Learning about/from psychoanalysis

“I believe there is also an outright intimidating effect produced by the psychological violence of openly expressed psychological splitting—I have experienced it on the left as well. I believe it has to do with projections of badness, and the threat of being cast out of the “Us.”-yes, this this this!“I would argue that the Democrats failed to create an equal sense of power because they were not tied to an explicit cry of outrage nor a promise to protect us from the wolves. Liberal ideology could not combat this splintering of our society by insisting we are all one people since in fact we are fractured—with two mutually exclusive “definitions” of democracy and freedom. It is paradoxical that defending democracy requires an understanding of its boundaries, of what it cannot include.”“In political terms, this would be to argue that there are ultimately needs of the people that conflict with the natural tendencies and interests of the owning class’s “bottom line” profit aims, but that a democratically organized social structure can contain and legitimate this conflict. We might argue that in a democracy the legitimacy of a struggle for humane dignified life for all—which modifies but does not overthrow the power of capital—is necessary and productive. Indeed, it is precisely not a violent attack on capitalism, the system, in the way that our opponents’ claims do constitute a violent attack on democracy.”“Such oppositions assume the form of doer and done to, mimicking the basic structure of oppositions like perpetrator and victim, powerful and subjugated, oppressor and oppressed, violator and violated (Benjamin, 2004; Benjamin, 2017).”“The creation of the Third requires acknowledging or pointing to wrongdoing all the while still offering and opening up to possibilities for reparation and restoring goodness— without the retaliation and punishment common to our culture.”“It is shameful to be among those counted as undeserving. The fear of being among the socially discarded instead of the deserving, visibly diminished and left to perish, leads to feelings of helplessness and anger. And, as long as people accept the system as legitimately being what it is, they tend to blame themselves for being among the discarded. The right has historically addressed this constellation with more apparent skill, appealing simultaneously to the shame and the need for relief. A classic move to deal with contradiction through projection informs their strategy. Republicans have successfully created a narrative that affirms that the weak and vulnerable deserve no help, yet reassures the white working class that they are not rightfully among the discarded: “forgotten white men” are not shameful and weak; they are not to blame for their condition, hence still deserving. The blame is projected into the Other who cheats and takes from them: that is blacks, immigrants, women, and the liberal elite who pretend to champion them.”“As long as the powerless feel they have no way to assert their own interests in revolt against the authority and as long as such revolt appears dangerous and morally wrong, such identification is perpetuated, even when this identification goes against their own interest.”“Equally crucial, the effort to claim victim status relates to avoiding blame for harming, especially for people who feel ashamed of their needs or at fault for failing. It is impossible and dangerous for them to recognize or admit to themselves that others have been victimized through the actions of “my people,” those with whom they identify, and in this way forfeit victim status and take responsibility for harming. Thus, repair also appears impossible.”By promising to extirpate the dangerous Other, the fascist leader simultaneously appeals to the followers’ sense of victimization while offering them an imaginary strength that will conquer and vanquish“If we have a moral edge, it is to end victimization by demonstrating the agency involved in making reparation and in embracing the position of the Third. On the one hand, this position requires acknowledgment of harm and, on the other, requires transformation of the struggle for recognition of the need to live into a form of legitimate political conflict”“These are societies that have looked for ways out of the dilemma of protecting the people without creating more violence, by reversing the violence against the oppressors or perpetrators. In many of these intergroup struggles in societies riven by violent conflict, both sides were liable to see themselves as the being “done to,” victims, the injured parties. The problem is how to go beyond having the struggle for recognition of one’s own injuries (one’s own group, nationality, or race) go beyond the competition of one against the other, to create a path for acknowledging harm without forfeiting one’s own needs”-must move forward together