Myth and Madness: The Psychodynamics of AntisemitismThe persistence of anti-Semitism and its current resurgence after a brief post-Holocaust suppression, challenge those who study human behavior to locate the causal bases of anti-Semitism and find approaches to combat it. This is an astonishing report of a nine-year study of the psychodynamics of anti-Semitism. Undertaken by Dr. Mortimer Ostow on behalf of the Psychoanalytic Research and Development Fund, it puts flesh and bones on the discussion of antisemitism in Sigmund Freud's 1939 classic theoretical study "Moses and Monotheism. "Its close adherence to case material, and application of psychoanalytic theory to historical data and cultural products, yields new insights into bigotry and equity alike. By examining prejudiced patients and their myths, Dr. Ostow shows the common threads of anti-Semitism in a variety of national and cultural settings, even under supposed optimal conditions when antisemitism is stringently controlled. The work uses the psychiatric approach, and can be read as a study of how this area of behavioral science reveals the interplay of the individual and the group, cultural background and material opportunities. The book is divided into five major segments: Psychoanalytic interpretation of anti-Semitism in the past; clinical data on anti-Semitic sentiments in a variety of personal and national settings; mythological dimensions of anti-Semitism and apocalyptic doctrines; specific anti-Semitic myths including pre-Christian early and medieval Christian, "racial" and post-modern Muslim anti-Semitism. The final segment focuses on the pogrom mentality, including the Nazi phenomenon, antisemitic fundamentalism, and black anti-Semitism. "Myth and Madness "is informed by an amazing breadth of learning: from biblical exegesis to modern sociology, from close attention to mundane patients to evaluating mythic claims of the loftiest, and at times most dangerous sort. This is a landmark effort--one that will be the touchstone for theoretical and clinical works to come. |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 27
... instance to that . When , after some time it appeared to us that many of the important determinants of antisemitism lay , not within the individual but in the dynamics of the community , we studied se- lected historical materials ...
... instances in which the behavior of individual Jews was indeed undesirable and unneighborly , the greedy slumlord , the cheat- ing storekeeper , the Wall Street manipulator . The readiness to find fault is obviously the result of an ...
... instances , the well - known Jews who became en- emies of the Jewish people and did serious damage . Gilman proposes the idea that in hating other Jews , the self - hating Jew is externalizing the qualities within himself that he finds ...
... instances in which the motivation and nature of scientific developments were determined by the social circumstances in which they arose . The influence of the needs of the industrial revolution upon the evolution of thermodynamics and ...
You have reached your viewing limit for this book.
Contents
3 | |
Study of Clinical Data | 43 |
Mythology | 63 |
Antisemitic Myths | 95 |
The Pogrom Mentality | 151 |
Conclusions | 175 |
Bibliography | 181 |
Index | 187 |