined this was how Alexa had felt as she observed herself being abused, silently dissociating from her experience and yet remaining anxious about what would happen next. My frequent relief at the end of sessions seemed to echo Alexa’s relief when her abusers left. The significant difference was that I knew that Alexa had the means to escape. To be bad is to be alive What was particularly striking to me about Alexa’s account was that her expectant terror was precisely what she had described about her husband’s rages throughout their marriage. She had learned to tiptoe around the house, keeping in the shadows and only speaking when it was necessary, always prefaced by an apology. When something went wrong for whatever reason, she could see her husband’s anger building up and he would begin goading her. She then felt the terror of what would happen – along with an excited anticipation. Khan refers to Paulhan’s “diagnostic phrase” in Histoire D’O, “a certain mysterious equilibrium of violence” to describe a desire that “is strange, alien, all but unbearable” (1979, p. 201). It was only when her husband started hitting her, throwing things at her, or when he forced her to have sex, that she felt relief that soon it would be over, as if once it was over, at least in her mind, everything could return to some kind of normality.

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She said, “The fire would come out at last and then I knew it would be over soon.” In listening to Alexa’s account, I was aware of feeling in my countertransference the thrill of the hunt and asked,“Was there some kind of excitement in the waiting and the terror? Not exactly pleasure, but a physical excitement?” Alexa replied “It made me feel alive. I became acutely aware of all my senses. What was exciting was that this was all to do with me. I was the object. Otherwise, I went through all the motions of my work in the house and with the children, but I wasn’t there. I wasn’t in the picture.” Although Alexa admitted feeling excited during these abusive episodes, she said she had no thoughts or images in her mind when they occurred. In fact, the terror and abuse provided a relief from her thoughts, erasing what was in her mind. The pain inflicted by the abuse also provided some connection to and validation of her emotional pain. I also thought that Alexa’s sado-masochistic fantasies had to remain unconscious and hidden. To acknowledge that she derived any sexual pleasure from these incidents would have meant being aware of her own sadism and her murderous fantasies, particularly towards her mother. She was incapable of this because, as she explained, “I have no inside.” I think Alexa was making me understand that she had no “inside” within herself that could safely manage overwhelming affects and the fantasies linked to these affects. She had to repress her hatred for fear of losing her mind. Instead, Alexa expelled her sadistic fantasies in a masochistic reversal. It was only later in her therapy, when Alexa could begin to experience her rage, that she explained how she had protected herself by “working hard” at being a victim. “Otherwise I would have destroyed everything.” Alexa’s relationships with both Marius and her husband had, not surprisingly, followed a similar pattern to her experience as a child where she had been used, particularly by her mother, as a whipping boy when things went wrong. These were moments of excitement in Alexa’s childhood that made her feel connected to her mother.While for Alexa bearing the brunt for others’ anger was “normal”, she also knew she wasn’t normal and that there was something wrong about her life. Having felt rejected and abhorred throughout her childhood, Alexa was convinced she was “evil” and was haunted by the question as to what it was she had done. Alexa linked the primitive guilt she experienced to her very existence. Punishment became a refuge and solace against her hateful feelings towards herself. Within her prison cell, she could observe her extreme isolation, as in the image of descending the stairs into a dark abyss after her rape. Alexa spent most of her time imagining what Marius was thinking and feeling, anticipating his movements, his desires and his fantasies. In her mind

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no one could care so much about him. In her sessions, when she described herself and her world, I often had an uncanny sense that I was with Marius and not Alexa, that she had become his mouthpiece, using his words and seeing the world from his perspective. Alexa described herself as mad and condemned herself for betraying Marius by telling me what had happened. “No one would understand.” I felt I was listening to Marius saying, “It’s all your fault and you mustn’t tell anyone because no one will understand.” It was as if I was in the room with Alexa’s doppelganger. Alexa performed like a marionette, allowing her thoughts and her feelings to be controlled by Marius and subsequently by her husband. When she was abused, she felt alive – otherwise, as she said, she was not there. I imagined that Alexa’s compulsive enactment of abusive and terrifying scenarios made her feel alive because it brought to life a relation to an internal object that was otherwise experienced as non-existent. Following her comment that what was exciting about the abuse was that she was the “object”, I observed that at other times, she had felt she didn’t exist in her parents’ minds and how alone and frightening this was for her. Alexa responded, “Yes, I remember being in my bedroom and wrapping myself in all my bedclothes so I wouldn’t disappear.” Later in the analysis, when Alexa was able to think for the first time about trying to escape from the room in which she had been kept captive by Marius, she imagined entering a dark forest. She explained that the forest was terrifying in a different way from her captivity because she would be alone and lost within it.There would be no point of reference, no beginning or end; it would be an endless void. She seemed to be describing her terror of the void inside her that would leave her disoriented in the world. Her compulsion to seek out abusive relations had been her way of establishing a reference point, proof, at least for a moment, that she existed in someone else’s mind – and that she had a space inside her where she could exist. Release from captivity I assumed from what Alexa told me that her relationship with her husband had acted as a container of some kind for her – enabling her to maintain her psychic equilibrium through the ongoing enactment of her erotogenic masochism. She admitted that she could not judge her husband’s abuse because of her experience with Marius which she had kept secret. It was only when Alexa found out that her husband was having a serious affair and spending much more time away from the home that she began to feel she could no longer share the same bed with him. “I felt dirty then and knew I couldn’t go on living with him.” There was no trace of jealousy; Alexa was disgusted with herself. Her husband’s abusive treatment of her had also significantly

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lessened; she was aware that she had started to cease to exist for him. By staying in the marriage, I think she feared that she would be left in a void, having to become aware of an unbearable reality that she could not manage without the threat of becoming psychotic or experiencing what Khan refers to as a “breakdown into acute incapacitated depression” (Khan, 1979, p. 200). Getting out of the marriage, at the very least, was a way of reinstating her abusive relationship with her husband. She became both the desirable object for him – he insisted he wanted to keep the marriage together, claiming that he wanted to protect her from going mad – and he became the persecutor once again who threatened to kill her if she did not comply. At the same time I suspect that Alexa sensed that her game was up and was looking for a way out. I became increasingly anxious about the effect Alexa’s analysis was having on her. She complained of being alienated and lonely. Each week she would begin by telling me she wanted to die and saying that she had only just resisted asking her husband to return home. She wished she could go back to what life had been like before, even that would be better than the isolation she felt now. Although she claimed to be repulsed by the sight of her husband, she professed to feel sorry for him. However, as Alexa acknowledged, this was not so much a masochistic gesture to appease her husband but her way of continuing to feel attached by feeling her estranged husband’s feelings rather than her own, particularly during the holidays when she was so alone. Her symbiotic attachment to him enabled her to continue to function. Unlike other masochistic patients, Alexa was not talking about the pain of feeling unloved and rejected or the fear of having no one to care for her. Alexa’s alienation stemmed from her failure to exist as a person in others’ minds. This is what had made her feel apart from others. She likened leaving her marriage as equivalent to leaving a concentration camp; she longed to escape and at the same time dreaded this, knowing that her experience would always set her apart. While initiating divorce proceedings and coming into therapy could be seen as attempts to escape her state of imprisonment, for Alexa it also meant subjecting herself to a contained and prolonged trauma.The therapeutic trauma was of becoming aware with someone else that not only had she not existed for her parents in any emotional sense but she had not existed for herself; she had existed only insofar as she was an object for others. She was terrified that others would accuse her of being mad and no one would believe her but she was even more terrified of discovering how mad she had been.3 The external events Alexa narrated had a surreal quality as if she was recounting a series of bad dreams that could just as easily come from her inner world. She had had a roller coaster time, feeling desperate, alone and degraded and then feeling completely cut off, just going through the motions

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of what she had to do. Caught between feeling intense pain and nothing, Alexa confessed, “I don’t know which is worse now.” She then became very anxious that her phone was still on and she could be heard. She apologized and asked me if she could check to see if it was turned off. She said, “I’m afraid someone is listening in to what I’m telling you. I’m frightened. I just want to escape. I think they [the men] will be listening or my husband, who is Marius’s agent. I want to smash the phone.” I said, “You want to smash these men and to get rid of them all.” Alexa agreed and explained that she couldn’t get rid of these men in her mind and had been having flashbacks of what had happened. She asked me whether it was all right to tell me. I nodded and she, haltingly, began: The first one is of being in Marius’s bedroom – I am lying down and he is standing over me. That’s all. The second one is of being in a room with three men. There is one here (motioning to her left), one there (on the right) and one standing over me (in front). I don’t know if I am feeling anything but I can’t do anything, I can’t move. There’s no one I can tell about this because no one would believe me. I think now it is degrading, humiliating – but that is what I am thinking now. The men are talking about what they want to do to me. The man on the left is laughing and encouraging the others. The man on the right is near a shelf with some objects on it. Then there is the man in front of me. They are talking about what objects they can put inside of me and laughing. The man on the right chooses the objects and the man in front puts them in me. The man on the left continues to act. He is the agent, he brings the men with him and he brings other men with him at other times as well. It is hardly ever the same group. He is the voyeur; he watches the others as they act their fantasies. Alexa then stopped abruptly and turned to me, saying, “I’m sorry. This is pathetic. This is not a big thing. I shouldn’t be telling you this.” “It isn’t a big thing?” I asked. “It’s just that I think I’m making a big fuss about nothing. I shouldn’t be.” “This is what has put you in danger,” I said. Alexa flinched and continued. “They put objects inside of me and I am also an object. I couldn’t do anything about it.” As she was saying this, I noticed Alexa had a twisted smile on her face. I picked up Alexa’s excitement and remarked, “Except grin and bear it?” Alexa suddenly became animated and said, “I’m not sure if I’m thinking this now or whether this is something I thought then, but the thought that comes into my mind is, ‘Maybe they’ll like me now? I’m pleasing them, entertaining them, performing for them. Maybe they will like me for this?

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I thought when they were laughing and playing out their fantasies that I was there in the room with them, that I meant something to them, at least at that moment.” I could see a slight elation in Alexa’s face as she recounted this, and I asked her, “Did they hurt you?” She replied, “I don’t know. I didn’t feel anything. I was often covered in bruises – sometimes I couldn’t go out – but I had no feelings. . . . There was also a gun.There were always guns around, it was normal. I couldn’t do anything. There was no one there, no one to turn to. I can see now that I have no self-respect, I have no self. Anyone who has self-respect would not have done this.” Alexa was also describing an internal world in which she had been kept hostage, mirroring in an uncanny way the external drama that had kept her centre stage. It was only later in the course of her treatment that Alexa could begin to see how her internal scenario had prevented her from seeking escape and had effectively handcuffed her. The “agent”, or voyeur, seemed to represent an internal maître de scene that engineered her abusive treatment and enjoyed seeing her being treated as an object. Alexa described the two other men as a couple who enacted the fantasies of the voyeur; they constituted an internal gang engaged in a perverse scenario where objects and body parts were interchangeable and there was no differentiation between things or people. Alexa’s wish to be liked by the “agent” reflected a complete subversion of reality; by becoming the “agent’s” performing object, she would exist in his mind and eradicate herself as subject with the pain of a separate mind. Alexa confessed that Marius and her husband were both one and the same figure – both were the “agent”. She explained, “I created their power, it was in their bodies. They were so powerful they would protect me. I wanted them to control me. I used to look to Marius to protect me when the other men were there and he just watched. This is what my father did. There was no one to turn to.” The men whom Alexa had grown up idealizing – her father and her brothers – were ultimately exposed as hollow pawns of the sadistic mother, unseeing and unable to protect her. At the same time, her submission (and provocation) to their abuse was also a means of debasing them. While she positioned herself as the sacrificial victim, the men embodied what was perverse, animalistic and cruel. It was a self-perpetuating tableau of mutual abuse and revenge. I thought Alexa had idealized and imbued the “agent” with total power as a defence against her early experience of obliteration and as a way of managing her own sadistic feelings as well as those of others towards her. It was extremely painful for Alexa to recognize this. I became a witness to the atrocities she had been subjected to and to her terror and despair. She

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could only begin to see herself – and to develop her own thoughts – when there was someone else who could think about her experience in her presence. This also put Alexa in a dangerous position. She hated herself. Looking at herself in the mirror, Alexa observed, “I see someone who is wicked and evil, whom I revile, who has destroyed my life.” This chilling statement could have referred equally to how she saw her tormentor or to how her tormentor saw her; the two were interchangeable and inseparable. Alexa was also seeing her own internal tormentor. The more Alexa became conscious of the state of “possession” in which she had lived, the greater her sense of alienation became. While Alexa’s suicidal feelings intensified during this time, she remained largely unconscious of her hatred toward her objects and toward the internal “agent” that had destroyed so much of her life. Instead, she complained that her isolation felt unendurable and unending.4 It was the awareness of this that Alexa wanted ultimately to obliterate. My fears that Alexa might kill herself abated after a session three months into her analysis when Alexa talked for the first time of having concern for herself. She arrived and said that earlier that day she had had a vivid image of herself as a terrified seventeen-year-old standing alone in a dark corner. “It was like seeing myself for the first time standing alone in the room where I waited for the men to come. I want to put my arms around her and to comfort her. I want to tell her I would take her away if I could. I couldn’t do that then, I didn’t know how. But I wish I could go back and do that now.” I thought that Alexa had been able to use my understanding to observe herself in the past and to begin to think about her experience – and to bear it. In acknowledging what had happened to Alexa and in bringing her hatred to light, there was the danger of triggering some form of acting out as a defence against psychosis. Alexa insisted that she did not feel angry or hateful toward Marius – on the contrary, he was the one who had made her feel wanted and because of this, he still held power over her. What she wanted more than anything else was to be pure. She told me, “I imagine him walking into the room and shooting me in the head. And then it would finish. When I am lying on the ground dead, I want him to kick my body over and over again until I am finished off completely. I imagine him kicking me until there is nothing left of my mutilated body. I want him to finish off the job he started.” She paused and then, smiling wanly, said, “Everybody loves someone who is dead.” I replied, “And that would be your victory, you would be loved.” Alexa said, “I would be pure. I would be free of everything, all the badness, all my shame. It would be like it was at the beginning.” Alexa’s wish to be killed by her tormentor could be seen as her masochistic way of disavowing her hatred of him, turning it back towards herself in order to be “pure” and to triumph over him. But there was another powerful

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dynamic at work that had to do with Alexa’s wish to return to a state of fusion and “purity”, a time when she had felt enveloped in someone else’s mind and totally secure. In her fantasy, Alexa enacted what she imagined Marius wanted to do to her in order to feel at one with him, forever in his mind. “Finishing the job”, in Alexa’s terms, was a way of purging herself of badness, freed from shame and torment.The release of death Alexa described was reminiscent of la petite mort, the post-orgasmic unconscious state of sleep, underscored by her sadistic pleasure in the act of annihilation. In her mind, being killed was the inevitable and final climax attached to being loved – or hated. The urgency with which Alexa told me about her fantasy also made me aware that she needed me to see her desperation and to be able to think with her about who and what had destroyed her life, to “finish the job” of exorcising her devil. As her fantasies about being destroyed came to light, so did her hatred of her “captors.” Although I knew that Alexa wanted to show me her anxiety about her own destructiveness, in listening to her exultant fantasies about being murdered, I felt irritated more than anything else.Alexa was the martyr enthralled by her own suffering.While Alexa’s smiles, apologies, and self-abasement had been meant to elicit my sympathy and protectiveness, which to some extent they had, her extreme masochism along with her belittling of my concern for her also provoked sadistic and punitive feelings in me. Although I had interpreted how risky it felt to see herself as someone worth caring for, it was not until the end of the following session that I commented on her obvious pleasure in being a victim. For the first time her way of relating to me – and to herself – changed. She looked hurt and outraged, as if I had betrayed her, and without a word stomped out of my consulting room. I was left feeling very guilty and wondered if I would ever see her again. Alexa arrived the next week, smiling as usual. After an uncomfortable silence, she said: I can see how masochistic I’ve been. It’s how I’ve lived. I know it, it’s familiar. And I know I’ve provoked my husband to punish me – I felt better when he hit me. It’s all right when I suffer and I’m in pain. It’s the only time when I don’t feel guilty. . . . You made me angry last week. I was angry when I left. At the end of last week’s session you suggested that I was smiling because I get pleasure from being a victim. I was really angry that you said that. But as soon as I left the room I started feeling guilty. I can see it’s my default position – I feel guilty whenever I feel angry. I also realized that I probably wanted to provoke you into saying something hurtful to me last week so that you would punish me. I was so angry with my daughter-in-law – with all of my family.

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Alexa’s anger towards me and her insight into her masochistic behaviour made me feel for the first time that I was with someone who had an “inside” and whom I could begin to trust in our work together. In the following session, Alexa brought in a notebook she had bought over the weekend to write down all the thoughts that were racing uncontrollably around in her head. She said, “This is my friend now. I now have someone who will listen to me.” Breaking the spell Several weeks later, Alexa said that while she had been writing in her notebook she had suddenly had a vivid image of being watched. This time it wasn’t by Marius, but by a woman. Alexa recalled an evening when she was brutally raped by a large group of soldiers. What made it especially horrifying was that there was a woman standing at the back of the room directing the men, laughing and smiling. She was the instigator, the maître de scene. Alexa said, “This was my mother. It was my mother who stood there and watched, not my father. She is the agent.” I replied, “Yes and you have also taken your mother’s part. As the agent, you instigated your abuse, watched yourself being abused, and enjoyed it.” Alexa remained silent for several minutes, staring into space. She then turned to me, saying,“Yes, it’s true.There were two ‘me’s’ in the room watching myself. One ‘me’ was horrified and wanted to help but didn’t know how, and the other ‘me’ was laughing. This is the mad ‘me’.” Alexa’s recognition of her mad “me” was a turning point in her analysis. From this point I was confident that Alexa had the psychological means not to slip back into her abusive relationship with her husband or to engage in other abusive relationships as a way of containing her feelings and her hatred in particular. In facing her own destructiveness, she could begin to think for herself. Discussion Some technical considerations There were several warning signs at the start of Alexa’s analysis alerting me to dangers that might lie ahead. As I have mentioned, Alexa made it clear from the beginning that she would only come once a week and that she would sit facing me. I did not see this as Alexa’s resistance to analysis but rather as a sign of her fragility. When I later realized the full extent of her compliance in relation to what others asked of her, I was in fact reassured that she had, unusually, asserted her terms with me so clearly. Because of the

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severity of her trauma, I was also aware that Alexa was terrified of unleashing feelings she had been unable to manage in the past. This was confirmed in my counter-transference when Alexa began telling me about her abusive captivity. At the end of these sessions, I felt contaminated, as if I had taken in something highly toxic. My compulsion to write detailed notes after the sessions signalled how vital it was to try to expel these feelings and to put them in a form that could be thought about, much as Alexa had discovered with her notebook. While Alexa had in some ways determined the framework for her analysis, I was also aware of her tendency to idealize her objects and of the intense erotic transference she had formed in relation to her “captor”, Marius. It would have been dangerously easy to fall into the role of the captor myself. Alexa’s ingratiating behaviour and her idealization of me was marked from the outset. She virtually asked for permission to speak and then to have thoughts and feelings, while continually checking to see what my response would be. In turn, she elicited in me a strong desire to protect her, to the point of wanting to break therapeutic boundaries, e.g. of not charging her a fee, of wanting to allow her to contact me at any time, or of giving her extra time at the end of sessions – all of which I resisted. In being aware of my own desire to break the boundaries in the guise of protectiveness, I could also see how susceptible she was to forming a psychotic erotic transference to me. My counter-transference also made me wonder about the captor’s response to his hostage/victim and whether certain victims can have this powerful effect on their captors, particularly if they need this kind of narcissistic idealization as a way of confirming their own existence. This may account for the symbiotic relationship between the two. As Alexa developed more trust in me and in the analytic process, she became less concerned to gauge my responses, and I felt more spontaneous in my interventions. I knew she was highly motivated to use her analysis; she never missed sessions, she arrived punctually, and she struggled to tell me what was in her mind when she was with me, searching for the exact words to describe her feelings and thoughts. Perhaps because she was facing me and could see that I was listening to her, she did not become anxious when I was silent and seemed to trust that I would not impose my own views on her. She also did not hesitate to correct me if I had misunderstood something she said, no matter how slight. Rather than feeling persecuted by her, I felt she was striving to show me how to give her the mirroring that she had not received in the past. This detailed exchange confirmed that I could think about her and keep her in my mind. I think it also enabled Alexa to find her own words and to discover that she had a mind that could generate thoughts and ideas of her own. This was an important aspect of her being able to develop a sense of self-agency.

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Masochistic attachment Alexa manifested a history of dependency on people who treated her as an object for their narcissistic use and who seemed unable to think about or understand her internal world, much less have any curiosity about it. From an early age, Alexa had no one capable of providing a containing function for her feelings and no emotional recognition. Without this, she was unable to develop an observing ego that could help her to identify and process her own feelings. She was able to have only the most rudimentary internal dialogue with herself. In order to survive emotionally, Alexa had to feel the feelings of the other; in this way, she tried to enter into the other’s psychic world. Replicating her bond with a narcissistic object also gave her an illusion of empathy. Khan argues that “all perversions accrue from a symbiotic complicity between two persons, which is both unconscious and empathic” (Khan, 1979, p. 201). Alexa re-created a perverse attachment to others that prevented her from becoming psychotic and provided her with a semblance of empathy. However, this kind of attachment comes at a price.The ego is an ersatz construction constantly in search of securing attachment to an external object, unable to exist independently. In addition to forming a symbiotic identification with her mother, I thought Alexa had tried to engage her mother’s mind by serving as a mirror to her mother’s narcissism. As long as Alexa reflected back to her mother what her mother wanted to see, she could feel at one with her. By identifying with her mother’s projections of her as the “bad”, degraded one, Alexa could establish her mother’s superiority and goodness both within her mother’s mind and within her own mind. Alexa felt she could only have her mother’s attention when she was being criticized or was bad, otherwise she ceased to exist in her mother’s mind. Without an experience of maternal containment (Bion, 1963), she had no means of self-representation. By latching on to her mother’s feelings and thoughts, as Alexa had repeated with Marius, Alexa’s own narcissistic needs were suppressed in the service of some form of attachment.That was the unconscious psychic deal that had allowed Alexa to survive without becoming psychotic. Alexa’s perception of herself as “bad” was not only a way of creating an identity for herself but it may have provided her with an explanation for her failure to be loved and thought about. Rousillon refers to “pre-ambivalent primary guilt” as the unconscious guilt induced by primary maternal rejection (Roussillon, 2016).5 Paramount in the experience of rejection is the mother’s failure to tolerate the infant’s sadism. This was clearly evident in Alexa’s mother’s treatment of her as an older child and may well have been a difficulty in her infancy, contributing to Alexa’s inability to process her affects.

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In developing what James describes as a “premature ego” as a defence against being overwhelmed by affects, Alexa had internalized a perverse scenario that provided a form of psychic containment (James, 1960). The recurring tableau of being beaten by a number of men while being watched seemed to have a variety of meanings. Initially, I thought it depicted Alexa’s fantasy of Oedipal triumph; her fantasy of being the object of desire for her father, supplanting her mother. This might have explained Alexa’s unconscious need and relief at being punished for her “crime.” However, unlike the neurotic masochism that Freud links to Oedipal guilt, Alexa’s masochism seemed more primary. When the woman as “agent” appeared in Alexa’s memory, I wondered whether the beating scenario was more closely linked to Alexa’s pre-Oedipal hatred of her mother and unconscious guilt of her murderous feelings towards her (Freud, S. 1919). One explanation does not preclude the other. At the core of the perverse scenario was the reiteration of Alexa being perceived as “bad” by the other. Khan links precocious ego development to “the creation in the inner psychic reality of a ‘collated internal object’ ”(Khan, 1979, p. 120). While the “collated object” serves a similar purpose to the transitional object, it remains static because it cannot be internalized. The “collated object” reflects the two-dimensional experience of the self as a self-object rather than as an object related to by another. Because of this, the “collated object” has to be continually sought after and re-created externally. Khan explains that because the collated internal object depends on the “presence and compliance” of an external object, it can only be experienced and actualized “through specific sexual events” (Khan, 1979, p. 120). Khan is here referring to an aspect of sexual perversion. It is possible to understand Alexa’s repeated scenarios of abuse as an enactment of her collated internal object – an enactment that made her feel alive because it brought to life a relation to an internal object that was otherwise experienced as non-existent. While Alexa’s enactments with Marius and with her husband were sexualized, I think it is questionable to understand her behaviour as primarily derived from a masochistic drive for sexual pleasure. In the case of Alexa, the sexualization of her abuse provided a release for affects which were incapable of being processed and threatened to be overwhelming. Kulish and Holtzman, in arguing for a broader definition of perversion, stress the need to manage and control excitement either by projecting it onto an object, as in fetishism, by addictive behaviour, or, particularly in the case of women, by masochistic relations in which sexual excitement is induced in the other as a means of control while it is suppressed in the self (Kulish and Holtzman, 2014). For Kulish and Holtzman, excitement (in the form of sexualization) “serves as a way of warding off an inner sense of vulnerability” (Kulish and Holtzman, 2014, p. 311). However, in the case of extreme forms of

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masochistic perversion, vulnerability arises not only from a failure on the part of the mother (or maternal environment) to manage and modify the intense affects of her child. More specifically, the child is left having to manage feelings of hostility towards its object that are overwhelming and threaten its very survival. This is the underlying hostility that fuels and is present in perversions of any kind. Managing primitive states of aggression, frustration, distress and physical excitation then becomes inextricably, psychically bound to sexual excitement as this is the way in which affects have been managed by the mother. There is a further aspect of Alexa’s sexual masochism that is important to consider in relation to the psychological need to surrender. Ghent, elaborating on Winnicott’s idea of regression as a surrender of the false self in “the hope of a new opportunity”, distinguishes between the concept of surrender and submission. Ghent writes: . . . our notion of surrender . . . is in some way the obverse of resistance. Resistance is the name given to motivational forces operating against growth or change and in the direction of maintenance of the status quo. Surrender might be thought of as reflective of some ‘force’ towards growth, for which, interestingly, no satisfactory English word exists. Submission, on the other hand, either operates in the service of resistance, or is at best adaptive as an expedient. (Ghent, 1990, p. 110) When the passionate longing to surrender is frustrated, Ghent argues, it then becomes manifest in some instances of masochism; submission becomes the obverse of surrender. Masochistic re-enactments may, consequently, be understood as a “continuing longing to surrender this false self in the hope of a ‘new beginning’ “(Balint, 1968). Any movement in this direction would likely lead to the re-experience of the mortification and annihilation anxiety that first led to the development of the false self. One might expect a certain ‘invitation’ of masochism and a submissive attitude, ‘mistaking’ submission for surrender . . .” (Ghent, 1990, p. 117).6 The sexual pleasure linked so commonly with masochism takes on a different meaning within the context of surrender.The desire to be known and, in this respect, penetrated by the object through the act of surrendering oneself to another is attempted, in the case of masochistic relations, by means of submissiveness to the violent impingements of another. As Ghent explains, “Fantasies of being raped can have all manner of meanings, often superimposed. Among them . . . one will almost always find, sometimes deeply buried, a yearning for what I am calling surrender” (Ghent, 1990, p. 118). Within this theoretical framework, Alexa’s idealization of her abuser and her

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excitement at being at his mercy – to the point of her extinction – can be understood as stemming from her own desire, gone awry, to surrender and to be known to an other. Belief systems, trauma and identity Alexa attributed her masochistic relationships to her need for secure attachment, at whatever cost. Her psychopathology did not involve an identification with her abuser in Freud’s understanding of this – as an attempt to take the place of a problematic object relationship that involves unsupportable loss (Freud, S. 1917). Nor was Alexa attempting to defend herself and master her abuse by identifying with her aggressor (Freud, A. 1936). Alexa formed a particular kind of object relation with her abusers, allowing herself to be used by them in any way they wanted in order to maintain her attachment. Although she was not captured by force and had sought out her abusers, her childhood experience was of being held captive in a terrifying, abusive relationship. In this respect her psychopathology can be related to Stockholm Syndrome. Alexa adapted to her early experience of virtual captivity by joining up; it was this adaptation that set the stage for her later, voluntary, submissive victimhood. Bohleber understands this process of adaptation as a means of reconciling two irreconcilable belief systems or realities. The hostage reconciles this conflict by adopting a belief system congruent with the conditions of his captivity. The process of radically replacing one’s belief system is described by Bohleber in relation to the indoctrination of terrorists. Bohleber writes: Through such traumatizing treatment, the function of internal objects to give one a sense of safety collapses and is replaced by what becomes the only available object: the leader, the guru, or the group as a whole, and the identification with group ideals. (Bohleber, 2010, p. 200) Bohleber’s observation underscores the fluidity of our attachment patterns, along with our sense of identity, and gives weight to the environmental and political factors that have a determining influence on our belief systems. In Alexa’s case, her will had been held hostage within the context of a perverse familial environment. The trauma Alexa faced was not in being captured – she would say she had never known anything different – but, paradoxically, in her release through the process of her analysis. Bailly describes “the traumatic process . . . (as) a shock against which the psyche cannot defend itself without a pathological outcome” (Bailly, 2012, p. 3).The “shock against which the psyche cannot defend itself ” can be understood as

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a rupture in the belief system which the ego has evolved as a way of explaining, and gaining an illusory control over, reality. Our belief system, or system of theories, also serves to guide and regulate our perceptions of the environment and the actions that are required for our survival. Our belief system underpins the ego’s sense of going on being.7 The belief system that evolves within us can be seen as the product or outcome of our object relations. Disabling the system of belief will therefore be experienced as an annihilation of the ego, much like Bohleber’s description of the sudden failure of internal objects to protect the ego under extreme circumstances. Recovery (i.e. survival), is then contingent, as Bailly also argues, on the ego’s ability to create a new belief system or, in other words, to adapt psychically to a set of new object relations. Otherwise, the ego is caught between irreconcilable systems of belief that offer no psychic foothold. Bohleber stresses that psychic survival depends on the ability of the ego to reconstruct attachment with a new object, from which a new identity is re-formulated. For Bohleber, most importantly, this is a process of constructing and recovering meaning in order to create a sense of self in time and space. He writes: . . . there is no trauma without a remnant of internal structures that give meaning. That which is experienced as the unexpected initially stands on the ground of what can be expected, which is what gives it meaning and from which it sets itself off.The massive traumatic experience then shatters this basis by destroying the confidence in the common symbolically mediated world, which binds us pre-consciously and which we take for granted in all interactions. In that sense, the trauma represents a crux for all hermeneutic-narrative and constructive theories. What these can no longer grasp, especially in cases of massive traumatic experiences, is the breakdown of the constructive process itself, with which we generate meanings. Moore (1999) offers an interesting possibility for the solution of this problem within constructivist theories. The destructive element, the immediate traumatizing violence, eludes the giving of meaning. What remains is a ‘too much,’ excess, a massive surplus, which breaks through the psychic structure and cannot be ‘contained’ by meaning. Krystal seems to be describing much the same thing with his term ‘surrender’. This is why a psycho-economic conceptualization is needed, in addition to an object relations theory conceptualization. (Bohleber, 2010, p. 96) The deconstruction of identity that takes place under extreme conditions of captivity not only strips the individual of self-agency but of the foundations

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by which meaning is constructed. It is this rupture that comprises the trauma of the Stockholm Syndrome victim. Alexa’s response to what we could see as the traumatic event of her “captivity” by Marius was not an adaptation whereby she re-edited her belief system but it was congruent with an already existing belief system and in this respect entirely consistent with her experience of reality. Her form of attachment had been a symbiotic one to begin with and continued to be so. Her profound masochistic view of herself and way of relating can be understood as a defensive construction to avoid trauma and to create a hermeneutic narrative. Seen in this light, her self-destructive behaviour was not so much a manifestation of repetition compulsion but rather a continuation of her belief system. Alexa relied completely on her captor because she had invested him with all the mental functioning that she had failed to establish for herself. He determined her reality. As she explained, “I don’t want to tell you about Marius or my husband. It is a betrayal. But more than that – it is my secret and telling it is a loss. I don’t have anything now.” The crucial, and tragic, difference between Alexa and an actual hostage is that the hostage has most likely had a different experience of reality prior to being held captive. This was not the case for Alexa. After many months in analysis, Alexa described herself in constant, tortuous pain. She compared her pain to the unbearable moment when blood starts to circulate within a limb that has gone to sleep. Lifton describes a similar state within terrorist groups of being psychically asleep and refers to “a shared state of aggressive numbing” (Lifton, 1999). What was traumatic for Alexa, beyond the cruelty she had been subjected to by others, was her increasing awareness of her own madness and her participation in the perverse world of her parents, her lover, and her husband. Her reversion to self-punishment and persecutory fantasies, rather than being driven by destructive impulse, can be thought of as a form of therapeutic resistance that protected her from an awareness of irreconcilable realities – and, as in the perversions, protected her from an awareness of not existing in someone else’s mind. In such instances, resistance within therapy is not a means to perpetuate a destructive way of being but, more specifically, it acts as a firewall against psychic rupture. Morality and the role of the observing ego “I know the difference between right and wrong, but I can’t say no.”Although Alexa acknowledged that what Marius had done to her was wrong and that her family life was not “normal”, she nevertheless remained enthralled by her captor perhaps because of her successful adaptation within the perverse environment of her family. Her adaptation seemed to be based on a powerful pact between her ego and a superego that told her to be compliant and

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submissive at all times and sadistically derived pleasure from her subjection – “maybe they will like me now?” This was a pact that both safeguarded and prevented Alexa from having a mind cognizant of her reality. At the same time, there was a part of Alexa that knew she was being abused and could differentiate between right and wrong. She had some capacity to observe – and assess – her external reality even though she was helpless in the face of it. The invisible handcuffs in her mind kept her captive. As she repeatedly emphasized, there was no one to turn to, no one whom she could trust, no one to help; she could only watch herself as in a film, as an object existing for and possessed by others. It was this watchful internal presence, the kernel of an observing ego, which made me hopeful of her recovery. Against the backdrop of whatever belief system or attachment pattern that is grafted within our psyches, is our experience of reality and how it affects our sensations and perceptions. For example, someone can step on my toe and tell me it doesn’t hurt, and yet there is a painful sensation that I have to manage in some way, perhaps even to disavow. If there is a witness, however, to the fact that I groaned when my toe was stepped on and who saw that it hurt, the act and the sensation are verified and together this forms a concept of truth and knowing what truth is. The mother’s mind provides the first experience for the infant of being witnessed by an “other”. The mirroring interaction between the mother and her infant marks the infant’s affects and in this way establishes the truthfulness of the infant’s experience. Fonagy, Gergely, Jurist and Target illustrate these processes of mentalization and how they pave the way towards the distinction between inner and outer reality and, as a result, create the capacity “to play with reality” (Fonagy, Gergely, Jurist and Target, 2002). The internalization of the mother’s capacity to observe (and think about) her child is not only an essential component for ego growth but for the development of an observing ego within the child, an observing ego that helps the ego to discriminate affects and their veracity in relation to external reality. The observing ego functions as a litmus test of reality for the ego. In this capacity, the observing ego can mediate between the ego and the superego in helping the ego to adapt to reality. While Alexa managed the intensity of her feelings by dissociating from them, she did not disavow her reality. She had enough of an observing ego to know that there was something she could not bear to know about herself. How she was able to sustain an observing ego that could look on as her ego was taken over by the “other” remains a question. The Algerian torturer/victim narrator of Ferrari’s Where I Left My Soul (2012) sums up this paradox when he declares, “I always knew there was something in loyalty that was superior to truth” (p. 69). The fact that he “always knew” belies the existence of some truth and a choice, however unconscious, to look the other way.

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Conclusion This clinical description illustrates the multiple and complex psychological forces at work in the psychodynamics of capture-bonding. Just as there is no single pre-eminent psychological factor, there is no single theoretical framework that adequately explains this phenomenon. Instead there is a variety of theoretical approaches that together constitute an overall picture from different perspectives, much as a kaleidoscope offers different patterns of the same image. For example, while attachment theory is clearly relevant, it does not address the role of unconscious masochistic drives in shaping our internal and external realities. Self-destructiveness and destructive behaviour toward others is not simply the outcome of a perverse attachment pattern. As in the case of Alexa, her masochistic pleasure in being abused not only became her raison d’être but was also a perpetual source of gratification within her virtual control. The exhilarating power of being held captive (and being her own captor) was a compelling force in her prolonged captivity that cannot be underestimated or explained away by environmental factors. This dynamic is inevitably powerful in other instances of capture-bonding. Each theory, whether it concerns aggression, sexuality, narcissistic development, object relations and attachment, identification processes, or systems of belief and subjectivity has a part to play in this multi-faceted story. Notes 1 Stockholm Syndrome is a term coined by the Swedish criminologist and psychiatrist, Nils Bejerot, in a news broadcast in 1974. The syndrome was originally defined by the American psychiatrist, Frank Ochberg, to assist in the management of hostage situations. 2 Marius’ seductive correspondence could be described as a form of “love-bombing”, a common technique used by cults to recruit new members. 3 Patty Hearst describes her own similar experience: “ . . . when I was first arrested and first going through the therapy with the psychiatrist because I did feel really horrible. And I . . . it was the kind of guilt that was . . . a lot of it stemmed from feeling so horrible that my mind could be controlled by anybody, that I was so fragile that this could happen to me. . . . And there was the feeling of guilt and self-loathing and despair and pain that was just overwhelming.” Interview on CNN’s Larry King Live (22/01/2002). 4 This experience of isolation has been described by many concentration camp survivors, e.g. Paul Celan, Jean Amery, Primo Levi, Bruno Bettelheim and others, and may well have driven them to suicide. In his 1926 paper “Inhibitions, symptoms, and anxiety,” Freud stresses the danger of being excluded from “the horde” (Freud, S. SE 20, p. 139). There is not only the isolation (and guilt) of actual survival but without our attachment to others there is also a threat to our very identity. To be set apart or excluded is the most feared condition in any society because it severs the person from his existence and sense of self; it is perhaps symbolically equivalent to being left without a mental container. 5 Freud identifies the unconscious guilt in moral masochism as the need for punishment and links it to the death instinct. See Freud, S. (1924). “The economic problem

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of masochism.” SE 19. Elaborating on Freud’s theory, Klein postulated the idea of “precocious” or “premature guilt” as occurring at an early stage of development when the ego is not strong enough to bear guilt and the object then becomes internalized as a persecutor. See Klein, M. (1957). Envy and Gratitude. London: Tavistock. 6 The Jungian analyst Rosemary Gordon, describes masochism as the shadow side of the need to venerate that gives rise to the sacred experience of the ego’s surrender to the Self. (See Gordon, R. (1993). Bridges: Metaphor for Psychic Processes. London: Karnac Books.) 7 Our belief systems are also to some extent predicated on memory and what constitutes memory. The process of extracting “confessions” from prisoners through the application of torture serves as another form of brainwashing, effectively changing the mind of the prisoner. Oliver Sacks notes, “Once such a story or memory is constructed, accompanied by vivid sensory imagery and strong emotion, there may be no inner, psychological way of distinguishing true from false – or any outer, neurological way.” (Sacks, O. (February 21, 2013). “Speak, Memory.” New York Review of Books.)

References Bailly, L. (2 November 2012). “A new approach to the traumatic phenomenon.” Paper presented at the Anna Freud Centre Colloquium, London. Balint, M. (1968). The Basic Fault:Therapeutic Aspects of Regression. London: Tavistock. Bion, W.R. (1963). Elements of Psycho-Analysis. London: Maresfield Reprints. Bohleber, W. (2010). Destructiveness, Intersubjectivity, and Trauma. London: Karnac Books. Ferrari, J. (2012). Where I Left My Soul. Translated by Strachan, G. London: Maclehose Press, Quercus. Fonagy, P., Gergely, G., Jurist, E., and Target, M. (2002). Affect Regulation, Mentalization, and the Development of the Self. New York: Other Press. Freud, A. (1936). The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defence. London: The Hogarth Press (1968). Freud, S. (1917). “Mourning and melancholia.” SE, 14. Freud, S. (1919). “A child is being beaten: A contribution to the study of the origins of sexual perversion.” SE, 17. Ghent, E. (1990). “Masochism, submission, surrender – masochism as a perversion of surrender.” Contemporary Psychoanalysis, 26: 108–136. James, M. (1960). “Premature ego development: Some observations on disturbances in the first three months of life.” International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 41: 288–294. Khan, M. (1979). Alienation in Perversions. London: The Hogarth Press. Kulish, N., & Holtzman, D. (2014). “The widening scope of indications for perversion.” Psychoanalytic Quarterly, 83: 281–313. Lifton, R.J. (1999). Destroying the World to Save It: Aum Shinrikyo, Apocalyptic Violence, and the New Global Terrorism. New York: Holt. Roussillon, R. (2013). “The function of the object in the binding and unbinding of the drives.” International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 94: 257–276. Tuch, R. (2010). “Murder on the mind: Tyrannical power and other points along the perverse spectrum.” International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 91: 141–162.

4 THE ORIGIN OF MORALITY

The self is a relation which relates itself to its own self. . . . Søren Kierkegaard

Introduction This chapter was inspired by my therapeutic work with Alexa, a woman who had been held hostage for a year and a half. Throughout this time, she had been sexually abused and tortured.What was remarkable about the situation is that from an external observer’s viewpoint, she could have escaped at any time, despite the dangers this may have posed. But she was captive in her mind, not only to her abuser, but to an extremely masochistic way of relating to herself that had its roots in her childhood history. During the course of my work with this patient, she indicated on a number of occasions when she described the torments she had endured at the hands of her family and later, her abusers, that, although she accepted her abuse as “normal”, she knew, even as a small child, that it was not. She said, “There was always a part of me that knew what was happening was wrong.” It was ultimately this part of my patient’s mind that enabled her to seek help and confront her internal abusive relations. It was my patient’s comment that she knew something was wrong, that first made me question where this knowledge came from, particularly when, as a small child, she had had hardly any contact with others outside her immediate family so she had very little exposure to how other families treated each other.

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What I became aware of was that even within a highly elaborated and well established belief system, there was a part of my patient’s mind that would very occasionally reveal an alternative interpretation and experience of reality, antithetical to her belief system. It seemed to arise out of some cognitive dissonance that could not be managed – neither denied, disavowed nor dissociated. From my perspective, my patient had enough of an internal link with reality, regardless of how unconscious it often was, to have survived her perverse environment without becoming psychotic herself. I am proposing that what I am calling this “internal link with reality” provides the clue to the roots of our moral sensibility, much like a metaphorical compass that orientates us in the world of behaviours and their meaning. Although the question of the roots of our moral sensibility arose in the course of my clinical work, and I will refer to another clinical instance, this is not a clinical exposition but a theoretical exploration of psychoanalytic assumptions about the intrapsychic development of morality. I will start by outlining some central philosophical and religious views on the origin of morality, followed by psychoanalytic theories on the development of individual guilt and conscience and the evolution of social morality along with psychological studies of early behaviour demonstrating moral choice. I argue that these theories only partially explain how our internal sense of morality develops; the source of our morality can be found in the initial mirroring of the mother that is fundamental to the development and functioning of the observing ego in relation to the ego. It is the internal dialogue between the ego and the observing ego that is crucial to our ability to process and manage our relationship between internal and external reality and that establishes our conception of ourselves as moral beings. Brief theoretical background Within any human group we can observe the existence not only of norms but of a consensual moral order or morality that governs the behaviour of the group, its power relations, its sense of identity, and its response to conflict and threat. While the norms and the moral order these norms reflect may differ from one group or culture to another, they are nevertheless vital to the group’s existence. Just as this is evident within the group, it is also a fundamental component in the individual psyche that forms the basis for our social relations, guided and bound by emotions of love and hate. Prior to Freud, debates about the concept of morality and its origin centred on the premise that morality presented an a priori case for the existence of God. The German philosopher Immanuel Kant, in his Critique of Pure Reason, argued that all moral thought requires the existence of God. Striving for the good, the summum bonum, must, Kant argued, be predicated on the

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condition of an afterlife in which goodness is rewarded. As an afterlife must exist, God must exist to provide this.1 Kant assumes that “on the principles of pure practical reason progress in infinitum towards that perfect accordance” must be the “object of our will” that necessarily rests on the supposition of the immortality of the soul. Kant concludes that immortality is “inseparably connected with the moral law” (Kant, 2007, Chap. 2, Part IV). What Kant failed to question is our belief in an afterlife and whether the commonality of this belief can be used as evidence that it exists in reality.2 Putting aside belief in an afterlife, various arguments concerning morality share the common foundation that, if objective moral truths exist, this in itself is proof of God’s existence. In other words, our capacity for moral thought is derived from a higher being. C.S. Lewis, in his book Mere Christianity, argues that “conscience reveals to us a moral law whose source cannot be found in the natural world, thus pointing to a supernatural Lawgiver” (Taliaferro & Marty, 2010). Cardinal Newman, the Anglican-turned - Catholic priest and theologian, argued further that conscience, especially as it may drive people to act outside of their own personal interests, is evidence of the existence of objective moral truths. The existence of moral truths must then be derived from God and are a manifestation of God’s existence. As Newman writes in his Letter to the Duke of Norfolk, “Conscience is a law of the mind . . . a messenger of him, who, both in nature and in grace, speaks to us behind a veil, and teaches and rules us by his representatives. Conscience is the aboriginal vicar of Christ” (Newman, 1875). These arguments rest on the idea that morality is objective and absolute – an idea challenged by biologists and sociologists who attribute morality to other factors such as natural selection and evolutionary naturalism.The biologist E.O. Wilson (2014) and the philosopher Michael Ruse (2012) argue that morality develops as a result of evolutionary pressures and that moral values do not exist per se, independently of the human mind. C.S. Lewis contends that those who adhere to the idea of evolutionary naturalism nevertheless incorporate objective moral truths in their understanding of evolutionary development. Lewis overlays these arguments with his idea of a “divine command theory” that is instilled within us – in whatever theistic form it may take. Mary Midgley, the English moral philosopher, in her book Are You an Illusion? (2014), re-positions the argument that experience is knowledge as a way of rebutting the recent trend toward scientific empiricism. In asserting the importance of emotions as they inform perception, she also emphasizes the non-material, innate psychological basis for morality. Although Midgley does not ascribe morality to God, in stressing our mental ability to solve problems and to use our imagination – and empathy – she describes an aspect of free will. It is not merely a question of how neurotransmitters

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operate within our brain, it is how meaning is attributed to and derived from our experience of reality. Without tracing the numerous philosophical perspectives on morality, the central question I want to address is, “Where does our sense of morality and our moral capacity come from? Is it from God, is it from our environment, or is it part of our genetic/psychological make-up?” Here I want to turn to moral sense theory, sometimes referred to as sentimentalism, that grounds morality in human emotions.Within moral sense theory, moral knowledge is not inferential, it is innate in the sense of a kind of “ethical intuitionism.”The Chinese philosopher, Mencius (372–289 BC), along with orthodox Confucian followers, believed that morality was the application of basic, innate human emotions. These consisted of empathy, shame, modesty and the sense of right and wrong. However, even in linking morality to emotions, we are left with the problem of how we develop a sense of right and wrong in the first place. And how do our emotions reflect and shape our perception of reality much less any sense of what is good and bad? For Freud, morality evolves as a means of structuring and containing the conflict between individual and group needs. He first identified this conflict in his essay “Civilization and its discontents” (1930). The survival of the group necessitated that individual desires (instincts) assume a secondary position in relation to the group as a whole. Morality is then rooted in the socialization of the individual within the group by means of authority figures (i.e. parents) who become internalized mentally to form the individual superego. The basis for morality is clearly cited in this conflict between internal and external forces that requires repression and control of libidinal impulses (primarily aggression). It is precisely this conflict that, according to Freud, creates the experience of shame and guilt as the group presents an external ideal to which the individual needs to conform in order to belong to the group and for his own survival. What is striking about Freud’s thesis is that it locates the development of morality within a group evolutionary process. In this respect, morality is learned behaviour and could be equated to the group’s belief system or prevailing ideology; it is therefore contextual and fluid in nature. The role of group prohibition in terms of the concept of taboo is of primary importance to Freud’s argument. Within the group, the two principal taboos that maintain group cohesion and survival are: “not to kill the totem animal and to avoid sexual intercourse with members of the totem clan of the opposite sex” (Freud, 1950 p. 32). Freud relates this primitive taboo to the psychological development of the child who must learn to dominate his incestuous longings, i.e. his wish to kill off the father and to possess the mother. The Oedipus complex is firmly positioned as the root of prohibition and subsequent morality.

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In overcoming his incestuous longings, the child is helped by the example of a loving father (metaphorical and otherwise) whom he can aspire to be like. This process of internalizing an image of an ideal and behaviour associated with the ideal is also apparent, Freud argues, within the group in its need for a good leader (Freud, 1930). In his theory of narcissism, Freud sites the emergence of the ego ideal, that is founded on and perpetuates the infant’s narcissistic experience of being loved, and a self-observing agency related to it. Both ego ideal and the related function of self-observation are then incorporated as aspects of the superego (Freud, 1914). In childhood, the ego ideal itself also takes on the characteristics of the group ideal, fortified by group norms.The observing aspect of the ego is primarily conceived as a regulatory function to check out the ego’s behaviour vis-à-vis the superego ideals. However, this does not help us in understanding the dissonance that regularly occurs between the individual and the group – except as a function of pure narcissism. Melanie Klein advanced Freud’s theory of morality in her observations of young children and infants. Klein hypothesized that it was the dawning awareness of concern for the other that led to a perception of right and wrong, the experience of guilt, and the recognition of internal destructiveness, culminating in the depressive position. Psychoanalytic circles generally agree that Klein’s developmental stage of the depressive position marks the beginning of conscience, in the form of guilt and remorse, and, as such, is the cornerstone upon which morality is built. Prior to this stage, Klein describes the splitting of good and bad that forms the paranoid-schizoid position. I propose that this initial splitting of experience forms the basis by which we are able to discriminate between good and bad and, as such, is the innate precursor of moral judgement. Freud rooted morality and its development in the Oedipus complex that gave rise in turn to superego functioning. Klein, focusing on early infancy, elaborated Freud’s scheme through her conceptualization of the paranoidschizoid position leading to concern for the object, the depressive position, and subsequent markers of internal morality, e.g. guilt and conscience.Whilst there is an extensive literature on the development of morality, contemporary psychoanalytic thinking has not, by and large, questioned Freud and Klein’s basic hypotheses.3 Recent cognitive research confirms much of what Freud and Klein postulated and, along with developments in attachment theory, pushed the starting point of moral awareness and socialization to an even earlier age. Research shows that babies as young as six months are capable of making moral judgements.4 In one experiment with infants between six months and a year old, the babies were given an animated film to watch of simple geometric shapes. A red ball with eyes tries to climb a hill. A yellow square

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helps to push the red ball up the hill. Then a green triangle pushes the red ball back down again. When asked to choose between the “good guy” and the “bad guy”, 80 per cent of the babies chose the helpful yellow square against the green triangle. Although it is possible to argue that this example demonstrates early socialization, it nevertheless indicates that it was the babies’ identification with the red ball that enabled them to make a moral judgement. Such research challenges the significance of the depressive position in moral development and suggests that it may be identification with an object rather than concern for an object as a separate being that is the crucial building block for moral judgement. In her recent book, The Philosophical Baby: What Children’s Minds Tell Us About Truth, Love, and the Meaning of Life, Alison Gopnik (2009), a cognitive psychologist, highlights the physiological differences between an infant’s brain and an adult’s. In the infant, the occipital cortex, in the rear of the brain, is highly active and guides attention to the visual world. The parietal cortex, working in tandem with the occipital cortex, helps the mind to adjust to new stimuli. It is only later in childhood that the prefrontal lobe, responsible for blocking stimuli within the brain to facilitate internally driven attention, develops. Gopnik argues that, because of these differences, the brain of the infant has greater plasticity and greater capacity to absorb information than is the case with an adult brain. While this is not exactly a new revelation to most of us, what is interesting is Gopnik’s extrapolation that this makes for an imaginary inner life that is fundamental to preparation for survival. It is the imaginative capacities of an infant that pave the way for experimentation, adaptation, and relating to the other and the outside world. From this observation, Gopnik argues that moral knowledge is imaginative knowledge and is a direct product of empathy. In Gopnik’s schema, attachment, empathy and morality are inseparable, although none is inevitable. 5 Looking at Gopnik’s scheme from a psychoanalytic perspective, I want to examine the psychological processes that take place in the formation of moral judgement and perception. I am using the terms “morality” and “moral judgement” specifically to refer to what it means to be “true to oneself ” and how this comes about psychically. Empathy and the formation of the observing ego In our clinical work, it is axiomatic that a patient cannot experience concern for others until he has an experience of concern for himself. To differing degrees, this is often the substrate on which analysis rests and that is founded on empathy. This is also at the heart of our understanding of infant psychic development – that without the empathic response of the mother, the infant will be left at the mercy of overwhelming affects that cannot be mediated

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or borne. Bion’s idea of the containing function of the mother essentially describes her capacity for empathy with her baby that enables her to think about her baby’s experience apart from herself (Bion, 1962). Throughout psychoanalytic literature in its diverse theoretical frameworks, there is nevertheless common agreement on the importance of the mother’s (caregiver’s) attunement to the infant’s emotional and physical needs. Empathy is based on being able to imagine being in someone else’s shoes. The ability and internal space to imagine is in turn dependent on the degree to which the infant feels safe within his world. We do not need to turn to neuroscience to observe the paralysis, both mentally and physically, that sets in for infants and adults when they are faced with danger. We are also aware that insecure attachments hinder learning abilities; this happens presumably when a reliable empathic response has not been internalized. Gopnik’s link between attachment and empathy is without dispute. But how does morality come into the picture? If we pursue the argument that empathy with the other originates from self-empathy, then how does empathy for the self, let alone the sense of having a self to empathize with, come into being? If an infant is in distress, the mother will usually frown with concern and perhaps try to soothe the infant either with her voice or by holding the infant or both. Whatever has caused the distress, the fact that the mother has responded provides a validation for the infant’s feelings. It is the beginning of a system of reality checks for the infant, matching the internal distress experienced by the infant with recognition that the distress exists and, at least in the mother’s mind, has a cause. The mother’s mirroring of her baby’s affects not only validates the baby’s perception of what is good (pleasurable) and bad (painful) but, in doing so, she makes the affects more tolerable because they can be observed – and made sense of.The baby’s initial perceptions of pleasure and pain form the foundation for what constitutes the differentiation between good and bad experiences in the baby’s mind. Through the interaction between the infant and the mother, the “bodily ego” is transformed into the ego, i.e. into a mental representation of the self (Freud, 1923). This process strengthens the infant’s developing ego as he realizes increasingly the impact he has on his environment. It also marks the beginning of an alter ego or what I will call, an observing ego – as the internalization of the responsive mother. At the same time, through the mother’s indications of what is wrong and right in her baby’s behaviour, the beginnings of a superego will also take shape. Returning to my patient who confessed she had always known that something was wrong with the way in which she had been raised, it seemed that she had had enough of a nascent observing ego in her mind to provide a mirror, albeit faint, of her own experience and a different view of her

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family’s behaviour toward her.6 As she had not become psychotic, I wondered what had enabled her to develop any affirmative response to herself in the face of such a sadistic mother. Apart from her psychological disposition, I assumed that my patient’s mother, who was extremely narcissistic, had related to her infant daughter initially as an extension of herself and in this way had been able to mirror and respond to her daughter’s affects sufficiently well to establish the basis for the baby’s ego and observing ego to develop. This early fusion would have been threatened when her daughter began to demonstrate separateness and choice, especially against her mother’s wishes. At this point, the mother may have viewed her daughter as alien and projected her split-off negative affects into her child. As my patient evolved in her therapy, I could see how she was able to increasingly recognize and internalize my simple act of naming her feelings, much as the process of mirroring I have described between a mother and her infant. I would first of all identify her affects, commenting, for example, that she seemed sad or angry or confused. In doing this, I was affirming my patient’s innate splitting between good and bad experiences so that she could start to register these feelings on a conscious level. This process enabled me to link her feelings to the events that may have caused them. She could then use this recognition as an internal voice to counteract the sadistic belief system (i.e. her cruel and contemptuous objects) through which she had largely viewed herself. By validating my patient’s affects, I was not only validating her psychic reality but I was pointing to a causal connection between her affects and her external reality – in other words, that feelings don’t just appear out of nowhere. While this is an essential element within any therapeutic process, it highlighted for me the importance of the observing ego as a register of the ego’s experience (i.e. of feelings and perceptions) and as an internal litmus of what could be considered reality and what could not, and ultimately, of what is wrong and what is right – not in terms of social norms and codes but in terms of what tallies with the ego’s experience and what does not. Without this primary means of identifying psychic reality, it becomes impossible subsequently for the ego to determine what constitutes external reality and internal fantasy. This brief clinical account is meant to illustrate how I have come to think about the importance of the observing ego in early development. My account is not presented as “proof ” – all clinical accounts present evidential problems – but as a clinical experience that informed my own thinking in terms of how a very damaged ego could begin to be bolstered, rather than subverted, through the affirmation of affect linked to external reality and how this might relate to the internalization of an observing ego. It is through the mother’s empathic responses that the infant is able to develop an ego and a sense of itself as a separate, active agent within its

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environment and at the same time the dialogue between mother and baby is internalized to form an internal dialogue with an observing ego.7 Fonagy, Gergely, Jurist and Target, in their work on affect regulation and mentalization (2002), emphasize the importance of the mother’s mirroring to enable her child to identify his own affects as distinct from hers. This differentiation then paves the way for further differentiations, between reality and play, between the baby’s inner world and the outer world, and between what Fonagy et al. describe as the “psychic equivalent mode” and the “pretend mode” (Fonagy, Gergely, Jurist and Target, 2002). These developing distinctions in turn help the baby’s ability to tolerate and to be curious about the “other.” The capacity to differentiate also describes Winnicott’s idea of “intermediate potential space” in which “the child, using the parent’s mind, is able to play with reality” (Fonagy, Gergely, Jurist and Target, 2002, p. 267). Through this use of the mind of the “other”, the infant internalizes the capacity to self-mirror that marks the formation of an observing ego.8 I would argue that this is a process that occurs prior to the development of a superego, which in itself is apparent as early as five to six months. The superego is substantially shaped by the repetitive cues that the baby learns from others around him regarding what is good or acceptable behaviour and what is bad or unacceptable behaviour. The rules or ley lines of the superego provide a structure of limitation that assists the ego in managing and adapting to the constraints of reality. The observing ego does no such thing; it anchors the ego in reality and preserves the distinction between internal and external reality. Without an observing ego, there can be no imaginative internal space and no internal touchstone to affirm the ego’s experience. It is within this imaginative space that affects are first marked and that concern – and morality – first appear. What is truth? Our experience of morality is inextricably bound up with what we perceive as true and what we can trust. Being “at one” with ourselves implies that there is a consistency between our internal perceptions and affects and our external actions. Socrates claimed to have been guided by his “daimon”, an inner voice, coming from the gods, that only told him what not to do rather than what to do. This watchful presence alerts the ego to danger, to straying from itself, and, significantly, refrains from giving orders, leaving the ego free to choose its fate. At the same time the “daimon” functions as a person’s “principium individuationis”, it holds the moral knowledge unique to each individual, above and beyond the rights and wrongs of others. Within our own lives and in our work with patients, we are often aware of times when we are not “true” to ourselves or when we can’t “trust”

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ourselves. These moments are experienced as breaches of faith, lapses in our own internal sense of what is right and wrong for us. They are moments of “bad conscience” in which the observing ego has been silenced.9 The dissonance between external and internal expectations is over-ridden by conformity to group norms at the expense of individual needs. This is what Freud described in terms of the process of socialization in which the narcissistic needs of the individual must inevitably be modified and at times subjugated to the group interests. However, this is a process that operates along a spectrum from totalitarian group dominance at one extreme to narcissistic supremacy at another. There is a difference between an individual who decides to hand over his weapons in favour of the group’s protection and the individual who obtains protection by foregoing having a voice in the group’s governance. This dissonance between being “true” to oneself and complying with the belief system of the group, that has also been internalized, is most vividly evident in masochistic patients. The patient I referred to at the beginning of this chapter regarded herself as intrinsically “bad”, “demanding” and “guilty” of selfish desires. She had effectively internalized her family’s belief system in which she had served as the repository for all that was considered “bad.” At the same time, she claims that even as a small child she knew that there was something wrong about this picture of herself. She did not see herself as a victim because this would have meant acknowledging that there was something harmful in the family’s belief system. But she was able to hold on to some idea of “goodness” inside of her, a restricted empathy with herself that she was also able to express towards others. It was this particle of empathy held by a very rudimentary observing ego that enabled my patient to survive because of her awareness of the dissonance between her internal experience of herself and the belief system that defined her reality. The dissonance I am describing in this example is extreme because it is the product of a perverse environment. It often arises within groups that have been subjected to severe attacks and persecution. The group tries to obtain an illusion of security by adherence to an omnipotent narcissistic leader who requires total compliance from the members of the group in exchange for their total care. The belief system necessary to maintain the group is invariably at odds with the interests of its individual members and creates a conflict with an observing ego in its role as safeguarding the ego’s connection with reality. This extreme situation is exemplified in a recent account of the brutal regime imposed by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. In an interview with Comrade Duch, head of the notorious S-21 prison, Duch insisted that he had not tortured and killed prisoners. Strictly speaking, this is likely to be

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true as the torture and killing was done by the guards. Duch clarified that he performed his work as head of the prison as an instrument of the regime. Duch’s interviewer observed that he wanted “it believed that he directed an office filled with files, which he dealt with strictly and seriously over the course of four years, always aiming at the truth. A theoretical task: he finds the idea that a ‘technician of the revolution’ could have blood on his hands insupportable” (Panh, 2013, pp. 123–124). The emphasis was clearly on being a “technician of the revolution”; it was not an idea or a thought that inspired the Angkar, it was pure technique in action (Panh, 2013, p. 71). In this respect “the revolution wasn’t an aspiration; it was a codified practice” (Panh, 2013, p. 72). Duch’s chief regret was that he had never received the title of a “pure instrument of the revolution,” the highest distinction under the regime (Panh, 2013, p. 72). The ideal of the regime was to exterminate the individual in order to empower the mass. The uncoupling of the individual from the regime wrought a fundamental dissociation from human motives. Performance supplanted morality.10 Duch quoted the Central Committee dictum, “To spare you is not profit.To destroy you is no loss” (Panh, 2013, p. 73). As the interviewer commented, “There was no moral law” (Panh, 2013, p. 127).11 With such an ideal, there is no place for an observing ego that will create internal dissonance in an alternative dialogue with the ego. The perverse belief system or ego ideal that has been internalized, and is allied with the superego, requires the observing ego to function in a distorted, complicit way, in support of the perverse internal regime. Recognizable values (e.g. the aesthetics of beauty) continue to exist but are encompassed and subverted within a constructed paradigm of perversion. Just as external conflict cannot be tolerated, neither can internal conflict.This is what Andre Green describes as the “work of the negative”, as a retreat from intersubjective shared reality prompted by negative narcissism. Bohleber comments that “the phenomenon of aggression, the death drive and narcissistic omnipotence lead to a retreat from, if not a rejection of, intersubjectively shared reality, giving rise to a ‘remainder’ that cannot be fully integrated or dissolved” (Bohleber, 2010, p. 20). Bohleber summarizes Green’s position: Negative narcissism does not involve any ego investment that seeks unity with the object; instead, the negatively narcissistic subject seeks a zero level in the attempt to resolve the problems that result from his or her destructive strivings. Destructiveness is, thereby, dissociated from aggression, as the latter is still directed towards the object and can be connected to a positive narcissism. (Bohleber, 2010, p. 20)

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Further, Green makes the important distinction between negative narcissism and masochism. He argues: The difference is that masochism – albeit primal – is a painful state which treats pain and its continuation as the only possible form of existence, life and sensibility. Conversely, negative narcissism tends towards non-existence, anaesthesia, emptiness, the blanc (from the English ‘blank’ which refers to the category neuter); whether this blank cathects affect (indifference), representation, (negative hallucination) or thought (blank psychosis). (Green, 2001, p. 10) In masochism, the painful state ties the self to the object and becomes a manifestation of some form of shared reality. Negative narcissism erases conflict by retreating from the object. As the object is obliterated as an entity in its own right, what Green refers to as “zero level”, so is the subject. The internal “intermediate potential space” described by Winnicott collapses along with the possibility of moral judgement. Duch confessed, “ . . . I didn’t want to know or see the sufferings of those who were there. . . . My feelings prevented me from seeing it. Even if I saw it I didn’t pay attention. . . . I force myself to forget so I won’t be too tormented. That’s how I do it: I try hard to forget, and by dint of trying, I really do forget” (Panh, 2013, p. 95). It is not clear whether Duch is actually telling the truth here or whether he is saying what he thinks his interrogators want to hear. The idea of being able to distinguish between truth and lies becomes academic in any case when there is no morality, only technique and no thought, only action.Whether or not it is “true”, Duch’s explanation that it was his “feelings” that prevented him from seeing the suffering is curious. This is a telling inversion. Was it Duch’s empathy with himself, was it these feelings, that made him turn a blind eye to the sufferings of others? Is this what Green means by the “work of the negative”? The difficulty of seeing and not seeing is that the ego is torn between the dictates of a belief system, embodied by the superego, and the perceptions of an observing ego. Alternative moralities compete for dominance and either choice necessarily produces guilt – the guilt of going against one’s “better judgement” on the one hand and the guilt of going against group norms/ expectations on the other. Kant enumerates three forms or stages of guilt, the first of which is innate guilt (reatus), “so called because it is detectable as early as the first manifestation of the exercise of freedom in the human being” (Kant, 2007, p. 60). Innate guilt is bound to the act of free will and, as such, is the corollary to original sin. According to Kant, innate guilt evolves in its first two stages (those of frailty and impurity) into unintentional guilt

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(culpa). The third stage is deliberate guilt (dolus) that “is characterized by a certain perfidy on the part of the human heart (dolus malus) in deceiving itself as regards its own good or evil disposition and, provided that its actions do not result in evil (which they could well do because of their maxims), in not troubling itself on account of its disposition but rather considering itself justified before the law” (Kant, 2007, p. 60). Kant clearly identifies the “perfidy” of self-deception, particularly as it can be justified by following the law or a “higher order” that may sanction different forms of destructiveness.This begs the question as to whether self-deception can ever be entirely unconscious. It is from the idea of deliberate guilt that Kant extrapolates what he describes as “the radical perversity of the human heart” that allows obedience to the letter of the law to outweigh the source from which these maxims are derived. This is what Arendt later refers to as “radical evil” in which the subject of thought is divorced from experience (Arendt, 1963). Following on from this, I would argue that insofar as it is our experience and perception of ourselves and our reality that constitute what we regard as “true”, when this is dismissed or denied there can be no truth and no morality rooted in selfexperience left. Instead, competing “alternative moralities” are grafted on to the ego, reinforced by a superego aligned with group norms. Rupture, dissonance and dissociation When I stub my toe, I know it hurts. At some primitive level, of which I still have some awareness, I will probably experience the attack as coming from some external force, i.e. from the gods, who in making me feel bad also make me feel I am bad.12 Not only does this idea maintain the centrality of my ego but it also introduces moral judgement. Because the gods do not respond, much less apologize, the hurt is left unacknowledged, the world is no longer the benign place I may have imagined it to be and I am no longer the “me” I thought I was. There has been a rupture in trust in my environment. I can protest that this is unfair but at a more profound level, I will also be likely to feel shame because of the narcissistic damage that has been caused. The rupture with an environment (or object) that has suddenly become un-attuned to me – for no apparent reason – creates a gap between my experience of the world so far and a new set of occurrences that challenges my experience and beliefs. This is what typically happens in the case of trauma. What also happens is that the internal capacity to observe the ego and to retain the ego as an internal object may, at least temporarily, be disabled as a way of managing the dissonance created by rupture. I’d like to give an example from some clinical work of a patient who is struggling to make sense of a situation that bears all the warning signs of a doomed love affair. Sheila is a middle aged divorced woman who has had

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a series of tortured love affairs over many years. When Sheila started her analysis with me she had embarked on a new love affair with a man who was continually disappointing and hurting her. She described their first romantic encounter which had been especially exciting because of its clandestine nature; her lover explained he was in the midst of a divorce and could not afford to be seen in public with another woman. Their tryst took place in a hotel on the outskirts of the city and, as they finished their love-making, he suddenly announced he had to leave for a meeting, leaving her alone in the hotel room. Sheila felt dumped and angry – both with him and herself – and promised herself she would not see him again. As soon as she left the hotel, however, she began to blame herself because she thought she had been sadistic at one point toward her lover and this must have been the reason why he had suddenly left her. Inevitably, they carried on communicating. Intense and lengthy phone calls alternated with long periods of silence. Planning their next rendez-vous became a focal point between them. Their “planning” lasted nearly three months during which time Sheila’s lover’s schedule changed sometimes daily, as did their plans to meet. Dates changed, locations were not decided, hotels switched, and still there was nothing definite. The anticipation of meeting and the subsequent failure to meet epitomized the mixed messages and tantalizing frustration that were increasingly disabling and imprisoning Sheila. Finally, Sheila seemed to have reached her limit. After a long weekend, she rushed into my consulting room, without looking at me, threw her jacket and bag on my chair and hurled herself dramatically on my couch. SHEILA: “OK.

Well, I have decided something. It’s very important and I think it is huge for me. It’s a watershed for me. I haven’t heard from my friend all weekend – last week he was texting me every day – and the last thing he said was that he was going to be in Rome on business. I know that the woman he contacted about some work lives in Rome and I immediately felt suspicious. He hadn’t been planning to go to Rome at all – he was going to be here. But now he’s changed his plans and none of it makes sense anymore. Although I don’t know for sure, I have no proof, I feel that what he’s doing is fitting me inbetween different women. I’m tired of all this. And for the first time there’s a part of me that is saying, ‘Get out now. Don’t wait. Don’t get hurt. Don’t see him.’ I’ve never had these thoughts before. I know my intuition is right. I’ve doubted my last friend and I’ve been angry but I’ve never really had such a strong message inside of me to get out. I know it’s the right thing for me to do but I don’t know how to tell him that I won’t be seeing him. I just don’t feel comfortable seeing him and I don’t know how to explain this to him.”

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CC:  “Can’t

you say what you’ve said to me, that you don’t feel comfortable about seeing him? Why do you need to explain?” SHEILA:  “I can say I don’t feel comfortable but I also want him to know that I’m not the kind of woman who is only interested in sex and having a fling. I am serious and I want a serious relationship. He needs to know that and that I need to be treated with respect. I’m going to wait until Thursday and if I haven’t heard from him by then, it’s over, I’m out.” CC: “You seem to want to give him an opportunity to persuade you he is serious. But how will you trust what he says?” SHEILA: “Yes, you’re right. Otherwise, I know I will start doubting myself. I won’t stop regretting that I ended it because I won’t then know what would have happened. If he understands that this behaviour is unacceptable and if he apologizes, I know I can trust him. . . . I don’t trust myself and whether what I am feeling is right. My intuition hasn’t always been right.” CC: “So there is a conflict between your intuition that tells you to get out and the ‘doubter’ who tells you that these angry feelings are wrong – and warns you not to be destructive. But the ‘doubter’ is also defiant and says, ‘F. . . . ck reality, I will do what I like!’ ” SHEILA:  “Yes! I’m not ready to close the door yet. I have to be certain first. I need proof that I am right, that he really doesn’t care about me.” This short excerpt illustrates the typical contradictory toing and froing that goes on in patients who are grappling with a masochistic state of mind, caught between an emotional reality that is at odds with a deeply entrenched belief system. In contrast to my analysis of Duch’s apparent “negative narcissism”, Sheila had not retreated from the object. She could not resist her compulsive desire not just to remain attached to her object but to continue to establish her victimization at the hands of her object while seeking revenge in a sado-masochistic see-saw. At the same time, there was a part of Sheila, her observing ego, that could see how destructive the situation was for her and was warning her to get out. Sheila’s resistance to heeding this warning can be understood as her way of protecting herself from experiencing a rupture between her actual perceptions and what was essentially the received reality that she was presented with and had had to conform to in past relationships. I have referred to this process in its most extreme manifestation, as dissociation (Covington, 2012). I am using the term “dissociation” following Whitmer’s formulation that the ego defers to the other’s interpretation of reality to construct meaning when subjective experience is unacknowledged or denied (Whitmer, 2001). Dissociation in this respect is similar to Freud’s idea of disavowal insofar as it is a denial of some aspect of external reality. It is not simply the splitting

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entailed in neurotic repression, it is the ego’s defence against trauma and the threat of psychosis. Laplanche and Pontalis emphasize that Freud postulated his mechanism of Verleugnung in the context of fetishism and psychoses. “Inasmuch as disavowal affects external reality, Freud sees it as the first stage of psychosis, and he opposes it to repression: whereas the neurotic starts by repressing the demands of the id, the psychotic’s first step is to disavow reality” (Laplanche and Pontalis, 1980, p. 119). For Freud, it is the conflict between the demands of the id and external reality that creates a split within the ego. However, in my example of Sheila and in my work with my patient who was held captive, it was not only this conflict that was problematic, it was a further, related conflict of her own perception of external reality that could not be accommodated without rupture. Her perception of external reality was bound to her observing ego so that it was not only external reality that had to be denied, but it was also her own nascent observing ego that had to be repressed. If we see the role of the observing ego as an integral part of the process of dissociation, then it provides a locus in which innate morality can be realized and experienced. The idea of being “true to oneself ”, as opposed to conforming to normative morality, takes on a specific psychological meaning. Conclusion In trying to understand how our sense of internal morality develops and how this affects our idea of being “true to oneself ”, I have postulated that: 1 Our sense of morality is rooted in the psychological splitting between good and bad experiences, the baby’s first sensations of pleasure and pain. 2 It is the mother’s empathy, i.e. her mirroring function, which enables the infant’s experiences of good and bad to be validated and internal and external realities to be differentiated. 3 This not only affirms the infant’s psychic reality but enables the infant to internalize and develop an observing ego that takes over the function of witnessing and affirming his psychic reality. 4 When these processes fail, the capacity for healthy splitting is impaired because it is dissociated. At its extreme, this creates psychosis. 5 Feeling subject to someone else’s concern (identification) enables us to identify with a concerned object and to be concerned about others. In healthy psychological functioning, the observing ego and the ego’s belief systems are enough in accord that there is little dissonance for the ego to have to manage. When there is rupture or a belief system that is opposed to

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the observing ego, then dissociation occurs as a way to maintain the continuity of the ego. In thinking about what we mean by morality, it is important to differentiate between the moral norms that we absorb in the process of socialization and what is experienced as inherently good and bad, which may often have a different meaning. Of course, social norms and collective moral values do not arise from the group in isolation from the individual psyche and individual perceptions. Our sense of what we need as individuals to thrive and live creatively with others, while inevitably in flux as the conditions in which we live change, is something that we must ultimately judge and be responsible for based on our ability to empathize and to be concerned about ourselves first and foremost. The observing ego is not a repository of moral values – this is the function of the superego – but preserves a vital link between the ego and external reality. It is this vital link that allows us to mediate between our internal and external worlds and that enables us to harbour an experience of internal truth at any given moment. Knowing our internal truth gives us the possibility of moral action. Notes 1 Kant assumes that “on the principles of pure practical reason progress in infinitum towards that perfect accordance” must be “the object of our will” that necessarily rests on the supposition of the immortality of the soul. Kant concludes that immortality is “inseparably connected with the moral law” (Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, Chap. 2, Part IV). 2 In the 2012 Tanner Lectures on Human Values, the philosopher, Samuel Scheffler, extends Kant’s view of our belief in an afterlife and questions whether our sense of meaning, including our moral precepts, may in fact be predicated on our belief in a “collective afterlife”, i.e. the continued existence of others, rather than our own personal afterlife. See Scheffler, S. (2013). Death and the Afterlife. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 3 I am not undertaking a literature review in this chapter, but it is worth noting: Emde, R.N., Johnson, W.F., and Easterbrooks, M.A. (1990). “The do’s and don’t’s of early moral development: Psychoanalytic tradition and current research.” In The Emergence of Morality in Young Children, edited by J. Kagan and S. Lamb. Chicago: Chicago University Press. 4 See the work of The Infant Cognition Center at Yale University. 5 In a recent study, psychologists at the University of Haifa in Israel, claim to observe expressions of Schadenfreude amongst infants as young as a year old, indicating the ability to discriminate between what is fair and unfair at an early stage in development. (See Shamay-Tsoory, S.G., Ahronberg-Kirschenbaum, D., and BaumingerZviely, N. (2 July 2014). “There Is No Joy Like Malicious Joy: Schadenfreude in Young Children.” Research article. Plos One.) 6 Like many others, my patient’s awareness that there was something wrong that was causing her to suffer did not in itself enable her to imagine she had the capacity to do anything to alleviate her plight.There is evidence from neuroscience to show that animals subjected to painful conditions do not escape when given the chance on the basis that their neurotransmitters have been “hardwired” to respond in a certain

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way. (See Maier, S.E. and Seligman, M.E. (1976). “Alleviation of learned helplessness: Theory and evidence.” Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 105, 1.) This does not mean, however, that there is no suffering or cognizance of the difference between suffering and not suffering. The inability to choose perverts thinking – i.e. what may be chosen in the cause of survival may in fact be the most deathly option. The neuropsychological determinants of behaviour are strikingly demonstrated in Gazzaniga’s work on the human tendency to persist in belief despite the truth and Ravven’s study of social resistance to change. (See Gazzaniga, M.S. (2012). Who’s in Charge? Free Will and the Science of the Brain. New York: HarperCollins; Robinson, and Ravven, H.M. (2013). The Self Beyond Itself. New York: The New Press.) 7 In Lacan’s terms the mirroring function is vital in establishing an internal imago of the self. Lacan writes, “I am led . . . to regard the function of the mirror-stage as a particular case of the function of the imago, which is to establish a relation between the organism and its reality – or, as they say, between the Innenwelt and the Umwelt” (Lacan, J. (1977). Ecrits: A Selection. London: Tavistock Publications. p. 4). I would argue that it is the observing ego that mediates between the organism and its reality. 8 Bion correlates perception and the awareness of perception directly to the mirroring function of the mother in the infant’s development. He refers to the conjoining of perception as “common sense”. In the example of perceiving what we call “a table”, Bion asserts that the perception is constituted from the empirical experience of “a table” conjoined with “that aspect which ‘God’ presents.” There is a “constant conjoining” of empirical or sensory perception experience with social meaning (i.e. “God”) imbued to the object that is also internalized. Bion explains: “ . . . certain perceptions of the individual are not so much qualities under investigation as impositions on the individual’s outlook by common sense (in my terminology) or God’s idea (in Berkeley’s) or the deceptions of God and Demon (in Descartes’).” (See Bion, W.R. (1992). Cogitations, Extended Edition. London: Karnac. p. 189.) 9 Conscience in this context refers to an internal relation, the dialogue between the ego and the observing ego, as opposed to the ego’s relation to the external world regulated by the superego. Going against one’s conscience is then a silencing of the observing ego. 10 Vetlesen’s analysis of Bauman and Arendt’s concept of the banality of evil is relevant here (pp. 20–21). (See Vetlesen, A.J. (2005). Evil and Human Agency. New York: Cambridge University Press.) 11 Milgram refers to the “agentic state” in which the agent has become pure technician, whose only goal lies in following the orders of his superior to the best of his ability, regardless of the aim and of his individual moral values. See Milgram, S. (1974). Obedience to Authority. New York: Harper & Row. 12 This kind of guilt is also apparent in a pathological form as, e.g. in Grinberg’s example of unconscious infantile guilt in which the mother’s failure towards her baby is attributed by him to his intrinsic badness. See Grinberg, L. (1964). “Two Kinds of Guilt – Their Relations with Normal and Pathological Aspects of Mourning.” International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 45: 366–371.

References Arendt, H. (1963). Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. New York: Penguin. Bion, W.R. (1962). “The psychoanalytic study of thinking.” International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 43: 306–310. Bohleber,W. (2010). Destructiveness, Intersubjectivity and Trauma:The Identity Crisis of Modern Psychoanalysis. London: Karnac.

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Covington, C. (2012). “Hannah Arendt, evil and the eradication of thought.” International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 93: 1215–1236. Fonagy, P., Gergely, G., Jurist, E., & Target, M. (2002). Affect Regulation, Mentalization, and the Development of the Self. New York: Other Press. Freud, S. (1914).“On narcissism: An introduction.” SE,Vol. XIV (1914–1916): On the History of the Psychoanalytic Movement, Papers on Metapsychology and Other Works: 67–102. Freud, S. (1923). “The ego and the id.” SE, Vol. XI: On Metapsychology. London: Penguin (1991). Freud, S. (1930). “Civilization and its discontents.” SE,Vol. XXI (1927–1931): The Future of an Illusion, Civilization and Its Discontents and Other Works: 57–146. Freud, S. (1950). Totem and Taboo. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., Inc. Gopnik, A. (2009). The Philosophical Baby: What Children’s Minds Tell Us About Truth, Love, and the Meaning of Life. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux. Green, A. (2001). Life Narcissism Death Narcissism. London: Free Association Books. Kant, I. (2007). Critique of Pure Reason. London: Penguin Modern Classics. Laplanche, J., & Pontalis, J-B. (1980). The Language of Psycho-Analysis. London: The Hog arth Press. Lewis, C.S. (2012). Mere Christianity. London: Collins. Midgley, M. (2014). Are You an Illusion? London: Acumen Publishing Ltd. Newman, J.H. (1875). Letter to the Duke of Norfolk. Ebooks. Panh, R. (2013). The Elimination: A Survivor of the Khmer Rouge Confronts His Past and the Commandant of the Killing Fields. London: The Clerkenwell Press. Ruse, M. (2012). The Philosophy of Human Evolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Taliaferro, C. & Marty, E.J. (editors) (2010). A Dictionary of Philosophy of Religion. London: Continuum. Whitmer, G. (2001).“On the nature of dissociation.” Psychoanalytic Quarterly, 70: 807–837. Wilson, E.O. (2014). The Meaning of Human Existence. London: Liverwright Publishing Corporation.

5 WITNESSING EVIL

You can make an effort not to know, close your eyes and not want to open them, but once they’re open, what the eyes have seen cannot be erased. Antonio Munoz Molina, Sepharad

Introduction Kovno 1941 Report of a photographer: At the beginning of the Russian campaign on the morning of 22 June 1941 I was transferred with my unit to Gumbinnen.We remained there until the following Tuesday, 24 June 1941. On that Tuesday I was ordered to transfer from Gumbinnen to Kovno with an advance party. I arrived there with the head of an army unit on Wednesday morning (25 June 1941). My assignment was to find quarters for the group following us. My job was made substantially easier because we had already pinpointed a number of block houses for our unit on an aerial photograph of Kovno that had been taken beforehand. There were no more significant clashes in the city. Close to my quarters I noticed a crowd of people in the forecourt of a petrol station which was surrounded by a wall on three sides.The way to the road was completely blocked by a wall of people. I was confronted by the following scene: in the left corner of the yard there was a group of men aged

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between thirty and fifty. There must have been forty to fifty of them. They were herded together and kept under guard by some civilians.The civilians were armed with rifles and wore armbands, as can be seen in the picture I took. A young man – he must have been a Lithuanian – . . . with rolled-up sleeves was armed with an iron crowbar. He dragged out one man at a time from the group and struck him with the crowbar with one or more blows on the back of his head.Within three-quarters of an hour he had beaten to death the entire group of forty-five to fifty people in this way. I took a series of photographs of the victims. . . . After the entire group had been beaten to death, the young man put the crowbar to one side, fetched an accordion and went and stood on the mountain of corpses and played the Lithuanian national anthem. I recognized the tune and was informed by bystanders that this was the national anthem. The behaviour of the civilians present (women and children) was unbelievable. After each man had been killed they began to clap and when the national anthem started up they joined in singing and clapping. In the front row there were women with small children in their arms who stayed there right until the end of the whole proceedings. I found out from some people who knew German what was happening here. They explained to me that the parents of the young man who had killed the other people had been taken from their beds two days earlier and immediately shot, because they were suspected of being nationalists, and this was the young man’s revenge. Not far away there was a large number of dead people who according to the civilians had been killed by the withdrawing Commissars and Communists. (Klee, Dressen, and Riess, 1988, pp. 31–32) Report of a lance-corporal in 562nd Bakers’ Company: On our way through the city of Kovno . . . I saw a crowd of people gathered in a square somewhere in the centre of the town. I stopped my vehicle to find out what was going on. I had to climb on to my vehicle to be able to see as my view was blocked by a wall as well as the large number of people standing round. From where I was standing I saw Lithuanian civilians beating a number of civilians with different types of weapons until they showed no more sign of life. . . . (I was told) that the people being beaten to death were all Jews who had been apprehended by Lithuanians in the city and had been brought to this square. The killings were carried out by the recently released Lithuanian convicts. Why these Jews were being beaten to death I did not

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find out. At that time I had not formulated my own thoughts about the persecution of the Jews because I had not yet heard anything about it. The bystanders were almost exclusively German soldiers, who were observing the cruel incident out of curiosity. (Klee, Dressen, and Riess, 1988, pp. 32–33) These two accounts of the Kovno massacre of Jews in June 1941 are echoed in different ways and in different circumstances by numerous other accounts of public cruelty and mass killings witnessed across Europe during World War II. They are also, of course, not confined to Europe or WWII; they are hauntingly familiar across the world in the genocides of Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, Rwanda, Kosovo, Sri Lanka and continue today notably in the Middle East fundamentalist killings claimed by the Islamic State. Witnessing evil takes different forms and occurs in different contexts. It is not a phenomenon conducive to a single theory but is highly contingent on how it happens, where it happens, when it happens and to whom it happens. Context and relationship are foremost in trying to piece together what mental processes may be at work. An important aspect of relationship is the actual physical distance between the bystander and the scene of cruelty. We no longer have to be on the spot to see atrocities occurring, sometimes in real time. Being in the position of witness is something we are increasingly exposed to in our day-to-day lives through television news coverage alone. Although questionable morally, our degree of distance tends to be associated with our degree of responsibility; the farther away, the less responsible we perceive ourselves to be. In some respects distance lets the voyeur off the hook of intervening. He is not actually there to do anything. It also allows for wider audience viewing, as we have seen recently with the jihadi-filmed beheadings accessible to the world via the internet. Klee, referring to Kovno and other similar reports, describes this phenomenon as “execution tourism” (Klee, Dressen, & Riess, 1988). For the purposes of this chapter, I am leaving aside the psychology of the distant voyeur and will focus specifically on bystander relationships where some form of intervention is possible, despite what may be apparent conditions of coercion or fear. These are the bystander relationships that raise the question, “How could they stand there and watch without doing anything?” They are situations in which the actions witnessed “overstep proper limits” or “exceed due measure.”This is the etymology of evil. Primo Levi describes the impossibility of evil and refers to the German adage, “What may not be cannot be” (Levi, 1987). They are actions that break and overturn the moral order of life. We typically think of extreme actions such as cruelty or mass killing within this category. They are actions that take place, significantly, in public. But there are also actions that take place in private, e.g. within

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the confines of family life, that upset the moral order. These too have their witnesses. One of the difficulties in understanding the mental processes that occur in witnessing evil is that the material is most often second-hand and what we can extrapolate from it is inevitably speculative. There is now an extensive body of literature that documents witness accounts of atrocities of various kinds in different parts of the world. But these accounts do not attempt to describe or explain the psychodynamics that take place within the individual or the group who are witnesses. While there are recognized psychological processes attributed to witnessing atrocity, such as dissociation, denial, repressed sadism and so on, these too tend to be speculative in their application. However, the psychoanalyst is in the privileged position of being able to hear first-hand accounts from patients who have experiences of witnessing atrocities, sometimes as a result of war or political conflict, but also within their own families. These accounts are not speculative; on the contrary, they are palpably real and help us to map out the dynamics of witnessing evil at a micro, individual level. I am going to illustrate the complexity of bystander relationships by focusing first on a clinical example of a woman patient who witnessed the regular abuse and beatings of her young daughter by her husband. From this example of witnessing continuous cruelty within the private confines of the family, I will speculate on the dynamics that may have been at work in witnessing the sudden atrocities in Kovno and on witnessing atrocities over an extended period of time in the community surrounding Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria, as representative of many such events that occur elsewhere. The clinical account provides a direct exposition of the dynamics of witnessing evil that I hope will shed light on the dynamics of witnessing in other contexts. I want to stress that this example is one amongst several possible dynamics that are operative in witnessing atrocities. Nevertheless, extrapolating from a specific, detailed account may help us to think about the question, “How could they watch without doing anything?” on a deeper level. Private witnessing A young woman in her mid-thirties was referred to me for treatment through her divorce lawyer. Cary had been married for six years and had a daughter, aged five, who had appeared in school one morning with a badly bruised cheek.This was not the first time Agnes had appeared in school with bruises, but on this occasion the teacher was suspicious and, taking Agnes aside, asked her what had happened. Agnes burst into tears and said that she had fallen against a radiator and complained that she still had a headache. The teacher

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asked how this had happened and Agnes then admitted that her father had hit her.The teacher contacted a social worker and Cary was told that if there was any further sign of abuse, Agnes would be removed from the home.This threat triggered a violent conflict between Cary and her husband, ultimately leading to divorce proceedings. Cary soon told me that she had also been regularly beaten by her father when she was a small child and was concerned about her daughter but at the same time was confused about what discipline was appropriate and what was not. Her mother had insisted that her father had beaten her because he loved her and did not want her to grow up as a spoiled child. But she also remembered that there were times when he beat her excessively and only stopped when he seemed spent. On these occasions, she remembered having to wear long sleeves to school to hide the bruises on her arms, much like her daughter, and how ashamed she had felt. Cary described her father as very strict. He controlled everything within the family and her mother deferred to him completely. Her mother was very loving to Cary and her younger brother, often sneaking them treats after they had been punished by their father. Whenever Cary misbehaved, her mother never raised her voice but looked at her with a pained expression on her face. There was a distinct split in Cary’s mind between her punitive, sadistic father and her passive, loving mother. Cary had worked as her husband’s secretary and immediately developed a powerful crush on him. Mark was very exacting in his work and emotionally controlled, hardly ever praising her and often pointing out how she could improve. However, he would also spontaneously buy her flowers or small presents and she took these as signs of his affection and care for her. After a brief courtship, they married and Cary quickly became pregnant. Her husband was a conscientious provider but was emotionally cold and withdrawn. When they were together with friends, he would either suddenly display affection towards her or just as suddenly be openly critical and demeaning. After Agnes’ birth, Mark criticized every aspect of Cary’s mothering. Cary’s confidence and self-esteem, already at a low ebb, became increasingly undermined as her dependency on Mark grew. Although Mark was never physically abusive toward Cary, he began hitting Agnes as soon as she could walk, explaining that she had to learn the difference between right and wrong and was too young to reason with. Cary admitted that this upset her but believed her husband knew best and that she could only comfort Agnes when she was hurt and upset. As Agnes grew up, the beatings became more violent. There were times, Cary said, when Agnes screamed so much that Mark put duct tape over her mouth so the neighbours wouldn’t be disturbed. Cary insisted on being present when Mark beat Agnes as she felt that this way she could ensure he would not go

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too far. When Cary told me this, as an attempt to reassure me, I realized the extent to which she had dissociated from her own sadistic feelings and how complicit she was with her husband’s behaviour. After nearly a year of analysis, Cary recounted a terrifying dream she had had over the weekend. She told me: I was with a group of adults and various small animals. Someone had caught an animal – it was a mixture between a kitten and a ferret – and had wrapped it up and laid it on its back.The adults were encouraging the other animals to go near it and suddenly the other animals began to bite it and eat it alive in front of me. The adults were standing around, encouraging the animals, and were clearly excited by what was going on. I was paralysed with horror and I knew there was nothing I could do to stop it. I could see the ferret’s eyes looking off into the distance as it was being killed. I feel sick even describing it to you. I woke up and immediately thought that you would comfort me if I told you the dream, just as my mother used to when my father beat me. In hearing Cary’s dream, I felt both repelled and fascinated by the idea of watching the small animal being eaten alive. I was also aware of thinking, “This is just a dream.” I understood my reaction as counter-transference and wondered whether Cary was inviting me to kill off my feelings, and hers, by understanding her experience as a nightmare and nothing more. I would then have re-enacted the role of her impassive mother who could not see the need to intervene. I remarked that although Cary wanted me to comfort her, perhaps she also wanted me to see, as she did in her dream, the full horror of this cruel killing and that it wasn’t just a nightmare that would vanish in the cold light of day. Cary replied, “It’s strange that you say that because this is exactly what my mother never did. She never acknowledged that what was happening was wrong or cruel. She always said, “It’s over now. Don’t think about it,” as if it was a kind of nightmare. In fact, by comforting me, she made me feel proud that I had survived so well, as if I was a brave girl and could endure anything. I suppose, ironically, it was like being one of Pavlov’s dogs – I was beaten and then rewarded for it!” I said, “Not only rewarded, but made to feel that the violence was justified and that your father knew what was best. His punishments could not be questioned because they were meant to be in your own interest.You weren’t meant to think about it, only to obey.” Cary became silent and then began to sob, saying, “I hate my mother! I hate her for watching – and for comforting me, for pretending to love me. She was like the adults in my dream who got excited when they saw

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the little animal being killed. She’s despicable. . . . And I was the ferret being brave and no longer feeling. I hated myself for being so little and weak and helpless.” I asked,“Is this what you hate in your daughter? And what you don’t want me to see?” “I don’t want you to see that I’ve been like my mother – that I watched Mark beating Agnes because it excited me. I think Agnes became all that I hated in myself, all that I wanted to destroy and I could remain her loving mother if I wasn’t the one who was hurting her. I used to have fantasies when Mark was beating her, that he would really hurt her, break her arm, or smash her face in, or crush her. I was terrified by these images but I couldn’t stop them in my mind. . . . I’m now remembering a time when my mother and my brother were both watching as my father beat me – and I suddenly caught them sniggering together.” Cary’s admission of her own sadism along with her recognition of her mother’s sadism marked an important step in beginning to understand how she had been taken over by the perverse norms of her family that she too had lived out with her husband and daughter. She could also see how the repeated trauma of her own childhood had not simply anaesthetized her to the trauma she was complicit in inflicting on her daughter, but it had necessitated a suspension of belief inside her as a way of sustaining family life. Cary tried to reassure herself by telling herself, “one day this will be over, everything will be all right.” Cary’s description of her hatred of herself – and of her daughter – as weak and helpless can be understood as a form of identification with the aggressor. She aligned herself with her abusive father as an attempt to regain some sense of control over her life and to adopt the system of power he represented within the family so that she could survive psychically. However, as she later acknowledged, she also wanted to kill off her feelings of vulnerability, pain and terror, as in the excited killing of the small animal in her dream. Cary’s fantasies of wanting her husband to physically harm, if not kill, their daughter provided an enactment of wanting not only to kill off this sensate part of herself but also to destroy the mental perception of being abused. She wanted to eradicate the disjunction in her mind between her actual experience of abuse and the normative moral code within her family that converted hatred and abuse into expressions of love. The trauma of her childhood had to be repeated as a way of cancelling out irreconcilable belief systems within herself. In admitting her sadistic fantasies towards her daughter and herself, Cary articulated the dilemma she faced if she had intervened. She explained, “If I had told my husband to stop or if I had physically tried to stop him from beating Agnes, everything would have fallen apart. I would certainly

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have been afraid that Mark would turn on me – and if this happened then I would be back again as a child being beaten by my father but with the new horror that my mother had done nothing to stop him because of her hatred towards me. And I would also have had to face my own hatred and step out of what felt like a shield of innocence.” Collective witnessing Just as Cary had her own history of family abuse and trauma that unconsciously shaped her role as a bystander, those who witnessed the killings in Kovno were similarly caught up in a subtext of relations that kept them inert in the face of horror. The killings witnessed by the photographer and the lance-corporal in Kovno took place in the context of war, reprisals, and powerful national ideologies that swept populations along in a moral fervour built on highly stratified classification systems to identify the enemy. Witnessing various forms of cruelty and abuse is almost unavoidable for those living in war zones. In this respect, a kind of norm or expectation of cruelty is established that becomes part of life, just as Cary came to expect to be beaten by her father as part of the daily fabric of her family life. The accounts in Kovno illustrate not only the random nature of witnessing atrocities, e.g. the lance-corporal happens to come upon the killings in the square without prior warning, but they also highlight the different relationships held by various bystanders to the perpetrators, to other groups of bystanders and to the victims. In Kovno, at least three groups are identified as local Lithuanians, including Lithuanian convicts, Germans and Jews. The Russians have left behind their own trail of murders, and witnesses. These relationships need to be differentiated and elucidated in order to begin to understand the psychodynamics of witnessing cruelty. The photographer who stumbled across the public beatings in Kovno, explains in his report that the young man who was beating the Jews to death one by one was doing so in revenge for the murder of his parents, killed by the retreating Russian Commissars and Communists on suspicion of being nationalists. This explanation provides a specific narrative meaning to the event and can be seen as an attempt to restore some sense of moral order. The killings can be understood as not simply random and arbitrary but as a restoration of justice and, perhaps most importantly, as an assertion on the part of the Lithuanians that they were back in control after being invaded and overpowered by the Russians. Although the Russians had retreated, they remained present in the wounded minds of the Lithuanians. Since June 1940, the Lithuanian territories had been occupied and subsequently annexed by Russia. Lithuanian nationalists were arrested, and the Jewish population was singled out for

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attack, their communal organizations dissolved and much of their property confiscated. A week before German invasion, the Russians had ordered mass deportations across the Baltics, including hundreds of Jews. At the same time, the Lithuanian Activist Front, founded by nationalist emigres in Berlin, fanned the flames of anti-Semitism that had been ignited under Russian occupation. The German conquest of Lithuania was perceived initially as a liberation that would restore Lithuanian independence. Compliance with German anti-Semitism became for many the price to pay for independence. To support their own anti-Semitic policies, Germans also blamed the Jewish community for Russian annexation. For the Lithuanians, the Jews became the logical scapegoats; they became the black sheep that had caused the invasion and subjugation of the Lithuanians.The Jews became the enemy within the group, who had complied with and encouraged Russian takeover. Against this backdrop, the Kovno killings take on a particular meaning. The single-handed slaughter of nearly 50 Jews reinstated the strength of the Lithuanian turned victor, as dramatically marked by the Lithuanian killer as he stood on the corpses of the Jews he had murdered and played the national anthem. The fact that the bystanders joined in, celebrating their nationality, indicates the degree of trauma experienced within the group that was both expelled and repeated in this act of violence. Cary’s mother and brother also watched as her father beat her, keeping solidarity in the family. Justice is meted out and the violence of the past displaced onto others in the present. While the enemy is symbolically expunged in the form of an “other” and the group strengthened against further external threat, there is also a ritual purging of the weakness and vulnerability that was so cruelly exposed by the Russian invasion. The group vanquishes its weakness by enacting what was done to them onto others. This identification with the aggressor ensures a sense of safety while the collective trauma is transferred onto the “other.” What is also significant, as we learn from the lance-corporal’s report, is that “the killings were carried out by the recently released Lithuanian convicts.” Many of these convicts would have been imprisoned under Russian orders and at least in this respect, like the young man described in the photographer’s report, would have experienced particular animosity about what had happened to them. Because of this, the former convicts represented the larger group’s subjugation and captivity and were also the ones to lead the community toward freedom and power. The fact that it was the ex-convicts who conducted the killings also perhaps enabled the group to rid themselves of moral responsibility as they watched one murder after another. Turner observes that just as we turn our enemies into the “other” so that we can direct our aggression towards them without concern or guilt, we are equally liable to categorize the evil doer as

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“other” (Turner, 2009). In this way we project our own potential for cruelty onto an “other” and dissociate ourselves from such actions. This was essentially how Cary viewed her husband; he was not only the ultimate authority with total power but on a less conscious level, he was the one with dirty hands while she maintained her “shield of innocence.” The reports written about Kovno express the horror not just of the public cruelty taking place but of the passive witnesses who allowed it to happen, clapping after each beating and singing the national anthem when it was all over.Women, holding small children, were positioned in the front for the best views and stayed until the end. Although this may be reminiscent of the crowds that public executions have attracted throughout history, the incongruence in Kovno is that the Jews had not committed crimes but had become the target for reprisals nevertheless. At least amongst the local population, this was hardly execution tourism but rather a distortion or subversion of reality in order to reverse the effects of collective trauma. It is possible to understand the group of witnesses as being swept along in a kind of mass hysteria that counteracts feelings of fear and helplessness. Fear triggers the physiological response of releasing adrenalin and, like a pack of animals on the chase, those engaged in violence and those witnessing it enter into a drama that is overwhelmingly exciting – and awful. This was how Cary had described the humans in her dream as they excitedly egged on the animals to kill the small animal. It was also how she described her father’s excitement as he beat her until he was “spent.”The chase had started a momentum that could only end in annihilation. Witnessing extreme violence perpetrated on the “other” may also assume the function of a kind of ritualized cleansing that cancels out the taint of evil. It is a witch hunt that is intended to restore purity within the group, especially when the group leadership is under threat. In other circumstances with different collective histories, e.g. amongst concentration camp prisoners, the failure of the group to intervene may be due to overwhelming fear of being killed themselves, reinforced by their identification with the victim. But in the Kovno incident, the victims were already seen as “other” and outside, if not an active threat to the Lithuanian community; identification could then be neutralized by this form of distancing and group cohesion strengthened. The bystanders of the atrocities in Kovno were not passive – people clapped and sang, mothers were pushed to the fore so that their children could see, and presumably remember, the events that were meant to signal freedom for Lithuania. Rather than identifying with the victim, the group could instead identify with the killer who served as a conduit for their own sadism, omnipotence and fantasies of revenge. The group could keep their hands clean and maintain the paranoid splitting necessary to keep what is bad outside and “other” as a defence against past trauma and present reality.

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Although the Germans at first promised independence, a promise that was subsequently withdrawn, they held ultimate power over the conquered Lithuanian territories.They were the new masters.The applause for the killings magically transformed what we can see as an evil act, i.e. an act that destroys moral order, into an act that restores moral order. It is subsumed under the common good. Allegiance to the new rule, accompanied by its own set of beliefs, becomes supra-ordinate to everything else as a way of surviving and managing overwhelming fear and what is essentially unthinkable. Belief systems, ideology and trauma When we view others witnessing atrocities, we are often unaware of the context in which the atrocities are committed and in which the witnesses exist. The prisoner of war who witnesses a fellow prisoner being beaten to death may to our eyes have no choice but to watch helplessly, for intervention would mean certain death. However, the civilian passing by as others from a different race are beaten to death is in a very different position and may, at least in principle, have a range of choices on which to act. Although the difference in these examples is that one population is imprisoned and the other is not, what we may overlook in both is the importance of the role of popular and political ideology in shaping not only the norms of what is acceptable behaviour and what is not but also the values we confer on ourselves and others. It is important not to underestimate the power of ideology in shaping our behaviour toward each other and in influencing our conception of morality. Within a family, parental values and beliefs determine not only behaviour but the ideals to which children aspire and that are associated with acceptance and love. This is also true within the larger group, especially when survival may depend on adherence to the group’s values. In his 1926 paper “Inhibitions, symptoms, and anxiety,” Freud stresses the danger of being excluded from “the horde” (Freud, 1926, p. 139). To be set apart or excluded is the most feared condition in any society because it severs the person from his existence and sense of self. When faced with an ideology that is based on excluding – and exterminating – those who are categorized as “other”, the fear of breaking ranks becomes even more extreme. Witnessing evil, i.e. an act that breaches our moral order, is traumatic because it not only destroys the set of beliefs that form our ability to go on being in the world but also threatens our relationship with our internal objects, or those relationships that have created our set of beliefs about the world. The evil act is a rent in our belief system that stops us from being able to continue to function in the way we have before. The parameters that

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constitute what makes us feel safe have suddenly and unrecognizably altered. Our internal objects become crippled, sometimes to the point of irrevocable damage, and can no longer be safely relied upon to guide us. Some degree of alliance, if not identification, results as a means of adapting and surviving within a new reality that brings with it a different belief system. We can understand some of the complex reasons why the Kovno group not only witnessed the killings of the Jews but applauded them. Because of a confluence of war-time trauma and changing political masters, the killings of people who had only recently been members of the wider community could be justified under a new belief system that accorded with the ruling ideology. Anti-Semitism had been promulgated by the Russians and then the Germans. In accord with recent policies of ethnic cleansing, the Kovno population could well have regarded these killings as not only what was required by German authority but moreover what was “right.” Milgram’s 1963 study of obedience first graphically demonstrated that people will inflict pain on others when ordered to do so by a higher authority not simply because they are following orders but because they believe the authority knows “best” and will protect their interests and the interests of the group. There is no reason to believe that witnesses to cruelty inflicted on others will behave any differently (Milgram, 1974). The local Kovno population were not the only witnesses to the killing of the Jews. We learn from the reports of the German photographer and lancecorporal that the bystanders (i.e. those not amongst the Kovno residents) were “almost exclusively German soldiers” and watched out of “curiosity.” These bystanders were witnessing violent acts that, at least on first glance, made no sense to them and were beyond the pale. The lance-corporal states clearly,“At that time I had not formulated my own thoughts about the persecution of the Jews because I had not heard anything about it.” The ideology of ethnic cleansing had not been promoted amongst many of the German troops at this point and would not have provided a rationale for this public atrocity. However, the fact that none of the local population viewing this event was showing disapproval or trying to stop it may have signalled to the Germans that there was a subtext that they could not know and therefore could not interfere with. While the German soldiers were not actively participating in the violence, they were not attempting to stop it either. In their curiosity, were they trying to accommodate something that might otherwise be unimaginable that was now part of their reality – a foreign ideology that was only just coming into awareness? Or is watching in this context, like “execution tourism”, a means by which the unimaginable is made into a drama being enacted by others that can be distanced and separated from the viewer?

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The failure to intervene in this situation can only be partially explained as due to morbid curiosity. Distancing is one way of vicariously expressing sadistic fantasies that can be projected onto the “other” and denied within the observer. And yet this explanation does not take into account that witnessing an atrocity is a traumatic experience in itself. There is a sudden disjuncture between the observer’s set of beliefs of the world and how it operates and a world in which such expectations and rules of behaviour no longer apply. The paralysis that ensues reflects a shattering of one’s belief system and the struggle to reconcile what seems to be a contradictory or opposing reality. In the midst of this confusion, the bystander is confronted with a parallel reality that threatens the core of his personal and social identity. In this respect, the fear of intervening may not be so much the fear of physical harm as much as a fear of being overtaken by an alien (or perverse), more powerful belief system. Non-intervention is then not due to denial, or curiosity, but an attempt to maintain a distance from the event in order to sustain one’s own belief system and to find a way of continuing to exist in the face of annihilation of one’s reality. There is also the fear, and difficulty, of engaging in violence. Sociologist Randall Collins, argues: “Violence is hard, not easy.Virtually no cultural discourse admits this; neither perpetrators nor pro-violence groups, nor victims, nor altruistic or righteous observers-from-a-distance. Everyone thinks violence is easy to perform, whether one brags about it, fears it, or hopes to eliminate it. But the micro-situational realities of talking about violence fall into ritual patterns of bluster and bluff, and these rituals provide an ideology that covers up the real nature of violence – that it is hard to perform, that most people are not good at it, including the ones who are doing the bragging and swaggering” (Collins, 2008, pp. 23–24). Intervening means being prepared to act outside one’s experience and to be violent in order to stop violence; it means stepping over the line of what may be into a world of what cannot be. In defending one’s belief system, the person who intervenes risks becoming a perpetrator as the distinction between ritualized posturing and actual violence collapses. Anyone who acts has inevitably dirtied his hands; anyone who does not act is also implicated, morally. No one remains innocent or unscarred. Trauma is a shock against which the psyche cannot defend itself; it threatens to destroy the hermeneutic narrative that enables us to live in the world and establish moral order. The failure to intervene can perhaps be understood as a means of protecting the psyche, not just from being tainted by what is perceived as bad or outside one’s moral code but, fundamentally, as an attempt to preserve one’s own internal objects and set of beliefs and the division between what may and may not be.

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Distancing and cooperation In the Concentration Camp Mauthausen at the work site in Vienna Ditch inmates are being shot repeatedly; those badly struck live for yet some time, and so remain lying next to the dead for hours and even half a day long. My property lies upon an elevation next to Vienna Ditch, and one is often an unwilling witness to such outrages. I am anyway sickly and such a sight makes such a demand on my nerves that in the long run I cannot bear this. I request that it be arranged that inhuman deeds be discontinued, or else be done where one does not see it. (quoted in Horwitz, 1990, p. 35)

This letter of complaint, written in 1941 by Eleanore Gusenbauer, a local farmer, describes the plight of residents living near the Austrian concentration camp of Mauthausen who could not avoid witnessing atrocities on a daily basis. Recognizing that it was unlikely that the atrocities could be stopped altogether, the residents could at least be shielded from them; they could be conducted out of sight. When the sight of atrocities could not be avoided, what many residents resorted to was “prudent disregard” (Horwitz, 1990, p. 35). Expressing criticism or shock at the ill-treatment of prisoners could result in arrest and imprisonment. Even minor complaints or gestures of sympathy, for example from civilians working alongside prisoners in the rock quarries of the Vienna Ditch, could lead to loss of employment.This was also the case in other areas of local employment, including office work where civilians would be cognizant of the cruelties to which prisoners were habitually subjected. Turning a blind eye out of fear of the consequences of not doing so made witnesses complicit in the rule of terror imposed by the camp and effectively extended the camp perimeter to the boundaries of the town’s jurisdiction. Residents became a subservient class within the regime, under close surveillance and subject to the tyranny of the camp. Mistrust, profiteering and increasing isolation from the world outside pervaded the area. The psychological effect on civilians was most vividly apparent amongst those working in Castle Hartheim, 18.6 miles west of Mauthausen, where inmates were transferred to their deaths in the newly constructed gas chambers. Many of the civilians working in the Castle claimed that they were forced to cooperate with what was going on for fear of losing their jobs. Personal will was sacrificed to the expediency of survival. There was no choice. Horwitz describes this state of mind: Persons who worked in Hartheim maintained years afterward that they wanted to leave but were unable to do so. In explaining their

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inability to extract themselves from their predicament, they explained that all such efforts were ‘pointless’ or ‘without result’. They wanted to leave, they said, but all attempts they characterized as hopeless. The phrases themselves, common to bureaucratic procedure and authority, once assimilated, absorbed, and given expression in common speech, reinforced passivity. These expressions comprised a framework and guide to mental categories of moral paralysis. Protected thereby from thoughts of individual responsibility, the employees appeared for work day after day. (Horwitz, 1990, p. 80) The workers attributed their passivity, or what Horwitz refers to as moral paralysis, to resignation and helplessness. Whatever alternatives might have been available to them were either “pointless” or would worsen their position. Their cooperation in the regime of the Castle, perhaps like the German soldiers in Kovno, enabled them to tolerate the trauma of something that was too powerful for them to alter and to preserve the continuity of an internal world that in their perception could be viewed as temporarily disabled. The distinction between belief systems could be maintained through prolonged dissociation; the horrors were executed by others, not themselves. Here again, physical avoidance was used to relieve workers of responsibility. What they did not see or touch, they were not responsible for. At the same time, they could perform their bureaucratic tasks conscientiously, as this was congruent with their own aspirations of what it means to be a good worker. In this way, a moral code could be sustained, not in the belief that what they were being asked to do was “right” but in the belief that it was inevitable dirty work that had to be done. Just as Cary tried to convince herself, the workers wanted to believe the nightmare would end and life would resume as normal. I have elaborated some of the psychic strategies and defences adopted by the local population in the community of Mauthausen and nearby Castle Hartheim who were exposed to atrocities over a prolonged period of time. In both locales, the totalitarian regimes established by the camps, very similar to the iron fist with which Cary’s father ruled his family, were terrifying and extensive, inculcating complete obedience in the service of a higher authority. And yet, life for these communities carried on, albeit in restricted forms. The population could use the technique of distancing themselves from what was essentially inhuman and unthinkable, but they were still aware of what was happening to the prisoners at their doorsteps. Indeed, awareness of the maltreatment and killing of prisoners fed paranoid fantasies of reprisals and, coupled with SS propaganda that prisoners were dangerous criminals, provided a rationale for keeping prisoners at a distance (Wachsmann, 2015,

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p. 588). Denial and dissociation were hardly viable strategies. Psychic survival in this situation is perhaps most dependent on the capacity to suspend belief. By this, I mean the capacity to hold one’s internal belief system in suspension while adapting to tyrannical conditions (e.g. being a “good” office worker) so that some semblance of a recognizable moral order can be maintained. Conclusion The bystander who fails to intervene may be entranced by seeing the sadistic fantasies in his own mind being powerfully played out in reality. Paradoxically, putting a stop to the atrocity is also an act of recognition that it is happening in reality, not in fantasy. For some, intervening confers guilt by association. As Cary stated, such an act forces the bystander to take hold of and act on his own hatred; the “shield of innocence” is broken. As long as the bystander watches without acting, he can remain relatively untainted. The cruel drama unfolding in front of him can be explained in terms of something “other”, some temporary aberration. The bystander can still walk back into his known world, or at least this is the delusion. In much of the literature on witnessing evil, the bystander is regarded from a moralistic perspective; the act of witnessing is inextricably bound to moral obligation. As Vetlesen sums it up, “not acting is still acting” (Vetlesen, 2005, p. 237). Cohen divides the position of the bystander into two categories as those who passively support and those who passively oppose the atrocity (Cohen, 2001, p. 147). But human responses are not so neatly divided; they are nuanced and contextualized just as our conception of what is moral tends to be. These views of the bystander lack the ambiguity and complexity that, at least in the case of Cary, are clearly evident in the mind of the bystander. The passivity of the bystander is not simply due to repressed sadism and unconscious complicity, nor is it due to fear and dissociation. It can also be regarded as a response to a trauma that suddenly turns the relations that have been experienced as reliable and known on their heads. Even in cultures in which extreme violence is habitual, as in Cary’s experience of her childhood and marriage, extreme cruelty and violence remain outside thought and therefore outside emotional containment. The bystander is in a twilight zone, neither actively engaged in the event nor entirely passive, simultaneously identifying with both abuser and victim, albeit, in the case of identifying with the abuser, this may be unconscious. Because of this dual identification, taking action is equivalent to entering the world of abuser and victim with the attendant risk of becoming one or the other. Entering into the fray removes the presence of an observing other, of a witness who can see that reality has been ruptured.

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For those who have no choice but to bear witness, as in the concentration camps, the act of witnessing is crucial in keeping alive a sense of justice. Witness, victim and perpetrator become one in acknowledging the reality of what is happening. The historian Otto Dov Kulka, recalls his childhood in Auschwitz and witnessing, along with others, an SS officer beating a prisoner to death. Kulka writes: What I retain from this scene comes down to a feeling of a peculiar ‘justice’ that resided in all this; a feeling that it was some sort of actualization of a perplexing ‘order’ that overlay the camp’s everyday life. Victim and perpetrators, or the floggers and the lashes of justice in which the prisoner was sentenced, were as though one system, in which it was impossible to distinguish, to separate the victim from the deliverers of the punishment. (Kulka, 2013, p. 44) Just as the perpetrators were administering the camp’s “justice”, so they were affirming the need for justice that we all experience. Kulka asks the question, “Where was God?” And yet, there was a mute God within each victim, perpetrator and witness. Kulka describes this paradoxical conjunction: This thought about justice being done transcends the immutable law which prevailed in that place. As though those cries ripped through the present of that time and revealed another dimension, utopian, but at least for a moment a concrete reality, because everyone heard, everyone listened, because everyone contemplated revenge which was there called by its name. And I interiorized these things. (Kulka, 2013, p. 47) The collective witnessing, even in the face of denial or failure to intervene, does not obliterate justice; it strengthens it. Every perverse act of justice in the camps brought in its shadow the vision of “another dimension”, another justice. While I have tried to elucidate some of the psychological defences and dynamics that take place in the minds of those who witness evil, the role of the bystander as observer is important in itself in terms of preserving a potential space, in-between realities, in which what is abhorrent can be held in stark relief against the background of everyday life. The bystander is at worst complicit and at best witness to “an impossible reality” (Levi, 1987). Until we are put to the test, the question as to what any of us would do in such circumstances remains open.

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References Cohen, S. (2001). States of Denial: Knowing About Atrocities and Suffering. Cambridge: Polity Press. Collins, R. (2008). Violence: A  Micro-Sociological Theory. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Freud, S. (1926). “Inhibitions, symptoms, and anxiety.” SE, 20, 77–175. Horwitz, G.J. (1990). In the Shadow of Death: Living Outside the Gates of Mauthausen. Oxford: The Free Press. Klee, E., Dressen, W., & Riess,V. eds. (1988). “The Good Old Days”: The Holocaust as Seen by Its Perpetrators and Bystanders. Old Saybrook, CT: Konecky & Konecky. Kulka, O.D. (2013). Landscapes of the Metropolis of Death. London: Allen Lane. Levi, P. (17 December 1987). “Beyond judgement.” New York Review of Books, p. 14. Milgram, S. (1974). Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View. New York: Harper & Row. Molina, A.M. (2001). Sepharad. London: Harvest. Turner, K. (2009). Cruelty: Human Evil and the Human Brain. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Vetlesen, A.J. (2005). Evil and Human Agency: Understanding Collective Evildoing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wachsmann, N. (2015). KL: A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps. London: Little, Brown.

6 DEMONIZATION AND MASS KILLING The other as evil

 . . . the source of evil is the community itself. Rene Girard, Violence and the Sacred

Introduction With the commencement of the German Reich’s Operation Barbarossa on 22 June 1941, the demonization of the Jewish population, already persecuted under Soviet rule, intensified in Poland, Lithuania, the Ukraine and Romania. The result was widespread mass killings, in many cases instigated by local anti-Semitic groups and licensed by the Germans. (See Cesarani, 2016, pp. 359–380.) One well-documented instance of this took place in the Polish town of Jedwabne on 10 July 1941. ‘On July 9, 1941, word spread in town and in the surrounding area that’ the next day they were going to get rid of the Jews in Jedwabne. . . . Peasants in the area got their tools ready for the day: stanchions, sticks, poles; they cut themselves what were called truncheons, or lengths of thick electric cable. On the morning of July 10, a group of uniformed Germans appeared in Jedwabne in one or two cars. The mayor sent messengers to Polish houses to tell the men to report to the magistrate’s office. There they were given the order to drive the Jews out into the marketplace, and they were probably told which houses or neighborhoods to go to. Stanislaw Danowski, witness in the 1953 trial, an offshoot of the first Jedwabne trial in 1949: ‘Karolak summoned people, gave them vodka, and then he got those who were willing – and there were plenty of them – to rout the Jewish population from their homes.’

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They were driven out under the pretext that they had to pull up the weeds from between the cobblestones in the marketplace, to clean it up. The Germans who had come to town were there when the Jews were driven into the marketplace. Stanislaw Zejer, a suspect, testified that Jerzy Laudanski and Boleslaw Rogalski, a postal worker, ‘having got themselves poles . . . went to drive six families into the market square. . . .’ A crowd of people from Jedwabne and the surrounding area stood around the throng of Jews.This is repeated in almost all the testimonies, that ‘the rounded-up Jews were surrounded by a mob of people.’There were also a few Germans, in uniform, with weapons. Among those who organized the chasing of Jews from their homes, the names return again and again: Bardon, Wasilewski, Sobuta, Eugeniusz Kalinowski, and Jerzy Laudanski (‘Bikont, 2015, pp. 124–125’). The round-up to the marketplace and subsequent murder of the Jews is then described. ‘From Jerzy’s testimony of January 16, 1949: ‘At that time I took part’ in driving the Jews into the marketplace. . . . When we got back there from driving them all out of their houses, Jews were already carrying the Lenin statue around the market singing a song, ‘The war’s our fault.’ Who ordered them to sing it I don’t know, but we Poles made sure the Jews didn’t run away. I stress that there were Germans around, too. Later Marian Karolak, the mayor of Jedwabne, gave us the command to herd all the Jews in the market to Bronislaw Slesznski’s barn, which we did. We drove the Jews to the barn and told them to go in, and they were forced to go in, and after they were all in there, the barn was locked and set alight. Who set the fire I don’t know. After the fire I went home and Jews were burned.There were more than a thousand of them’ (Bikont, 2015, pp. 117–118).’ These witness/perpetrator accounts make it clear that the pogrom in Jedwabne was conceived and conducted by the local Poles. The Russian occupiers had just been routed by the Germans, and the thirst for revenge against the Communist sympathizers, factions and “snitches” within the area was running high. As some of the Jewish population had been pro-Communist, the Jews as a group became a target for retaliation.1 Fifty-three years later, in 1994, following decades of ethnic hostilities, violence and persecution, the Rwandan Hutu interahamwe instigated orders to the Hutu population to murder their Tutsi neighbours. PANCRACE: The first day, a messenger from the municipal judge went house to house summoning us to a meeting right away. There

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the judge announced that the reason for the meeting was the killing of every Tutsi without exception. It was simply said, and it was simple to understand. So the only questions were about the details of the operation. For example, how and when we had to begin, since we were not used to this activity, and where to begin, too, since the Tutsis had run off in all directions. There were even some guys who asked if there were any priorities. The judge answered sternly: ‘There is no need to ask how to begin. The only worthwhile plan is to start straight ahead into the bush, and right now, without hanging back anymore behind questions.’ ADALBERT:We sorted ourselves out on the soccer field.This team went up, that team went down, another team set out for a different swamp. The lucky ones could look around for chances to loot. At first the burgomaster, the subprefect, and the municipal councillors were coordinating all that, along with the soldiers or retired policeman, thanks to their guns. In any case, if you owned a weapon, even an old grenade, you were pushed forward and found yourself in favour. Later on the bravest young guys became leaders, the one who gave orders without hesitation and strode eagerly along. Me, I made myself the leader for all the residents of Kibungo from the very first day. Previously I was leader of the church choir, so now I became a real leader, so to speak. The residents approved me without a hitch. We liked being in our gang. We all agreed about the new activities, we decided on the spot where we would go to work, we helped one another out like comrades. If someone presented a little excuse, we would offer to take on his part of the job that one time. The organization was a bit casual, but it was respected and conscientious. . . . ELIE:The intimidators made the plans and whipped up enthusiasm; the shopkeepers paid and provided transportation; the farmers prowled and pillaged. For the killings, though, everybody had to show up blade in hand and pitch in for a decent stretch of work. People would bristle only when the leaders announced compulsory collections of money to pay the men who went to help out in neighbouring sectors. Folks grumbled especially about collections organized to give bonuses to interahamwe from nearby areas. As for us, we frowned on those big operations, finding it more profitable for everyone to stick to his own backyard. We knew those who came long distances expected large rewards. Deep down, we didn’t like them; we preferred handling things ourselves. Concerning the business of the killings and compensations, people from the different hills did not have a sharing turn of mind. (Hatzfeld, 2005, pp. 9–12)

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What is chillingly apparent in both these brief accounts of mass killings is that, whatever complex histories and set of motivations lay behind them socially and individually, the perpetrators were willing actors.They were not simply following orders because they had been forced to, nor were they passive bystanders; they were “the ones who wanted to” (Bikont, 2015, p. 324). It is important to be clear that these distinctions are not discrete and separate categories but are necessarily overlapping and nuanced. Those who participated in the killings were not always willing; some, despite group pressures, found ways of opting out and some tried surreptitiously to protect victims. Nevertheless, significant numbers did not.While it is easier for us to identify with the person following orders or the bystander, it is far more difficult to identify with those who seemingly choose to kill their neighbours and to understand how this happens, and continues to happen. In this chapter I will attempt to describe the psychological processes of group demonization within communities that become taken over by a kind of mass psychosis, leading to organized mass killing. I have chosen the Jedwabne pogrom because it is a striking example of a locally led massacre that has been particularly well documented in Bikont’s recent research. (See Bikont, 2015.) Nevertheless, few of those who were involved as perpetrators or who witnessed the killings will speak about this today, for fear of being brought to court, for fear of reprisals, and because they maintain denial in relation to acts that are incongruent with how they normally see themselves. For first-hand accounts from the killers, I have therefore drawn on the extensive interviews (conducted by Jean Hatzfeld) of Hutus involved in the Rwandan genocide (Hatzfeld, 2005). Although the Jedwabne pogrom and the Rwandan genocide have different histories and socio-political contexts, I am bringing these accounts together to gain a closer view of the psychological factors that tip a group of people over into targeting their neighbours for extermination. As in the case of understanding the phenomena of bystanders or those who are ordered to commit atrocities, there is no universal formula that offers a satisfactory explanation. Each instance is predicated on a unique socio-historical context that results in mass slaughter. We can identify at best common features and also address the question as to why this happens in some areas and not in others that share seemingly similar histories and characteristics. The narcissism of minor differences Both accounts of the pogrom in Jedwabne and the killing of Tutsis in Rwanda vividly highlight how the victim groups come to be perceived as embodying all that must be annihilated and destroyed.The vilification of the victims is the first step in their de-humanization. Once they are seen as the repository of all

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that is bad, they can be harmed, and killed, with impunity. In psychoanalytic terms, this is the process of splitting and projection whereby what is experienced as good is split from what is experienced as bad, which is then deposited or projected into another person (object).Vamik Volkan refers to this process as externalization (Volkan, 1986). Splitting is an unconscious defence mechanism that makes it possible for us to preserve an internal state of goodness and a more cohesive sense of self-representation, especially in the face of extreme frustration or threat. The “other” is then perceived as bad, with the result that the conflict experienced in ambiguity is obliterated and a black and white world established. This paranoid-schizoid position characterizes the state of mind exemplified by ideological or religious radicalization and is a particularly distinctive mark of colonization and the politics of group supremacy. While there is an “us and them” mentality inherent in any form of conflict, it becomes especially destructive when the sense of self or identity, whether it is of the group or the individual, is threatened. Freud first wrote about this process in his essay “The taboo of virginity,” where he describes “the narcissism of minor differences.” He wrote this essay in 1917 in the aftermath of World War I when mankind’s aggression and destructiveness toward one another was foremost in people’s minds. Referring to the writings of the British anthropologist Ernest Crawley, Freud observed that: Crawley, in language that differs only slightly from the current terminology of psycho-analysis, declares that each individual is separated from others by a ‘taboo of personal isolation’, and that it is precisely the minor differences in people who are otherwise alike that form the basis of feelings of strangeness and hostility between them. It would be tempting to pursue this idea and to derive from this ‘narcissism of minor differences’ the hostility which in every human relationship we see fighting successfully against feelings of fellowship and overpowering the commandment that all men should love one another. (Freud, 1917, p. 119) Freud initially observed the anxiety caused by the perception of fundamental difference between the sexes. In his clinical work with patients, Freud found that the sheer difference of otherness presented by the opposite sex was threatening and produced hostility. Four years later, Freud extended his idea of the narcissism of minor differences to group behaviour in his essay “Group psychology and the analysis of the ego.” Here Freud writes, “Of two neighbouring towns each is the other’s most jealous rival; every little canton looks down upon the others with contempt. Closely related races keep one another at arm’s length, the South German cannot endure the North German, the Englishman casts every kind of aspersion upon the Scot, the Spaniard despises the Portuguese” (Freud, 1921, p. 101).

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The historian and politician Michael Ignatieff, in trying to understand ethnic violence in the Bosnia-Serbia war, points to the “fantasy of purity” that, in his view, lies at the heart of intolerance of the other, establishing “boundaries that can never be crossed” (Ignatieff, 1998, p. 62). While an illusion of purity can be established through differentiation – and demonization – from the other for the purpose, as Volkan argues, of expunging undesirable characteristics onto the other and strengthening the group’s sense of identity, this does not adequately explain why this dynamic should be more extreme between neighbours. The French critic and philosopher Rene Girard goes a step further and sees envy as the source of hostility between neighbouring groups or individuals. Girard (1977) postulates the idea of mimetic rivalry based on the mimetic desire to acquire a sense of being from another person by taking away his or her being through the object the person possesses (i.e. the object as fetish or totem). Rivalry is not about the object the other possesses (i.e. envy); it is about the fantasy of what the other possesses internally (i.e. the breast). It is based on a state of envy and the fantasy that the other is threatening because he has attributes that highlight difference and lack.2 Differentiation with the other is then accentuated in order to strengthen group identity, and this entails denigration of the other’s attributes and, at its most extreme, extermination of the other. Girard emphasizes the psychological impulse not only to destroy that which is perceived to be threatening but in the process to incorporate the powers of the other. The pillaging and looting that followed the pogrom in Jedwabne and the killings of the Tutsis in Rwanda cannot be ascribed simply to greed; on a symbolic level, they were also acts of possession, taking the life of the “other” as one’s own, and omnipotence, an ultimate reversal of social and political position. Freud, Ignatieff and Girard are positing psychological factors at the heart of human conflict. The difficulty in these different views is that conflict seems to arise primarily from narcissism, envy and rivalry as intrapsychic events without recognizing that conflict is also rooted in a socio-historical context. The historian Kalyvas, in his study of civil war, acknowledges the universality of the idea of the narcissism of minor differences but situates conflict within the particular dynamics of the social group and its history. He stresses that “symmetric contexts foster denunciation, via the mechanisms of fear of status loss and envy” (Kalyvas, 2006, p. 353) and argues: Social hierarchies in symmetric environments tend to be fluid . . . and open to modification (unlike with castes or rigid strata). Competition for status (‘face’ or ‘honor’) is open, daily, and intense: it generates humiliation, shaming, and ‘loss of face’ – usually experienced as

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among the worst things that can happen to a person. It is well known that challenges to honor originate from parties of equal rank (Barry O’Neill 1990), and that egalitarian peasant societies tend to be associated with a culture of honor (M. Johnson 2001:67) of ‘face’, which submits individual behaviour to constant and exacting social judgment (Hua and Thireau 1996). Martin Yang’s (1945:167–72) analysis of conflicts in a Chinese village shows how loss of face makes sense only in the context of symmetric relations since interpersonal conflicts are threatening among peers. . . . Because slight personal losses or face often signal (or even amount to) losses of social power that demand redress, they spur denunciation when such an opportunity arises. (Kalyvas, 2006, p. 353) Kalyvas stresses the importance within symmetric environments of what he describes as a “loss of face” or “honor”, as an inevitable by-product of fluid social hierarchies. Both the recent histories of the Poles in Jedwabne and the Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda are characterized by humiliation at the hands of invaders; in the case of Jedwabne, from the Russians and then the Germans, and in the case of Rwanda, from the Portuguese and then the Belgians. In these cases, existing animosities between different groups that nevertheless co-existed, to the point of inter-marrying, turn murderous when the conquering powers have withdrawn (or are in transition, as in the case of Jedwabne) and redress is sought from within. In Jedwabne, the Jewish pogrom took place soon after the Russian invaders had been vanquished by the Germans. For the Poles in occupied territory, this change of power, even if it was seen initially for the better, nevertheless left behind an experience of humiliation, impotence and social distrust. Some communities, such as Jedwabne, contained pro-Communist sympathizers and “snitches”, and although many of these were Poles, after the Russians were vanquished, it was the Jews who were targeted as being pro-Russian. While the Poles could not directly wreak revenge on their past Russian masters, they could attempt to regain “face” by exerting power over part of their own community – a part that was sufficiently distinct, or perceived as “foreign”, by them, i.e. the Jews. In this respect it can be argued that the pogrom served the purpose of re-establishing a sense of power and agency within the Jedwabne community by subjecting the Jews to the humiliations and violations they had experienced under the Russians. Certainly it was an act of purification, arising out of collective shame. The question nevertheless remains, “Why murder?” The Hutus and Tutsis had had a lengthy history of being ruled by outsiders, notably the Belgians, who had strategically exacerbated hostilities

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between tribes through a divide-and-rule policy. From 1931 to 1944, ethnic groups were required under Belgian protectorate to carry identity cards specifying which ethnic group they belonged to. A year after Rwanda’s independence was proclaimed, in 1962, the Rwandan army executed the first widespread massacres of Tutsis in Nyamata. According to one Hutu, “The idea of genocide,” germinated in 1959, when we killed lots of Tutsis without being punished, and we never repressed it after that.The intimidators and the peasants with hoes found themselves in agreement. . . . As with farm work, we waited for the right season. The death of our president was the signal for the final chaos. But as with a harvest, the seed was planted before” (Hatzfeld, 2005, p. 51). Both Hutus and Tutsis had suffered for centuries under colonial rule. As in the case of Jedwabne, they could not exert revenge against their past rulers, but they could vie for power internally within the newly formed state of Rwanda. Here too we are left with the question, “How did this result in genocide?” The legacy of terror In situations of war, we are familiar with the concept of indiscriminate or random violence used as a means of reprisal against attacks on the invading army. For example, the German command in Greece in WWII, following an attack against German forces, proclaimed,“If such people as are guilty cannot be found, those persons must be resorted to, who, without being connected with the actual deed, nevertheless are to be regarded as co-responsible” (see Kalyvas, 2006, p. 142). To this day, Greeks point out towns3 where all the inhabitants were murdered as reprisals. The terror instilled by such unpredictable, random killings on civilian populations is immeasurable, creating extreme anxiety, mistrust, disorientation and atomization. Unable to make sense of what is happening and often unable to protect themselves, people are paralyzed and impotent with fear. The greater the uncertainty of violence (and death) is, the more the population become compliant with the authorities, not only because they are seeking protection from them but because they have no way of reacting to the violence and, consequently, can no longer make sense of their lives. Kalyvas points out that the impact of terror (i.e. unpredictable, random violence) on a population is to erase “the relationship between crime and punishment, thus abolishing the concept of transgression. Its sheer unpredictability makes everyone fear lethal sanctions regardless of their behaviour; innocence is irrelevant and compliance is utterly impossible” (Kalyvas, 2006, p. 143).  The moral order of the occupier eradicates the local system of norms. Through this destruction of norms, collective identity is undermined and perverted.

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Jan Gross, the Polish historian, describes this process in the Polish response to Nazi occupation: One would expect that noncompliance with German demands carried such drastic penalties that scarcely anyone would dare to defy them. But full compliance was impossible; terror continued and even intensified with time. The population quickly recognized the new logic of the situation: whether one tried to meet German demands or not, one was equally exposed to violence . . . It makes no sense, in the context of random punishment, to style one’s life according the possibility of being victimized, any more than it makes sense to orient all of one’s everyday acts to the possibility of an accident. (Gross, 1979, p. 212, as cited in Kalyvas, 2006, p. 143) Gross points out the impossible position that many Poles were caught in during German occupation (and earlier during Russian occupation) in which non-compliance was frightening but compliance offered no security either.The only way to manage what Gross describes as the “new logic” was to simultaneously behave as if the German occupiers “did not exist” (Gross, 1979, p. 238) and to collaborate with them on a daily basis.Through the balancing of denial and recognition, hope for survival could be held onto with some sense of normative integrity (Gross, 2006, p. 202). This is not a process of psychological splitting, it is a conscious process in which oppositional realities can be held together, but it is at the cost of moral order; innocence and transgression cease to exist as moral concepts. Jedwabne It would be tempting to explain the murderous actions of the Poles towards their Jewish neighbours as a product of their identification with the aggressor, i.e. with the Russians and subsequently the Germans. The perpetrators as a group could be seen as treating the Jews in some of the ways they had been treated, as de-humanized and terrorized. Undoubtedly, their sadistic desire for revenge against their occupiers was, at least in part, aimed at and unleashed on the Jewish population. Exercising total power over their Jewish neighbours may have been a collective attempt amongst the Poles to regain a sense of potency and agency and to transfer their weakness and shame onto the Jews as social pariahs. The Jews could also be seen as the scapegoats who, through their death, would restore the moral order that had been desecrated. The pogrom could be seen as a ritualized performance to expel Satan and to restore the community to purity and integrity. But it was an actual performance, not a ritualized one. Instead of restoring moral order,

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the dehumanizing of the “other”, i.e. the Jews, underscored the extent to which the Polish community in Jedwabne had absorbed and adopted the new norms of terror that absolved them of committing sins because certain transgressions no longer existed. The detailed interviews Bikont conducted of Jedwabne residents from this time indicate that the Poles who were involved in the pogrom, despite some of them being described as “thugs” and “delinquents”, consisted of the ordinary populace of the town, including those who had sheltered Jewish friends and then denounced them. There were, of course, exceptions amongst the Poles who did try to safeguard the Jews, but few who actively tried to protest. There is also a marked denial of involvement amongst many of the Poles who took an active part in the pogrom, as highlighted by those residents from Jedwabne who refused to even open their doors to Bikont and by the witnesses who continued to remain silent for fear of reprisal from the perpetrators. The current situation in Jedwabne, as depicted by Bikont, is much like a mafia community where everyone in the vicinity knows who has committed crimes but turns a blind eye to it in the interests of local survival. While guilt must fuel much of the denial amongst many of the Jedwabne residents, another aspect of denial that is important to consider is that the norms that were operative at the time of the pogrom do not square with the norms that the perpetrators adhere to now. The two set of norms cannot be reconciled and so one must be denied, or if it is not denied, it arouses anxiety that it will not be understood by outsiders. In this respect, it is hardly surprising that so many of the Poles who were involved in the pogrom blamed the Germans, either saying that the Jews had been killed directly by them or that the Poles had been following orders.There is some justification in attributing responsibility to the Reich. Reinhard Heydrich, who was at the time chief of the Reich Main Security Office, issued a directive on 29 June 1941 as follows: No obstacles should be placed in the way of aspirations toward selfcleansing in anti-Communist or anti-Jewish circles in the newly occupied territories. Rather, such aspirations should be provoked without leaving traces, and if need be they should be intensified and led onto the right track, however in a way that prevents the local ‘self-defence groups’ from later citing any orders or political assurances given them. . . . The aim is to provoke local popular pogroms. (quoted in Bikont, 2015, p. 259) Heydrich’s directive indicates clearly that the local population were to be given free license to “cleanse” the Communists and the Jews, without at the same time this being overtly granted. The tacit encouragement, however,

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meant that local boundaries had shifted considerably and behaviour that would once have been considered transgressive became acceptable or at least tolerated without consequence. While the Polish residents of Jedwabne who participated in the pogrom had collectively formed a demonic view of the Jews, they were also living in the shadow of uncertainty and terror. Their own persecutory fears could be acted out and inflicted on their Jewish neighbours; their increasing anxiety in relation to their occupation only serving to incite their increasingly violent treatment of the Jews. Psychological splitting occurs within particular contexts and, in this case, may have served to establish an illusion of some normative structure in the face of a life that had become unpredictable and anomic. Living within a predictable normative structure is vitally important for the survival of the group; when this is under threat or has been disabled, we become attached to a new belief system or set of norms. What is striking is the fluidity of what those norms may be and how incongruous they may be with previous norms.4 Rwanda Sanction to kill Selective assassinations began on 6 April 1994 when the plane carrying President Juvenal Habyarimana of Rwanda and President Cyprien Ntaryamira of Burundi was shot down as it was nearing the Kigali airport. The presidents were returning from a meeting in Dar-es-Salaam where regional heads of state had agreed to implement the Arusha Accords of August 1993, marking what was intended to be the end of a three-year Rwanda civil war. Instead, within a week of Habyarimana’s assassination, full-scale genocide had started with 20,000 killed in the Kigali area.Three months later, approximately 500,000 had been killed, a further two million became refugees and one million were internally displaced. According to the Africa scholar Gerard Prunier, “80% of the victims were killed during the first six weeks of the genocide, an extermination rate which would prove five times as fast as that of the Nazi death camps” (Article 19, 1996, p. 10). Once the Hutu interahamwe had given orders to kill every Tutsi, as one Hutu stated, “it was simple to understand.”5 On the surface, this could mean that the order was clear, no exceptions were to be made, no decisions needed to be weighed up; the Hutus were being told exactly what they needed to do. It was perhaps also simple to understand within a historical context of ongoing rivalry between the two ethnic groups and moreover a history of slavery and persecution from colonial masters who had ruled the region for centuries. It was therefore simple to understand that one day, the Hutus might be targeted for extermination and the next it might be the Tutsis. It

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was also simple to understand motivations of envy and revenge against the Tutsi-led government. Above all, what comes through so clearly in Hatzfeld’s interviews of Hutu perpetrators is the level of excitement amongst the “gangs” about their mission and the extent to which they became identified with the “gangs” they belonged to. Being in charge of one’s immediate area brought with it local recognition and responsibility to do the job well and not to be exploited by Hutus from farther away who were described as outsiders, primarily interested in material gain.The single uniting aim was to kill every Tutsi in order to ensure long-lasting supremacy. Sanctioned to kill, the Tutsi victims rapidly became de-humanized in the perpetrators’ minds. Described as “cockroaches” (inyensi), the Tutsis were subjected to different rituals of degradation performed publicly with the effect of distancing the perpetrators from the impact of the killings. The psychiatrist Colin Murray Parkes, who consulted the Rwandan government following the genocide, describes how women in particular, symbolizing the core of the family and Tutsi procreation, were targeted. “Bodies were stripped naked and women degraded by being publicly raped. The greatest degradation was to hand them over to pygmies (Twa) to be raped as they were regarded as of degraded status whereas Tutsis have, in the past, been proud people of high status. The approval by authorities of this behaviour confirmed the alienation of the victims” (Parkes, 1996, p. 6). Mindlessness was the most effective antidote to feeling.6 Fulgence, a Hutu, described his first killing: First I cracked on old mama’s skull with a club. But she was already lying almost dead on the ground, so I did not feel death at the end of my arm. I went home that evening without even thinking about it. (Hatzfeld, 2005, p. 18) Another Hutu, Leopold, seasoned in the act of killing, similarly described his lack of thought: Since I was killing often, I began to feel it did not mean anything to me. It gave me no pleasure. I knew I would not be punished. I was killing without consequences, I adapted without a problem. I left every morning free and easy, in a hurry to get going. I saw that the work and the results were good for me, that’s all. During the killings I no longer considered anything in particular in the Tutsi except that the person had to be done away with. I want to make clear that from the first gentleman I killed to the last, I was not sorry about a single one. (Hatzfeld, 2005, p. 46)

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These statements allow us a remarkable insight into the Hutu perpetrators’ state of mind. Group identity and allegiance to a common cause seems foremost in driving them toward genocide, markedly different from being motivated by ideological, political or criminal motivations. Although the Hutu killers behaved in some respects as small bands of militia, with all the excitement of operating as a fighting unit, their lack of military aims and strategy was, ironically, their downfall. Kagame, leading the RPF (Rwandan Patriotic Front) and noted as a “masterful psychological strategist”, was able to take control of Kigali, the state capital, largely because the Hutu troops had become more intent on exterminating Tutsis than on adhering to a military strategy to secure control of the country. It was precisely the single-minded genocidal mission of the Hutus en masse that ultimately disabled them. Another Hutu, Aldalbert, explained: We were certain of killing everyone without drawing evil looks.Without getting a scolding from a white or a priest. We joked about it instead of pressing our advantage.We felt too at ease with an unfamiliar job that had got off to a good start. But time and laziness played an ugly trick on us. Basically, we became too sure of ourselves, and we slowed down. That overconfidence is what did us in. (Hatzfeld, 2005, p. 85) These individual accounts emphasize that the killings were not personally motivated; they seemed to be motivated instead by a desire to cleanse and purge themselves of the vilified Tutsis, to establish dominance over the “other” in their midst, and to gain respect and material benefits from their new supremacy. While there was not a clear political or religious ideology underlying the genocide, the Hutus had nevertheless been given orders from the interahamwe to kill. As one Hutu, Innocent, explained, “Genocide is not really a matter of poverty or lack of education. . . . In 1959 the Hutus relentlessly robbed, killed, and drove away Tutsis, but they never for a single day imagined exterminating them. It is the intellectuals who emancipated them, by planting the idea of genocide in their heads and sweeping away their hesitations” (Hatzfeld, 2005, p. 145). Not only were the killings sanctioned but a new norm or code of honour was established. The ideal of killing as many Tutsis as possible became a recognized feature within the Hutu population. The elision between following orders and actively participating in the killings is articulated clearly by Pancrace: It was obligatory. A special group of hothead boys was assigned to search the houses of those who tried to hide.We feared the authorities’

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anger more than the blood we spilled. But deep down we had no fear of anything. I’ll explain. When you receive a new order, you hesitate but you obey, or else you’re taking a risk. When you have been prepared the right way by the radios and the official advice, you obey more easily, even if the order is to kill your neighbours. The mission of a good organizer is to stifle your hesitations when he gives you instructions. For example, when he shows you that the act will be total and have no grave consequences for anyone left alive, you obey more easily, you don’t worry about anything. You forget your misgivings and fears of punishment.You obey freely. (Hatzfeld, 2005, p. 65) Although it was possible for the well-to-do, and especially the wealthier population in the cities, to keep their hands clean by buying “relief ” from killing, rewards for killing were an important feature of social hierarchy; rewards were not simply for material gain but constituted conforming to the ideal of the group.7 As Elie put it, “In the evening we had to report to the leader about exactly what we had killed. Many boasted, for fear of being taunted or frowned on . . . you weren’t beaten if you behaved weakly during the day. The requirements were not that excessive. You just found yourself poorly rewarded, and that was unfortunate” (Hatzfeld, 2005, p. 69). As Leopold confirmed, “It gave me no pleasure . . . [but] I saw that the work and the results were good for me . . .” (Hatzfeld, 2005, p. 46). The clear message that there would be no sanctions or consequences to fear from the killings served to bolster the belief that the Hutus were already superior to their hated rivals because they could determine what was lawful and what was not. While this belief system enhanced group identity, it was secured by demonization of the other. There was one law for “us” and another law for “them”, two sets of conflicting norms running parallel to one another. As in the case of the Poles in Jedwabne, the rules had changed and a new norm had been established; adaptation required a psychological splitting that would support the new normative structure. An example of the conflict presented by these conflicting norms can perhaps be seen in Leopold’s reference to the Tutsis he killed as “gentlemen”. Rather than suggesting that he may in fact feel regret, we might read this statement as evidence of two normative structures existing within the killer’s mind at the same time, or, if not actually co-existing, as a remnant leftover from a previous time in which respect was shown to the “other” and leaving us with a sense of cognitive dissonance. The split in norms was nowhere more evident than in the domestic accounts of the killers’ behaviour. Marie-Chantal, the wife of a Hutu leader,

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emphasizes her husband’s attentiveness to his family’s welfare. “He came home often. He never carried a weapon, not even his machete. I knew he was a leader, I knew the Hutus were out there cutting Tutsis.With me, he behaved nicely. He made sure we had everything we needed. One day he even had his stepfather’s second wife escorted to Kabgayi because she had Tutsi blood” (Hatzfeld, 2005, p. 161). Marie-Chantal’s remarks are strikingly reminiscent of descriptions of the home life of many SS officers working in the concentration camps under the Reich and the long-established Mafia structure ensuring internal loyalty and protection.8 Marie-Chantal’s remarks also highlight the fact that some Tutsis, or those with Tutsi blood, were spared due to personal ties, but this was much more the exception than the rule. Fulgence explains, “You could spare a person you owed an old favour to, or had given you a cow, but there was always someone bringing up the rear who was out to kill. Luck did not exempt a single Tutsi in the marshes.What had to be done was done under all circumstances.You knew it, and in the end you did not dare go against that truth” (Hatzfeld, 2005, p. 111). In Jedwabne, many of the local Polish population shared a similar view with regard to trying to protect or harbour their Jewish neighbours. They not only feared reprisals from the Polish community if they were seen to be helping the Jews but there was also a powerful belief amongst some that helping would simply be deferring the inevitable. Normalization During states of war, killing the enemy is normally justified as a means of self-protection or to save the lives of others. The important difference, however, in warfare is that killing is limited in order to achieve specific aims and not licensed as a means of exterminating the enemy altogether. In Rwanda, involving as many people in the killings as possible and killing as many of the Tutsis as possible was a way of normalizing the killings and of establishing the killers’ behaviour as normal. (See African Rights, 1994.) The early formation of militia type teams from local areas set up to do the killing soon took on a militaristic identity and structure. In this way, the task of killing could be subsumed and justified within a context of war and in this way normalized. A Hutu woman, Sylvie, comments, “ . . . after a genocide, certain words no longer have their old meaning, certain words just lose their meaning, and anyone who listens must watch out for the changes” (Hatzfeld, 2005, p. 145). Hatzfeld points out that the language used to refer to the genocide was an important means of normalizing what happened. He notes that the word “genocide” was rarely used by the killers. Instead, “they prefer . . . the word itsembatsemba, ‘massacres,’ and especially intambara, ‘war,’ thus likening their

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actions to the wars of previous generations or in other African countries” (Hatzfeld, 2005, p. 145). Innocent explains, “ . . . if they (the Hutus) use that word genocide in an answer, it’s just from inattention, because you used it in the question and they can’t think of another one fast enough. Otherwise, they avoid it as a troublesome word. They classify their memories as routine killings. Deep down, they’re not interested in the word, only in the penalties it might bring” (Hatzfeld, 2005, pp. 145–146). Similarly, the words used by killers to describe survivors are usually chosen to mean “a stricken person”, “someone who has suffered”, or a survivor in the sense of someone who has survived a calamity (Hatzfeld, 2005, p. 146). No acknowledgement is given that the killings marked a shift in norms and sanctions that enabled genocide to occur. Alongside the military metaphor that provided a normative rationale for what could be perceived as “routine” killings, the other metaphor that became prominent was that of work or employment. The killers often referred to the violence as akazi kacu, meaning “our work.” The anthropologist Christopher Taylor argues that the metaphor of work was important due to the high levels of un- and underemployment amongst the Hutu at the time. He writes, “Just by becoming an Interahamwe and executing Tutsi, one could elevate oneself to the status of state employee. One could even expect eventual compensation from the state for one’s services, and indeed that was sometimes given and much more frequently promised” (Taylor, 2002, p. 169).The importance of these metaphors is that they represent roles and functions that are valued in most societies, they confer status and they are hierarchically structured. In these respects, the metaphors underscore that the killers are conforming to collective ideals that are of benefit to both the individual and the group. The Rwandans used a further metaphor, that of the garden, to explain and normalize the killings. Drawing from horticultural imagery, Taylor notes, “Hutu citizens were instructed to cut the ‘tall trees’ down to size, an indirect but easily understood reference to the physiognomic stereotype of Tutsi height. In other cases the nation-state became a garden, as Hutu extremists called upon their followers to clear away the ‘weeds.’ Following this metaphor, promoters exhorted their followers to remove both the ‘tall weeds’ (adults) and the ‘shoots’ (children)” (Hatzfeld, 2005, pp. 145–146). This metaphor of racial purification is similarly apparent in the Jedwabne Poles’ conception of the Jews as a polluting and corrupt force taking over and destroying the life of their community, much like weeds overrunning a garden. Here again, the collective ideal of protecting the group by eliminating those elements that are seen as destructive and corrupting is easily grafted onto existing social norms. What has changed is the categorization of what and who is considered destructive.

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The act of killing The description by the Hutus of the absence of feeling and thought they experienced in the act of killing is not a phenomenon restricted to the Rwandan genocide, but is a common state of mind reiterated by perpetrators of massacres in other parts of the world.9 The absence of feeling in these instances may be, at least in part, due to the physiological arousal caused by the hunt itself and the act of killing. The increase of adrenalin stimulated by aggression necessarily suppresses physical – and psychic – pain and may be sustained over periods of danger. These accounts of the absence of feeling, however, do not convey the extreme excitement – and fear – induced by being in the position to determine someone else’s death. In a world that sanctions killing, sadistic fantasies can be enacted without retaliation or consequence. However, because of this omnipotent sphere of action, thought and feeling also lose their significance and meaning. The perpetrator feels all-powerful, above any higher law, above God. Leopold, a Hutu, describes this state: Through killing well, eating well, looting well, we felt so puffed up and important, we didn’t even care about the presence of God. Those who say otherwise are half-witted liars. Some claim today that they sent up prayers during the killings. They’re lying: no one ever heard an Ave Maria or the like, they’re only trying to jump in front of their colleagues on line for repentance. In truth, we thought that from then on we could manage for ourselves without God.The proof – we killed even on Sunday without ever noticing it. That’s all. (Hatzfeld, 2005, pp. 138–139) In claiming that they could “manage without God,” Leopold is also suggesting that the force that would have in the past protected them from their own sadism, in psychoanalytic terms, the superego, was no longer helpful or even relevant. What had constituted a sin, i.e. harming another human, was no longer the case but had become inverted to something positive. This did not mean that the killers had no superego to help them manage their impulses, but that the moral system that informs the superego had changed. Any guilt that resulted from the killings could then be either repressed altogether or expunged through further killing in a sado-masochistic cycle in which killing itself becomes a form of self-punishment. Killing can take on an addictive quality for various reasons. Just as reality (i.e. feeling and the capacity to think) can be destroyed in an illusion of omnipotence, it can only be temporarily destroyed before it comes to life once more. In the quest to escape feelings of vulnerability, impotence and guilt, killing offers a solution; these are aspects of oneself that can be

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displaced onto the “other” and then killed off. In Littell’s novel, The Kindly Ones, the German SS narrator tells us: In many cases, I said to myself, what I had taken for gratuitous sadism, the astonishing brutality with which some men treated the condemned before executing them, was nothing but a consequence of the monstrous pity they felt and which, incapable of expressing itself otherwise, turned into rage, but an impotent rage, without object, and which thus almost inevitably had to turn against those who had originally provoked it. (Littell, 2006, p. 147) It is the narrator’s awareness of “monstrous pity” that is ultimately unbearable and expelled through rage. In Flanagan’s novel, The Narrow Road to the Deep North, a Japanese officer in a POW camp is ordered to behead a prisoner and relates: When my turn came I couldn’t believe that I was doing everything so calmly because inside I was horrified. Yet I unsheathed the sword my father had given me without shaking. . . . Before it had begun it was over, and I was wondering why there were little globules of fat on my sword that wouldn’t rub off with the paper they handed me. That’s all I was thinking. . . . I was thinking about how easy it had been, how bright and beautiful the colours were, and I was stunned it was already over. Only when the next cadet officer stepped forward did I see that my prisoner’s neck was still pumping blood. . . . I no longer felt anything for that man. To be honest, I despised him for accepting his fate so meekly and wondered why he wouldn’t fight. But who’d be any different? And yet, I was angry with him for letting me slaughter him. (Flanagan, 2014, pp. 122–123) Although these fictional accounts describe officers who, it could be argued, were following orders, they are both acutely aware of their sadism – and its source in their pity. Compassion is not simply denied or overwhelmed by sadism; it is, paradoxically, an integral aspect of sadism. Both executioners want their victims to fight back, to behave like humans who are capable of acting, not to be victims who elicit guilt. It is the victims’ passivity that becomes unbearable and triggers off sadistic brutality. Paradoxically, it is the victim’s passive resistance, the fact that he doesn’t fight back, that makes him human. The German SS officer concludes: . . . the SS guard doesn’t become violent or sadistic because he thinks the inmate is not a human being; on the contrary, his rage increases

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and turns into sadism when he sees that the inmate, far from being a subhuman as he was taught, is actually at bottom a man, like him, after all, and it’s this resistance . . . that the guard finds unbearable, this silent persistence of the other, and so the guard beats him to try to make their shared humanity disappear. Of course, that doesn’t work: the more the guard strikes, the more he’s forced to see that the inmate refuses to recognize himself as a non-human. In the end, no other solution remains for him than to kill him, which is an acknowledgment of complete failure. (Littell, 2006, p. 624) The SS officer is describing the extreme frustration experienced in a relationship with an unresponsive object (person) that simultaneously fuels the sadistic wish to hurt the object and the desire to bring it to life. As their prey become increasingly paralysed with fear, the perpetrators, like a wave gathering force, are provoked into even greater, uncontrolled violence. Even if they did not set out with the intention to kill, the need to obliterate what is human becomes overwhelming. Mass killing then becomes a collective purging of pity – and guilt – in the service of a new normative social order. The antecedents of massacre: Why one place and not another? Not everyone follows the crowd, despite whatever risks this may entail. There were certainly Hutus, and Tutsis, who did not slaughter one another just as there were Poles who did not take part in the pogrom in Jedwabne and in other towns, and still others who harboured Jews and Communists and helped them escape. Nevertheless, what is especially intriguing about the Jedwabne pogrom, along with pogroms in several other Polish towns, is why it occurred where it did and not somewhere else in the same region. Looking at such local differences may help to fill in our understanding of how evil seems to get the upper hand in some places and not in others. In her research of postwar court documents in Poland, Bikont establishes that in some areas it was clear that Germans were the initiators and executors of the pogroms with local Polish residents who either witnessed or directly collaborated in the killings. In other areas “Poles were the immediate culprits, and Germans served as instigators and co-organizers. But in Kolno, Rutki, Grajewo and Szczuczyn it seems that the anti-Jewish incidents were not provoked by the Germans at all, but had the character of grassroots initiatives provoked by the Polish population, according to the Institute of National Remembrance.” Bikont then asks, “Why in this region

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did pogroms and killings reach a level unequalled in other parts of Poland?” (Bikont, 2015, p. 495). Bikont turns to the Polish historian Professor Adam Dobronski, an expert in the history of the region, for an answer. He responds: Jedwabne, historically it belonged to the Lomza gubernia. A nursery of Polish national identity and Catholicism; that’s how the area was described in the nineteenth century. It was a realm of petty nobles. If we’re talking about participation in popular uprisings, the Lomza area was in the forefront. . . . The petty aristocracy absorbed nationalist ideology like a sponge. . . . It was felt that this was a patriotic Catholic area with an alien element, the Jews. Add to that the shifting of the borders after World War One, which resulted in the Lomza district becoming a periphery, and the economic crisis of the thirties, which deepened the stagnation of life here.These were towns without a future, without any impulse to progress. The local population suffered a cultural degradation, it was characterized by primitivism, and the war exacerbated that state of affairs, at the same time preserving the memory of forebears who had fought to defend faith and fatherland. (Bikont, 2015, p. 496) Dobronski’s potted history of Jedwabne highlights certain features. It was an area, ruled by “petty nobles”, in which Catholicism aligned itself with Polish national identity and in this way perhaps boosted its self-importance. Jews were treated as alien presumably to strengthen local supremacy. The sense of identity was further threatened by shifting borders that placed the district at a disadvantage. Added to this, the subsequent economic crisis of the 1930s further weakened the position of the area, resulting in what Dobronski describes as “cultural degradation.” The area had effectively become a backwater that relied on a sentimental vision of its past to sustain its identity in the present. In this stark picture of hopelessness, “these were towns without a future, without any impulse to progress.” Dobronski seems to be making a link between “primitivism”, a bleak economic future, and humiliation (i.e. “cultural degradation”) as important ingredients that may have tipped the balance toward the massacre of the Jews in Jedwabne. Nevertheless, not every town that is on the verge of dying out will lash out and exterminate what it considers to be the foreign element in its midst as a way of restoring some sense of potency and hope for the future. The kindling already existed in Jedwabne, but the fire that set off the massacre was most likely a small group of individuals, including the local Catholic clergy, who were able to incite their followers into action, perhaps initially

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through fear, greed and the desire for revenge against their plight. A local resident, interviewed by Bikont, described the situation as follows: First, the Germans gave permission for it. Second, before the war there were powerful National Party influences, and numerous anti-Jewish excesses took place. Third, there was an active group of people led by Mayor Karolak ready for a pogrom, and they hatched a plan and incited the rest of the townspeople by saying, ‘Look, it turned out well in Radzilow, they’re rid of the problem.’ And finally, fourth, Satan got into the town. (Bikont, 2015, p. 93) This account gives a more recent view, also confirming that the ground had been prepared in Jedwabne for what was to come.The idea of the killings had been sanctioned, anti-Jewish sentiment already existed, an active anti-Jewish group had already formed and pogroms elsewhere had been successful. But the fourth, and most troubling, condition remains open to conjecture. What stands out in the resident’s account is his identification of an active group who were preparing for the pogrom and who were in a position of sufficient power to influence others in the community.The historian Wachsmann, in his study of the evolution of concentration camps under the German Reich, describes the culture of terror that was transmitted through the concentration camp system by the SS veterans who moved into management positions in newer camps and brought with them hardened attitudes to the treatment of prisoners. Wachsmann writes: All that was required for the system to function was for the new KL staff to perform their basic tasks. They may have sometimes done their jobs less brutally than seasoned SS men, but they still did them. In his last long letter to his wife, in early April 1945, Hugo Behncke explained that the best thing was to hope for a German victory, ‘put one’s head in the sand,’ and ‘continue to fulfil my duty here as a guard.’ The overall conclusion is chilling: the KL system did not require a vast army of political soldiers. . . . In the satellite camps, a small band of Camp SS veterans, deeply committed to violence, was enough to sweep along a much larger group of more ordinary men and women. This highlights one of the most striking aspects about the KL toward the end: the terror continued even as the SS presence diminished. (Wachsmann, 2015, pp. 470–471) The powerful position of the veteran SS enabled them to maintain and perpetuate a culture of terror, sweeping others along with them, despite, or perhaps because of, the diminishment of their actual power in reality.

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In Rwanda, the socio-political conditions that might lead to genocide were, at least in hindsight, much more apparent. The region had suffered from civil wars, tribes had been pitted against one another throughout the Belgian colonial rule, significantly favouring the Tutsis over the Hutus, internal economic conditions had deteriorated badly, increasing economic inequality between the Tutsis and the Hutus and between urban and rural areas, and there was no stable government. Newbury, a political scientist and Africa scholar, also points out that, “Youths faced a situation where many (perhaps most) had no land, no jobs, little education, and no hope for the future” (Newbury, 1995, pp. 14–15). This description echoes Dobronski’s picture of the area around Jedwabne as “towns without a future.” What is often described as a “culture of terror” existed in Rwanda before the events of 1994 and was significant in laying the ground for the genocide to come. Racial segregation and favouritism established under the Belgians had also given rise to genocidal conflicts in neighbouring Burundi. In 1972, after independence, the ruling Tutsi regime ordered the killing of more than 200,000 Hutus, targeting its educated population. Fear, insecurity and a desire for revenge were powerful forces fuelling Hutu hatred of Tutsis. It was the interahamwe in Rwanda who, like the Mayor’s group in Jedwabne, took the lead in initiating the genocide. It was not a spontaneous upsurge but was carefully planned and orchestrated, drawing on elements in the army, the police and civilian administrative authorities while radio stations broadcast hate messages against the Tutsis (Newbury, 1995, p. 12). As Innocent explained, “it is the intellectuals who emancipated (the Hutus), by planting the idea of genocide in their heads and sweeping away their hesitations” (Hatzfeld, 2005, p. 145). The common features that emerge between the killings in these two very different parts of the world is the long-term disempowerment and humiliation of the population coupled with the sanction to kill a designated enemy. In both places, a narrative had been constructed about another ethnic group in the locale that allowed it to become a target for hatred, and ultimately death. In examining the precursors to genocide in Rwanda, the political scientist Omar McDoom observes that diversity of ethnic groups is not in itself problematic but may become so when the “myths and narratives about certain ethnic groups have become entrenched in societies” (McDoom, 2010, p. 563). However, these features are only part of a constellation that results in killing.The sanction to kill signifies that there has already been a marked shift in the social structure or norms that have allowed this to happen. In other words, local norms have become corrupted and a perverse, and alternative order has been established. Satan enters in a power vacuum when leaders come to the fore offering an illusion of security and respect by means of demonizing the “other.”

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Notes 1 Up until the 17th century, Poland was known for its religious and social tolerance and had the largest and most significant Jewish community within Europe. It was considered a “paradisus Judaeorum”, a paradise for Jews.With the partitions of Poland beginning in 1772 and the destruction of Poland as a sovereign state, Polish Jews were subject increasingly to the anti-Semitic statutes imposed under Russian rule. Following the nearly total extinction of the Jewish population in World War II, anti-Semitism continues to be prevalent in Poland, particularly in the southeastern provinces. Bikont’s research reveals continuing anti-Semitic prejudices in Jedwabne and the surrounding region and confirms many of Gross’ findings. (See Gross, J. (2006). Fear: Anti-Semitism in Poland after Auschwitz. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.) 2 An example of Girard’s idea of mimetic desire is in the act of rape in warfare. Soldiers in the DRC and elsewhere commonly explain that they rape the women of their enemies in order to destroy and possess their power. In this respect, they are not only enhancing their power by asserting their supremacy over the enemy’s women, they are effectively stealing the source of nourishment and fertility from the enemy. 3 Distomo near Delphi and Kalavryta in Achaea are amongst the best known towns totally destroyed by German reprisals. 4 This is evident in Stockholm Syndrome where the hostage takes on the belief system of the captor, repressing any prior belief system, as a means of psychic survival. (See chapter 3.) 5 On 19 April 1994, Interim President Sindikubwabo declared he had established “a government of saviours” that would tell the people what it expected of them. The order to kill all Tutsis, as enemies of the government, followed. 6 Killers also used alcohol and drugs to numb their feelings. 7 In his study of German concentration camps, Wachsmann makes the point that not all the SS killers in the camps were willing participants. He writes, “. . . several killers could not stand the carnage and fainted or broke down. . . . Others were very reluctant participants and tried to get out of the massacres; after their superiors announced the roster of designated killers for the next execution, they reported late for duty, or quietly stole away when the execution commando assembled” (Wachsmann, 2015, p. 271). At the same time, “Camp SS killers would boast about the number of commissars they had finished off ” (Ibid.). 8 See chapter 2, “Hannah Arendt, Evil and the Eradication of Thought.” 9 It is relevant to note that the US military incorporates training aimed at creating an automatic response to fire at the enemy in an attempt to negate feeling and thought processes that form resistances to killing. This development in military training came about in response to research conducted by the US army historian, Brigadier General S.L.A. Marshall, during World War II. Marshall found that amongst US soldiers in combat less than 25 per cent fired their weapons at the enemy. (See Marshall, S.L.A. (1947). Men Against Fire: The Problem of Battle Command. Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press.) Propaganda, such as the Japanese used in training Kamikaze pilots during WWII, is also commonly used to dehumanize the enemy and decrease resistance to killing.

References African Rights (1994). Rwanda, Death, Despair and Defiance.“African Rights” 11, Marshalsea Road, London SE1 1EP. Article 19 (17 October 1996). Broadcasting Genocide: Censorship, Propaganda and Statesponsored Violence in Rwanda. Bikont, A. (2015). The Crime and the Silence: A Quest for the Truth of a Wartime Massacre. London: William Heinemann.

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Cesarani, D. (2016). Final Solution:The Fate of the Jews 1933–49. London: Macmillan. Flanagan, R. (2014). The Narrow Road to the Deep North. London: Chatto & Windus. Freud, S. (1917).“The taboo of virginity.” SE, London: Hogarth Press (1953). 11: 191–208. Freud, S. (1921). “Group psychology and the analysis of the ego.” SE, London: Hogarth Press (1953). 18: 67–144. Girard, R. (1977). Violence and the Sacred. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Gross, J. (1979). Polish Society under German Occupation: The Generalgouvernement, 1939– 1944. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Hatzfeld, J. (2005). A Time for Machetes: The Rwandan Genocide: The Killers Speak. London: Farrar, Straus & Giroux. Ignatieff, M. (1998). The Warrior’s Honour. London:Viking. Kalyvas, S.N. (2006). The Logic of Violence in Civil War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Littell, J. (2006). The Kindly Ones. London: Chatto & Windus. McDoom, O.S. (2010). “War and genocide in Africa’s great lakes region since independence.” In The Oxford Handbook of Genocide Studies, ed. by D. Bloxham and A.D. Moses. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Newbury, C. (1995). “Background to genocide: Rwanda.” A Journal of Opinion, 23, 2: 12–17. Parkes, C.M. (1996). “Genocide in Rwanda: Personal reflections.” Mortality 1(1): 95–110. Taylor, C.C. (2002). “The Rwandan genocide of 1994.” In Annihilating Difference: The Anthropology of Genocide, ed. by A.L. Hinton. Berkeley: University of California Press. Volkan, V.D. (1986). “The narcissism of minor differences in the psychological gap between opposing nations.” Psychoanalytic Inquiry, 6: 175–191. Wachsmann, N. (2015). KL: A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps. London: Little, Brown.

7 THE PROBLEM OF FORGIVENESS AND REPARATION IN THE AFTERMATH OF EVIL

In two decades of contemplating what happened to me, I believe to have recognized that forgiving and forgetting induced by social pressure is immoral. Jean Amery, At the Mind’s Limits

Introduction Many of us grew up saying the Lord’s Prayer every night before going to sleep, repeating the words, “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” Christianity is not alone amongst religious faiths in extolling the virtues of forgiveness; it is a recognized moral good shared across cultures and beliefs, albeit with varied meanings. The goodness of forgiveness is so taken for granted that it is hardly ever questioned and, indeed, in our daily interactions we will often find ourselves “forgiving” a hurtful remark made by a friend or equally something injurious we may have done in a thoughtless moment. Forgiveness is defined as an intentional and voluntary act by which a victim lets go of resentment, anger and vengeful feelings toward his offender. In legal terms, forgiveness means absolution from debt or obligation. However, forgiveness goes beyond simply letting an offender “off the hook”, it also entails wishing the offender well. The common assumption is that forgiveness enables us to free ourselves from the anger and resentfulness that bind us to the past and is a necessary process in healing individual and social conflict. As a moral imperative, the concept of forgiveness seems to have shifted to a psychological imperative.

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While it is certainly important to resolve conflicts and not to perpetuate grudges and hateful splits, is it actually forgiveness that enables us to do this or is it a conscious decision to “move on” and “draw a line”? In psychoanalytic terms, is it simply a manifestation of the depressive position in which we accept the co-existence of love and destructiveness within ourselves and others? In other words, while we may speak about forgiveness as a necessity of life, is it in fact over-used and, more importantly, mis-used in situations where forgiveness may be neither called for nor possible? Jean Amery, who wrote about his experience of being tortured by the SS during World War II, takes a step further and asserts that the social pressure to forgive and forget is immoral. Given his horrific experience, we can imagine the abhorrence of being told to “forgive and forget”, especially by those who have never gone through such things. This kind of social pressure conveys an arrogance, a failure to comprehend and a moralistic judgement that comes not only from a position of ignorance but of fear. We can accept that forgetting our history of atrocities is a form of denial that can have dangerous consequences, but what about forgiveness? Can this too be immoral and damaging to both our individual and political well-being? And why is not forgiving seen to be so threatening? I want to clarify at the outset that I am not going to be addressing the concept of forgiveness from a religious or theological viewpoint. I do not have the expertise or experience to do this. Nor will I call into question that forgiveness is a moral good. It may well be; but I want to highlight that the idea of forgiveness is moral and contextual and without considering these two factors we cannot come to any conclusions about forgiveness and its usefulness as a concept. Forgiveness is a personal choice for everyone, just as religious belief is, but once there is a “should” attached to it, we are in murky waters. Even if we wish to forgive the sins of others, there may be limits. In Christian eschatology, as in many other religions, there are deeds beyond the bounds of forgiveness. The New Testament, for example, makes it clear that sins against children are inexcusable. In the Gospels, Luke declares, “It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones” (Luke, 17.2). Tainting innocent souls is beyond man’s forgiveness. Most recently, Pope Francis, in a sermon condemning corruption within the Church, reiterated that “the corrupt should be tied to a rock and thrown into the sea.” Despite these denunciations, there is nevertheless a belief that even heinous sins will in the end be forgiven by God. Micah says, “He will turn again, he will have compassion upon us; he will subdue our iniquities; and thou wilt cast all their sins into the sea” (Micah, 7.9). All sins will be washed away in the sea of God’s forgiveness.

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The psychological dynamic that is closest to forgiveness is reparation. Reparation means repair or making good and follows in the footsteps of forgiveness. It signifies the hope that whatever damage has occurred can be mended. Within a psychoanalytic framework, Klein postulates a reparative drive that is vital to our emotional development; it reins in our aggressive impulses and in doing so strengthens our feelings of love. The act of reparation re-establishes order in the world and restores the power of goodness to both inner and outer reality. Reparation is a concept that forms the cornerstone of religious belief and plays a central role in psychoanalytic dogma as well. What is fundamental is the belief that enmity and hurt, with their corrosive effect, can be healed in some way. But if we have had the misfortune to experience evil or to have worked with those who have, the ideas of forgiveness and reparation are problematic, if not untenable, insofar as they hold out some promise of transforming an experience which is essentially unthinkable into one that can be accommodated and related to within our psyches. Through the use of clinical material and survivor accounts, along with our experience of the political attempts made to stop cycles of violence, I will try to identify the psychic processes that we see at work in the aftermath of evil and what bearing they may have on our understanding of trauma and recovery and Amery’s powerful assertion that the social pressure to forgive is immoral. The psychoanalytic view of forgiveness and reparation In Civilization and its Discontents, Freud questions one of the greatest ideals of civilized society, “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” He asks, “Why should we do it? What good will it do us? But, above all, how shall we achieve it? How can it be possible?” (Freud, 1930). Freud argues, “If I love someone, he must deserve it in some way,” and points out the impossibility of this in the case of the stranger whom he does not know and who cannot be on a par with someone whom he does know. Moreover, the stranger “has more claim to my hostility and even my hatred.” Love is contingent on the relationship with the other, and this is what tempers man’s aggression. Freud subscribes to a Hobbesian view of human nature and states: . . . men are not gentle creatures who want to be loved, and who at the most can defend themselves if they are attacked; they are, on the contrary, creatures among whose instinctual endowments is to be reckoned a powerful share of aggressiveness. As a result, their neighbour is for them not only a potential helper or sexual object but also someone

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who tempts them to satisfy their aggressiveness on him, to exploit his capacity for work without compensation, to use him sexually without his consent, to seize his possessions, to humiliate him, to cause him pain, to torture and to kill him. Homo homini lupus. (Freud, 1930, p. 58) Here is the root of Freud’s acute observation about the narcissism of minor differences; just as one’s neighbour can be the object of love, so can he become the object of enmity. Given this view of man’s innate aggression, Freud questions the Christian commandment, “Love thine enemies.” He describes this as “even more incomprehensible” than the ideal to “to love thy neighbour” and quotes the poet, Heinrich Heine: Mine is a most peaceable disposition. My wishes are: a humble cottage with a thatched roof, but a good bed, good food, the freshest milk and butter, flowers before my window and a few fine trees before my door; and if God wants to make my happiness complete he will grant me the joy of seeing some six or seven of my enemies hanging from those trees. Before their death I shall, moved in my heart, forgive them all the wrong they did me in their life-time. One must it is true forgive one’s enemies – but not before they have been hanged. (quoted in Smith, 2008, p. 925) Although it is not apparent why “one must forgive one’s enemies,” for Heine, this can only happen when they’ve been killed off, not in life. Revenge precedes “forgiveness”, but is this really forgiveness? And is “forgiveness” really only a conscious phenomenon? What Heine’s confession exemplifies is that, while forgiveness may be granted, it must be accompanied by (or indeed follow on from) hatred. At best, the two can co-exist in mourning. And, even in mourning, it is questionable whether it is the enemy who is forgiven or whether the loving feelings that death has inspired are more to do with the awareness of one’s own death and destructiveness. The death of one’s enemy is likely to be experienced as a relief, but it is hard to imagine that any of us would mourn or feel forgiveness. If anything, in this circumstance, death may provide for a “letting go” of the past, at least on a conscious level, but this is not the same process as mourning someone who has been loved. Freud’s opposition to the ideal of “Love thine enemy” is that it constitutes what is essentially an unconscious paradox. We may or may not choose to “forgive” our enemy, but it is a conscious choice that has little to do with

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our unconscious reality insofar as it is impossible for us to overcome or will away our feelings of hatred and anger. In writing about forgiveness in Shakespeare’s King Lear, Schafer notes: Except in trivial instances of abuse, it is (never) possible to be totally forgiving . . . (despite) all those obvious manifestations of forgiveness we encounter in the world of human relationships . . . we remain unconsciously unforgiving toward others and also toward ourselves. (Schafer, 2005, pp. 405–408) Although many psychoanalysts agree with Freud, Schafer and others that the concept of forgiveness is entirely conscious and therefore outside the locus of psychoanalysis, the idea of forgiveness as a sign of analytic success or “working through” has become incorporated increasingly in analytic thinking, often confused with reparation and mourning. In his paper challenging the psychoanalytic usefulness of the concept of forgiveness, Smith cites the work of Siassi, Akhtar and Lansky as examples in which forgiveness is purported to perform a crucial role in the psychoanalytic process (Smith, 2008). Siassi refers to an “unconscious urge to forgive”, reminiscent of Klein’s reparative drive; Akhtar outlines a series of failures to forgive as evidence of psychopathology; and Lansky connects forgiveness to working through early defences of shame. What these examples illustrate is a kind of flavour of the month theorization, in which “forgiveness” is the popular front runner for those analysts with this predilection or preoccupation. Analysts also are not immune from social influence. The anxiety produced by increasing media coverage of atrocities and violence seems to be fuelling on the one hand a desire for revenge, e.g. bomb the Islamic State, and on the other a need to forgive. Seen from this perspective, the idea of forgiveness may provide an appealing, if not illusory, stopgap to what is perceived as escalating cycles of violence. It was Klein’s introduction of the notion of reparation in her paper “Love, guilt and reparation” (Klein, 1977) that first opened the door to the idea of forgiveness as an aspect or by-product of reparation. Klein identifies guilt and reparation as the central driving forces in libidinal development. At the most basic level, the child’s attachment to its mother is threatened by its aggression; guilt about damaging the loved object occurs with the awareness that the child’s aggression can be hurtful, penance or atonement is then sought by selfpunishment as a means of appeasing and restoring the object. Reparation (forgiveness) is then the triumph of love over hate and expresses concern for the object as a separate entity.This cycle of attack-guilt-punishment-forgiveness is considered within most psychoanalytic circles to be the fundamental process

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by which the ego maintains its object relations and which forms the basis for social interaction. Reparation necessarily acknowledges our sadism and destructiveness in its attempt to restore the good and in its concern for the other. We have all had the experience of hurting someone we love, feeling sorry and wanting to make amends so that the loved object is no longer in pain and a loving relationship is restored. Equally, when we are hurt by someone we love, unless it is an extreme injury, we do not end the relationship, although we may feel like it temporarily, but we decide to let bygones be bygones, not to wreak revenge, and to continue to care for that person. As Freud points out, sadism does not disappear but co-exists with loving feelings, particularly in the wake of our desire for punishment or revenge. Reparation makes sense within the context of a relationship upon which the ego depends, i.e. when the other person is loved or cared for. It re-establishes concern for the other that enables cooperation and mutual respect.This is what keeps families and social groups together. What if there is no relationship to begin with and no concern for the other? Or when there is an existing relationship that is destructive or life threatening? The neo-Kleinians get around this problem by distinguishing between external and internal object relations – a distinction which is by no means clear in reading Klein.1 Theoretically, neo-Kleinians argue that no reparation is possible with a historically defective (external) object whereas reparation can be made internally. This raises the conundrum: how can an internal object relation be repaired with a defective internal object? Just as we can accept the failure of our external objects, can we not accept that certain ways of relating within ourselves are also destructive? Being able to think about and differentiate the nature of our internal object relations is vital in facilitating the ego’s ability to form creative internal object relations. In the context of analysis, this occurs through the internalization of the analytic relationship. Concern for the self may be restored through the experience of being an object of concern. If success within analysis is determined by the patient’s ability to repair his internal object relations, what does this actually mean? Much as we might wish, we can never wipe the slate clean. As Freud reminds us, we can never eradicate the hatred of our enemies or, for that matter, the hatred towards loved ones who have hurt us or of our own destructiveness. The problem with forgiveness is that it requires a letting go of hatred and, further to this, harbouring beneficent feelings towards the offender. Reparation is also problematic in its emphasis on being able to repair what has been damaged, at least internally. Both these processes fail to address the questions of how the hatred that remains within the psyche is dealt with and how to endure trauma and loss – or not.

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Evil and its aftermath Like so many others, Hannah Arendt struggled to understand how the Holocaust, still the greatest signifier of evil in our time, came into being and how to find meaning in its aftermath. She wrote: Crime and willed evil are rare, even rarer perhaps than good deeds; according to Jesus, they will be taken care of by God in the Last Judgment, which plays no role whatsoever in life on earth, and the Last Judgment is not characterized by forgiveness but by just retribution (apodounai). . . . Forgiveness, in other words, is the only reaction which does not merely re-act but acts anew and unexpectedly, unconditioned by the act which provoked it and therefore freeing from its consequences both the one who forgives and the one who is forgiven. The freedom contained in Jesus’ teachings of forgiveness is the freedom from vengeance, which incloses both doer and sufferer in the relentless automatism of the action process, which by itself need never come to an end. . . . The alternative to forgiveness, but by no means its opposite, is punishment, and both have in common that they attempt to put an end to something that without interference could go on endlessly. It is therefore quite significant, a structural element in the realm of human affairs, that men are unable to forgive what they cannot punish and that they are unable to punish what has turned out to be unforgivable. This is the true hallmark of those offenses which, since Kant, we call ‘radical evil’ and about whose nature so little is known, even to us who have been exposed to one of their rare outbursts on the public scene. All we know is that we can neither punish nor forgive such offenses and that they therefore transcend the realm of human affairs and the potentialities of human power, both of which they radically destroy wherever they make their appearance. Here, where the deed itself dispossesses us of all power, we can indeed only repeat with Jesus: “It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea.” (Arendt, 1958, pp. 240–241) Arendt makes several important assumptions. Her first assumption is that “crime and willed evil” inevitably elicit the response of revenge or retribution. Arendt then juxtaposes the need for revenge with forgiveness. She emphasizes the function of forgiveness in breaking the cycle of revenge that, as she puts it, “incloses both doer and sufferer in the relentless automatism of the action process.” In this respect, she argues that forgiveness is the only reaction that essentially provides a way out of vengeance. But is it? She goes

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on to argue that “the alternative to forgiveness, but by no means its opposite, is punishment.” Both are attempts to put a stop to what has become a pure enactment of hatred – and to restore a world of benign relationships. And yet Arendt acknowledges that the particular difficulty in “radical evil” is that it is beyond punishment or forgiveness. It is a Skandala that exists outside the bounds of accepted human behaviour and, as such, cannot be dealt with except through exclusion, by being “cast into the sea.” Evil by its very nature is an act that ruptures our world view and destroys the basic trust we need to live together with others. The individual, and our ability to act and think for ourselves, is annihilated in the service of a greater, higher authority that promises complete care and protection. It is the seductive pact with the devil that requires relinquishment of autonomy and of individual morality. Sebastian Haffner, in his account of the rise of the Nazi state in Germany, describes “the trap of comradeship” that, like poison ivy, gradually took root within each sector of German society (Haffner, 2003, p. 230). Haffner writes: To start with the essential point, comradeship completely destroys the sense of responsibility for oneself, be it in the civilian, or worse still, the religious sense. A man bedded in comradeship is relieved of all personal worries, and of the rigours of the struggle for life. . . . It is even worse that comradeship relieves men of responsibility for their actions, before themselves, before God, before their consciences.They do what all their comrades do. They have no choice. They have no time for thought. . . . Their comrades are their conscience and give absolution for everything, provided they do what everybody else does. (Haffner, 2003, pp. 232–233) As long as one stays within the parameters of the totalitarian system, all is forgiven. Absolution is traded for an illusion of security – “anything goes” and everyone is “off the hook”. For Amery, who was brutally tortured and then imprisoned in a concentration camp, the idea of forgiving his torturers may have seemed like a perverse mirror of what the Nazi’s were themselves doing, as a denial of crimes that were outside daily experience and beyond thought. At this extreme end of offense, is the social pressure to forgive an attempt to bring what is evil back in line with our conception of the world? Is it a way to comfort ourselves that good will win out in the end, because our power to forgive is still intact? Arendt is careful to make the distinction that it is deeds, and not people, that are evil. In this respect, she urges us “to forgive the person but not the deed.” However, her use of the word “forgiveness” in this context is confusing and begs the question as to how the sinner and the sin can be separated.

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This maxim might be more clearly articulated as “treat the person as another human being but do not regard the deed as acceptable human behaviour.” Whether forgiveness is necessary to treating someone as a person is perhaps a matter of religious concern, but we must be careful not to divest responsibility from the perpetrator. There is a significant distinction between acts that are evil and those that are criminal or hurtful; the evil act aims to destroy the person, it is dehumanizing, and this is what sets it apart from other destructive acts.This difference has a direct effect on our ideas about forgiveness. In the instance of evil, there is no person to forgive.The relationship is one of negation and absence. Forgiveness then becomes an oxymoron. Forgiveness in its meaning of pardon suggests that what is of primary importance is the restoration or repair of relationship. Sinner and sinned recognize some mutual dependency and the need to co-exist. This is not the case in instances of evil. The severity of the cruelty and the negation of relationship also have a bearing on the wish for revenge. Anton Gill, in his interviews with survivors of the concentration camps, comments that the liberation of the camps was not followed by revenge. He writes: Revenge is not a natural reaction in such circumstances as these; it was in fact very rarely that individual KZ-inmates took revenge on SSmen, though fantasies about revenge were one source of mental sustenance through the time in the camps. Several survivors have explained to me that when the longed for moment of revenge arrived, the desire to take it fizzled out. Either the SS-man or woman at their mercy had become so craven that they didn’t excite aggressive feelings, or they were not known personally to the survivor and so there was no specific motivation for killing them. This is not to say that people did not take revenge, nor that it didn’t afford satisfaction. I have met two survivors who killed or maimed SS-personnel and who remember their action with approval and satisfaction, but this is very exceptional. (Gill, 1990, loc. 2337) Gill adds, “in the long run revenge has a damaging effect upon the person’s psyche”; rather than quenching aggression towards the perpetrator revenge fuels it even more. Gill was repeatedly told by many survivors that they did not consider revenge because it would have made them just like the SS. At the same time, as one survivor put it, “no revenge is possible for what they did to us” (Gill, 1990, loc. 2922). While this statement implies that the extreme nature of the offences committed was of such a different order that it defied “ordinary” emotional response, it also suggests a boundless and enduring wish for revenge that has to be suppressed. The need for survivors

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to dissociate themselves from the SS and not to become isolated was also vital to their sanity, to remind each other “we were not the wrongdoers” (Gill, 1990, loc. 5295) and to protect themselves against the erosion of selfpity and shame. For many survivors, it is the end of horror that is of paramount importance. The German filmmaker, Alexander Kluge, in his account of the Allied bombing and razing of the town Halberstadt in 1945, interviews a survivor who simply states, “Having come to a particular point of horror, it no longer matters who was responsible for it: one just wants it to end” (Kluge, 2014, p. 84). Such a nightmarish experience cannot be forgotten and forgiveness for the faceless pilots of more than 200 bombers becomes an omnipotent fantasy on a par with the scale of the bombing itself. The narrator continues his account: What we do know, said SS Colonel Eberlein to fire-brigade officer Kunnecke, about (is) what powers are still present in desperate people, before which the enemy should have a HOLY DREAD. Because it is not only bombs that explode or cities that burn, but inside men there are bombs that burn up reality. (Kluge, 2014, p. 97) Case study Work with individual patients who have witnessed or survived horrific abuse and atrocity gives us particular insight into how pressures coming either externally or from the superego to forgive – and to repress vengeful feelings – can have a damaging effect on the psyche. James was an aspiring surgeon in his mid-forties who had been referred to me by his general practitioner after a series of panic attacks. A few years earlier, he had tried a course of cognitive behavioural therapy to no effect and had then had a year of therapy that he described as persecuting. He left the therapy feeling hopeless and suicidal, managing nevertheless to carry on functioning until his panic attacks became frightening and debilitating. His GP described him as shy, compliant and fraught by self-criticism. James was a tall, attractive man who walked slightly hunched over, like a school boy expecting to be beaten around the head.When he arrived for his first session, he sat on the chair leaning forward as if he was about to leave and made no eye contact with me. He immediately explained that he had grown up in a country that had been torn apart by civil war and his own family had been deeply scarred by this. His parents were from different religious groups and his mother’s brother had killed his father’s cousin in an act of reprisal. James told me this without showing any feeling, adding that he

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was the oldest child of five and had managed to immigrate to this country when he was sixteen and had lived with relatives here who provided him with a safe place. I asked about James’s childhood and he became silent for several minutes. I suggested that this was a hard question and he looked me in the eye and said, “I wonder if you will understand. This was why I left my first therapist. I don’t know how to tell you about it. It is like a black stain that won’t come out. I am always afraid someone will see through me.There is this black stain but nothing else inside. I feel like a fraud.” Over the course of the next few months, James’s statement that he felt like a fraud began to make sense. James had been severely abused as a child by his father who had himself been imprisoned and tortured as a young man. James was an easy target for his violent father who often vented his anger by beating James around the head. His father also regularly beat up his wife in front of their children and on one occasion held up the family cat and poured scalding water over it, threatening to scald his children if they defied him. James’s alcoholic mother was no ally as she either joined in with the beatings or was too inebriated to be aware of what was happening. James lived in constant fear. The dangers of the violence encircling their community were minimal compared with the ever present threats within his family. The most terrifying memory from James’s childhood was a period when he was six years old and his father invented a special punishment for him. He would tie James’s wrists and ankles together with electric wire and blindfold him, and, strapped to a chair, shut him in the windowless cellar of their house sometimes for hours at a stretch. He told James that if he cried out or wet himself he would be electrified by the wires touching his skin. James managed these horrifying episodes by deliberately cutting off from his feelings, both physically and emotionally. He pretended to be a manikin that felt nothing. After an arbitrary amount of time, James’s father would open the door and “rescue” him. These were moments of extreme relief, tenderness and confusion. James’s father would hold him closely, assuring him he would not let James die but also admonishing him for being a bad boy. James then saw his father as all powerful with the ability to see through him, to judge what was best for him and who promised a secret alliance. If James could be brave and survive his punishments, he could win the trust of his father and become as powerful. Although James saw his father as a cruel tormentor much of the time, he also idealized him as a wounded hero whom he had to obey and defend. The “game” of punishment and rescue between James and his father came to a head soon after James had turned 12 years old and his father, in a drunken state, tied him to the chair in the cellar and poured water over him

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threatening to turn on the electric current. Fortunately, James’s father passed out before he reached the socket and James yelled to his mother for help as he shivered from cold and fear. His mother, who had also been drinking, only scolded James for the mess he had made in the cellar. At this point James knew that, despite the rescue scenes, his father hated him and wanted to kill him. It became evident that James’s panic attacks were directly linked to the cycle of punishments in the cellar. Whenever James had a dispute with a colleague or felt criticized, he would become overwhelmed with life-threatening anxiety, leaving him frozen and rigid, like the manikin strapped to the chair. James admitted that the reason he had left his previous therapy was because his panic attacks had resumed after a few months and worsened. I also thought he was warning me that this might happen between us and only gradually came to understand how terrified James was of his own rage, which I imagined was the black stain inside him. After six months in therapy, James arrived in a panic and, sitting on the edge of his armchair, he told me he had been reprimanded by his senior in the hospital for failing to fill in a form. It turned out that the form was in fact unnecessary and the senior was notorious for finding fault in his juniors as a way of bolstering his superior authority. I suggested that James must feel angry at being mistreated and used like this. I also noticed he could hardly sit and suggested he might be frightened that he would receive the usual punishment. James relaxed and agreed he was frightened but denied feeling angry. He explained: I understand he’s insecure and that it wouldn’t help if I challenged him. And, for all I knew at the time, he might have been right. It’s best just to agree and keep my head down. I know he has my interests at heart anyway.You know this saying, forgive and forget? This is my motto – if I can do this, then it will be all right in the end. I’m not angry, I’m worried that I’ll get into even more trouble. I know he’s taking out his frustration on me. I feel sorry for him. As James was saying this, he began to stiffen and I remarked that he seemed to be split – one part of him saw his senior as damaged but loving while another part saw him as unjust and punitive. I also pointed out that his motto might have a tinge of self-righteousness in it that gave him the upper hand in difficult situations. Moreover, it was important to push aside his own rage, like he had to do in the cellar, in order to survive and in order to preserve his belief in a father who would come to his rescue. James’s sat back in his armchair and replied, “I’m so relieved that you haven’t taken sides.”

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The next session, James arrived, threw his briefcase on the floor and hurled himself into his armchair, announcing, I’m furious! I spent a year with Dr. Roberts (his previous therapist) and all he could talk about was how angry I was with my father and how I wanted to go on punishing him by getting into all these disputes at work. Everything was my fault – just like it was with my mother! He kept saying that my father was too damaged to know what he was doing. He also made me feel there was something wrong with me because I never told anyone what was going on. I was terrified of telling anyone! He made me feel I was being stubborn because I still feel angry with my father and I should have been able to forgive him and show him some love. After all he is my father! I’ve spent years – most of my childhood – trying to be understanding – just like with my senior – and it’s all been a lie! The stain inside me isn’t my anger; it’s been this lie that’s made me feel like a fraud. I hate my father – and he hated me. There was no love between us – I was his slave whom he could abuse at will. Being able to acknowledge his hatred of both his parents, without feeling guilty, released James from having to stifle his aggression and hate. What was most important was James’s realization that he did not love his father nor had he loved him as a child; he had loved an idealized version of his father but the reality was very different. James’s acceptance of his hatred and of his father’s hatred towards him also freed him from recurring fantasies and dreams of revenge that had made him feel ashamed and guilty. James had been haunted by a series of dreams of torturing and cutting open live animals. While we could understand these dreams as James’s unconscious attack against his own vulnerability in identification with his sadistic father, they also signalled his displacement of his wish for revenge by means of the surgery he performed on people whom he hardly knew and who could in some way stand in for his cruel father. Once we could uncover this wish for revenge that had been embedded in his choice of profession, James lost his fear that he would fall prey to a panic attack in the middle of an operation, risking his patient’s life. As James’s hatred surfaced and became more acceptable, his wish for revenge dissipated and was replaced with an overriding desire to have nothing more to do with his father. Breaking contact with his parents was not driven by his wish to make his parents suffer but was prompted instead by his acceptance that his relationship with them was irretrievable. Continuing to be in contact with his parents was a way of perpetuating their sado-masochistic way of relating and denying their mutual hatred. James was clear that he could not forgive his father for his cruel childhood, he was not “letting him

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off the hook,” but he could stop trying to have a relationship with his father and accept that there was nothing but hatred between them. James’s acceptance of his father’s hatred also enabled him to recognize attacks against him at work and not to be caught in a compliant, masochistic response. At the same time, James was clear that forgiveness could only be for him a form of denial. While James could not forgive his father for the cruelty he had suffered as a child, he could also not forgive himself for his compliance and passivity, albeit knowing that any defiance would be severely punished. The memory of his abuse had left an indelible stain inside him of shame; of being dirtied and helpless. There was no protective being to turn to or to witness his suffering. Kulka, in his memoir of his childhood in a death camp, refers to the problem of witnessing evil without being able to intervene. At the total mercy of the SS, the inmates are compelled to ask,“ ‘Is there indeed no God?’ And, ‘If there was, where was He then and how did He allow that which befell this generation to take place?’ ” (Kulka, 2013, p. 98).The rabbi responds that the question “is one that it is forbidden to ask” (Kulka, 2013, p. 99). Although there was no protection within the camps, the prisoners were at least witness to each other’s sufferings and were not devoid of concern. For James, however, there was no witness, silent or otherwise, to show concern or acknowledgement of his plight. There was only his internal observing ego, that part of the psyche that validates the ego’s perceptions of both internal and external reality, to register what was happening to him. James’s way of surviving his episodes of being in the “electric chair” was to deaden his perception of what was happening to him, to silence his observing ego and to become a mindless manikin. This process of dissociation enables the ego to continue to exist but in a world without the internal presence of the “other.” In describing the difficulty in mourning for survivors following the Holocaust, Gerson emphasized the importance of the witness as a “live third” in the psyche. He writes: . . . this is the other whose engaged recognition and concerned responsiveness to the individual’s experience create liveable meaning. The ‘dead third’ is conceptualized as the loss of a ‘live third’ upon whom the individual had previously relied, had entrusted with faith, and in relation to whom or which, had developed a sense of personal continuity and meaning. (Gerson, 2009, p. 1343) James’s complaint that he felt he had nothing but a black stain inside of him seemed to describe what Gerson calls the “dead third”, consisting of the absence of a protective world. The black stain was a kind of negative

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presence that James wanted to hide at all costs but that nevertheless defined his mental space. The reparative aspect of forgiveness that restores an object relation in the wake of injury or loss implies the continuing presence of the “live third.” However, in the case of horrific trauma, the loss is not recoverable because one’s basic belief system has been destroyed.Vinar clarifies that what is most damaging and the cause of greatest anxiety in these instances is not the loss of the object but “the absence of its representation” (in Gerson, 2009, p. 1345). This is the profound experience of what Gerson describes as “the loss of faith in a concerned object” (Gerson, 2009, p. 1345). What is left is the absence of concern, the black stain that remains within as a constant reminder of an indifferent world where no one can be loved. The self is left forsaken, a shameful outcast. As James became less dissociated from his experiences of his father’s cruelty, he began to wake up in the night with paralyzing anxiety. He described it as being adrift in outer space with nothing and no one to hold onto. He would eventually become exhausted and fall back to sleep, but he was sure he was losing his mind. I thought he was telling me about the unbearable terror he had experienced in the “electric chair” and possibly earlier in his life when he had been left drifting in a lifeless space. In trying to imagine James’s experience, I became a concerned witness who could help to find a way of thinking about what had happened to James, to bear this and to accept that this was a stain that would never go away. James admitted that his motto, “to forgive and forget”, had been crucial to his dissociated state and a way of creating an illusion that he could re-create a world of order – and concern – through his will alone. Forgetting meant that he could remain oblivious of the reality of his family life. He found endless reasons to excuse his father’s sadism so that he did not have to accept his father’s responsibility for the harm he inflicted. His efforts “to forgive the sinner but not the sin” were part of his heroic task to rescue his father from his destructiveness and to maintain some illusion of a world of goodness. Forgiveness allowed him to deny his father’s sadism and to take on the cloak of martyrdom, converting his shame and suffering into something commendable. James’s powerful urge to forgive seemed to come from a manic need for reparation, to counteract his own overwhelming sadistic impulses and impotence in response to his father’s cruelty. But because the reparation was founded on denial, it could never succeed and only became increasingly persecuting. Just as James wanted to split off his father’s sadism (“it wasn’t his fault”), he also wanted to split off his own sadistic impulses in the act of forgiveness and to dis-identify himself as much as possible from the sadist. With James’s increasing awareness that his attempts to “forgive and forget” were futile, he also began to see how his choice of career as a surgeon

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had been a way to channel both his need for reparation and his sadism. He had wanted to repair what he knew was damaged within his parents, and within himself. However, each time he prepared for surgery, James was haunted by the fear that he would “accidentally” kill the patient, and he developed a phobia about cutting. His phobia disappeared when James was able to acknowledge his hatred towards his parents along with the sadism he could not cut out of himself. Forgiveness as social denial As we have seen in the brief example of my work with James, forgiveness may be used by individuals in a number of false and potentially damaging ways. It may mask self-righteousness, denial, manic reparation, revenge and an omnipotent belief in goodness.The pressures to forgive on a societal level invariably reflect this individual spectrum but with greater consequences. The desire to forgive, however we want to define the term, is rooted in our hope that it will heal the pain, rage and guilt wrought by harm and conflict. Goodness and social order will be restored and the balance of power re-established. One of the essential characteristics of evil is that it entails total power of one person or group over another. Evil acts do not occur when there is a level playing field. Nor do the perpetrators of such acts commonly express remorse after the fact, even when proven guilty. It is precisely the imbalance of power that opens the door to corruption and abuse and the disregard for law.Yet, in the aftermath of genocides across the globe, victims from the Holocaust, South Africa, Cambodia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Rwanda, Darfur and the Armenian genocide, are encouraged to forgive their enemies often at the same time as judicial tribunals are set up to see that justice is done. Although the term “forgiveness” was not actually used in the truth commissions in South Africa, there was an expectation that enabling victims to express their hurt and to be heard would facilitate remorse from the perpetrators and forgiveness from the victims.Vetlesen argues that in the expectation of forgiveness resulting from this process, “a step is taken toward moral equalization between the two parties: the plea that the guilty party confess his guilt is ‘balanced’ with the plea that the offended party forgive. In this manner, a device of exchange is brought into play, delegating responsibility to both parties for contributing to the attainment of balance, of symmetry. But this amounts to a model that suppresses the blatant asymmetry between the parties to the affliction” (Vetlesen, 2005, p. 274). Vetlesen also argues that creating an arena for public acts of forgiveness is a “category” error as it disregards the fact that forgiveness is an act of individual choice and not something that can be determined by or imposed on groups. In this context,

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pressure on victimized groups to forgive becomes a technique for social control. In criticizing the Judeo-Christian tendency to idealize forgiveness, Smith cautions analysts against imposing forgiveness on our patients indiscriminately and proselytizing it as a treatment goal. Smith goes a step further and calls this an “act of aggression on the analyst’s part” (Smith, 2008, p. 934). Within the political sphere, the imposition of “forgiveness” as a means of restoring peace can also be misleading and aggressive. As Vetlesen points out, it creates a false symmetry between the parties. It also conveys a neo-colonial message to the victimized culture that they should no longer be angry or hurt or mistrustful so that past conflicts can be laid aside. The idealization of forgiveness and the social pressure to forgive reflect anxieties linked to the extreme nature of the offences, issues of contamination, and what it means not to forgive. Greater pressure may be made for forgiveness in the aftermath of evil because it offers the hope that something that is inconceivable, that lies outside the bounds of the social relations that provide us with some sense of security, can be overcome; the sinners can be brought back within the fold and the crimes themselves brought back within the framework of social justice. Forgiveness is then a way to “neutralize” evil by integrating it within established normative processes, whether these are conceptualized as political, social or psychological. Forgiveness is also an act to restore a relationship that has been damaged or lost and carries the hope of healing and recovery from trauma. It signifies the belief that what has been destroyed can be mended and what has been contaminated made pure. The act of forgiveness is predicated on an acceptance of loss and an ability to mourn. However, loss necessitates a change in an internal object relation which is of a different order to the trauma of living in a world in which violence has had no limits and the social norms that allow us to co-exist have been demolished. Following the Rwanda genocide, Dr. Colin Murray Parkes, who set up the Trauma and Recovery Programme in 1995 under Kagame, admitted on his return that the need to mourn (and to forgive) in order to break the cycle of violence is a myth. The desire for revenge is not averted or dispelled, but simmers away beneath the surface. Public statements of hurt, rather than serving to relinquish grievances, can also unify the identity of a group so that hostilities against the “other” are strengthened rather than mitigated. Rituals for healing trauma vary across cultures but share the common characteristic that they demarcate the past from the present and aim to restore a world order that has been ruptured. These are often cleansing rituals that are intended to eliminate malevolent spirits, to restore the community to order and leadership, and to reintegrate individuals within the community. While belief systems differ, the purification of the group by

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acknowledging past trauma is vital in drawing a line under the past so that the group can move towards social reconstruction. However, in the face of extreme violence and genocide, even the customary rituals that maintained group identity and cohesion over generations become ineffectual and inapplicable. As is the case with dissociated individual victims, groups that have survived extreme violence have no sense of time. The violence, as in flashbacks, remains alive in the present and cannot be relegated to the past. After the end of civil war in Mozambique, Honwana comments: In communities where people were killed by their neighbours, where families were divided for long periods of time, where people can no longer muster the resources necessary to carry out the ceremonies properly, and where the reputation of the traditional leaders was compromised during the war, the effectiveness of customary remedies has come into question. (Honwana, 2006, p. 80) Honwana’s account is strikingly similar to the struggles experienced by Holocaust survivors to recreate a world of meaning after they have been betrayed of basic trust. Writing about his Holocaust survivor father, Rosenberg describes the timeless state of mind that destroys meaning and the possibility of a future. He observes, “Not being able to take the step from surviving to living, always having to live with your survival as the central element of your existence, is a kind of insanity. I suppose, even if it’s not necessarily the survivors who are insane” (Rosenberg, 2014, p. 281). Because time does not erase memory, in whatever manifestation it may take, the wish to forgive may mask an unconscious wish to deny what has been destroyed and an attempt to create a kind of ersatz meaning. The threat that not forgiving presents is that there is no ending, no resolution, and no absolution of what has happened in the past. Not forgiving recognizes that something has happened beyond our forgiveness and beyond our power. Arendt emphasizes that, in the case of evil, “the deed itself dispossess us of all power.” The fear of not forgiving is that it confirms our impotence in the face of evil – there is nothing to be done. It is a fear that equates passivity with helplessness, while the act of forgiveness may be seen as a way to reconstitute the victim as agent in an imaginary reversal of power. Not forgiving Amery asserts that not forgiving, with regard to the Holocaust, is a powerful moral position for the very reason that it does not allow resolution or an end to what has happened. Not forgiving recognizes the impossibility of

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exterminating evil; sinner and sin continue to exist, untransformed, alongside if not within us. The fact that no resolution is possible may be a resolution of some sort insofar as it acknowledges an irrefutable reality. This was the state of mind James attained when he overcame his dissociation and was in a position to be angry and acknowledge what his father had done to him. It is fundamentally an acceptance of a reality that is immutable and hard to accept, starting with the Oedipal situation. In the case of evil, it is an acceptance that evil cannot be mitigated or eradicated and that perpetrators remain responsible for their actions, just as victims remain scarred with the memory of their pain and impotence. In writing about the immorality of forgiveness induced by social pressure, Amery argues: Whoever lazily and cheaply forgives, subjugates himself to the social and biological time-sense, which is also called the ‘natural’ one. Natural consciousness of time actually is rooted in the physiological process of wound-healing and became part of the social conception of reality. But precisely for this reason it is not only extramoral, but also antimoral in character. Man has the right and the privilege to declare himself to be in disagreement with every natural occurrence, including the biological healing that time brings about. What happened, happened. This sentence is just as true as it is hostile to morals and intellect. The moral power to resist contains the protest, the revolt against reality, which is rational only as long as it is moral.The moral person demands annulment of time – in the particular case under question, by nailing the criminal to his deed. Thereby, and through a moral turning-back of the clock, the latter can join his victim as a fellow human being. (Amery, 1980, p. 72) Amery criticizes our conception that social order can be restored in the aftermath of evil, much as a physical wound heals. Because something is a natural occurrence, it does not make it morally acceptable. We have the privilege, as Amery claims, to “revolt against reality.” Not forgiving does just that; it is a marker that what has happened, cannot happen, that there has been a breach in our world that does not heal with time, and that we must go on living with the unthinkable. Amery links not forgiving with resentment. He describes resentment as “ . . . an unnatural but also a logically inconsistent condition. It nails every one of us onto the cross of his ruined past. Absurdly, it demands that the irreversible be turned around, that the event be undone. Resentment blocks the exit to the genuine human dimension, the future” (Amery, 1980, p. 68). At the same time, resentment, in the sense of not forgiving, paradoxically,

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connects us to an immutable past and this is, for Amery, its virtue. He explains, “When I stand by my resentments, when I admit that in deliberating our problem I am ‘biased’, I still know that I am the captive of the moral truth of the conflict. It seems logically senseless to me to demand objectivity in the controversy with my torturers, with those who helped them, and with the others, who merely stood by silently.The atrocity as atrocity has no objective character. . . . Only I possessed, and still possess, the moral truth of the blows that even today roar in my skull, and for that reason I am more entitled to judge, not only more than the culprit but also more than society – which thinks only about its continued existence. . . . (M)y resentments are there in order that the crime become a moral reality for the criminal, in order that he be swept into the truth of his atrocity” (Amery, 1980, pp. 69–70). The resentment that necessitates not forgiving is both a personal and a political act, from which, Amery argues, there is no escape because it constitutes a moral truth that is inescapable. Not forgiving, and Amery’s virtue of resentment, points to what is unresolvable and unfinished. What has happened cannot be mourned and laid aside. The “dead third” that Gerson describes, the broken faith that comes with the absence of concern, cannot be buried but remains within the psyche like a ghostly shadow, a constant reminder of what has been destroyed. The reality of experiencing the destruction of all that is human cannot be forgotten and it is questionable as to whether it can be repaired. Primo Levi, Bettelheim, Amery and many other survivors struggled for years to live creatively and ultimately committed suicide. The ones who continue to survive may have a greater ability to repress the past. In the case of Levi, it is perhaps significant that he killed himself shortly after finishing his last book, The Drowned and the Saved, in 1987. Ozick, in her essay “Primo Levi’s suicide note,” conjectures, “The composition of the last Lager manuscript was complete, the heart burnt out; there was no more to tell” (Ozick, 2013). In this book, more than his other writing, Levi stresses the importance of communication as a lifeline.There is a terrible sense that Levi had exhausted his stories and his audience, that he could no longer sustain an internal dialogue to keep himself alive and to defy the destructiveness he had lived through by stalwartly continuing to be creative. Whatever may have triggered the suicides of these survivors, the murderous revenge that they had had to manage inside themselves for most of their lives may have finally taken its toll. Patients who have survived their own histories of abuse, like James, similarly struggle to repair their inner world through creative acts.While continuing to be creative is a vital antidote to what has been destroyed and to our own destructiveness, it does not alleviate the powerful, often unconscious, need for revenge. This is the legacy of evil that we must find a way of living with.

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In place of forgiveness To conclude, I want to stress that not forgiving, while it does not relinquish enmity, does not foster hostility either. As many of the Holocaust survivors Gill interviewed made clear, they did not want revenge, even if they felt it, because this would make them as bad as their perpetrators. Without the decision to draw a line, destructiveness feeds on itself. But the decision not to retaliate does not rest on forgiveness; indeed, the two acts are separate. Acceptance of what has happened, the decision not to engage in violence and to establish peaceful co-existence can all be achieved, perhaps more successfully, when there is no forgiveness possible and no forgiveness granted. By not forgiving, we are required to go on thinking about what is unthinkable. In place of forgiveness, we can demonstrate our capacity for thought and empathy, the qualities that make us human. Note 1 The term “object” refers to a person. An internal object represents our way of relating to that person in our mind.

References Amery, J. (1980). At the Mind’s Limits: Contemplations by a Survivor on Auschwitz and Its Realities. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Arendt, H. (1958). The Human Condition. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Freud, S. (1930). Civilization and Its Discontents. New York: W.W. Norton & Co. Gerson, S. (2009). “When the third is dead: Memory, mourning and witnessing in the aftermath of the Holocaust.” International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 90: 1341–1357. Gill, A. (1990). The Journey Back from Hell: Conversations with Concentration Camp Survivors: An Oral History. London: Grafton Books. Kindle Edition. Haffner, S. (2003). Defying Hitler: A Memoir. London: Phoenix. Honwana, A. (2006). Child Soldiers in Africa. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Klein, M. (1977). Love, Guilt and Reparation. New York: Delta. Kluge, A. (2014). Air Raid on Halberstadt on 8 April 1945. London: Seagull. Kulka, O.D. (2013). Landscapes of the Metropolis of Death. London: Allen Lane. Levi, P. (1988). The Drowned and the Saved. London: Abacus. Ozick, C. (2013). “Primo Levi’s suicide note.” Quoted in New Republic, “Why do we view Primo Levi’s work through the prism of his death?” by William Giraldi, December 2, 2013. Rosenberg, G. (2014). A Brief Stop on the Road from Auschwitz. London: Granta. Schafer, R. (2005). “Cordelia, Lear, and forgiveness.” Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 53: 389–409. Smith, H. (2008). “Leaps of faith: Is forgiveness a useful concept?” International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 89: 919–936. Vetlesen, A.J. (2005). Evil and Human Agency: Understanding Collective Evildoing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

8 THE ISLAMIC STATE AND THE GLORY OF DEATH

God will send a perfumed breeze by which everyone who has in their heart even a mustard grain of faith will die. Those who remain will have no goodness in them, and they will revert to the religion of their forefathers. Sahih Muslim

Introduction On Monday, 25 January 2016, the Daily Telegraph reported,“The terror group released a new video on Sunday which featured many of the Paris attackers training before the atrocity. . . . The Europol assessment said: ‘In selecting what to attack, where, when and how, IS shows its capacity to strike at will, at any time and at almost any chosen target.’”Two years ago, Kurdish sources reported that Islamic State armed forces numbered over 200,000 fighters. The number of foreign fighters was estimated at 15,000. In 2015, the estimate for foreign fighters doubled to 30,000 with at least 7,000 of European nationality. Each soldier is paid $500–$650 per month as compared with the average salary in Iraq of $590 and in Syria of $243 (Atwan, 2015, p. 144). However, it is not simply better pay that is attracting fighters and increasing numbers of IS followers. The sudden upsurge in jihadist recruits followed Abu Bak al-Baghdadi’s Ramadan sermon on 5 July 2015 that marked his self-anointment as the first caliph since the Ottoman Empire. In his sermon, al-Baghdadi depicted a new Islamic state that would confer dignity and rights to all Muslims (Suni and Shia) and transcend ethnic and racial differences; Arabs and non-Arabs, white and black men, Easterners and Westerners, were all to be brought

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together in a unified world of Islam. It is a progressive, if not utopian, vision of the future that echoes many of our modern-day ideals. However, its underlying message is far from modern. In establishing the first caliphate in generations, the Islamic State was positioning itself as the true believers of Islam, with al-Baghdadi as the commander of all Muslims. IS was reinstating the religious tenets of the Prophet’s words originating from seventh century Islam. Referring to the prophecies elaborated in The Book of Tribulations, IS holds to the belief that strangers will come to threaten their faith and that in fighting the infidel they will save themselves on the Day of Judgement. In proclaiming the caliphate, IS was also differentiating itself from jihadist organizations such as al-Qaeda that did not adhere as closely to the strict interpretation of Sharia law and, most importantly, that did not put the apocalyptic belief in the end of the world foremost in their struggle against evil. Without understanding the millenarian fervour of IS, it is difficult to comprehend its strategy of terror and the atrocities it commits in the name of God and why it continues to attract jihadis from around the world. Apocalypse now The religious certainty that the end of the world is nigh serves as the fundamental starting point in the IS belief system upon which its meaning and prescribed way of life is derived. In this respect, IS is no different from scores of other apocalyptic religious groups of all faiths (including early medieval Christianity) that periodically emerge preparing for the end of the world. Total destruction is linked to salvation and eternal life. In this crusading spirit, IS requires not only pure adherence to the faith but, as part of this, complete obedience to the caliphate and dedication to fighting the infidel at whatever cost. While all Muslims ascribe to the belief that only God knows the future, IS has set itself apart from other jihadist movements in claiming that it will play a central role in the events leading up to the apocalypse (Wood, 2015). The clear religious mission of IS makes it distinct from its predecessors and has given it a cult-like status that is perhaps one reason for its compelling attraction to younger Muslims in particular. In his study of the Japanese apocalyptic cult Aum Shinrikyo, the psychoanalyst Lifton identifies three characteristics that cults display: “totalistic or thought-reform-like practices, a shift from worship of spiritual principles to worship of the person of the guru or leader, and a combination of spiritual quest from below and exploitation, usually economic or sexual, from above” (Lifton, 1999, footnote, p. 11). IS does not share each of these characteristics; it does not worship the caliph as its guru, this would be apostasy, nor does it exploit its members sexually or economically, even though members are used as human weapons in the war against the infidels. However, IS does

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resemble a cult in its radical totalist structure. The IS effectively operates as a totalitarian theocracy to which all its members must submit to having every aspect of their lives regulated and determined by God and the caliphate, leaving no boundary between public and private life, and imposing severe sanctions on any form of deviance from its laws. As with cults, the binding force is a kind of pact that ensures ultimate security and eternal life in the hereafter in exchange for total submission to its rules. The survival of the group, even if it is a survival envisaged in heaven or paradise, is foremost. Another distinctive feature of IS’s apocalyptic vision is that it is imminent. Lifton observes that there is a “global subculture of apocalyptic violence – of violence conceived in sweeping terms as a purification and renewal of humankind through the total or near-total destruction of the planet” that erupts on a regular basis in different places and forms across the world (Lifton, 1999, p. 4). Lifton links these outbreaks to what could be seen as mass trauma and despair. He writes: Increasingly widespread among ordinary people is the feeling of things going so wrong that only extreme measures can restore virtue and righteousness in society. When the world comes to be experienced as both hateful and dead or dying, a visionary guru can seize on such feelings while promising to replace them with equally absolute love and life-power. (Lifton, 1999, pp. 4–5) Toward the end of the US occupation of Iraq, with a vast population who had been traumatized, uprooted and slaughtered by the thousands, it is hardly surprising that the forefathers of IS saw the Judgement Day fast approaching. In 2008, bin Laden was warned that millenarians were leading the Islamist groups in Iraq, “talking all the time about the Mahdi and making strategic decisions” on the basis of predictions that the Mahdi (the prophesied redeemer of Islam) would arrive soon (Wood, 2015). Bin Laden did not expect the caliphate to arise within his lifetime and, as a member of the Sunni elite, he did not give much credence to the apocalyptic vision engaged in by “the masses” (Wood, 2015). While bin Laden’s organization was geographically diffuse, relying on a network of autonomous cells that allowed flexible management, IS is defined by the actual territory it occupies along with a clearly delineated governing structure. The establishment of a state is a sine qua non for the establishment of a legitimate caliphate with territorial authority. A state provides governance as well as a locus for jihadis to congregate in their fight against the infidel, as prescribed by the Quran. The Syrian city of Dabiq is prophesied in the Koran as the place where the armies of Rome will fight the Muslim warriors

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in their final battle. The accumulation of territory by IS plays a highly significant role not only in asserting that there is no concept of borders within its religious ideology but also as an attempt to reverse the historical SykesPicot agreement of 1916. The humiliating effect of this agreement resounds today and is considered to be the reason why the IS caliphate chose in the summer of 2014 to launch their first military attack aimed at obliterating “the international border between Syria and Iraq – a symbol of the arbitrary division of the Arab and Muslim world imposed by France and Great Britain after the defeat of the Ottoman Empire, seat of the last Muslim Caliphate” (Atran and Hamid, 2015). As a local phenomenon, the roots of IS’s extremism can be found in its history of tribal warfare, much of which was fuelled by the aftermath of the Sykes-Picot agreement, leading up to the bloodbath in the Iraqi war that continues today in Syria. The prediction that the end of the world is coming takes on a powerful meaning; it presents both a re-enactment of what has already happened in the past and the promise of release and finality of devastation in the future. Lifton’s description of survivors’ perceptions postHiroshima is instructive. Lifton writes: One survivor . . . told me of being temporarily blinded by falling debris: My body seemed all black, everything seemed dark, dark all over. . . . Then I thought, ‘The world is ending.’ . . . (A)nother survivor. . . . (said) ‘I thought it might have been something which had nothing to do with the war, the collapse of the earth, which it was said would take place at the end of the world. . . .’ A Protestant minister described the moment of atomic devastation. . . .‘ The whole city was destroyed. . . . I thought all of my family must be dead – it doesn’t matter if I die. . . . I thought this was the end of Hiroshima – of Japan – of humankind. . . . This was God’s judgement on man.’ (Lifton, 1999, p. 255) Although Iraq did not suffer the utter destruction of Hiroshima, what is striking about these accounts is their resemblance to apocalyptic visions, suggesting that there is a strong psychological factor at work in the form of what Freud referred to as “the return of the repressed,” linking the vision of the future to a trauma experienced in the past. It is well established that trauma, whether it is as a result of violence on an individual or on a group level, shatters a person’s belief system (i.e. a sense of who I am in the world and how I expect the world to be) and destabilizes identity. As we can see from the Protestant minister’s account, one way of re-creating meaning and a sense of self-importance is to assume that the violence was meted out to punish man’s sins.This explanatory narrative then binds the individual to the

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trauma and to his fellow victims through guilt, a guilt that can be expunged only by continual rites of purification and subjugation to a higher order.The violence that has occurred externally is perceived as coming from a severe internal superego that must be appeased and obeyed in order for the ego to reclaim its love. While the appeal of IS’s apocalyptic vision may lie in its resonance with the traumatic history within the regions in which it has emerged, this does not apply to its jihadi followers from other parts of the world who have not experienced similar traumas. Local recruits tend to comprise poorly educated youths from Syria, Iraq and the Levant who have little knowledge of the Quran or Hadith and many who have lived through unmitigated violence for most of their lives. This is not the case with European recruits who tend to be educated, emotionally stable and economically viable. In interviewing European jihadis, the anthropologist, Scott Atran, writes, “They are mostly youth . . . looking for a new family of friends and fellows with whom they can find significance” (Atran, 2015). Despite the fact that this group is educated, it is also notably lacking in socio-economic opportunities. After three generations of living in Europe, young Muslim men and women are 5–19 times more likely to be less educated and poor, depending on the country, than is the case in the United States (Ibid., 2015). Atran explains, “It’s a thrilling cause that promises glory and esteem. Jihad is an egalitarian, equalopportunity employer: fraternal, fast-breaking, glorious, cool – and persuasive” (Lifton, 1999, p. 255). For young people in Europe, IS offers a land of opportunity where they can be pioneers in laying the foundations of a new world. Most importantly, IS promotes itself as offering not only a cause to live for but a cause to die for. It presents itself as an antidote to “existential death”, to a life of thwarted aspiration without meaning or recognition. Within stagnant environments that do not foster development and growth of the individual, the experience may be likened to the infant’s experience of being with a depressed and unresponsive mother. Klein describes the infant’s ego as lacking in cohesion and fluctuating between states of integration and disintegration. When the infant experiences too much frustration and the mother is unable to provide relief or comfort, the infant’s ego veers towards a “primary anxiety of being annihilated.”This state of mind is not only experienced by infants. In large groups, frustration and powerlessness may also result in overwhelming anxiety. The fear of extinction and the rage caused by frustration combine to create an unconscious fantasy of total annihilation. The wish to destroy the world is then projected out into the world in the prophetic belief of the world coming to an end. On a day-to-day level, IS has also attracted local populations because it appears to offer greater stability and a better functioning infra-structure than under the Syrian regime. Civil administration, health care, employment,

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housing and education are assured under IS Sharia law with the promise of care for all, except those who disobey. As with any new regime, no matter how harsh it may be, there are yet others who hope that they can provide a better life for themselves by exploiting the opportunities it offers. Nevertheless, all within IS are living in the shadow of Armageddon, and this creates a normative system of its own in opposition to the rest of the world. Purification of the world is its driving force, giving meaning and structure to every aspect of life and death. As with the Muslims in medieval times, the IS sees itself as surrounded by enemies who must be exterminated in order to avoid a death of disbelief. The call to jihad is a call to salvation and IS its vehicle and haven. The lure of submission The cornerstone of Islamic faith, as in other religions, is submission to God. Following on from this is submission to God’s anointed ministers, the caliphate. Accordingly, women must submit to men and non-believers are ranked in terms of their willingness to submit to Islam. It goes without saying that slaves submit to their masters. In Houellebecq’s novel, Submission, it is 2022 and the presidential elections are approaching in France. In what is described as a power vacuum, Muhammed Ben-Abbes, standing for the nascent Muslim Fraternity, unexpectedly wins and, following a spate of violence, overnight France becomes a new member of the Arab Republic. Through the voice of the narrator, a middle-aged, single male academic, we experience the ennui and loneliness of modern man in the Western world, provided with most of the comforts and pleasures of modern-day life but lacking meaning and community. It is an empty world feeding on its own narcissistic consumerism, onanistic and unfulfilling. The narrator, François, observes that the greatest threat to Islam is not other religions, e.g. Catholicism, but secularism, or what he goes on to call “atheist materialism” (Houellebecq, 2015, p. 127). Struggling with his own “existential death”, François reaches the point when he craves to submit himself to something higher. He confesses, “I felt ready to give up everything, not really for my country, but in general. I was in a strange state” (Houellebecq, 2015, p. 138). The idea of giving oneself up to a greater power as a way to obliterate the pain of an existence in which the individual does not matter is extremely seductive. It taps into our deepest fantasies of being in a world where there is no frustration or conflict, everything is ordered and has its place and meaning is conferred through submission to the structure itself. Rather than surrendering to a higher power in order to develop, François seeks a masochistic dependency that resists real growth and change.1 The totalist structure

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offered by the Arab state in the novel appears to offer François a fresh identity insofar as he derives value through his association with a larger cause. But this is on the condition that he submits to having every aspect of his life dictated by the state. The difficulty in this trade-off is that it never resolves the human need to be a person. The alienated state is one of being unseen, of existing in a void where there is no responsive other. Houellebecq’s narrator wants to place himself in another’s hands, to abnegate decisions and responsibility for himself – to find an all-powerful parental figure that will alleviate his isolation and who will tell him what to think and feel so that he will not feel lost. François has no sense of internal authority, there is no father in his mind who makes him feel that he matters, who can set limits for him, and who can make him feel potent. He is in reality alienated from both his parents and the father from his childhood appears to be largely absent and indifferent. The new regime of Islam promises François three adolescent brides, an extended family, employment, housing, medical care and belonging. All he has to do is follow the ordained rules and his life will be blessed by Allah, the Father, and by the State, Allah’s emissary. It is a bargain that will keep François a child eternally without the need for his own agency or his own mind. An absent father may be as damaging as an authoritarian one in terms of his annihilating effect on his child. In this sense, François, who appears at a loss in knowing how to relate to himself, may be like many European Muslim youths who have grown up in an authoritarian culture. One English Muslim woman describes her repressive upbringing as “severe and despotic.” “My father was a typical 1970s Pakistani father, authoritarian, dictatorial, totalitarian, not to mention lacking in humour and not much fun, and my mother was a good wife. They were more cultural than religious. . . . I was never allowed out of the house unaccompanied, I wasn’t allowed to go on school trips, holidays, have white friends, wear the clothes I want, or go to parties. I was never part of a club, a group, or a gang in my life. I never felt like I fitted in, I felt odd with a lack of belonging” (Mirza, 2016, n.p.). This young woman asserts that, despite her “lack of belonging” and her rebelliousness against her family culture, she did not join ISIS. She argues that the Muslim girls who run off to join ISIS, perhaps like their male counterparts, are looking for freedom, adventure, sex and romance, as they expect to be paired off and married to a jihadi, the virile warrior with whom they will be united in a higher cause. The reality, as some women have acknowledged, is that they have run from one prison to another, from the restrictive regime of their family to one which is lethally so. Submission for both men and women within the culture of IS takes on a particularly exalted status. This raises the question as to whether these young men and women are unconsciously gravitating to something that is familiar, if not more extreme,

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and whether the real attraction of IS is to do with its violence, its destructive prophecies and the power of death itself. Savagery and the glory of death IS has gained international prominence through its terrorist attacks in foreign countries and through its much publicized use of violence against non-believers. Executions of infidel captives and of Muslim apostates are regularly shown across the world via the internet and with escalating degrees of violence; the image of a severed head held up to the camera has been superseded with slick films of live beheadings. Press releases feature shocking images of a 21-year-old Muslim man in Raqqa ordered to murder his mother in public after she had tried to persuade him to leave the territory,2 another of a little boy dressed in camouflage detonating a car filled with foreign captives bound together, and numerous reports of the enslavement of women and children. Although these images are certainly real, they are also carefully orchestrated by the IS propaganda machine as part of the intended “offensive jihad”. The British Muslim political activist, Anjem Choudary, explains that under the Islamic laws of war there is an obligation to terrorize its enemies and that, far from being acts of brutality, they are acts of mercy insofar as they will hasten victory and avoid “prolonged conflict” (Wood, 2015, n.p.). Its guerrilla tactics, combined with conventional warfare and terrorist policy of no limits to violence has made IS “a new breed” of enemy (Atwan, 2015, p. 146). The Americans have dubbed these tactics “shock and awe”, highlighting the IS posturing of power as a means of achieving victory. The face of violence that IS presents to the world, and within its own population, is not only laid down by the law of war in the Quran but has more recently been reinforced by jihadist literature. In 2004, a document titled “The management of savagery,” written by al-Qaeda ideologue Abu Bakr Naji, was released on the internet outlining the uses of violence required in the second and most critical phase of the establishment of the caliphate. Naji writes, “If we succeed in the management of this savagery, that stage (by the permission of God) will be a bridge to the Islamic state which has been awaited since the fall of the caliphate. If we fail – we seek refuge from God for that – it does not mean end of the matter; rather, this failure will lead to an increase in savagery!” (Naji, 2006, n.p.). The first stage of re-establishing the caliphate consists of “vexation and exhaustion”, a gradual wearing down of the enemies of Islam through “constant threat, terror and aggression from the jihadists” (Atwan, 2015, p. 153). Atwan writes, “The US and its allies will implode politically owing to their ‘moral collapse, social iniquities, opulence, selfishness and giving priority

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to worldly pleasures.’ Economic collapse will follow due to the intolerable financial burden of incessant war: ‘the most likely way to defeat the strongest enemy militarily is to drain it militarily and economically.’ Naji asserts . . . that great empires fall in large part because they overstretch themselves militarily abroad and in maintaining security at home” (Atwan, 2015, p. 153). History testifies to this observation, and we can see today how the IS strategy is already unfolding as the superpowers attempt to defeat IS and at the same time vie for power in the region. The “administration of savagery” follows the first stage in its ruthless and persistent jihadist attack on anything that stands in its way. This is the psychological warfare that we see superpowers edging close to. Naji (2006) describes the American military as effeminate; they are “unable to sustain battles for a long period of time” and therefore conduct their wars by proxy. Because of this weakness, the aim of the administration of savagery is to provoke the US and other superpowers into attacking IS directly. This is reminiscent of bin Laden’s wish to defeat “the ponderous American elephant” by luring it on to Muslim ground.The success of this stage will then lead to the full establishment of the caliphate and Armageddon along with the promise of eternal life to believers. Turning back to François, Houellebecq’s narrator, he reflects: It may well be impossible for people who have lived and prospered under a given social system to imagine the point of view of those who feel it offers them nothing, and who can contemplate its destruction without any particular dismay. (Houellebecq, 2015, p. 44) Prosperity and comfort do not in themselves constitute a meaningful life. Paradoxically, it may offer just the opposite as it diminishes the struggle for mere survival. If we consider having to struggle to live as vital to life, as that which provides existential meaning and the impetus for psychological growth and development, then the appeal of IS becomes more understandable – and more compelling, especially when it confers glory to its followers.We do not need a concept of the death instinct or innate destructiveness to comprehend the appeal of IS.The archetypal image of the martyred warrior who dies for God and is blessed thereafter has been a powerful force within most religions and certainly in religious wars such as the Crusades. Ellison vividly describes the fate of the martyr in Norse mythology, “Those who died in the god’s service, undergoing a violent death either by battle or by sacrifice, had entry into his realm . . . the hero will be welcomed with feasting and hospitality because he died fearlessly” (Ellison, 1964, p. 149).

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IS recruiting propaganda has capitalized on the need to find meaning through heroic struggle – and the narcissistic frustration that more prosperous societies seem, inevitably perhaps, to inculcate. Part of the IS cyber war is to promulgate an image of itself “as an emotionally attractive place where people ‘belong’, where everyone is a ‘brother’ or ‘sister’ ”(Atwan, 2015, p. 14). The dystopian community that much of the West sees is counter-balanced by carefully scripted scenes of a caring and fulfilling community life. Atwan writes, “A kind of slang, melding adaptations or shortenings of Islamic terms with street language, is evolving among the English-language fraternity on social media platforms in an attempt to create a ‘jihadi cool’. A jolly home life is portrayed via Instagram images where fighters play with fluffy kittens and jihadist ‘poster-girls’ proudly display the dishes they have created” (Atwan, 2015, p. 14). These innocuous images become even more enticing when they are paired with the violent images of martyrdom and death. The smiling faces of dead fighters are, as Atwan notes, “frequently posted across all platforms. The IS ‘salute’ – the index of the right hand pointing heavenward – reflects this ideology. . . . (One) female jihadist . . . had posted a shocking photograph as ‘wallpaper’: two little boys, presumably her own, aged around four and six are dressed in black and masked; they are dwarfed by the Kalashnikov rifles supported by their left hands while their right index fingers point to the sky. . . . (Another) female . . . shared ‘glad tidings’ via Twitter: ‘My husband . . . has done the best transaction you can make his soul (sic) and in return Jenna (heaven) may Allah accept you yaa shaheed (martyr)’. Five hours earlier she had posted a picture of a bowl of cream dessert with bits of Toblerone chocolate stuck on top” (Atwan, 2015, pp. 14–15). Along with recruitment videos of jihadis playing the good Samaritan, stressing the caring side of life in IS, there are televised series, produced by Al-Furqan, dramatically showing jihadis in full battle, resembling Hollywood’s most popular action films. Atwan describes Messages from the Land of Epic Battles and Why Did You Come to Jihad, Uncle?, both by Al-Furqan. “They feature IS fighters, many of them foreign, in the midst of fierce battles. Its most infamous productions show increasingly barbaric executions designed to terrify enemies and the world at large with horrifying, unforgettable images: a small young boy personally executes adult hostages; a fighter holds up two severed heads; a woman is stoned to death; and old man alleged to be a paedophile is tipped off a white plastic chair from the top of a high building; and in February 2015 came the repellent, high production-value video of a captured Jordanian pilot, Moaz al’Kasabeh, being burned alive in a cage” (Atwan, 2015, p. 16). The juxtaposition between violence, death and kitsch is uncomfortable and yet conveys the alluring message that reality can be modelled and recreated in another form so that what are usually thought of as oppositional

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experiences, death and sweetness, become joined as one category. The message is clear: the warrior and the executioner, the law-enforcing murderer, is the brave jihadi who protects the world from evil while at home and within his community he is the loving father who tenderly cares for others. This double image is disturbingly reminiscent of portrayals of SS officers showing off their Totenkopfverbande, the death’s head military insignia, on their uniforms while playing with their children. Hate and love are distinctly orchestrated and equally valued in devotion to God and the Führer, or the caliphate. Like witchcraft, the usual order of things is turned topsy-turvy into its inverse. This is one of the hallmarks of evil when the normal order of things is inverted and then normalized, such as when the desire for martyrdom and death is sought after and celebrated (Atwan, 2015, p. 14). George Orwell, in his 1940 review of Mein Kampf, underscores the human attraction to “struggle, danger and death” and implicitly highlights the proximity between defying death and courting it. He observes: Fascism and Nazism are psychologically far sounder than any hedonistic conception of life. . . . Whereas Socialism, and even capitalism in a more grudging way, have said to people, ‘I offer you a good time,’ Hitler has said to them, ‘I offer you struggle, danger and death,’ and as a result a whole nation flings itself at his feet. . . . (Orwell, 1940) As we know, during World War II and since, plenty of young men and women volunteered to fight for socialism, communism and capitalism. They too were inevitably attracted by “struggle, danger, and death” and, as is the case today, wanting to feel that they have attempted or achieved something heroic in their lives, something that will give them recognition and value in other people’s eyes. But Orwell fails to point out two important aspects of Hitler’s rise to power. The first is Hitler’s promise to create a German empire, restoring the power it had lost in the last world war and vanquishing the humiliation that resulted from this. Secondly, Hitler inflamed the young German population with the belief that the tasks of purification and conquering its enemies would give them purpose, meaning, and opportunities for a better life in the future. But, here again, total obedience and belief in the cause was necessary for its success and to ensure the love of the Führer. The totalitarian aspect of leadership intrinsic to fascism and Nazism carries its own particular draw – the draw of the omnipotent object (i.e. the state) that creates a world of moral and actual certainty and clearly demarcated norms for everyone to follow. There is no ambiguity, no conflict, and no guilt. For these reasons, the psychological

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appeal of totalitarian regimes is far more profound and certainly far darker. IS exemplifies the totalist state in demanding unquestioning allegiance from its members to the point of excommunicating those who take part in electoral politics, a justifiable cause for execution. While the insistence on internal purity and submission is intended to strengthen the group, and establishes part of its allure, its rigidity and violence also bear the seeds of its extinction (Ruthven, 2016). While to foreign recruits, IS offers more than struggle, danger and death to foreign recruits, it offers an apocalyptic ideology that distinguishes it from totalitarian political regimes and the causes they represent. Death is sanctified to all those who sacrifice their lives for a higher cause, but IS has transformed the jihadi who embraces death without fear into its most powerful weapon. IS promises earthly and heavenly glory to its fighters who die and, more than this, it offers the illusion that the threshold of death itself can be stepped through with ease and glory. Death is obliterated at the same time as existence and there is no demarcation between the two. In this respect, the religious ideology becomes supremely powerful because it conquers death itself. The glorification of death within IS allows for a certain dissembling of the border between life and death. If death is no longer something to be feared – especially for the believer – then there is nothing to stop us from seeking it. The purpose of life then becomes fixed on securing one’s place in heaven, by any means. At the same time, there is the messianic vision that after the world has been destroyed, a new old-world will be created of “universal justice and peace under the Prophet’s banner” (Atran and Hamid, 2015, n.p.). The trajectory of individual death leading to rebirth in a heavenly world of justice and peace is mirrored in the prophecy of the death of the world. Once all life is destroyed, i.e. once all non-believers cease to exist, there will be no difference essentially between life on earth and life in heaven. Death itself is destroyed. Lifton argues that “in their most draconian manifestation, totalistic environments tend to press toward the dispensing of existence, an absolute division between those who have a right to exist and those who possess no such right. That division can remain merely judgmental or ideological, but it can also become murderous . . .” (Lifton, 1999, p. 26). He describes the Japanese Aum cult’s idea that killing those who did not belong to the cult was considered an act of altruism as it granted a “higher existence” in the afterlife to those it killed. For the Aum, the killing of non-believers was not only sanctioned: it was seen as beneficent, turning the impure into the pure. Death purifies, while existence is constantly being polluted. Lifton concludes, “Aum ultimately became convinced that no one outside the cult had a right to exist because all others, unrelated as they were to the guru, remained hopelessly defiled”(Lifton, 1999, p. 26).

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There is no such salvation for the execution of infidels within IS. However, the common experience of killing and witnessing killings reinforces ties within the group; furthermore the belief system itself can only be sustained by further killing. In order to extinguish guilt, members of the group need to continually purify the group through further executions. Lifton describes the Aum experience of “transcendence” as becoming inextricably linked with killing (Lifton, 1999, p. 87). For the residents living within IS, killing also becomes an accepted part of the day-to-day social fabric and establishes meaning. Guilt and the fear of retaliation then become projected externally on to the infidel enemies who are perceived as wanting to exterminate the Islamic world. Psychologically, it is likely that IS’s paranoia will only increase as it becomes stronger. The continual need to guard against defilement and pollution and to maintain a closed system of belief ultimately leads to suicide.3 It is life itself that is to be feared – with its threat of being tainted and corrupted by the interstices of reality.The ideal of total purity, ironically, creates a world of evil that contains the seeds of its own extinction. Conclusion We see Houellebecq’s narrator, François, sitting in the comfort of his boss’s post-Arab state university study. Rediger, a successful convert and advocate of Islam, has been lecturing to François about the murderous absurdity of nations in contrast to the peaceful rule of Islam. As François compliments Rediger on his beautiful house, given to him by the Arab state, Rediger informs him that it is the same house where Dominique Aury (alias Pauline Réage) wrote Story of O. Both François and Rediger agree on their dislike of the book, the “disgusting” fantasies of others and its kitsch characters and places. However, François argues that the book has passion and vitality. Rediger then murmurs, “It’s submission. . . . The shocking and simple idea, which had never been so forcefully expressed, that the summit of human happiness resides in the most absolute submission” (p. 217). Submission is at the heart of Story of O – and the ecstatic transcendence it brings with it. Any identifying aspect of the person, whether it is feelings, characteristics, thoughts and relations with others, are stripped away one by one in increasing stages of submission until there are no people but only objects serving as objects to one another, to be used, to be exalted, to be destroyed. The “most absolute submission” is equivalent to absolute extinction of the self and of the need to exist. For those who have experienced being treated inhumanely, it is a self-attack that confers power in its sheer destructiveness. The terror IS projects into us is the transcendence of what is human through its utter destruction. Story of O is exciting because it describes the gradual dehumanization of its central character, given the simple name of O

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to signify her non-existence. The violence and the kitsch community scenes displayed through the IS media are exciting for similar reasons. They both extol submission to the point of death and it is this act of self-immolation that is so powerful. Death is simultaneously exalted and made superfluous. Just as the suicide bomber, seeking glory in death, presents us with an invincible enemy, the group that is expectantly preparing for the end of the world and whose purpose is to kill others in order to die a holy death also negates the will to live and, most importantly, the will to have some sense of agency in life. We are the ones left with the fear of this destructive force and the negation of our capacity to be human – a fear that has been split off by the IS ideology and suppressed in its unconscious. IS has emerged as a distinct political entity at a time of extreme precariousness in the Middle East. Within the region there is a sense of decline and death coupled with a fear of extinction. The experience of a world in its death throes, spewing out waves of desperate refugees by the day, elicits an intense desire for salvation and regeneration. “The lifeless world . . . can become associated with mythic visions of destruction and renewal, with apocalyptic promises of radical transformation” (Lifton, 1999, p. 2713). Lifton describes this mixture as characteristic of a millenarian vision, as “the apocalyptic ‘juxtaposition of terror and bliss,’ one bound up with supernatural prophecy, annihilative technology, and the urge for survival” (Lifton, 1999, p. 2713).When the urge for survival becomes transmuted into the urge for submission and the boundary between life and death is obliterated, we know that evil has stepped in to threaten us all. If we respond to IS out of our own fear, we run the risk of realizing their paranoid fantasies and of escalating terrorist attacks into full blown warfare. IS will then have succeeded in bringing “the ponderous American elephant” on to their territory for slaughter, strengthening its appeal to fresh recruits. If, however, we continue to maintain a tactic of steady containment, mirroring the IS first stage of “vexation and exhaustion”, the chances that IS will diminish in time and quite possibly implode on itself and die out are far greater. Arising from sectarian regional splits, IS continues to be fuelled by spiralling conflicts and the failure of Arab states to create and support state-building structures. The fragmentation and ever-changing alliances within the region paradoxically serve to enhance IS’ distinctive identity and strengthen its military position (Ruthven, 2016). As long as this is the case, Wood concludes, “continuing to slowly bleed it, through air strikes and proxy warfare, appears the best of bad military options” (Wood, 2015, n.p.). Remaining true to its Prophetic model, IS embraces its own extinction in the knowledge that its members will receive divine succour in heaven. Either way, IS can comfort itself in the belief that it cannot lose. It is indeed a future of terror and bliss.

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Notes 1 See chapter 3, Invisible Handcuffs. See also Ghent, E. (1990). “Masochism, submission, surrender – masochism as a perversion of surrender.” In Contemporary Psychoanalysis, 26: 10. 2 Extreme totalitarian regimes and cults often exert total power over their members by ordering them to harm or kill someone close to them as proof of their loyalty. In the case of the young man ordered to kill his mother, failure to do so would have resulted in his own execution as well as his mother’s. 3 The effect of paranoia within IS is becoming evident in instances of defection. In the UK, On 7 March 2016, Channel 4 News showed the leader of a IS army group, holding up his IS identification card to the camera asking to join a rebel group along with his group of IS fighters. When asked why he wanted to defect, his response was, “They butchered us, they harassed us.They started getting suspicious of us. All it takes is four people to denounce you, and they would throw you from a roof.”

References Atran, S. (16 November 2015). “The psychology of a terrorist: How ISIS wins hearts and minds.” V   ocativ news. Atran, S., & Hamid, N. (16 November 2015). “Paris: The war ISIS wants.” New York Review Daily. Atwan, A.B. (2015). Islamic State:The Digital Caliphate. London: Saqi Books. Ellison, H.R. (1964). Gods and Myths of Northern Europe. London: Penguin Books. Houellebecq, M. (2015). Submission. London: William Heinemann. Lifton, R.J. (1999). Destroying the World to Save It: Aum Shinrikyo, Apocalyptic Violence, and the New Global Terrorism. New York: Holt. Mirza, S. (12 February 2016). “From playground to warzone.” Financial Times. Naji, A.B. (2006). The Management of Savagery. Translated by William McCants. Cambridge, MA: John M. Olin Institute for Strategic Studies at Harvard University. (Originally published 2004) Orwell, G. (March 1940). “Review of Mein Kampf.” New English Weekly. Ruthven, M. (23 June 2016). “How to understand ISIS.” The New York Review of Books. Wood, G. (March 2015). “What ISIS Really Wants.” The Atlantic.

9 DO WE NEED A THEORY OF EVIL?

This world is not this world. Auschwitz survivor

Introduction On 15 April 1945, CBS broadcaster Edward R. Murrow spoke from Buchenwald, “I have reported what I saw and heard, but only part of it. For most of it I have no words” (quoted in Wachsmann, 2015, p. 17). Murrow was voicing the unspeakable, and unthinkable, experience of being touched by evil – an experience so extreme that it destroys our ability to symbolize and to think, to put what has shattered the limits of our world into words. The space between what can be imagined and what can be actualized collapses; anything is possible under the blinded eyes of God. The hallmark of evil is that it is an action that breaks the boundaries of our everyday set of beliefs and norms. Evil is paired in binary opposition to the concept of good which in itself represents an ideal of everyday life or a valuative norm. The etymological root of evil is in the Teutonic word, “ubiloz”, meaning “up, over”, “exceeding due measure”, “overstepping proper limits”. It is an action (or threat) that fills us with horror, that is “fearimbued” and for which “no distancing or evasive strategies exist that are not themselves utterly contaminating” (Miller, quoted in Stern and Berger, 2015, p. 206). Evil is terrifying because it transforms the victim from being human into being an object. The only aspect of the victim that remains for the perpetrator to identify with is bound up with the pain that can be inflicted; this is what confers total power.

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Evil presents the mind with an external threat that is by its nature unpredictable. Because of this, the predictive behavioural patterns that we have learned in our everyday lives do not apply. We are presented with an overwhelming, life threatening problem that is insoluble and can only be managed through repression into the unconscious. These repressed contents are then liable to resurface into consciousness, replaying an experience that cannot be resolved in the mind and as such has become unthinkable. A current example in world events that is challenging our comprehension across disciplines is the meteoric rise of ISIS, or IS as they now prefer to be called, claiming the status of a nation state.1 The widely publicized incidents of suicide bombings, videoed beheadings, and reports of mass rape and enslavement of those they have conquered, have had a chilling effect on Muslims and non-Muslims alike. The Grand Imam of al-Azhar, considered one of the holiest Sunni clerics, recently issued a statement condemning IS: “This group is Satanic – they should have their limbs amputated or they should be crucified” (Anonymous, 2015). This statement vividly illustrates how terror inculcates violence in others and in this way spreads like a virus through different populations. What makes the group “Satanic”, however, is not only the use and display of extreme forms of violence but also the inexplicable and bewildering nature of its appeal. The phenomenon is powerful because it seems to defy understanding. An anonymous author in the New York Review of Books comments: To take only one example, five years ago not even the most austere Salafi theorists advocated the reintroduction of slavery; but ISIS has in fact imposed it. Nothing since the triumph of the Vandals in Roman North Africa has seemed so sudden, incomprehensible, and difficult to reverse as the rise of ISIS. None of our analysts, soldiers, diplomats, intelligence officers, politicians, or journalists has yet produced an explanation rich enough – even in hindsight – to have predicted the movement’s rise. (Anonymous, 2015, p. 29) Although the socio-political and psychological forces that are shaping this movement inevitably arise within a particular historical context, its incomprehensible nature echoes our reaction to numerous atrocities from the past. We ask ourselves, like a broken record, “how can this be happening and how can people commit such horror and violence, much less live with themselves?” We recognize that a boundary has been crossed in terms of what most of us consider to be “normal” or acceptable social behaviour. But how does this happen and why?

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We develop theories to explain why the events that we observe in our lives happen in the way they do, how these events come about, and what meaning they might have. A theory is only valid if it applies general principles that are true regardless of particular circumstances. Even as young children, we develop theories as a way of making sense of what is happening around us. If, e.g. mother is in a bad mood and there is no clear reason why, a child may surmise that it must be because he has done something wrong. The fact that mother may be in a bad mood, that it may have nothing to do with her child, and yet the child cannot fathom why, leaves the child in a mysterious and chaotic universe in which there is no meaning and no way of predicting the consequences of certain actions. Better to attribute every cloud-burst to oneself than to be at the mercy of the vagaries of nature. Systems of mythology and religious beliefs traditionally fulfil the role of imbuing our world with meaning – especially in the face of events that seem either to be meaningless or beyond understanding. In psychoanalytic thinking there are different theories about aggression, destructiveness and the so-called death instinct. There is, however, very little reference to the concept of evil and when it is referred to it tends to be conceived as an extreme form of sadism arising from individual and collective pathology. Evil falls within the realm of the perverse and is ascribed to the mad or the bad. While this may be a way of containing our anxiety about behaviour that is beyond the pale, it fails to explain how large numbers of seemingly “normal” people can be caught up in committing all kinds of deeds we consider evil, nor does it explain why some actions are perceived as evil in one context while in others they may fall within a given norm. Disciplines such as philosophy, political science, sociology and anthropology have addressed the problem of evil from their respective standpoints, but these too reflect only a partial theoretical construction. I will argue that because of the nature of evil itself it requires, perhaps more than other phenomena, a multi-disciplinary approach to understand it and to think about it in its different manifestations. I also want to clarify that I will not be addressing evil actions on an individual scale, i.e. as individual psychopathology, but as a collective phenomenon. I am trying to understand not only what we mean by the concept of evil but how it engages us as individuals within a collective framework. As Primo Levi warned, “Monsters exist, but they are too few in number to be truly dangerous. More dangerous are the common men” (quoted in Wachsmann, 2015, p. 17). Thinking the unthinkable Hannah Arendt coined the phrase “the banality of evil” based on her observations of the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem (Arendt, 1963). Not only was she

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emphatic that the roots of radical evil can be found in the most ordinary levels of daily life but she attributed its principal cause to a failure of thought. Arendt’s concept of what it means to “think” is complex and derived from her Kantian view of human will and the human condition. Kant argues that “man, and in general every rational being, exists as an end in himself, not merely as a means for arbitrary use by this or that will: he must in all actions, whether they are directed to himself or to other rational beings, always be viewed at the same time as an end” (Lukes, 1980, p. 49). Against this philosophical assumption, the act of thinking becomes a crucial tool in discriminating between means and ends and is our only way of maintaining a reflective watchfulness over the intentions behind and consequences of our actions. When we exclaim that the Nazi death camps or the intentionally publicized beheadings conducted by IS are inconceivable, there is the double meaning that these actions go beyond the bounds of permissible imagination and that they have been committed in a state of suspended thought – a state of “unthought” in which thought itself, serving as a marker or link to reality, has become disconnected and engaged instead in a perverse universe. Being able to conceive of doing evil requires being able to imagine transgressing the boundaries of our everyday lives and entering a world without limits and without sanctions. The order by which we structure our lives and our perception of ourselves is inverted if not destroyed altogether. In Coetzee’s Waiting for the Barbarians, the narrator, whom we know as the Magistrate, wonders how Colonel Joll, whose task is to keep out the barbarians threatening to invade and corrupt the Empire, can eat after he has tortured someone without any apparent signs of moral pollution. The Magistrate wonders whether Joll shuddered “even a little knowing he was trespassing into the forbidden?” Does he have a “private ritual of purification, carried out behind closed doors, to enable him to return and break bread with other men?” Does he “wash his hands very carefully, perhaps, or change all his clothes; or has the Bureau created new men who can pass without disquiet between the unclean and the clean?” (Coetzee, 1980, p. 13). What makes Joll’s position so hard for the Magistrate to comprehend is the apparent incongruence between Joll as a social being who “breaks bread with other men” and the Joll who at the same time treats other humans as “barbarians”, or in other words, as inhuman. In his projection of all that is polluting and destructive on to the barbarians, Joll not only dehumanizes the “other” but dehumanizes himself as well insofar as he has lost what Arendt would define as the capacity for thought. Evil, according to Kant, is distinguished from immoral actions by “the structure of the agent’s will itself.” The evil doer must be autonomous and able to understand the consequences of his actions. Notwithstanding the complexity of this statement, what is important is that an act of harm is

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intended by a perpetrator who has the capacity for thought. The philosopher Garcia explains, “The direct violation of another person’s humanity qua human somehow comprises a necessary part of the ‘material object’ of an evil agent’s will” (Garcia, 2002, p. 194). Actions intended to de-humanize the other can be seen to be a central characteristic of evil. The paradox of evil is that it is contingent on the perpetrator having the capacity for thought and committing an action that effectively destroys thought. In this respect, there is a necessary element of self-destruction intrinsic within any evil action. It is destroying one’s capacity for thought and oneself as human. I will come back to this idea later on, but it is perhaps another reason why it is hard to conceive of what makes people commit evil and how they can then live with themselves when they do. The order of things It is our ability to think in terms of being cognizant of our actions and their effect on others that characterizes us as human. But even this idea is relative across societies. The anthropologist David Pocock points out that our conception of what is human is highly contextual. He writes, “ . . . we create gradations of humanity distinguished by our own sense of ease and registered in degrees of sympathy: we deny humanity to no member of the species but behave as though some are more human than others” (Pocock, 1985, pp. 51–52). This is apparent at one extreme in the IS justification, following a fundamentalist reading of Sharia law, of the slavery and rape of women on the basis that they are unbelievers. However, we can also see gradations elide with proximity. The language and policies relating to the recent refugee crisis have become transformed as the instances of horror that we can identify with become closer to our own experience and sense of identity. We see the body of the little Syrian boy lifted out of the sea by a Turkish policeman and he looks like he could be our child or our neighbour’s; suddenly he becomes one of us. Pocock stresses that “all human beings live by . . . limited codes. And they are limited not by ‘the limitation of human sympathies’ but by the nature of human cultures, which variously define the human, and within the human the more and the less so, not only outside but inside the boundaries of the ‘tribe’ ” (Pocock, 1985, pp. 54–55). He continues, “It is the conception of what is and is not human, and of the relations that exist within and between these two classes – in short, the conception of order – that precedes the very perception of suffering and the consequent judgements that it is unfortunate, a pity, or bad, or evil” (Pocock, 1985, p. 55). Having established that what is considered “human” is culturally prescribed and in practice manifests a hierarchy of exceptions, Pocock, along

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with many other anthropologists, observes that the concept of evil, as applied to human actions, implies “actions that are unruly and therefore inexplicable; paradoxically, not human” (Pocock, 1985, p. 49). It is therefore not adequate to link evil principally to the destruction of thought but to view evil as social transgression that destroys the order of things by which people create communal life. E.H. Winter describes the Amba witches from East Africa as evil because of their practice of inverting the moral order of the tribe by, e.g. “resting upside down or quenching one’s thirst with salt” (Pocock, 1985, p. 48). Pocock notes that “ . . . taken out of context, such notions are merely laughably absurd. However, in the context in which they are found they symbolize what human beings are not, and not only what humans should not do. The complex of the representation of disinterested malice expresses a paradox: a belief in creatures who are and are not human beings, at once within and beyond the limits of humanity. We may rephrase Winter’s comment on the ‘incarnation of evil’ among the Amba and say that they are not monsters because they enjoy disinterested malice but that they enjoy disinterested malice because they are monsters” (Pocock, 1985, p. 48). Greater than the offence of doing evil is the offence of being evil – the monster incarnate who by his very being subverts the moral order. The intrinsic difficulty in thinking about evil is that it requires us to think about what is not. Aristotle viewed evil as the privation of good. The Greek philosopher Plotinus extended this view and considered primary evil to be total formlessness, a lack or negation of Ideal Form, that which is non (ex) sistence (Kalligas, 2014, p. 225). Evil is the antithesis of order and form. In psychological terms, this describes psychotic states of mind in which the demarcation between reality and fantasy, internal and external, and manifestations of difference is obliterated. Chasseguet-Smirgel refers to the destructive omnipotence of the Sadian hero who “puts himself in the position of God, and becomes, through a process of destruction, the creator of a new kind of reality . . . a new dimension where undifferentiation, confusion and chaos prevail” (Chasseguet-Smirgel, 1985, pp. 4–5). Pocock argues that the symbolic inversion represented in the concept of evil “does more than define and in various ways validate the moral order . . . it symbolizes the inversion of the ideal of order itself ” (Pocock, 1985, p. 47). God is negated into chaos. The juxtaposition between good and evil is embedded in our notions of pure and impure, notions that help us navigate reality in our fight for survival. Mary Douglas, in her classic study Purity and Danger, observes that dirt is “matter out of place” (Douglas, 1966, p. 35). She argues, “Where there is dirt there is system. Dirt is the by-product of a systematic ordering and classification of matter, in so far as ordering involves rejecting inappropriate elements. This idea of dirt takes us straight into the field of symbolism and promises a link-up with more obviously symbolic systems of purity”

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(Douglas, 1966, p. 35). What constitutes dirt is determined within a context that is shaped by a particular order. For example, shoes may not be perceived as dirty when they are on the floor and yet become so when they are placed on top of a table. This is most evident in the case of warfare in which some forms of aggression may be sanctioned within one context and not another. Dirt, like evil, becomes powerful because it threatens to defile the system or ideal of order; it presents an anomaly to our established categories of experience. Douglas enumerates certain ways in which “anomalous events” can be made manageable and brought within the framework of order. These are: • “by settling for other interpretations”. A monstrous birth can be explained as something else (e.g. a baby hippopotamus), as an accident, or a mix-up, of nature; • the event can be controlled, e.g. through destruction (e.g. twins in some West African tribes are killed at birth to eradicate the anomaly of two humans born from the same womb); • avoidance. Disavowal or denial can be used to re-consolidate the order of things; • the event may be labelled as dangerous and outlawed; • and lastly, “anomalous events can be used in ritual for the same ends as they are used in poetry and mythology, to enrich meaning or to call attention to other levels of existence.” (Douglas, 1966, pp. 39–40) These techniques of managing anomaly can be applied similarly to what is perceived as evil. Evil acts are frequently understood in terms of individual sadism run amok and this sustains an illusion that the moral order remains essentially intact. The perpetrator can be either destroyed or locked up and moral order seemingly restored. The act and its harmful effects can be disavowed – a phenomenon we are all too familiar with as therapists. The act can be categorized as “evil” and relegated as “other” or foreign, thereby strengthening the moral order. This is often apparent in how we regard the Holocaust as a phenomenon unlike anything else that can then be clearly demarcated and cordoned off from the rest of our lives. Lastly, Douglas points to the role of art and religion as ritualized conduits that express the conflict between good and evil and depict a world in which we have the power to overcome evil. Evil can be neutralized through other ritual processes that intentionally turn the order of things upside down. This is similar to Winter’s Amba witches with the important difference that what is otherwise regarded as evil is actively incorporated as an antidote to restore order. Douglas describes the practice of the Nyakyusa from southern Tanzania who “are not tolerant of

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filth but highly pollution-conscious. They observe elaborate restrictions to avoid contact with bodily rejects which they regard as very dangerous. . . . But in spite of this normal avoidance the central act in the ritual of mourning is actively to welcome filth. They sweep rubbish on the mourners” (Douglas, 1966, pp. 176–177). In this instance, during a liminal state in which order is an abeyance, it becomes especially important to gain control over what is dangerous and to transform it into its opposite. A perverse example of neutralization can be seen during the time of the Junta in Argentina when common, everyday words took on a double meaning – e.g. asado, meaning barbecue, also signified the burning of dead bodies of the tortured and parilla, meaning the grill for the barbecue, signified the metal table on which victims were tortured. What was out of the “normal” became normalized linguistically as a way of both hiding and alerting people to the horror of what was happening.The horror is subsumed within everyday life while, as the psychoanalyst, Gregorio Kohon, observes, also producing “an uncanny effect: people were terrified but could not completely trust their senses; they were never sure whether they had valid reasons for their fear and terror, nor could they justify their intense need to feel safe” (Kohon, 2015, p. 113). The boundary between expected, ordinary events and terrifying, extra-ordinary events no longer held. Evil can also be neutralized by political processes by which the de-humanizing of groups of people is sanctioned. The theatre of action, whether it be Hiroshima, Guantanamo Bay, or the IS beheadings justifies the treatment of humans as means rather than ends because it protects greater numbers of other humans who, for various reasons, are of greater value. The political process adopts a hierarchy of values to transform the context, using the ideological argument that it is in the name of God, of peace, or of purification.The Polish philosopher Kolakowski observes, Within the naturalistic or materialistic view of reality the qualities of ‘good’ and ‘evil’ are inadmissible, or useless and misleading, for they suggest that something can possess these qualities in itself, unconditionally and independently of the circumstances, and this suggestion can be suspected of having a religious provenance. (Kolakowski, 2012, p. 169) He cites an example from Solzhenitsyn’s novel, The Cancer Ward, in which a visitor to a zoo reads a notice on the empty monkey cage that the monkey had been blinded by an evil visitor. Kolakowski writes, The visitor’s shock and amazement were genuine and quite understandable.The adjective ‘evil’ (and no less so the noun) as the description of a

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moral quality was absent from the ideological jargon of the totalitarian Soviet world.There were, of course, criminals, monsters, traitors, foreign agents; but no one who was simply ‘evil.’ This was not only because the quality of being evil might easily have suggested the religious tradition. It also suggested an inherent, lasting property of a person or an act, independent of the political context. Whereas it is obvious to anyone who thinks dialectically that actions which are ostensibly the same kinds of actions can be right or wrong depending on the circumstances – or rather, on the cause in the name of which they are performed. Both Lenin and Trotsky were quite explicit on this point. Is there, for instance, something inherently wrong in slaughtering children? – No. It was right,Trotsky argues, to slaughter the children of the Russian czar because it was politically expedient. (Kolakowski, 2012, p. 170) Within the totalitarian state, the concept of “evil” becomes unthinkable because it is outside of the realm of the accepted political and moral order. The very thought of evil brings to light the existence of an ideal order, an ideal that is not transcendent but that has been contrived by man and therefore subject to corruption. Ideology and the ego ideal Kolakowski’s observation about the psychology of the totalitarian regime is important in trying to understand how large groups get swept away in what is perceived by others as aberrant and destructive social forces. This has been the prevailing question for historians grappling with the large scale atrocities committed in the name of ideology under Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia, the Khmer Rouge, and so on.The principal appeal of the totalitarian system is that it offers total protection and care of its members in exchange for total submission. But it is more than simply a benign despot, it also, just as importantly, offers an ideology that inspires belief in a higher order and imbues meaning to the individual sacrifices that it requires of its followers. Ideology functions in much the same way as fundamental religious beliefs and in many cases, e.g. IS, is indistinguishable. In providing an ideology that ascribes purpose and meaning to life, the totalitarian system also presents an ego ideal to its followers that promises to purify and exalt the individual. Extending Freud’s theory of the narcissism of minor differences (Freud, 1921), Vamik Volkan and other political psychoanalysts tend to regard the movement towards totalitarian regimes as motivated by fragile social groups lured by charismatic leaders who promise cohesion and group identity as well as regression to undifferentiated unity in

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the search for security (Volkan, 2004). Group identity is enhanced through narcissistic identification within the group and the placing of whatever is impure or undesirable on to the “other” who is outside the group. Bohleber, in referring to Douglas’ schema, comments that, “Uncertainty, insecurity, and ambivalence cannot be tolerated but must, instead, be rubbed out as something that is impure in order to create a homogeneous, symbolically consistent universe” (Bohleber, 2003, p. 122). Bohleber points to the regressive aspect of group behaviour, explaining: Insofar as members regressively fuse into a group, this becomes an illusionary substitute for the lost object, the mother of infancy. The group fantasy substitutes a communal ego-ideal for that of the individual and brings about manic elation. (Bohleber, 2003, p. 123) However, the idea that totalitarian systems manifest regressive states of mind is problematic. The “lost object” assumes an infantile experience of oneness with the caregiver that has been lost through developmental processes. It may instead simply represent an idealized state that is particularly appealing as a defence against conflict, frustration and loss. Understanding group behaviour as regressive runs the risk of viewing some groups as less mature than others; it can also be another way of distancing ourselves from what we perceive as unthinkable precisely because it lies outside the confines of our own ego ideals in certain important respects. The extreme power of the totalitarian state is in the ideal it presents – something to which we are all susceptible. It is not enough to explain totalitarian groups as regressive, especially as many vulnerable social groups do not behave in this way. Perhaps the most important factor to consider in understanding the power of ideology is what effect it has on the individual and collective ego ideal and how this can tip over into collective omnipotence, particularly under conditions of extreme vulnerability. In his extensive study of brainwashing within the Chinese Communist system, the psychoanalyst Robert Jay Lifton underscores the powerful effect of the totalitarian system within the psyche itself. He writes: The individual . . . comes to apply the same totalist polarization of good and evil to his judgments of his own character: he tends to imbue certain aspects of himself with excessive virtue, and condemn even more excessively other personal qualities – all according to their ideological standing. He must also look upon his impurities as originating from outside influences – that is, from the ever-threatening world beyond the closed, totalist ken.Therefore, one of his best ways to

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relieve himself of some of his burden of guilt is to denounce, continuously and hostilely, these same outside influences. The more guilty he feels, the greater his hatred, and the more threatening they seem. . . . Once an individual person has experienced the totalist polarization of good and evil, he has great difficulty in regaining a more balanced inner sensitivity to the complexities of human morality. For there is no emotional bondage greater than that of the man whose entire guilt potential – neurotic and existential – has become the property of ideological totalists. (Lifton, 1961, p. 425) Although Lifton does not use the term “ego ideal” in this passage, we can see how the polarization he describes transforms the ego ideal into an idealized ego that becomes both extremely seductive and persecutory, the two going hand in hand. The idealized ego de-humanizes the individual insofar as it transcends individual existence and this is the intrinsic paradox we find in the nature of evil. In his study of the Aum apocalyptic cult in Japan, Lifton identifies the move within the totalist environment towards an extreme “dispensing of existence, an absolute division between those who have a right to exist and those who possess no such right” (Lifton, 1999, p. 26). We can see a version of this manifested in the IS polarization that aims to exterminate (or enslave) those who do not subscribe to their belief system. In the case of Aum, the ideology of murder is justified not only on the grounds of purity but it offers the “dispensation” to its victims of a “higher existence” after death. In placing ideology as the highest value, over and above the value of individual life, the individual becomes the means towards this higher end. The idealized ego paradoxically becomes the ego that can be dispensed with in the service of this end. Doctrinal primacy is all important. Lifton notes: The underlying assumption is that the doctrine – including its mythological elements – is ultimately more valid, true, and real than is any aspect of actual human character or human experience. Thus, even when circumstances require that a totalist movement follow a course of action in conflict with or outside of the doctrine, there exists what Benjamin Schwartz has described as a ‘will to orthodoxy’ which requires an elaborate façade of new rationalizations designed to demonstrate the unerring consistency of the doctrine and the unfailing foresight which it provides. (Lifton, 1961, pp. 431–432) But is the “will to orthodoxy” essentially fuelled by the ego’s need to be loved – at all costs? The need for the individual to remain within the group,

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particularly in the face of internal polarity or splitting, is paramount, even if it means ceasing to exist. A photograph in the Peace Museum for Kamikaze Pilots on the southern tip of Kyushu in Japan shows a group of young pilots laughing as they are getting ready to take off, facing certain death (Buruma, 1994, loc. 3536). The smiling faces of suicide bombers sacrificing their lives for terrorist ideologies is a striking parallel, illustrating the ultimate power conferred on total submission. Death sacralizes the ego. Lifton refers to this as a form of subjugation to the “ahuman.” He explains, “in this manner, the totalists, as Camus phrases it, ‘put an abstract idea above human life, even if they call it history, to which they themselves have submitted in advance and to which they will decide quite arbitrarily, to submit everyone else as well’ ” (Lifton, 1961, p. 431). It could be said that the idealized ego, along with its henchman, the sadistic superego, has hijacked the ego to conform to a belief system that appears to guarantee its existence beyond death. This is not so different from most religious belief systems except for its extreme adherence to purity and totality and the kinds of moral sanctions at work. Tipping over into evil: Killing death I have been describing the elusive dividing line that distinguishes good, or “normal”, from evil, i.e. that which is beyond the pale. It is like looking at an image through a kaleidoscope in which a slight shift of the hand changes the configuration of the same image into something totally different and unrecognizable from the first configuration. There is a certain assumption surrounding evil acts, e.g. the concentration camps, that unlimited licensed power is the single most important factor that allows us to unleash our sadism towards one another and to commit atrocities.2 Rudolf Hoss, the former Auschwitz commandant, called this “the implacable urge to kill” (quoted in Helm, 2015, p. 513). Primo Levi describes the corruption of power not only amongst the SS acting within the camps but also within the ghetto itself. He writes: Power is like a drug: the need for either is unknown to anyone who has not tried them, but after the initiation . . . the dependency and need for ever larger doses is born; also born is the denial of reality and the return to childish dreams of omnipotence. . . . (The intoxication) is so powerful as to prevail even under conditions that would seem to be designed to extinguish all individual will. . . . (T)he syndrome produced by protracted and undisputed power is clearly visible: a distorted view of the world, dogmatic arrogance, need for adulation, convulsive clinging to the levers of command, and contempt for the law. (Levi, 1989, p. 49)

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The structure of power within the camps, as it was in the ghetto, came into existence against a backdrop of death – certainly for the prisoners but also for the SS guards who were increasingly engaged in a life and death struggle.3 For a variety of reasons, the killings within the camps increased significantly as it became clear that Germany was beginning to lose the war. The SS initiated more and more war-related projects; armament production units, medical experiments, and satellite labour camps mushroomed in a frenzy of omnipotence against impending disaster – a frenzy that took an unprecedented toll on human lives. (See Wachsmann, 2015, pp. 428, 448.) It is impossible not to associate the intensification of power and killings within these terrorized worlds to the darkening shadow of death surrounding them.4 The heady conditions of unlimited power not only affected individual thinking and action, but it pervaded the mechanics of an administration intoxicated with power – and facing death. The writer W.G. Sebald, in his collection of essays On the Natural History of Destruction, describes the “social organization of disaster.” Sebald comments on Kluge’s analysis of the way in which the strategy of air war was constructed during WWII: . . . (T)he transformation of bomber crews into professionals, ‘trained administrators of war in the air’. The question of how to overcome the psychological problem of keeping them interested in their tasks despite the abstract nature of their function, the problems of conducting an orderly cycle of operations involving ‘200 medium-sized industrial plants’ flying towards a city and of the technology ensuring that the bombs would cause large-scale fires and firestorms – all these factors, . . . from the organizers’ viewpoint, show that so much intelligence, capital and labour went into the planning of destruction that, under the pressure of all the accumulated potential, it had to happen in the end. (Sebald, 2003, p. 65) The unrelenting momentum of the war machine, once set in motion, is all too apparent in modern warfare. Once new technology is invented it brings increased power and the need to realize this power, to test its limits. But Sebald is pointing out that the momentum of carrying out the task of destruction provides a raison d’être in itself; it not only becomes intoxicating but perhaps especially so because it is bound up with destruction. In its defiance of death, only sheer destructiveness can destroy death. Lifton, in writing about Nazi doctors and medical killing, argues that genocide served the function not simply of purification but an underlying function of killing death. To some extent, it is possible to argue that any

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form of group purification is ultimately aimed at obliterating the bounds of death. Lifton compares the role of human sacrifice in the primitive culture of the Aztecs and the genocidal killing within the Nazi regime. In both cultures purification was seen as a means of attaining health, strength and power. Purification also promised harmony and wholeness within the group. However, there are important differences between these cultures. Human sacrifice was ritualized and publicly celebrated amongst the Aztecs as well as being part of a long-standing ideology and mythology. In contrast, the Nazi Final Solution evolved partly as a measure of desperation in response to problems of displacement and was done in secret, using technology in a way that had never before occurred in history. Despite these differences, what both cultures shared, according to Lifton, was the idea that “human sacrifice was ‘an alchemy by which life was made out of death’ ” (Lifton, 1986, p. 485). The act of killing was seen as therapeutic, intended to restore the life power of the group by satisfying a higher ideal, whether it meant eradicating racial weakness for the Nazis or nourishing the gods in the case of the Aztecs. But there is also no end to sacrifice when things are going badly – the demand for death increases as life itself is threatened. Lifton comments: Both groups killed and went on killing in the face of increasing evidence that the killing itself interfered with the survival of the state: with the conduct of the war, in the case of the Nazis; and with the entire social and economic existence of an exhausted empire, in the case of the Aztecs. Both had to continue ‘killing’ death. For it was as true of the Nazi as of the Aztec that each ‘could insist on offering blood in return for life until his whole religion became an emotional bulwark around the specter of death.’ (Lifton, 1986, p. 485) Lifton describes an ever-intensifying and self-reinforcing process of killing to ward off death. In its addictive aspect, it is similar to the cycle in perverse states of mind that requires increasing levels of destructiveness to maintain the excitement needed to defy or destroy reality and to combat the anxiety caused by guilt. This is the escalating destructive omnipotence of ChasseguetSmirgel’s Sadian hero that leads to self-immolation. Lifton locates the roots of Nazi perversion and European fascism in the thinking of the early nineteenth-century Catholic reactionary, Joseph de Maistre. He quotes from de Maistre: . . . from maggots up to man, the universal law is the violent destruction of human beings. The whole earth, continually steeped in blood, is nothing but an immense altar on which every living thing must

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be sacrificed without end, without restraint, without respite until the consummation of the world, the extinction of evil, the death of death. (quoted in Lifton, 1986, p. 485) Lifton states, “In order to extinguish evil and kill death, that is, we require not just violence but violence without end – some form of genocide” (Lifton, 1986, p. 485). This suggests that the tipping point into evil is not related to the pure corruption of power but stems from overwhelming anxiety about the obliteration of the order of things that can only be expelled by violence, i.e. by genocide. Genocide is the violent cure that connects “every act of mass murder to a vision of mystical unity” (Lifton, 1986, p. 486). It restores, at least temporarily, the order of things. Actions that are destructive and evil are transformed magically – and perversely – into actions that are life-enhancing and curative. Nietzsche’s dictum, “we have to be destroyers”, is held up as a sacred charm against being destroyed. Does this tell us that the tipping point – the point at which we de-humanize others and become, to use Lifton’s term, ahuman ourselves – comes when our social order or system of beliefs is threatened with extinction? Or is it that once we step into the arena of the “higher cause”, we become susceptible to becoming sucked into the vortex of evil? The narrator of Jonathan Littell’s The Kindly Ones describes the process of being swept up in the “higher cause” of Nazi Germany with chilling accuracy: I had always wanted my thinking to be radical; and now the State, the nation had also chosen the radical and the absolute; how, then, just at that moment, could I turn my back, say no, and at the end of the day prefer the comfort of bourgeois laws, the mediocre assurance of the social contract? That was obviously impossible. And if the radicalism was the radicalism of the abyss, and if the absolute turned out to be absolute evil, one still had to follow them to the end, with eyes wide open. . . (Littell, 2006, p. 96) The narrator’s tone of defiance, like many young men of his time in Germany, can be seen as a product of the country’s humiliating defeat in World War I. Loyalty to the idealized “radical”, whatever its content may be, assures superiority, even superiority over “absolute evil”. It is more important than the law, more important than “the social contract”, and more important than truth. Contempt for what is human and vulnerable is the price exacted to remain within the enchanted realm of omnipotence. Once the line is crossed, there is no going back.

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A theory of evil? Current philosophical thinking about evil is divided into what is called thick and thin accounts of evil action. The thick account of evil action gives importance to the intention or state of mind of the person who has committed harm; it also stipulates that extreme harm must be evident. This is a familiar way of thinking about evil:“Why would someone do something like that?” The thick account, advocated by philosophers such as Singer, Steiner, Kekes and McGinn, argues that evil is predicated on malicious intention and the sadistic pleasure the act provides. The difficulty about this formulation is that it reduces evil action to explicit malicious intention from which we can extrapolate culpability; it does not account for actions that cause extreme harm in which sadism and malice do not appear to be motivating factors. Alternatively, the thin account of evil, as proposed by Arendt, Card and Formosa, does not give precedence to psychological intention but argues that evil actions can arise out of “banality” whereby the evildoer does not think he is behaving wrongly. While this account encompasses a broader spectrum of actions that is not dependent on individual intention and choice, it bypasses the psychological content that can tell us why an action is performed. Each account is inadequate on its own as evil reflects both a state of mind and the socio-political context within which it arises. In this respect we can say it is a “normal” process that has egregious effects. The philosopher Stephen de Wijze argues that evil actions do not stand out by “virtue of the magnitude of their effects, but rather are qualitatively different from merely bad or very bad acts” (Russell, 2014, p. 115). De Wijze regards evil “as a kind of morally corrupt hybrid species of action” (de Wijze, 2002, p. 195). He identifies three disparate conditions that are both necessary and sufficient in themselves to constitute evil. 1 There is a deliberate violation of persons with the intention to dehumanise (that is, deny basic respect and dignity to) those powerless to retaliate. 2 The action or project will gratuitously inflict, or bring about, one or more of ‘the Great Harms’ to sentient beings with the relevant moral standing. 3 The action or project (or professed morality) seeks to annihilate the “moral landscape.”(de Wijze, 2002, p. 218) De Wijze, along with other philosophers, also claims that evil actions are phenomenologically different from bad actions or ordinary wrongs because of the horror they induce. He writes, Evil, in a different way from merely wrongful actions, leaves behind a moral residue which, if it is possible to remove, requires a special ritual

176  Do we need a theory of evil?

of purification. The horror, the disgust and incomprehension evoked by evil suggests a qualitative difference, something that distinguishes it from wrongful or even very wrongful acts. (de Wijze, 2002, p. 213) In addition to the horror, de Wijze describes the “moral residue” left by evil that, “if it is possible to remove, requires a special ritual of purification.” But this may be de Wijze’s wishful thinking, for is it in fact possible to remove the taint of evil once it has been experienced? Or is the fact that evil defies purification part of its distinctive nature? It may be possible to repress the memory of evil but not to extinguish it or to live outside its shadow. The difficulty with most philosophical explanations of evil – and this could be said of psychoanalysis as well – is that one size does not fit all. Evil actions are characterized by horror, by contamination, by dehumanization, by inversion of our moral order, but how evil occurs and why it occurs remain multi-causal and highly contextualized. The philosopher Richard Bernstein points out that although social sciences and psychology can contribute to our understanding of human desires and behaviour, they can never give us a complete explanation of the choices individuals make (Bernstein, 2002, p. 235). He describes the gap in our account as a “black hole.” Phillip Cole claims that “evil itself is a ‘black hole’ concept; it does not so much close the gap in our account as make it more apparent. What we have here is the illusion of closure” (quoted in Russell, 2014, p. 202). Cole is critical of the way in which “evil” is used as a self-explanatory concept, e.g. a man cruelly kills another man because he is “evil”. Similarly, large group behaviour, e.g. the IS killing of hostages, may also be ascribed as “evil” but this in fact explains nothing and simply reifies the action and the evildoer, segregating and distancing them from those who are not evil. A more fundamental problem in trying to think about evil is that even when we do try to contextualize it or analyze its psychological structure, these too offer limited views and run the risk of maintaining the illusion that evil can be packaged into a neat theory and, in this way, explained away. By referring to evil as a “black hole” concept, Cole is highlighting that evil, by its very nature, is an attack on understanding and thought, revealing instead what we cannot ultimately explain. The closest analogy we have in psychoanalysis is in Bion’s concept of minus K, as the active avoidance of knowledge and the wish to destroy the capacity for knowledge (Bion, 1962). Minus K constitutes hatred of emotion, reality and life itself; it is an attack against mind and thought. But within psychoanalytic theory, minus K is associated with psychopathology and does not tend to be thought of

Do we need a theory of evil?  177

as an aspect or function of the unconscious. However, if we think of our unconscious as incorporating a “black hole”, this underscores the idea of the unknowable within us and opens up the possibility of a psychological dynamic that destroys awareness and the capacity for thought with either negative or positive results. The negative effect is apparent in unthinking, destructive behaviour towards ourselves and others, while the positive effect is that it enables us to repress what is unthinkable in order to remain sane. Either way, the “black hole” is within us. Hitler is the prime example of a leader who actively sought to expunge the world of thought, as embodied by the pestilential Jews. For Hitler, it was specifically the Jews’ thinking that threatened the future of the human race. Timothy Snyder, the historian, states: In . . . (Hitler’s) scheme, the original sin that led to the fall of man was of the mind and soul, not of the body. For Hitler, our unhappy weakness was that we can think, realize that others belonging to other races can do the same, and thereby recognize them as fellow human beings. Humans left Hitler’s bloody paradise not because of carnal knowledge. Humans left paradise because of the knowledge of good and evil. . . . (T)he bringer of the knowledge of good and evil on the earth, the destroyer of Eden, was the Jew. (Snyder, 2015, p. 6) Hitler’s struggle was against thought itself and, perhaps most of all, against becoming conscious of his own destructiveness. In contrast, the horror of Littell’s narrator is that he sees himself swept up in the maelstrom of ecstatic, total destruction – with eyes wide open. It is his awareness of his own corruption that ultimately drives him mad.While this destructive force is manifest for us to see, understanding it may conflict with what we need to repress. In reflecting on the Holocaust, Primo Levi wrote: Perhaps one cannot, what is more one must not understand what happened, because to understand is almost to justify . . . ‘understanding’ a proposal or human behaviour means to ‘contain’ it, contain its author, put oneself in his place, identify with him. Now, no human being will be able to identify with Hitler, Himmler, Goebbels, Eichmann, and endless others. This dismays us, and at the same time gives us a sense of relief, because perhaps it is desirable that their words (and also, unfortunately, their deeds) cannot be comprehensible to us. They are nonhuman words and deeds, really counter-human, without historical precedents. . . (quoted in Buruma, 1994, loc. 3830)

178  Do we need a theory of evil?

Unfortunately, the problem in Levi’s statement is that evil deeds are all too human; because evil defies thought it demands us to think. This is different from creating a closed theory or system of understanding. Struggling to make sense of what appears to be senseless is fundamental in recognizing that, even if we have not been touched directly by evil, because we are human we are vulnerable to its force – both as victims and perpetrators. Because of this we have a responsibility to try to comprehend it and not to relegate evil to the inexplicable, as if it has nothing to do with us. In support of this view, the German politician Philipp Jenninger proclaimed in questioning German collaboration with Hitler, “I think we can only reconcile ourselves with our history through the facts. To explain means telling the truth” (quoted in Buruma, 1994, loc. 3842). Even Jenninger’s proposal to tell the truth in order to explain is complex and fraught with problems. Facts alone do not constitute the truth. Truth also encompasses perception, our affective responses, and our imaginative capacity towards what is other and unknown. Perhaps our greatest tool in combating evil is not only to establish what has happened, i.e. the facts, but to persist in trying to understand how and why these things happened, using a hybrid of conceptual frameworks, while at the same time accepting that we will only find partial answers. Evil makes itself known in the gaps we are left with; tears in the fabric of our lives that both defy and call for understanding. To summarize, evil is characterized by a number of features:  1 Extreme violence dehumanizes the victim and, in the process, the perpetrator.   2 Each of us is capable of doing evil.   3 As an act of dehumanization, evil attacks thinking.   4 The social order or “norm” is broken and the existence of the group threatened.   5 Evil is the opposite of good only insofar as we understand good as that which creates social order and protects the welfare of the group.   6 Acts considered evil in one context may be sanctioned in another, making it both culturally and contextually dependent.   7 The mark of evil is everlasting; it cannot be erased or purified, it can only be repressed.   8 The human need for a transcendent belief system (i.e. ideology) provides the basis for corruption that can turn into unstoppable evil.   9 No single social science or scientific discipline can adequately explain evil. 10 Because of the complexity of evil, and specifically as an attack on mind and thought, the only way to combat it is to persist in our attempt to understand it.

Do we need a theory of evil?  179

The most important distinguishing feature of evil is that there is an absence of the capacity for thought, i.e. to imagine the experience of an other who is not an object but is a sentient, thinking human. Notes 1 The Islamic State dropped the – IS or – IL from its name in June 2014 when it declared itself a caliphate. Some, including President Obama, continued using ISIL on the basis that adopting their self-declared title would only serve to legitimize their position. It is an example of a phenomenon that is initially perceived as outside the norms of political behaviour that then morphs into a recognizable political entity that not only takes on legitimate status but also becomes absorbed into the spectrum of political norms. Stern and Berger point out, “Ironically, treating the Islamic State differently serves to elevate is claim to legitimacy, making it a special case requiring delicate handling, instead of just another extremist group” (Stern and Berger, pp. 8–9). (See Stern, J. and Berger, J.M. (2015). ISIS: The State of Terror. London: Harper Collins.) 2 This is one of the central findings of Milgram’s experiment in 1961 on obedience to authority figures that permit, if not encourage, increasing levels of torture. However, the experiment demonstrated the importance of satisfying the demands of an authority figure within a particular context rather than an innate sadistic impulse to hurt another person given the chance. Even Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment, conducted in 1971, revealed the importance of Zimbardo’s tacit encouragement for the guards to abuse their powers. 3 By 1935 the Camp SS in Nazi Germany wore badges with skull and crossbones emblazoned on them. Theodore Eike, a key figure in the construction of the concentration camps, proudly asserted, “he who joins our ranks enters into comradeship with death.” A year later, Himmler named the Camp SS as “Death’s Head” units. (See Wachsmann, 2015, p. 101.) 4 The culture of violence perpetrated by the SS within the concentration camps was so successful that, as Wachsmann points out, even in the smaller satellite camps set up towards the end of the Third Reich, it only took a small number of SS veterans, “deeply committed to violence,” to instil violence amongst “a much larger group of ordinary men and women” (Wachsmann, 2015, p. 471).

References Anonymous (August 13 2015). “The mystery of ISIS,” New York Review of Books. Arendt, H. (1963). Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. London: Penguin. Bernstein, R. (2002). Radical Evil: A Philosophical Interrogation. Cambridge: Polity. Bion, W.R. (1962). Learning From Experience. London: Maresfield Reprints. Bohleber, W. (2003). “Collective phantasies, destructiveness, and terrorism.” In Violence or Dialogue? Psychoanalytic Insights on Terror and Terrorism, ed. by S.Varvin and V.D.Volkan. London: International Psychoanalytic Association. Buruma, I. (1994). The Wages of Guilt: Memories of War in Germany and Japan. London: Farrar, Straus & Giroux. Chasseguet-Smirgel, J. (1985). Creativity and Perversion. London: Free Association Books. Coetzee, J.M. (1980). Waiting for the Barbarians. London:Vintage. De Wijze, S. (2002). “Defining evil: Insights into the problem of  ‘dirty hands.’ ” The Monist, 85, 2: 210–238.

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Douglas, M. (1966). Purity and Danger. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Freud, S. (1921). “Group psychology and the analysis of the ego.” SE. 18: 69–144. Garcia, E. (2002).“A Kantian theory of evil.” The Monist, 85, 2: 194–209. Helm, S. (2015). If This Is a Woman: Inside Ravensbruck: Hitler’s Concentration Camp for Women. London: Little, Brown. Kalligas, P. (2014). The Enneads of Plotinus. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Kohon, G. (2015). Reflections on the Aesthetic Experience. London: The New Library of Psychoanalysis. Kolakowski, L. (2012). Is God Happy? Selected Essays. London: Penguin Books. Levi, P. (1989). The Drowned and the Saved. London: Abacus. Lifton, R.J. (1961). Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of “Brainwashing” in China. Mansfield Centre, CT: Martino Publishing. Lifton, R.J. (1986). The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide. New York: Basic Books. Lifton, R.J. (1999). Destroying the World to Save It: Aum Shinrikyo, Apocalyptic Violence, and the New Global Terrorism. New York: Holt Paperbacks. Littell, J. (2006). The Kindly Ones. London: Chatto & Windus. Lukes, S. (1980). Individualism. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Pocock, D. (1985). “Unruly evil.” In The Anthropology of Evil, ed. by D. Parkin. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Russell, L. (2014). Evil: A Philosophical Investigation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sebald, W.G. (2003). On the Natural History of Destruction. London: Hamish Hamilton. Snyder, T. (Sept 24, 2015). “Hitler’s world.” New York Review of Books. Stern, J., & Berger, J.M. (2015). ISIS:The State of Terror. London: William Collins. Volkan,V.D. (2004). Blind Trust: Large Groups and Their Leaders in Times of Crisis and Terror. Charlottesville,VA: Pitchstone Publishing. Wachsmann, N. (2015). KL: A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps. London: Little, Brown.

CONCLUSION

Three years after the end of World War II, Sartre wrote: We have been taught to take [evil] seriously. It is neither our fault nor our merit if we lived in a time when torture was a daily fact. Chateaubriant, Oradour, the Rue des Saussaies, Tulle, Dachau, and Auschwitz have all demonstrated to us that Evil is not an appearance, that knowing its causes does not dispel it, that it is not opposed to Good as a confused idea is to a clear one, that it is not the effect of passions which might be cured, of a fear which might be overcome, of a passing aberration which might be excused, of an ignorance which might be enlightened, that it can in no way be turned, brought back, reduced, and incorporated into idealistic humanism. . . . We heard whole blocks screaming and we understood that Evil, fruit of a free and sovereign will, is, like Good, absolute. . . . In spite of ourselves, we came to this conclusion, which will seem shocking to lofty souls: Evil cannot be redeemed. (Sartre, 1948, pp. 635–636) Evil cannot be redeemed precisely because it is human. Sartre is correct in reminding “lofty souls” of this, lest we, like our enemies, fall into the lethal trap of believing that purity is attainable. The conditions that breed evil-doing are also distinctly human. Behind every evil act there is foremost a history of humiliation and disempowerment. This is the seed that, in the right conditions, grows into the desire to annihilate difference, to rid ourselves of those who threaten our identity, and

182 Conclusion

to create an idealized, pure world as recompense for the suffering of the past. And, finally, there is the opportunity to commit evil, to seek revenge and purification when the time is right, when those in power stir our hatred of others and sanction violence. Then the world can be turned upside down and undone. We are motivated to commit evil, not out of innate sadistic pleasure, but in response to a world that has caused us pain. The experience of shame and humiliation is passed on from perpetrator to victim, from one generation to the next. Destroying difference is an attempt to destroy an awareness of lack; it circumvents psychic suffering in obliterating loss, inadequacy, absence and death. Evil is an act of despair as much as it is an act of utter destruction. In destroying what is human in another, we taste the intoxication of omnipotence that, for a brief moment, magically transforms reality. We also destroy our own humanity. Although we may like to believe we are different, like Sartre’s “lofty souls,” we are all tainted by evil, regardless of our choices. There is not one of us who does not know the despair that finds relief in destruction – the despair that also makes us human. Coline Covington 28/02/2016 Reference Sartre, J-P., (1948). “Literature in our time,” Partisan Review, XV, No. 6: 634–653.

INDEX

Abu Ghraib 34 aggression: death and 10 al-Baghdadi, Abu Bak 145 – 6 alienation 150 – 1 aloneness 9 Améry, Jean 124 apocalypticism 146 – 50 Arendt, Hannah 13, 15 – 37, 130 – 2, 162 – 3 Are You an Illusion? (Midgley) 65 – 6 Argentina 167 Aristotle 165 Atran, Scott 149 attachment theory 11 At the Mind’s Limits (Améry) 124 Aum Shinrikyo 146 – 7 automaton 25 – 6, 26 – 8 banal evil 15, 22, 162 – 3 Bejerot, Nils 61n1 belief systems 57 – 9, 92 – 4,  160 Bernstein, Richard 176 Beyond the Pleasure Principle (Freud) 4 bin Laden, Osama 147 “black hole” 176 – 7 breastfeeding 7 Britton, Ron 6 Browning, Christopher 18 bystanders 84 – 5, 89 – 91, 93 – 4,  97 Cambodia 16, 18 – 19, 72 – 3 Cancer Ward,The (Solzhenitsyn) 167 – 8 captivity 42 – 4, 46 – 52 Cesarani, David 2

China 169 – 70 choice 4 Christ 23 “Civilization and its discontents” 5 – 6, 66, 126 Cole, Phillip 176 collective witnessing 89 – 92 Collins, Randal 94 Communism 169 – 70 Comrade Duch see Kang Kek Iew concentration camps 17, 20, 171 – 3, 179n2, 179n3; see also Holocaust; KL Konzentrationslager cooperation 95 – 7 Crawley, Ernest 104 creativity 27 – 8 Critique of Pure Reason (Kant) 64 – 5 cults 146 – 7 Danowski, Stanislaw 100 death, glory of 152 – 7 death instinct 4 – 5, 8 – 10, 9, 162 de Maistre, Joseph 173 – 4 destructiveness 4; benign vs. malignant 10 – 11; infantile sexuality and 10; other and 7, 25; perversion of 12 – 13; as primary 6 – 12 “Devil in History, The” (Kolakowski) 35 de Wijze, Stephen 175 – 6 difference, narcissism and 103 – 7 dirt 165 – 6 dissociation 75 – 8 dissonance 75 – 8

184 Index

distancing 91, 94, 95 – 7 Dobronski, Adam 119 Douglas, Mary 165 – 7 Drowned and the Saved,The (Levi) 143 ego: destructiveness and 7; empathy and 68 – 71; ideal 168 – 71; morality and 59 – 60; Nazis and 21; observing 59 – 60, 68 – 71; totalitarianism and 31 – 4 Eichmann, Adolf 16, 19, 20, 21 – 2, 32 – 3 Eike, Theodore 179n2 emotions, perception and 65 – 6 empathy 65 – 6, 68 – 71 enemies, loving 127 – 8 envy 105 “ethical intuitionism” 66 evil: banal 15, 22, 162 – 3; conditions for 175; defined 1; features of 178 – 9; norms and 160; as unpredictable 161 face 106 Final Solution,The (Cesarani) 2 “following orders” 16 – 17 forgiveness 35 – 6, 124 – 44; case study in 133 – 9; Christianity and 125; as cycle 128 – 9; decision against 141 – 3; healing and 140 – 1; idealization of 140; as imperative 124; other and 126 – 7; psychoanalytic view of 126 – 9; relationships and 140; resentment and 142 – 3; as social denial 139 – 41; social pressure toward 140, 142 freedom 19 – 20 Freud, Sigmund 4 – 6, 8 – 10, 18, 22 – 3, 61n5, 66 – 7, 104, 126 – 8,  148 frustration 7 Gill, Anton 132 – 3 Girard, René 100, 105 glory, of death 152 – 7 God: morality and 64 – 5 Gopnik, Alison 68 Gordon, Rosemary 62n6 Green, André 6, 10 Grey Zone,The (Levi) 39 Gross, Jan 108 “Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego” (Freud) 18 Guantanamo Bay 34 guilt 74 – 5 Habyarimana, Juvenal 110 Haffner, Sebastian 131 Hartheim Castle 95 – 6

hatred 19, 20 – 1 healing 140 – 1 Hearst, Patty 61n3 Heine, Heinrich 127 Heydrich, Reinhard 109 – 10 Hinton, Alexander Laban 18 Hiroshima 148 Hitler, Adolf 2, 155; see also Holocaust Holocaust 2, 17, 19, 20, 21 – 3, 130 – 1, 141 – 2, 160, 171 – 3, 177 – 8, 179n2 honor 106 “Horatian Ode upon Cromwell’s Return from Ireland, An” (Marvell) 15 Höss, Rudolf 171 human 164 Hutus 101 – 2, 106 – 7, 110 – 16 idealism 32 – 3 identity 57 – 9 ideology 92 – 4, 168 – 71 Ignatieff, Michael 105 imagination 65 – 6 infantile sexuality 10 infants 7 – 8, 21, 70 – 1,  79n5 innate guilt 74 – 5 intent 1 – 2, 15, 21 intolerance: narcissism and 5 – 6 ISIS see Islamic State (IS) Islamic State (IS) 84, 99, 128, 145 – 58, 161, 164 isolation 61n4, 150 – 1 Jedwabne 100 – 1, 106, 108 – 10, 119 – 20 Jenninger, Philipp 178 Jesus Christ 23 Kaddish for an Unborn Child (Kertesz) 25 Kalinowski, Eugeniusz 101 Kang Kek Iew 16, 21, 72 – 3, 74 Kant, Immanuel 19, 64 – 5, 74 – 5, 79n1, 163 – 4 Kateb, George 33 – 4 Kertesz, Imre 25, 28 Khmer Rouge 16, 18 – 19, 72 – 3 Kierkegaard, Søren 63 Kindly One,The (Littell) 174 KL Konzentrationslager 17, 120 KL (Wachsmann) 2 Klein, Melanie 67 – 8 Kluge, Alexander 133 Kohon, Gregorio 167 Kolakowski, Leszek 35 Kovno massacre 82 – 5, 89 – 94 Kulka, Otto Dov 98

Index  185

Laudanski, Jerzy 101 Levi, Primo 39, 143, 171, 177 – 8 Lewis, C. S. 65 libido 5 Lifton, Robert Jay 37n1, 59, 146 – 7, 148, 149, 156, 158, 169 – 70, 172 – 4 Littell, Jonathan 174 Lives of Others,The (film) 36 – 7 Lord’s Prayer 124 loss of face 106 “Love, guilt and reparation” (Klein)  128 “Management of Savagery, The” (Naji) 152 Marvell, Andrew 15 Marx, Karl 35 masochistic attachment 54 – 7 McDoom, Omar 121 memory 24 – 6,  29 Mere Christianity (Lewis) 65 Midgley, Mary 65 – 6 Milgram, Stanley 31, 179n1 millenarianism 147 Molina, Antonio Munoz 82 moral personality 34 – 6 Murray Parkes, Colin 140 Murrow, Edward R. 160 Naji, Abu Bakr 152 narcissism 5 – 6, 19, 20, 21 – 2, 32 – 3, 73 – 4, 103 – 7 natality 19 – 20 Nazis 2, 17, 19, 20, 21 – 3, 95 – 6, 117 – 20, 130 – 1,  155 neutralization 166 – 7 New Justine,The (de Sade) 12 nobody 15, 23 – 4, 26, 34, 36 normalization 114 – 15 norms 160 Ntaryamira, Cyprien 110 Nyakyusa people 166 – 7 “On the clinical usefulness of the concept of the death instinct” (Segal) 8 On the Natural History of Destruction (Sebald) 172 “On the use of an object” (Winnicott) 10 order 164 – 8 orders 16 – 17 Ordinary Men (Browning) 18 Origins of Totalitarianism,The (Arendt) 33 – 4

Orwell, George 155 other: destructiveness and 7, 25; forgiveness and 126 – 7; as thing 34; unconscious as 6; witnessing violence against 91 perception, emotions and 65 – 6 personhood 16 – 24 perverse destructiveness 12 – 13 “Perversion and universal law” (Chasseguet-Smirgel) 12 – 13 Philosophical Baby,The:What Children’s Minds Tell Us About Truth, Love, and the Meaning of Life (Gopnik) 68 piety 22 Plotinus 165 Pocock, David 164 “Primary state of being” (Winnicott) 8 “Primo Levi’s suicide note” (Ozick)  143 private witnessing 85 – 9 Prunier, Gerard 110 purity 165 – 6 Purity and Danger (Douglas) 165 – 6 rape 122n2 reparation: psychoanalytic view of 126 – 9; sadism and 129 resentment 142 – 3 Rogalski, Boleslaw 101 role narcissism 19, 21 Rose, Gillian 22 Rosenberg, Goran 141 Rwanda 101 – 2, 106 – 7, 110 – 16,  121 savagery 150 – 1 Schadenfreude 79n5 Sebald, W.G.  172 Sebek, Michael 33 – 4 Segal, Hannah 8 selfishness 19 Sepharad (Molina) 82 sexuality, infantile 10 shame 28 – 9 Snyder, Timothy  177 social groups 1 Socrates 35 Sofsky, Wolfgang 17 – 18 “Some questions on moral philosophy” (Arendt) 16 Sonnenfeldt, Richard 20 South Africa 139 Stockholm Syndrome 40, 57, 61n1, 61n3, 122n4

186 Index

submission 150 – 2 Submission (Houellebecq) 150 – 1 Sykes-Picot agreement 148

Violence and the Sacred (Girard)  100 Volkan,Vamik 168 – 9

“Taboo of virginity, The” (Freud) 104 terror 107 – 18 “Thinking about moral considerations” (Arendt) 20 thoughtlessness 34 totalist 147, 171 totalitarianism 31 – 4, 169 – 70 trauma 57 – 9, 92 – 4, 140 – 1 Trevor-Roper, Hugh 24 truth 71 – 5 truth commissions 139 Tutsi 101 – 2, 106 – 7, 110 – 16

Wachsmann, Nicholas 2, 17, 120, 122n7, 179n3 Waiting for the Barbarians (Coetzee) 163 Wilson, E. O. 65 Winnicott, D.W. 4, 6 – 13 Winter, E.H. 165 witnessing: collective 89 – 92; private 85 – 9 World War I 4

unconscious: as other 6

“xenocidal impulse” 6 Zejer, Stanislaw 101 Zimbardo, Philip 31