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HOW TO GET AROUND THE GENOCIDAL MENTALITY
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- BIBLIOGRAPHY
- NUCLEARIST PSYCHOLOGY LEADS US TO THE NUCLEAR PRECIPICE
HOW TO GET AROUND THE GENOCIDAL MENTALITYWe've already established that some level of nuclear numbing is necessary for humans to function. But is the kind of numbing that reduces the victims of a nuclear war to statistics inevitable? Lifton says no. He says that the advancement of what he calls a "species consciousness" is the best way to counteract the advancing tide of the genocidal mentality. That means it's a tragedy when people die, even if we don't know them, see them or share a national identity with them. We see people on earth as people, not some "other" to be demonized at will. For the real world, this means a really long-term consciousness shift - but one that Lifton says is advancing at a grassroots level. Citing opinion polls on nuclear disarmament, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and other matters, he declares the people to be ahead of their leaders. Not that it's any great surprise, because that's usually the case. For debaters, this means something very significant as well: it means alternative advocacy which can help people conquer the genocidal mindset. For example, one of the main arguments often made about philosophical critiques is that they have no practical alternative. But by touting the species mentality, debaters can come equipped with just such an alternative. Moreover, the alternative is the most practical thing in the world from an in-round perspective. What could be more practical than we in the debate community altering our patterns of rhetoric, or ways of thinking about argument and politics, to better our psychological health? TO SUM UP As you've no doubt gathered, I am strongly biased in favor of this critique argument. That doesn't mean I'm strongly predisposed to vote for it, so don't panic if you see me in the back of the room with the ballot and the other teams runs it. It does mean, however, that I think important truths can be gleaned from the argument, and from Lifton's work in general. It helped me to understand some of the thoughts and feelings I had while I was in debate, and that was even more beneficial than the ballots we picked up running the argument. Of course, the ballots were nice too. And hey, how often do you have the chance to run an argument which actually says that the opposing team are mentally unhealthy? I'd seize that chance if I were you. BIBLIOGRAPHYRobert Jay Lifton, with Erik Markusen, THE GENOCIDAL MENTALITY: NAZI HOLOCAUST AND NUCLEAR THREAT, New York: Basic Books, 1990. Robert Jay Lifton, with Richard Falk, INDEFENSIBLE WEAPONS: THE POLITICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL CASE AGAINST NUCLEARISM, updated edition, New York: Basic Books, 1991. Robert Jay Lifton, DEATH IN LIFE: SURVIVORS OF HIROSHIMA, reprint edition, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991. Robert Jay Lifton, HIROSHIMA IN AMERICA: A HALF CENTURY OF DENIAL, Avon Books, 1996. Robert Jay Lifton, THE NAZI DOCTORS: MEDICAL KILLING AND THE PSYCHOLOGY OF GENOCIDE, reprint edition, Basic Books 2000. Zia Mian, HIMAL MAGAZINE, July 1998, p. 9. Ashis Nandy, "The Epidemic of Nuclearism: A Clinical Profile of the Genocidal Mentality," HIMAL MAGAZINE, July 1998, p. 1. NUCLEARIST PSYCHOLOGY LEADS US TO THE NUCLEAR PRECIPICE1. NUCLEAR NUMBING LEADS TO CYNICISM Robert Jay Lifton, Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry and Psychology, The City University of New York and Director of the Center on Violence and Human Survival, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, with Richard Falk, INDEFENSIBLE WEAPONS: THE POLITICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL CASE AGAINST NUCLEARISM, 1991, p. 10. We can now identify a certain psychological combination taking shape in many people, in something like the following sequence: Fear and a sense of threat break through prior numbing; these uncomfortable (potentially shattering) feelings in turn raise the personal question of whether one should take some form of action to counter the danger; that question becomes an additional form of conflict, associated as it is with feelings of helplessness and doubts about efficacy; and one seeks a psychological safe haven of resignation ("Well, if it happens, it happen - and it will happen to all of us") and cynicism (They'll drop it all right and it will be the end of all of us - that's the way people are, and that will be that!"). That stance prevents one from feeling too fearful, and equally important, it protects one from conflict and anxiety about doing something about the situation. If the situation is hopeless, one need do nothing. 2. CYNICISM CAUSES SELF-FULFILLING PROPHECIES OF UNIVERSAL DOOM Robert Jay Lifton, Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry and Psychology, The City University of New York and Director of the Center on Violence and Human Survival, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, with Richard Falk, INDEFENSIBLE WEAPONS: THE POLITICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL CASE AGAINST NUCLEARISM, 1991, p. 11. There is a particularly sophisticated version of resignation-cynicism that one encounters these days mainly at universities, which go something like this: "Well, what is so special about man? Other species have come and gone, so perhaps this is our turn to go extinct." This is perhaps the ultimate "above the battle" position. Again nothing is to be done, one is philosophically - cosmically - detached from it all. All of these add up to a stance of waiting for the bomb and contribute to a self-fulfilling prophecy of universal doom.
Robert Jay Lifton, Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry and Psychology, The City University of New York and Director of the Center on Violence and Human Survival, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, with Richard Falk, INDEFENSIBLE WEAPONS: THE POLITICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL CASE AGAINST NUCLEARISM, 1991, p. 12. In this stance of waiting for the bomb, then, we encounter various combinations of resignation, cynicism, and yearning - along with large numbers of people, some of them very talented, going about tasks that contribute to this potential holocaust. And here I confess that my perception of the dangers of our situation has been intensified by recent research on Nazi doctors. There one could observe (in a very different kind of situation, to be sure) how very ordinary men and women who were in no way inherently demonic could engage in demonic pursuits; how professionals with pride in their professions could lend themselves to mass murder; how in fact the killing process itself depended on an alliance between political leaders putting forward particular policies and professionals making available not only technical skills but intellectual and "moral" justifications. In the case of nuclear weapons, policies and justifications that might contribute to the killing process are products of specific illusions.
Robert Jay Lifton, Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry and Psychology, The City University of New York and Director of the Center on Violence and Human Survival, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, with Richard Falk, INDEFENSIBLE WEAPONS: THE POLITICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL CASE AGAINST NUCLEARISM, 1991, p. 78. Here we do well to recognize one of the many ways in which a need created, or at least identified, by imagery of extinction can in turn make that actual process of extinction more likely. So "flexible" is the human mind that it can, in this way, contemplate annihilation as a joyous event, more joyous than living with the sense of being meaninglessly doomed, that is, with the various impairments to human continuity that have been described.
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