FW: [free-associations] War as Sacrifice

Carrol Cox cbcox at ilstu.edu
Mon Oct 14 08:04:37 PDT 2002


Christopher Rhoades Dÿkema wrote:

<There is an interesting comparison of Saddam and Bush at the end of this thought-provoking piece>

From: psycheculture at cs.com [mailto:psycheculture at cs.com] To: free-associations at yahoogroups.com

In reviewing my research notes on the First Gulf War, I came across a news report of a rally of August 26, 1990 of men &women in Baghdad. The marchers shouted, "We will give our body and blood to our President." [CLIP]

Why is it so difficult to imagine that a leader provokes war in order to sacrifice his people?

According to Carolyn Marvin, the "totem secret"--that which is required to remain secret--is knowledge that "society depends on the death of its own members at the hands of the group itself." She observes that the "Irrefutable sign of national faith is making one's body an offering, a sacrifice." Jean Elshtain notes that when a young man goes to war he does so, not so much to kill as "to die, to forfeit his particular body for that of the larger body, the body-politic." A willingness to die represents a demonstration of faith in the sacred ideal.]

I think this illustrates why psychoanalysis isn't even worth refuting. It seems a deliberate effort to kill three birds with one stone: a) the Freudian tradition b) the Jungian tradition c) evolutionary psychology. It combines the most ludicrous elements of all three.

Can this writer possibly be serious? It is a hoax isn't it? Is the model for it _A Modest Proposal_ or _The Bickerstaff Papers_?

Carrol



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