"Once again, I had wasted my time climbing to the fifth floor of this old apartment
building in Vienna's inner city but could at least be sure now that I had
come to the right place...The slight old gentleman, his full white hair combed
back, his expression an odd mixture of reproach, rejection and friendliness,
opened the door...'I don't give interviews,' he said. 'Come in.'...'My book is interesting
only for experts,' he said, surprised that I should think of writing about him.
Serge Pankejeff,
The Wolf-man, as even he would refer to himself when he called his interviewer
Karin Obholzer...I answered as astonished as he.
...he decided, delighted...
Karin was intrigued by Serge's biography, and her project to write an article about
him bloomed into a book. "I couldn't really have said why I found [his] book so
fascinating or why I felt attracted to this man. For me, there was something
romantic about his life, the story of a wealthy Russian aristocrat who had lost
his fortune and had to spend the rest of his life as an émigré." Visiting his
apartment, Karin was at the beginning of years of interviews about his
psychoanalysis, but they also talked about other things including his
painting collection..
As I reviewed this case study, and parsed out the different perspectives,
it is Iistina in the 'Wolfman's' story that is the hardest form of truth to
uncover. Can we ever really know what goes on in another person's mind? How
much of our own mind fills in the gaps of what we don't know?
Welcome to Freud's epic case study of the 'Wolfman'.
Freud's method of therapy encountered many difficulties including natural gaps
in memory. There was also the distance between the analyst's current sessions
and the time of the patient's first onset of an illness. At the time when Freud
began analyzing Serge, he was in a......he wanted to
He wanted to demonstrate that...
Remember, the libido is the craving energy that a biological instinct needs to discharge
towards an object. It can be heterosexual or homosexual, but the masculine and
feminine inclinations don't have to escalate towards sex all the time.
They can include filial love, friendships and mentorships, but the possibility of
escalation towards sex is there and it's why not all sexual relations conform to one
template of heterosexuals with people outside the family. When the instinct is
frustrated, there is pain, and a possibility to
develop other mental illnesses depending on genetics,
how many traumas there were, and the duration of the trauma. Pain is relieved
when there is a discharge of grieving with catharsis, or if discharges are
released on the original goal or replacement objects. A traumatized or
depressed person has to make changes to their environment to improve their
situation so that healthy discharges of libido can increase well-being and peace.
If a patient is intimidated or depressed, an improvement, or cure, would lead to
assertiveness, flexibility and confidence. If sexual objects aren't
available due to rejection, widowhood, or a lack of opportunity, the patient has
to find alternative cultural objects to setup the libido and discharge the
energy, or pay it off. This results in creative projects being a source of
fulfillment. Being stuck in an intimidated or depressed state leads to
unhealthy repressions that may lead to disease, violence against others, violence
against oneself, or both. Freud's theories of biological drives would be a
challenge for him at this point, until The Ego and the Id, when he was able to add
more coherence to his theories. Going back to his archaeology metaphor, Freud
felt that the physician had to be...
...In Freudian theory
desire and trauma, can exist timelessly waiting for that payoff or a bout of
grieving to relieve the tension. The analyst has to leave no stone unturned
to make those dormant traumas come up to consciousness, and to make sure nothing
is left over to continue bothering the patient after the analysis. The analyst
also needs an attitude that doesn't fear difficult cases, because they help to...
...In Freud's case he
took his knowledge of Hysteria, Phobia, Obsession, Ambivalence, and Substitutions,
and applied what he knew to this case.
As Freud described his patient in his paper, From the History of an Infantile
Neurosis, he saw patterns of passivity and an attitude of a...
When Freud was making inroads in the therapy, Serge...
Freud then described his transference strategy...
Freud used a deadline
to motivate his patient...
Freud used a military metaphor to describe how
difficult it is to deal with resistances of patients as if it were a...
Because of the nature of psychology and
the strange contents that arise, Freud cautions an analyst that...
As we will see, the numerous commentators of this case study, show how much more can
be analyzed and how hard it really is to complete an analysis to satisfaction.
Like with his prior case studies Freud wanted to learn more about Serge's parents.
This resulted in neglectful parenting. One of Serge's early
memories, that Freud calls a screen memory, is of Serge seeing...
He was cared for by a nurse who was...
Later on, extra supervision was hired, of course...a governess, and she did not get
along well with the nurse or Serge. Freud described the English governess as a
Serge was considered a quiet child but after a summer holiday, his parents found him...
Both the mother and the
grandmother thought that the influence and bickering between the governess and
nurse "Nanja" were changing Serge's character. When the governess was let go,
there was no observed change in him. Serge had memories that his acting out
was because he did not..
Serge was born on Christmas so he expected to get birthday
and Christmas presents.
Serge's parents had two estates near the city and a big change for him was when
both properties were sold and they moved to the city. Much of the chronology was
mixed up by Freud's patient as being either before or after the move, which
Serge thought was when he was 5 years old. Among his complaints were his
anxiety and his sister's attempts to exploit it
to torment him.
He also had ambivalent attitudes to other animals that included
approach and avoidance behaviours. Like in the 'Ratman' case, Serge developed
superstitious rituals that appeared to Freud as...
Serge had a good relationship to his father when he was younger but it
deteriorated with his oncoming depression. Serge's father began to favour
his daughter, which hurt Serge and was the beginning of animosity towards his
father. As he grew up, Serge would have periods where he felt better, which
he attributed to the influence of his teachers and tutors.
When exploring Serge's dreams, Freud initially had trouble understanding them,
including dreams where he tried to...
Eventually his patient recalled an early
seduction where his sister asked...
Later while playing on the floor his sister...
Freud guessed at what these memories were hiding.
Freud was suspicious of Serge's blame towards the governess, since so many
other family members blamed her as well, and also because Serge wanted to defend
Nanja from the governess.
Now Freud didn't think all childhood complaints of molestation were just fantasies. Often
here was a mixture of fact and fantasy.
Freud recounted the story of Serge's sister, Anna, who also also needed help, maybe
even more than him.
Freud guessed that she had "dementia praecox," which was
the old name for Schizophrenia.
He also surmised that there were other
nervous disorders in the family, including Obsessive-compulsive neurosis.
Freud's analysis of Serge's relationship to his sister was that of rival, due to
her superior intellect and the attention she got from her father. As they grew
older, and both were rebellious to their parents, they grew closer.
Freud then analyzed Serge's cold response to news of her death.
There was stronger feeling
later on.
Serge at the time didn't understand his reaction until he remembered that his sister's
poems were compared to the poet by his father. He even confused what happened to
his sister, suicide by poison, with shooting herself to death. The poet was
shot dead in a duel.
Part of Freud's theory is that of anxiety being connected with sexuality. Stress can
inhibit and prevent sexual development to "higher levels." The mind looks for
parents or siblings, and if applicable, employees in the home for replacements.
The typical experience described by Freud was early exhibitionism with
masturbation that is then punished. Freud describes when Serge...
Serge's sadism did not only go outward, but he was also able to aim it at himself. He
had fantasies of boys being beaten on the penis and himself...
Here Freud explains what he means about transformation. The instinct can change
objective.
Freud then goes into how ambivalence arises
when partial instincts contradict each other with none superseding each other.
By being in a passive sexual situation with his sister, Freud
then surmises that Serge's passive attitude is then directed towards his father.
Like Freud's prior case studies, he constantly has to go back further in
time to get at some pathogenic beginning that needs to enter consciousness. Serge
described a vivid dream that he recalled as happening when he was three or four.
Freud then associated the white colour of the wolves with sheep
that lived near the estate. How the wolves got up the tree is associated to
an old story from his grandfather of wolves chasing a tailor up a tree, each
using the other as a ladder, with one wolf trying to revenge his lost tail at
the hands of the tailor. The six or seven wolves are connected to a story Serge
read 'The Wolf and the Seven Little Kids.' Freud ultimately associated the wolf as
the first father substitute.
The main part of the dream for Freud was the story of
the tailor, where the lost tail could be associated with fear of castration.
Tailors would also factor into Serge's interest in dressing well, as a way to
get back his pride. To get at an event behind the dream
Freud separated out the different components of the dream.
Freud came up with possible connections based on opposites that you can see in
his theory of displacement. With displacement, unacceptable wishes are
often best hidden to oneself and others by manifesting as an opposite. For Freud,
the defenses in the mind are doing this all the time.
Opposites are the best place, because synonyms could trigger anxiety further.
The grandfather's story of the tailor up a tree was made into an opposite with the
wolves in the tree instead. The opposite of wolves watching from the tree, for
Freud, was Serge's attentive gaze. The wolves being motionless in an opposite
form would suggest a violent movement.
More insights surfaced related to Serge's 4th
birthday, which coincides with Christmas Day, where he expected 2 lots of presents
instead of one. The presents in the dream were to be hanging on the tree, but
The fear of being gobbled Freud connected with a joke Serge's
father made to him. Freud then moved to his familiar Oedipus Complex with the
conclusion of Serge's desire for his father.
Freud started searching for something that would explain Serge's intimidation
through another familiar Freudian complex: The Castration Complex.
This was the primal scene of witnessing his parents having sex, 'coitus a tergo' [from behind]
and witnessing their genitals. This was while he was 18 months
old sleeping in a cot nearby. Freud then attempted to surmise how the
4 year old would have processed those memory imprints.
Like with most dreams, they didn't stay still
and morphed into different ones. A similar dream happened when he was six or seven.
Freud moved into the time of Serge's puberty and discussed his desire to be in the man's position.
Freud then applied his theory that anal sex is a more archaic form of sexual pleasure.
Here Freud adds to the possibilities of what children can learn from the primal scene and clarification.
Sexual organization for Freud can develop to a genital mode of expression
or regress to an archaic anal mode. The juxtaposition of sadism of the active
masculine position and the masochistic feminine passive position provide models
of pleasure to imitate. The unacceptability of homosexual desires
becomes repressed in the child to avoid rejection from the father.
One of the more amusing parts of Freud's
study is Serge's attempt to demolish Christianity. As Freud described before,
Serge could hold religious beliefs and atheistic skepticism at the same time.
Both sides warred with each other. Freud traced his religious superstitions
back to his mother and Nanya reading the Bible to him.
These frustrations, continued beyond religious beliefs.
Sexual organization to Freud can be incomplete and cause neurosis in the
subject, and we can see some of his influence from Alfred Adler
and 'Masculine Protest'.
Here Freud connects religion to sexual sublimation.
Freud then wondered why Serge couldn't
notice the similarities between the abuse from his father and his own
Christ-like passiveness. He also surmised that those masochistic tendencies
conflicted with his homosexual impulses. God was the Father and he was Christ, but
he wanted his real father more than an abstract God, so his criticism of
religion was a way to hold on to his real father.
He would of course punish himself for this blasphemous compromise.
Serge had other role models in his life and that
included an Austrian man who was an atheist who made convincing arguments
that relieved him of some of his religious obsessions. Here Freud started
creating a template for masculinity and how certain jobs, tasks and endeavours can
provide an outlet for homosexual libido. The wolves in the dream were...
It's as if masculinity, while borrowing a Jungian term, is an archetype of active
endeavour and femininity is of passive support. Of course we know today from
experience that both men and women can develop a mixture of both roles, and if
the person is single they would by necessity need to develop both. It would
be cartoonish to be 100% endeavour or 100% support.
Another dream involved a scene pieced together by Freud. The method he used was
free association. The purpose of free association is to let repressed content to
come up from the unconscious and allow painful latent material into
consciousness. Then that material has to be connected to real events to let the
conscious mind react and release the dormant emotions.
Freud then connects the scene with Matrona.
Continuing Freud's mechanical method of cause and effect, he zeroed in on Serge's bowel difficulties as
being psychosomatic...
Behaviour of bowel evacuation has a variety to Freud that is missed by
most people, or ignored. For example, when the hated English governess was present,
Serge and Nanya had to share the bedroom with her.
For Freud the bowel can signify hatred, though I doubt that it would be possible to avoid
defecation for months at a time. It could also can signal identification for Freud.
The problem she had was Dysentery, but to
the young child, different associations were made.
Here Freud is showing that the body, or at least one that is capable of bisexuality, looks at
masculine and feminine strategies for survival and procreation. When anxiety or
punishment rises with a masculine strategy, the body can move into a
feminine strategy in compensation. These strategies are there in childhood and
adolescence and form part of sexual orientation. At the early stages, sexual
theories that children have, in Freud's time, involved birth of children through
the anus. The anus becomes sexualized. As sexuality develops, anxiety towards
certain strategies can regress back to older ones. The brain is conditioned by
different sources of pleasure and when higher levels (more complicated and adult)
aren't viable, because of anxiety, obstacles or punishment, then the brain reverts to
more archaic templates. And yes that means anal sexuality for Freud is an
archaic lower level compared to heterosexual sex, even if he doesn't
designate homosexuality unredeemable, he looks at is as primitive.
on by bowel infection and for his first
religious scruples such as whether
So these masculine and feminine
templates co-exist like a collection. Freud says that...
This would influence his later theory of Negation, where there are many yeses in the unconscious, but with
repression, only certain yeses are allowed to express themselves openly.
At Serge's infantile stage of 18 months, Freud controversially posits that...
Then the mind conditions a sense
of pleasure with this template that then resides in the mind dormant until it can
be active again when other templates aren't active. One of the key
observations that supports repression of different
contradictory impulses is Freud's ambivalence.
Regardless of the lack of proof for this early anal-erotic experience,
Freud counted this insight as a win with obvious therapeutic results.
The deepest strata for Freud is this early imitation of sexual pleasure from parents.
Once we get to the second higher current the castration complex is beginning to
develop, which appears to be a mixture of threat of punishment, and also an
abandoning of masculinity when femininity seems more viable.
Here the father threatens castration by not being able to share the mother, but also
the aggressiveness of his sister and threats of castration from Nanya and
Gruscha added to the emasculation. Freud ventures into the same territory as
Jung did of a possible inheritance of the actions of ancestors, an even deeper strata.
This connects with his theory of younger generations being
competitors with the patriarch for family members as an original castration
threat in Totem and Taboo which was also published around the time of Serge's analysis.
Freud then connects obsession and money to anal birth theories with
feminine or (homosexual for a male) templates of sex. Since all our goals in
the outside world can connect to social
rewards the money can be colored by what
the social goals are. Just like money can be exchanged, there are social exchanges.
For example, Freud also looked at this fecal baby as an imitation of the mother
who provides a child as an exchange for pleasurable attention. The fecal baby
is considered an old or archaic form of sexual template that can co-exist with
later templates, and when later developed forms of
sexuality are under stress, older templates can be reactivated with the
willpower mechanisms of the brain repressing its expression. The real
complaint about not having enough Christmas presents was something else for Freud.
These older desires and intentions can be awoken when there is stress, passivity and
indifference. Freud interpreted Serge's childhood lucky birth caul, that he was
told about by his parents, as being connected to the veil he felt during his
bowel difficulties.
It's never simple when reading Freud. When he walks
on cracked ice, he usually provides an out. Here's one of the big outs that he
applies for the primal scene.
Though I would expect most readers would find it more crucial, not less. Freud says,
Around the time of this case study Freud was interested in Narcissism, and he connected it here with
Das Ich, or The I. Freud associates one outcome of masculinity as connected
with the I and it is narcissistic. Castration is symbolic of letting go of
pleasure with the penis based on early
childhood sexual theories competing
against correct sexual knowledge that is learned later. The earlier theories are
also considered archaic because they are based on infantile guesses.
Going further, Freud decouples bisexuality as the cause of neurosis and starts to flesh out the
"I" and its far reaching influence.
This is a layer of detail that Freud felt that
Alfred Adler didn't see.
One can see that as morality changes and people adapt to it, the world wars would have
made certain forms of masculinity as being endangering to the entire human race,
and the embrace of the feminine as a way to increase survival odds.
The irony is that as femininity has gained in prominence, there's a fear of going too far,
where both men and women can see that a certain amount of assertiveness
is necessary for survival. Finding that right balance that reduces both toxicity
and political correctness will be a trial and error situation for everyone.
When should we be assertive and when should we be passive? If one is a woman,
how much passivity is too much? Women need assertiveness too. With all the
different problems facing us, the answer is nuanced and skillful, not a blunt tool.
Carl Jung's Personality Types will show later on some of the different
problem solving attitudes that work well in specific life challenges, but are
inadequate in other environments.
Freud's description of the "I" describes
an internal battle where the "I" is battling against a variety of wishes and
desires that want to be released. A precursor to
an Ego (willpower mixed with fright) fighting an Id (craving).
would challenge whether narcissistic
masculinity is significant as the only
On top of that, religion to Freud
is an attempt to follow a holy parent to get parental rewards of attention (heaven
/ nirvana / peace on earth), so that the cravings are
controlled. If you think about it the internal prohibitions are about cultural
prohibitions if people allow themselves free rein of their desires. At some point
those desires will meet up with objects and people that cannot be shared.
That's why religious edicts like the Ten Commandments point out what happens over
and over again: fights over scarcity. No matter what the environment is, if
there's scarcity, there's a potential for conflict.
For Freud, Serge's internal battle is one of self-hatred, or masochism, which
creates a passiveness that eventually triggers a feminine sexual response. Then
the masculine part of the mind rebels against it.
reud then describes the displacement of the father onto the wolf, and in a later dream, a lion.
An example you can find in your own life of displacement is if you have a meditation
practice and you catch yourself finding a word, or symbol that triggers pangs of
low self-esteem, and the brain's natural tendency to avoid the subject and to try
to think of something else. Then obsessive rituals to control impulses
and phobias can appear in a variety of ways.
The publishing of this case study was interrupted by the Great War and also an internal
war in Freud's International Psychoanalytic Congress. Freud weighed in
on the debate in his On the History of the Psycho-Analytic Movement.
In the 'Wolfman' paper, Freud debated with his defectors. He disagreed with Alfred
Adler's emphasis on power.
In response to Carl Jung's theories, Freud
again mixes partial agreement with disagreement.
A big part of psychoanalysis was to seek out what was interrupting the assertiveness and
success of the adult in the present day and to follow it back to childhood via dreams.
The unconscious is truly unconscious for Freud and dreams provide
a pathway to reconstruct events that actually occurred. Desires are imitated
in childhood and then continue alive in the unconscious in spite of successive
repressions throughout childhood and adolescence. Freud responded to critics,
mainly Jung and Adler, and said that if these unconscious desires are not
brought to consciousness, then the effects of repression that are happening
now, won't be released. The dreams continue and so do the transferences
onto other people. In Freud's view, his detractors take parts of his theory and
don't go far enough. Freud saw his contribution was that he observed how
people regress to old images, emotions and patterns when they find a present conflict.
Freud points out another contribution he made where he...
The inhibitions of early life continue into adulthood. Freud then staked his claim with this
particular case study as the one that should put doubt to rest, but this was the
beginning of a fracture in Psychoanalysis and psychology in general.
These fractures would return again and again leading to all the differing
schools that we can see today. In reality, there was always more detail to be found
beyond Freud's descriptions of early life, and there was definitely more
detail found in biology and genetics.
The difficulty that Freud and his supporting analysts faced, and Freud's updated methods to
counter them, was published around the same time as his work with Serge,
Remembering, repeating and working-through.
The difficulty of course is the interpretation. How much of it is from
the dreams and buried memories and how much of it comes from the analyst?
Regardless, relief comes after resistances are overcome, because the
the resistances are painful.
Of course, if the interpretation by the analyst doesn't resonate, due to actual errors, then
resistances, habits, rituals, and the mystery of childhood experiences, remain.
With a free association method, Freud wanted to target screen memories, which
are early memories that are reconstructed by the child at a later date.
Further than memories in the unconscious, are actions. Sometimes...
In a great flourish Freud points out how these actions and transferences that are
maladaptive have to necessarily point to the underlying pathology.
For Freudm giving the permission to
free association at the beginning often has patients clam up and say that...
Yet the actions and behaviours repeat in real life.
The repetition shows up in the transference and defense mechanisms used. When people
use certain defense mechanisms they are always showing how they may have been
used in the past. The transference helps the patient to remember, when it's
interpreted by the therapist in an accurate way. The defenses keep
repeating in their forgetfulness, until it's brought to consciousness and
understood as a maladaptive tool. Then the patient can abandon it. Here of
course, a good empathic therapist has to be there, or else why would anyone want
to talk about what shames them to a total stranger? This is a target that has
to be hit by all therapists, that the person has good fertile soil that can
grow better things, if talking therapy is to have any value.
Sexuality, desire and aggression are those plots of land that the patient must finally
believe are worth cultivating. One doesn't have to repress dark emotions
that can be used in better ways.
Patients also must realize that there are some pleasures with remaining in
pathology, and they have to be seen as limiting, and not as rewarding as letting
go of the pathology. As the pathology continues in therapy, Freud noticed some
of the dangers of the outside world and the damage that can occur during therapy
based on those defenses affecting life choices.
I would also add imitation, from René Girard to derive where
some of these defense mechanisms and shameful desires were imitated from.
If your garden has weeds, where did they blow from? Part of identity is realizing
how much forgetfulness there is with parental and cultural influences. When
the defenses and desires look borrowed, and inauthentic, then they are easier to
see as alien and can gradually become discarded by developing desires in other
paths. One has to realize, that even if there are genetic influences, there may
be an array of developments possible. Unless the genetics points to only one
development, the talking therapy may be able to help the patient develop on
happier paths, even if the underlying pathology is not completely curable.
The working-through portion of Freud's paper is the part of the treatment where the
patient has to internalize the insights and deal with old habits. They have to
recognize the forces operating inside them.
When patients return to the outside world, only internal knowing of mental experiences can create enough
acceptance of their insights to prevent being engulfed by more uncertainty from
the outside world and the many beliefs and suggestions contained therein.
Of course therapists are always at the mercy of what they fail to explore, like
the influence of Freud's own personality in Serge's treatment, but also how world
events after the treatment can change the patient, and it did change Serge's life
forever.
Like with the review of Dora and Freud, it's impossible to separate
the people from the milieu they were in. Serge was connected with the upper
class in Russia, and the end of his psychoanalysis coincided with the
beginning of WWI. The economic setbacks that naturally happen during
a big war stripped him of independence. Margaret MacMillan sets the stage in
The War that ended Peace sketching out the lead up to the war.
There were smaller wars, to be sure, but nothing compared to what was to come.
Sticking to psychological insights, Margaret has plenty of precursors to
what would lead to WWI.
Political brinksmanship had prevented war in the past, but this time it wouldn't.
Deeper than all of this was the perception that one was treated better when one had
commonalities, like with Nationalism. In a failing colonial world, people were
looking for safe havens where their culture could be supported. Being on the
wrong end of a colony meant worse treatment. Europe was prime for
nationalist sentiment and it would be the replacement for the empire system.
Of course those old interests would not go away and a threat of conflict was always
hidden underneath the "Golden Age" views that some contemporary commentators saw
of the years before WWI. Social Darwinism, a pseudo-science
contribution from evolutionary thinking, emphasized race in a wrongheaded way
that would be falsified by future discoveries in genetic science.
Survival of the fittest could create a false sense of confidence for those who
believed that they were special and could count on their natural superiority
to win and dominate the world. Pride in military values mixed with Social Darwinism
viewed conflict and struggle as a necessary way for...
Purification through struggle and violence. Of course,
Nietzschean "Over-man" self-development goals also added to the psychology of people before
the war. One must overcome one's faults, so the perception of war and struggle could
be viewed as an opportunity for self-development. This sense of pride
and contempt is an all human cultures. Humans have clashed on how things should be
done in a society and it always intertwined with individual self-interest, and a need
to vent frustration. René Girard had a conversation with Renato Rosaldo
in Violent Origins, where they covered the old headhunting practice
with the Ilongot tribe, and their desire to vent. Though headhunting was a practice
throughout the ancient world and even extended into the 20th century.
A key factor is dehumanization, which like eliminating pests, makes it easier
to act on this practice. Dehumanization is based on including who is cooperative
with the culture, and excluding people who go across prohibitions, or who do
things differently. They are literally a pest. They always
become a target, or scapegoat, for venting.
Western cultures have felt that their technology was a sign of superiority, but
it simply helped to escalate damage. Girard talks about westernization, but what
he must mean is a Christian influence, but history has plenty of examples of
Christianity failing to stop war and sometimes supporting it. The desire to
vent is in all of us and Westernization may remove headhunting only to produce
another version of the same thing. Instead of headhunting, WWI
produced The Battle of the Frontiers, where in one day 27,000 soldiers died.
Margaret describes the escalation as...
The build up of arms was also
paralleled with army reserve plans that would allow an army to be called up
quickly when needed. The fear that your enemy could win a war faster than you
are able to mobilize your army added to the arms race beyond weaponry
and technology. All the players before the war were worried that they could fall
behind their rivals. The tumult of social revolution was
happening during this time. The pressure to replace empires with nations, to
improve social conditions through voting rights for women and burgeoning
socialist thought, made leaders of the old regimes worried that violent
revolution could happen. With the French Revolution as a precedent, how dangerous
to the powers-that-be would a new revolution be? Margaret hints the tactic
of scapegoating could have been involved when she questions...
A big part of war tactics is to unite people through scapegoating and
targeting a common enemy as René Girard pointed out. If people are distracted by war, then their more local rivalries and social protests give way to the new
task of defending the country. As René pointed out, bigger conflicts stem from
smaller, factional, or even individual frustrations and scandals. I would
emphasize more the leadership in nations and empires. Those who can make
decisions to go to war. They do need support, but depending on how much
democracy there really is, those in power can create a lot of pressure. If they
make the choice to go to war, much of the population can only react. Unless every
war is put to a referendum, those without power have an uphill climb to resist the
social pressure, and in some cases they may be punished. Those who are patriotic,
or just looking for a place to vent, may find the mobilization a distraction
that they are greatly interested in. The solution, in this case a military
solution, can be a uniting answer that engulfs the smaller fragmented
interests and plans, to be able to mobilize the emotions of the many
towards a common enemy. If I don't like the leader of my country, or a closer
rival in my life, I may fear the unknown threat that comes from elsewhere much
more. If I feel tired of local rivalry, then allying with my former rivals
against a more distant enemy can provide a lot of relief close to my own concerns.
Then when we add the prior individual psychology we just laid out,
of self-improvement and overcoming one's own faults through struggle, individuals
are able to view themselves as heroes without being able to imagine that the
enemy feels the exact same way. Ironically, like in sports, each side
feels they need the enemy to advance their goals by winning at another's
expense. There's a great pleasure in thinking about the rewards of winning
the land and spoils of another country, and an equally great opposite fear of
the consequences of losing one's own country.
The slippery part of trying prevent future wars and conflicts is that each
side is blinded by the belief that they are the protagonist, because of how much
they can lose. The permutations of oppressor and oppressed can exist in any
social institution and conflict can ignite in so many different ways.
Our brains make excuses for our interests that don't allow us to budge, because of
the fear that if we give in to accusations, and claims, how much are we
going to lose? Will we lose everything, including our country? The fear of loss
and the tantalizing prospect of winning locks the brain into mobilization.
Margaret says...
In this tinderbox, all one needed was a match.
That match was a Bosnian Serb, Gavrilo Princip. His story is a
key to understanding violence, and the lesson we all must learn to prevent
ourselves from being surprised over and over again by conflicts. How many times
do we have to be surprised to learn the lesson? If substitutes for war aren't
consistently chosen, then the pattern repeats. Marginalized people who feel out
of step in a changing society, who feel belittled, insulted, slighted, jealous and
powerless, can stew in their problems and offer little trouble, but in some cases
they can also be a dangerous channel for the frustrations of entire nations and
animate revolutions and war. When the powerful ridicule or otherwise ignore
the underdog, they create a blindness to the danger they are creating. The over-dog
often has to insult the pride of the underdog in the hopes that fear will
make them tolerate slights and stay in the powerless position indefinitely.
If enough time passes with no major responses, the over-dog can get
complacent, just like sports dynasties that collapse. But the pleasure of
revenge, a pride in the underdog that can't back
down, because of the fear of further losses and suffering accompanying
inaction, motivates underdogs in desperation and surprises the
over-confident over-dog. It then triggers the wounded pride of the over-dog
creating an escalation. Remember that pride, possibly connected with Serotonin,
feels really good and it feels really bad to back away from pride and to let it go.
Our self-esteem and the ability to regulate it requires finding evermore
sources of goals, tasks, performances, employment and achievements to feel good
about ourselves. Some people even commit suicide when they lack a sense of pride
for long periods of time. Others resort to addictions. There's a
resistance to let go of it, and people are sometimes willing to die to gain
back that fantastic feeling. Pride is Godly and it commands the
respect of others. Many people will not take notice of the powerless and give
them respect, until they use force to take their own share of power.
And of course, if the underdog wins long enough, they become an over-dog with the same
consequences attached to over-confidence and a lack of respect for others.
John Keegan in In the First World War details how the match was lit.
Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the Habsburgs, arrived in Bosnia on the 25th of June 1914
to supervise summer manoeuvres.
The provincial administration warned [Franz] that his visit was unwelcome and might be dangerous.
Indeed he did find it dangerous.
It was reported that at the Governor's residence Franz's final words were...
For Margaret, Franz Ferdinand was...
Regardless, the leaders in Europe did not
want to back down and declarations of war created a chain reaction throughout
the summer. The world was about to change. In Vienna Serge satisfied his curiosity
of the assassination news. He witnessed, a now old aristocratic tradition of the
funeral procession, that could also be a symbol for the social divisions that
people were wanting to see have its own funeral.
Serge was on his own and had to take what
therapeutic improvement he had into the world as it was.
In part two of Serge's story, we'll hear
his story from his own words, including
one of the best descriptions of what
narcissism feels like from the inside.
We'll also hear from later commentators
and what they made of his recovery.
