Dynamics of Genocide

1811 Words4 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Freud's theory of psychology

Genocide is a mass murder in which a particular group of people are targeted due to religious or racists reasons. Weak minded subjects may think that there is a necessary need to conform to the orders of a cruel leader or follow the opinion of the majority. Consequently, the individual loses his or her own identity and then conforms to the identity of the group. For instance, according to Janis, the term groupthink is “the mode of thinking that persons engage in when concurrence-seeking becomes so dominant in a cohesive in-group that it tends to override realistic appraisal of alternative courses of action” (qtd. in Myers 291). So, group think is the phenomenon in which an individual does not question and goes along with the belief of the group in order to be part of the inner circle. For the purpose of this paper, I will be discussing Freud’s personality theory in relationship to genocide, the relationship between groupthink and genocide and the prevention of groupthink.
According to Freud, the personality is made of three major structures: the id, the ego, and the super ego. The id is mainly controlled by the two basic drives known as sex and aggression. So, the ego attempts to compromise with the id and attempts to fulfill its need in realistic ways. “The aim of the reality principle is to prevent the discharge of tension until an object which is appropriate for the satisfaction of the need has been discovered” (Hall and Lindzey 34). Therefore, in relation to genocide, an individual may feel the aggressive desire to want to obtain control over a particular population, thus instilling fear on those who attempt to deviate from the opinion of the majority. The ego decides in what manner it will satisfy the needs of the id, for t...

... middle of paper ...

.... New York: Boni And Liveright, 1856. 1-110. eBook. .
Glass, James. "Group phantasy: its place in the psychology of genocide." International Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies. 5.3 (2008): 211-21. Web. 15 Jan. 2014.
“Genocide: The Authoritarian Mind.” Genocide. n.d. Web. 16 February 2014.
Hall, Calvin, and Gardner Lindzey. Theories of Personality. New York: John Wiley & Sons, INC., 1957. 29-75. eBook. .
Monroe, Kristen Renwick. "Cracking The Code Of Genocide: The Moral Psychology Of Rescuers, Bystanders, And Nazis During The Holocaust." Political Psychology 29.5 (2008): 699-736. PsycINFO. Web. 26 Jan. 2014.
Myers, David. "Group Influence." Trans. Array Social Psychology. . 10. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2010. 266-304. eBook.

Show More
Related

  • The War Against The Jews, by Lucy Dawidowicz

    2693 Words  | 6 Pages

    Bruno Bottelheim, “Helpless Victims,” in The Holocaust Problems and perspectives of Interpretation, ed. Donald L. Niewyk (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1997. 54-59.

    Read More

  • Totalitarian Government: Hitler and Stalin

    1102 Words  | 3 Pages

    Following the beginning of the Second World War, Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany and Joseph Stalin’s Soviet Union would start what would become two of the worst genocides in world history. These totalitarian governments would “welcome” people all across Europe into a new domain. A domain in which they would learn, in the utmost tragic manner, the astonishing capabilities that mankind possesses. Nazis and Soviets gradually acquired the ability to wipe millions of people from the face of the Earth. Throughout the war they would continue to kill millions of people, from both their home country and Europe. This was an effort to rid the Earth of people seen as unfit to live in their ideal society. These atrocities often went unacknowledged and forgotten by the rest of the world, leaving little hope for those who suffered. Yet optimism was not completely dead in the hearts of the few and the strong. Reading Man is Wolf to Man: Surviving the Gulag by Janusz Bardach and Survival in Auschwitz by Primo Levi help one capture this vivid sense of resistance toward the brutality of the German concentration and Soviet work camps. Both Bardach and Levi provide a commendable account of their long nightmarish experience including the impact it had on their lives and the lives of others. The willingness to survive was what drove these two men to achieve their goals and prevent their oppressors from achieving theirs. Even after surviving the camps, their mission continued on in hopes of spreading their story and preventing any future occurrence of such tragic events. “To have endurance to survive what left millions dead and millions more shattered in spirit is heroic enough. To gather the strength from that experience for a life devoted to caring for oth...

    Read More

  • Comparing Freud And Jung's Personality Theories

    682 Words  | 2 Pages

    Primarily, one of the dominant and fundamental theoretical variances concerning Freud and Jung’s personality theories was that relating to their opposing notions regarding the unconscious human mind. Firstly, Freud understood that the centre of ones inhibited beliefs and distressing recollections was found in the unconscious mind. Freud stated that the human mind focuses on three constructs: namely the id, the ego and the super ego. He claimed that the id shaped ones unconscious energy. Freud said that it is not limited by ethics and morals, but as an alternative simply aims to fulfil ones desires. The id strives to keep with the “pleasure principle, which can be understood as a demand to take care of needs immediately.” (Boere) The next unconscious

    Read More

  • William Golding's Lord Of The Flies

    1124 Words  | 3 Pages

    ... the last moral compass and the the super-ego. Even if it was possible to regain their sense of civilization, the ego and super-ego cannot repress the id in the long run, just as Freud predicted (Jones n. pag).

    Read More

  • Genocide: A Historical Cycle of Power and Destruction

    1535 Words  | 4 Pages

    Making a person look less like a human being and taking away their unique features, makes them a target of violence. After dehumanizing someone, a person has less guilt when they have to kill because it is like they are not even killing an actual person but something that is deemed as less than human. Historian Philip Pomper uses the term “instrumentalization” to represent the ability to coerce an entire group of people into doing what another person wants. Pomper described instrumentalization as taking “depersonalization one step further by making subjects tools of group projects or cultural tendencies” (Pomper 287). Once dehumanizing has happened, those in power, like Hitler or the Khmer-Rouge, use instrumentalization to get the people they control to kill. The use of this tactic is apparent in the Holocaust. The thousands of Nazis who would follow Hitler’s every order did so because the mentality of a group is substantially different than the mentality of an individual. In a group, each person is seen as an instrument used to achieve a bigger objective rather than each individual having their own

    Read More

  • Social Norms in Society

    1041 Words  | 3 Pages

    Cialdini, Robert B, & Trost, Melanie R. (1998). Social Influence: Social Norms, Conformity, & Compliance. Interpersonal Phenomena. Retrieved from: angel.elmira.edu/section/default.asp?id=w114_PSY3010_01.

    Read More

  • Female Holocaust Experiences

    2263 Words  | 5 Pages

    Levi, Neil, and Michael Rothberg. The Holocaust: Theoretical Readings. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2003. Print.

    Read More

  • Genocide

    872 Words  | 2 Pages

    There are several aspects to look at when distinguishing a systematic genocide from other humans’ rights violations, and it is not an easy task. The current definition covers a basis of the word, but several other generalizations and details can be concluded to recognize when seeds of genocide are being sown. Genocide The Systematic Killing of a People indicates...

    Read More

  • The Psychology of Religion: Views from Sigmund Freud

    1256 Words  | 3 Pages

    He argued the human mind or ‘psyche’ is split into three parts; the id, which contains basic and primitive, desires e.g. hunger, thirst and lust; the ego, which involves perceptions of the external world that makes us aware of the ‘reality principle,’ one’s most outward aspect of our personality, and the super-ego, which contains the conscience that punishes bad behaviours with guilt, and the ego-ideal that praises good actions. Freud reasoned that in order for the psyche to be healthy there must be balance between the ego and the super-ego, hence Freud claimed that beliefs founded on religion were part of an ‘adolescent stage in the development of the human race from which humanity should free itself.’

    Read More

  • The story of Antwone Fisher

    819 Words  | 2 Pages

    Schultz, D. P., & Schultz, S. E. (2013). Theories of personality (10th ed.). Belmont, CA: Cengage/Wadsworth.

    Read More

  • Personality Theories Overview

    1045 Words  | 3 Pages

    Feist, J., & Feist, G. J. (2009). Theories of Personality (7th ed.). New York, New York: McGraw-Hill.

    Read More

  • How Does the Thought of Freud Differ from that of the Democratic Socialists/Social Democrats?

    2137 Words  | 5 Pages

    The thought of Freud has a total focus on an individual’s mind and how this internal struggle effects how humans interact within society. Freud argues that every human has three functional parts of their personality that exist within the mind itself: the id, super-ego and the ego. Thurschwell describes these three layers as how they relate to each other. The id is the deepest level of the unconscious, which is dominated by the pleasure principle and has no concept of time except for the present, demanding instant gratification of sexual and aggressive (Eros and Thanatos) urges. The superego originates through identification with the individuals parents, functioning as an internal censor witch represses the dangerous urges of the id. The ego starts as part of the id but is more sensible as it has knowledge of the outside world. Unlike the id, the ego is dominated by the instinct to protect oneself. Although these three layers cannot be physically mapped out in the mind they do show how Freud constantly focused on the internal mind...

    Read More

  • Psychological Perspective on Antwone Fisher

    1362 Words  | 3 Pages

    Schultz, D. P., & Schultz, S. E. (2013). Theories of personality (10th ed.). Belmont, CA: Cengage/Wadsworth.

    Read More

  • The Trait Theory of Personality

    2125 Words  | 5 Pages

    Magnavita, J. J. (2002). Theories of personality: Contemporary approaches to the science of personality. New York: Wiley.

    Read More

  • Sigmund Freud Theory

    1160 Words  | 3 Pages

    Freud viewed the entire human psyche from a sexual perspective. He defined the unconscious as a collection of repressed personal material. He believed that behaviors are controlled by the unconscious mind, which could be understood through dreams and free association. (Lothane, 2006, p.295-296). He theorized that the human mind had three basic components: the id, the ego, and the superego, and these individual parts often conflict, shaping personality and if not treated, causing neurosis (Schultz & Schultz, 2012, p. 321-323). He stated that therapy could repair narcissism that stemmed from low self-esteem, through transference as patients begin to get the things they missed. Freudians believe there are two basic conflicting drives in a person: the life drive and the death drive. The life drive supports survival by avoiding uncomfortable and life-threatening situations while the death drive desired extreme pleasures that to death (Reppen, 2006, p. 215-216).

    Read More

More about Dynamics of Genocide

Open Document