Dynamics of Genocide

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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...

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