Some thoughts on the use of language in psychoanalysis

  • The author argues that terrorism aims to obliterate the conditions that allow us to distinguish between situations of safety and situations of danger. If we are unable to make that elemental distinction, we necessarily doubt the value of our own immediate thoughts, perceptions, and ideas. Psychoanalytic theory offers an alternative to immediacy. I think psychoanalytically about an object, one must identify with it and doing so to think of what the terrorists meant we must find a way to identify with them. This entails consciously working against the strong appeals of disidentification. Disidentification is the precondition for pitilessness and, as such, is the precondition for limitless activities directed against the objects of our hatred. It matters what the terrorists meant, then. It matters that we find our way to identifying with what we think they meant. The moment we conclude that it does not matter, we loosen the checks on our own capacities for terrorizing.

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Metadaten
Author:Donald Moss
Parent Title (English):Psychoanalytic Dialogues Vol. 12 (2002), pp. 421-432.
Document Type:Articles
Language:English
Year of first Publication:2002
Release Date:2017/11/20
Format:xerox upon request / Fotokopie auf Anfrage
IdNo:Moss_D_2002
Erich Fromm's Library and Erich Fromm Archive:Articles / Artikel
Licence (German):
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