[Marxism] Psychology of Genocide or Ethnic Cleansing

[Jscotlive at aol.com]

In a message dated 11/10/2005 20:30:40 GMT Daylight Time,  
michael098762001 at earthlink.net writes:

The  Anatomy of Prejudices


Elisabeth Young-Bruehl

Winner of a  1996 Professional/Scholarly Publishing Award of the  
Association of  American Publishers, Psychology Category



In this deeply  thoughtful book, Elisabeth Young-Bruehl turns a critical  
lens on  prejudice. Surveying the study of prejudice since World War II,   
Young-Bruehl suggests an approach that distinguishes between  different  
types of prejudices, the people who hold them, the social  and political  
settings that promote them, and the human needs they  fulfill. 


 
Reply:
 
I was struck by this. Does anyone on the list think there's a case for  
attributing acts of genocide and/or mass murder to more than a reaction to  certain 
material conditions? Is there some point at which we are capable of  acting 
through some collective impulse which is triggered by an atavistic  conception 
of violence and war as the highest form of human behaviour instead of  the 
lowest? Does anyone also agree that violence committed by a collective - in  the 
case of organised genocide - by definition absolves the individual  from any 
moral responsibility, which under certain circumstances can in a  perverted 
sense be a source of liberation for the individual?
 
 
 
J.