What is the nature of this this  disease or psychopathology that I have been describing--that lies at the core of human societies? In Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (1963/2006), Hannah Arendt argues that Adolf Eichmann—who planned and organized the murder of millions of Jews—was not a pathological murder. Arendt accepts Eichmann’s claim that he was an ordinary--who simply followed orders.

Why do we want to say that following orders—almost to the point of being a slave—is ordinary or banal? Perhaps precisely this tendency to submit to leaders and the groups that defines the psychopathology that lies at the heart of human social life.

With their ideology defined by the concept of "obedience unto death," the Nazis enacted this human tendency to submit to the group and blindly follow orders—to an unprecedented degree. In short, what is “ordinary” and what is “pathological” are not separate.

Willingness to become obedient unto death—to sacrifice one’s life for Germany—was the Nazi’s highest virtue. Willingness to become obedient—to sacrifice one’s life for Germany—simultaneously defined the essence of Nazi psychopathology.

Hitler declared to the German people, “You are nothing, your nation is everything.” Nazism meant self-negation in the name of the glorification of Germany. The Nazi's highest ideals and deepest pathology--were one and the same.

We begin to understand why people hesitate to use the language of psychopathology in relationship to political movements. At the heart of Nazi ideology were the ideals of respect for leaders, honor, loyalty, and a sense of duty: qualities most that most of us--most socities--consider virtues. The ideology of nationalism is within each one of us and defines our societies. Each of us believes—on some level—that it is good to love one’s country and to be willing to sacrifice one’s life if one’s nation requires that we do so.

However, it was the Nazis’ espousal of these virtues that led to the insane forms of behavior that they brought into being. Virtue and insanity were not separate. Germany’s sacred ideals and her disease were one and the same. Willingness to sacrifice for Germany--to die for the country--became abject submission and suicidal self-destruction. Willingness to sacrifice for Germany led to the desire to offer Jews as a sacrificial offering. No one was exempt. Everyone had to die for Germany.

This is the crux of our difficulty: our unwillingness to say that the most highly acclaimed political virtues generate the most profound forms of psychopathology.

Hitler fought in the First World War, witnessing the death and dismemberment of hundreds of his comrades. He knew—but could not say—that war was profoundly destructive and terrible. In Mein Kampf, however, he declared that it would be a “sin to complain” about the death of so many German soldiers because, after all, “were they not dying for Germany?”

Something within each of us says that sacrificing one’s life for one’s nation is not a bad thing. Something within us says it is a virtue to be willing to give our lives for one’s our country. If I say, "this is a very sick desire," my reader will protest: How dare that I says that one of our most noble motivations constitutes a form of sickness?

Psychie masochism describes a tendency within human beings--the urge to place oneself into situations that may result in physical and/or psychological damage. One of the main tasks of psychoanalytic "treatment" is to help the individual to recognize his or her masochistic tendencies, to understand them, and to avoid acting upon them.

The job of a soldier—more than any other job—may lead to severe and permanent physical and/or mental damage. Viewed within the framework of psychoanalysis or psychotherapy, what could be more masochistic than the willingness to become a soldier?

Yet the ideology of nationalism--our own patriotism or devotion to a country--forbids prevents us from calling soldiers masochists. In a certain sense, we are forbidden to say this.

Rather than calling soldiers masochistic, we admire his willingness to place himself in situations of extreme danger--where he defends his country; defends the honor of his country. The soldier's willingness to enter battle and if necessary to sacrifice his life in the course of doing his duty--lies at the core of an ideology that most people embrace.

We feel that we belong to a national community. We say that we love our country. How can one speak of masochistic submission in the same breath as love of country? Within the framework of the cult of nationalism, it is not appropriate to say that willingness to die for one’s country represents a form of psychopathology.

Perhaps Hitler’s legacy is to compel us to consider the possibility that contained within the ideology of nationalism is a severe form of psychopathology. Devotion to one’s nation may be a virtue, but also may generate monumental destruction. Hitler and Nazism force us to question the claim that willingness to sacrifice one’s life for a  nation is a noble, beautiful idea.

The monumental destructiveness of the 20th century—continuing into the 21st—grows out of the human attachment to ideals conceived as more significant than human beings. People submit to these ideologies, imagined to be greater than the self.

Human beings die and kill in the name of political doctrines like Communism, nations like Germany, or Gods like Allah. Attachment to ideologies conceived as absolutes—and willingness to commit violent acts for their sake—constitutes a central dimension of the historical process. History, Ernest Becker said (1985), reflects a series of competing immortality ideologies.

The attachment to omnipotent ideologies structures the course of “normal” political history. Wars, revolutions, acts of genocide and terror seek to glorify, promote and propagate ideologies with which individuals identify. Within this domain of politics—the competition between sacred ideologies—anything and everything is permitted. Sacred ideologies release human beings from moral structures and strictures that govern other dimensions of societal existence.

Within this political realm—the struggle between competing ideologies conceived as absolutes—no allowance is made for the language of psychopathology. Into this space or domain, psychiatry is not allowed to enter.

The historical record is an endless story of political violence, conceived as normal. Political history is imagined as occurring within a domain separate from—transcending—ordinary human existence. Within this “special place,” things occur that cannot occur within other domains of human existence. Standards that apply in our “everyday life” do not apply to what occurs in this domain.