Lecture by Richard A. Koenigsberg, Ph. D.
Co-sponsored by the National Psychological Association for Psychoanalysis
(NPAP) and the Philosophy Department of the Graduate Faculty of the
New School for Social Research
Moderator, Mathias Beier. Discussant, Sy Coopersmith
Friday, January 11, 2008, 8 PM
Theresa Lang Auditorium of the New School (2nd Floor)
55 West 13th Street (between 5th & 6th Avenue), New York City
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What is the nature of the human attraction to warfare? What psychological
processes transform killing, destruction and the maiming of human bodies
into a good thing? War is conceived as a good thing because people die and
kill in the name a beloved object, one's nation.
After the Viet Nam war, Americans turned away from the ideology of warfare,
leading enemies of the United States to believe that America lacked the will
to face a military confrontation. Bin Laden proclaimed that the United
States was weak and decadent. The Bush administration waged war in order to
demonstrate that just as radical Moslems killed and died for their sacred
ideal (Allah), so Americans would kill and die in the name of their nation
and its sacred ideal, freedom and democracy.
According to the ideology of warfare, bad things (killing, destruction and
the maiming of human bodies) become good things because they are undertaken
in the name of one's beloved nation and its sacred ideals. Collective forms
of violence articulate the project or shared fantasy of sacrificing human
beings in the name of entities or ideas conceived as greater than the self.
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For information on workshops, seminars and lectures presented by Richard
Koenigsberg, please call 718-393-1081.
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Richard Koenigsberg received his Ph.D. in Social Psychology from the
Graduate Faculty of the New School for Social Research and formerly taught
at the New School. INFORMATION AGE PUBLISHING recently released new editions
of his books: Hitler's Ideology: Embodied Metaphor, Ideology and History;
The Nation: A Study in Ideology and Fantasy; and The Fantasy of Oneness and
the Struggle to Separate: A Study in the Psychology of Culture.
