On the other hand, the individual may feel diminished or crippled as a result of binding his ego to an object so much greater than the self.

The essence of this ambivalent relationship to an omnipotently conceived object is expressed as Hitler explained to his people: “You are nothing, your nation is everything.”

The word “everything” contains the positive dimension of identification. At the mass rallies at Nuremberg, tens of thousands of Germans gathered in a single location—as if bound together to constitute a single, omnipotent body. Germans participating in these rallies experienced a sense of being fused with “everything.”

The word “nothing” contains the negative valence of imagining that one is fused with an omnipotent object. Binding one’s self to this object—conceived as gigantic and powerful—the individual’s ego shrinks by comparison. One becomes submerged within the object, losing one’s sense of individuality and agency.

When one identifies with an object conceived as omnipotent, ambivalence is inescapable. The same mechanism enhancing the sense of self acts to cripple or paralyze the self. The mechanism allowing the individual to feel that he or she is everything generates the feeling that one has become nothing.

The believer begins to rebel against the object to escape the feeling that one has become nothing—by separating from it. However, the believer may be too far gone. Too much of the self has become invested in the object. Even as one feels diminished by virtue of one’s attachment to the object, one may not possess the will to separate.

Yet the feeling of being crushed or crippled or diminished—remains. How can the individual cope with this experience of oppression without abandoning the object?

What often occurs is that the individual projects the feeling of being oppressed—hostility toward the object—into another group or class of people. This group or class of people—identified as an infidel or enemy—is imagined to be rebelling against the object, acting to destroy the sacred object with which one has become identified. The infidel contains one's own rebellious nature: the desire to abandon or separate from the object.

One’s  own desire to separate from the object transmogrifies into a belief that the enemy wishes to destroy the object.

The enemy symbolizes one’s desire to separate from or abandon the sacred object.

The purpose of acts of violence is to squelch the desire to abandon the object—by crushing, defeating or killing a group or class of people symbolizing rebellion against the object.

What must be crushed—if one is to maintain one’s connection to the sacred object—is the desire to be liberated from the object to which one is attached.