Re: [A-List] Awakening from the Nightmare of History

["tony black" <tal@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Richard / Orion,

I hasten to add that I was writing 'in the abstract' - and literally from
the abstract you provided - as I was unable to access the piece through the
web link given....Perhaps you could post the essay (in plain text) here on
the list.

Regards,

Tony

----- Original Message -----
From: "Orion Anderson" <libraryofsocialscience@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "'tony black'" <tal@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>; "'The A-List'"
<a-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, August 05, 2005 1:32 AM
Subject: RE: [A-List] Awakening from the Nightmare of History


    Tony Black's response is appreciated. Yes, I am writing about
"collective myth and fantasy" as the source of political ideology. However,
I'm not focusing on "individualistic" parameters, rather upon fantasies that
are SHARED by people within a culture or population.

For example, I write about (my papers can be read at the first
website below) the shared fantasy of the "body politic." Nazism grew out of
this fantasy, with the Jew being conceived as a parasite or bacteria or
"disease within the body politic." Genocide proceeded on the basis of the
fantasy that it was necessary to "exterminate" the disease by destroying its
source.

When I speak about the "nightmare of history," I'm suggesting that
political discourse often is dominated by these fantasies or myths that are
taken as reality. We live within the heart of our own culture's fantasies,
but often don't even know it because we are so close to them.

Right now, there are other fantasies that are being collectively
embraced and acted upon. I think it's a mistake to believe that those in
power actually know what they are doing, that they are acting upon some sort
of rational, conscious intelligence. They too are in the grip of myths and
fantasies of which they are unaware. Political violence and destruction is
based on the acting out of these ideological fantasies that are put forth by
the leaders, and shared by many members of the population.

Best regards,

Richard Koenigsberg

P. S. Orion Anderson is by research assistant who posts the e-mails. I am
the author of the pieces. I will instruct Orion in the future to post my
messages in text format.



____________________________________________________________
Library of Social Science
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Richard A. Koenigsberg, Ph. D., Director
Telephone: 1-718-393-1081

Orion Anderson, Communications Director
Telephone: 1-718-393-1104

Website for RICHARD KOENIGSBERG
http://home.earthlink.net/~libraryofsocialscience/

Website for THE KOENIGSBERG LECTURES ON THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CULTURE AND
HISTORY
http://www.conflictaslesson.com/why_main.html

-----Original Message-----
From: tony black [mailto:tal@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Friday, August 05, 2005 12:56 AM
To: libraryofsocialscience@xxxxxxxxxxxxx; The A-List
Subject: Re: [A-List] Awakening from the Nightmare of History


Though it is IMO true that many cultural and political institutions and
products can be usefully analyzed though the conceptual prism of collective
myth and fantasy (i.e. See James Hillman's scintillating 1972 work, 'The
Myth of Analysis' for just such an investigation of the history of Western
science, and, particularly, of modern psychiatry), I am, at the same time,
extremely wary of attempts made to explain collective, social phenomena
within the constraints  of individualistic - and thus reductionistic -
parameters.

...And of course, sometimes, a cigar.. is just a cigar.

Tony