Click here for information on ordering The Psychoanalysis of Racism, Revolution and Nationalism A truly bold and provocative treatise. —Political Psychology (Journal)   Click here for information on ordering Hitler's Ideology: A Study in Psychoanalytic Sociology The best critical analysis in English of Hitler's thought. —Colin Day   Click here for information on ordering Symbiosis and Separation: Towards a Psychology of Culture A thoughtful and perceptive analysis of the interplay of unconscious phantasy and cultural phenomena. —Thomas Ogden, M.D., author of The Matrix of the Mind   Click here for information on ordering Nations Have the Right to Kill: Hitler, the Holocaust and War A psychological inquiry of great depth and tragic urgency. —Walter A. Davis, Professor Emeritus, Ohio State University

Political violence is undertaken as a rescue fantasy: eliminating or destroying the bad object in order to save the (goodness of the) good object.

What is the psychological source of the belief that there are evil others in the world acting to destroy goodness; and that by destroying evil we can preserve goodness?

The shared fantasy structuring political ideologies is belief that one is required to rescue a beloved, sacred object. The other side of the coin of the "evil other" is a beloved or sacred or sublime or omnipotent object. It is the existence of this object that allows collective acts of violence to occur.

The psychic and cultural presence of this object transforms killing from a form of criminality to a “necessary” activity--performed with self-righteousness.

Everyone speaks of “violence” and “aggression” in relation to societal and group violence (such as terrorism). What is left out is the “beloved object” to which members of society are attached; the omnipotent object in the name of which killing and dying become “good.”

Societal violence occurs because of belief in the “goodness” of killing and dying. Collective violence is undertaken in the name of preserving the goodness imagined to be contained within the sacred object.

Mass destruction and attachment to a beloved object are two sides of the same coin. They go together like a horse and a carriage. They cannot be separated.

"Our group" or nation designates another group or nation as an enemy. The preservation of our sacred ideal requires that members of this group be killed.

How easy it is to overlook the fact that the other group operates on the basis of an identical logic: that an enemy is threatening to destroy their sacred ideal; that violence is required in order to rescue their belove object.