The Psychology of Discourse

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One may say that behavior has its source in a particular "discourse."
However, discourse explains nothing. The issue is to explain discourse. Naomi
Quinn (following Ortner) poses the question: "Why do narratives replicate?"
Why do some ideas among all those that are put forth "catch on" to become
part of a culture's repertoire? If one uses the term "meme" instead of
discourse, no further illumination has been provided.

Daniel Goldhagen employs anthropological concepts in his explanation of
the Holocaust. He speaks of a German "cognitive model of Anti-semitism." It
is true that Nazi genocide followed as a logical consequence of Hitler's
anti-Semitic ideology (see my book on this topic). However as Hannah Arendt
observed, ANTI-SEMITISM EXPLAINS EVERYTHING AND THEREFORE NOTHING.

Was there ever a more useless form of institutionalized behavior than
the Final Solution, useless to perpetrators as well as victims? In studying
Nazi genocide, we are not studying an activity that was performed in the name
of achieving something other than itself. Hitler and the Nazis killed Jews
because they desired to do so. What is the nature of the desire that
compelled Nazis to kill Jews?

From the beginning, Hitler insisted that Germany was suffering from a
disease. It was insufficient to "doctor around on the circumference of the
distress." Rather it was necessary to "lance the cancerous ulcer."

By the end of his career, Hitler had not abandoned his ideology. Though
all else was lost, he felt that he had achieved his fundamental objective. In
his Final Will and Testament written on February 13, 1945, Hitler stated that
"National Socialism has tackled the Jewish problem by action and not by
words. For us, this has been an essential process of disinfection. We have
lanced the Jewish abscess; and the world of the future will be eternally
grateful to us."

To explain discourse, it is necessary to understand the REASONS WHY
HUMAN BEINGS ARE ATTACHED TO AND EMBRACE IT, the source of its resonance.
Hitler believed his fantasy about the Jewish disease. He not only believed
his fantasy--he EXPERIENCED the Jew as a disease--within the German body
politic and within his own body.

To reveal the meaning of a cultural discourse is to perform
psychoanalysis of culture. In THE SUBLIME OBJECT OF IDEOLOGY, Slavoj Zizek
speaks about German anti-Semitic ideology. He poses a question about the
discrepancy between the reality of the Jew and the "ideological figure of the
Jew (schemer, wire-puller, exploiting our brave men and so on)."

The "parenthesis" above reveals the puerility of a great deal of
contemporary thought, where evidence is presented as an afterthought.
Documentation is provided, not in order to prove a theory, rather as an
"example" of a theoretical truth whose validity presumably already has been
established on the basis of evidence gathered somewhere else.

How much more interesting, exciting and fruitful it is to carefully
examine the texts ("let's go to the videotape") in order to discover what
the Nazis thought and how they felt--to understand their culture "from the
native's point of view."

The Nazi perception of reality is contained within a famous speech
delivered to SS leaders and army generals by Himmler as he defended his
actions in 1943:

If the Jews were still lodged in the body of the German nation, we
would by now have reached the state of 1916-1917. We had the moral right, the
duty towards our people to destroy this people that wanted to destroy us. We
do not want, in the end, because we have destroyed a bacillus to be infected
by this bacillus and to die. I will not stand by while a slight infection
forms. Whenever such an infected spot appears, we will burn it out.

How bizarre it is to imagine that one could conceive of a monumental
project of mass-murder based simply on the fact that members of another group
were "schemers" or "wire pullers." For such a radical activity to have been
undertaken, the idea of the Jew had to arouse deep, profound passions within
the minds and hearts of the human beings that generated the Final Solution.
To articulate the nature of the passions and desires underlying Nazi
Anti-semitism is to reveal the psychic source of the discourse.

Hitler provides a sense of the depth of emotion, degree of anxiety that
generated the Final Solution in the following passage:

It is only rarely that the life of peoples suffers from such
convulsions that the deepest foundations of the edifice of social order are
shaken and that this social order itself is threatened or destroyed. But
to-day who will refuse to see or even deny that we find ourselves in the
midst of a struggle which is not concerned merely with the problems of
frontiers between peoples or States but rather with the question of the
maintenance or annihilation of the whole inherited human order of society and
its civilizations?

To understand "why narratives replicate" is to reveal the psychic
source and function of discourse. Rudolf Hess often said, "Hitler is Germany,
just as Germany is Hitler." Hitler identified his own body with the body
politic. He called the Jew a "ferment of decomposition" working to "dissolve
human culture." The discourse of German nationalism was the "grand narrative"
that held Hitler together. Hitler experienced the fragmentation of the
narrative of nationalism as the breakdown of his own body.

By studying and analyzing metaphors and images contained within a
particular ideology, it is possible to reveal the meaning of the ideology. To
reveal the meaning of an ideology or cultural discourse is to understand WHY
IT BECAME A MEME.

We have no trouble understanding the reasons for the existence of
air-conditioners and light bulbs. We know that they were created in order to
fulfill a human purpose. In the case of cultural inventions such as war and
genocide, however, there is a tendency to disavow the human source. We
experience these inventions as if coming from outside a human dimension.

We begin to comprehend cultural formations such as war and genocide
when we acknowledge that they are NO DIFFERENT THAN AIR CONDITIONERS OR LIGHT
BULBS. They are human creations. They exist for a reason.

With regards,

Richard Koenigsberg

Richard Koenigsberg, Ph. D.
Director, Library of Social Science

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<HTML>      One may say that behavior has its source in a particular "discourse." However, discourse explains nothing. The issue is to explain discourse. Naomi Quinn (following Ortner) poses the question: "Why do narratives replicate?" Why do some ideas among all those that are put forth "catch on" to become part of a culture's repertoire? If one uses the term "meme" instead of discourse, no further illumination has been provided. 
 
      Daniel Goldhagen employs anthropological concepts in his explanation of the Holocaust. He speaks of a German "cognitive model of Anti-semitism." It is true that Nazi genocide followed as a logical consequence of Hitler's anti-Semitic ideology (see my book on this topic). However as Hannah Arendt observed, ANTI-SEMITISM EXPLAINS EVERYTHING AND THEREFORE NOTHING. 
 
      Was there ever a more useless form of institutionalized behavior than the Final Solution, useless to perpetrators as well as victims? In studying Nazi genocide, we are not studying an activity that was performed in the name of achieving something other than itself. Hitler and the Nazis killed Jews because they desired to do so. What is the nature of the desire that compelled Nazis to kill Jews? 
 
      From the beginning, Hitler insisted that Germany was suffering from a disease. It was insufficient to "doctor around on the circumference of the distress." Rather it was necessary to "lance the cancerous ulcer." 
 
      By the end of his career, Hitler had not abandoned his ideology. Though all else was lost, he felt that he had achieved his fundamental objective. In his Final Will and Testament written on February 13, 1945, Hitler stated that "National Socialism has tackled the Jewish problem by action and not by words. For us, this has been an essential process of disinfection. We have lanced the Jewish abscess; and the world of the future will be eternally grateful to us." 
 
      To explain discourse, it is necessary to understand the REASONS WHY HUMAN BEINGS ARE ATTACHED TO AND EMBRACE IT, the source of its resonance. Hitler believed his fantasy about the Jewish disease. He not only believed his fantasy--he EXPERIENCED the Jew as a disease--within the German body politic and within his own body. 
 
      To reveal the meaning of a cultural discourse is to perform psychoanalysis of culture. In THE SUBLIME OBJECT OF IDEOLOGY, Slavoj Zizek speaks about German anti-Semitic ideology. He poses a question about the discrepancy between the reality of the Jew and the "ideological figure of the Jew (schemer, wire-puller, exploiting our brave men and so on)." 
 
      The "parenthesis" above reveals the puerility of a great deal of contemporary thought, where evidence is presented as an afterthought. Documentation is provided, not in order to prove a theory, rather as an "example" of a theoretical truth whose validity presumably already has been established on the basis of evidence gathered somewhere else. 
 
      How much more interesting, exciting and fruitful it is to carefully examine the texts  ("let's go to the videotape") in order to discover what the Nazis thought and how they felt--to understand their culture "from the native's point of view." 
 
      The Nazi perception of reality is contained within a famous speech delivered to SS leaders and army generals by Himmler as he defended his actions in 1943: 
 
      If the Jews were still lodged in the body of the German nation, we would by now have reached the state of 1916-1917. We had the moral right, the duty towards our people to destroy this people that wanted to destroy us. We do not want, in the end, because we have destroyed a bacillus to be infected by this bacillus and to die. I will not stand by while a slight infection forms. Whenever such an infected spot appears, we will burn it out. 
 
      How bizarre it is to imagine that one could conceive of a monumental project of mass-murder based simply on the fact that members of another group were "schemers" or "wire pullers." For such a radical activity to have been undertaken, the idea of the Jew had to arouse deep, profound passions within the minds and hearts of the human beings that generated the Final Solution. To articulate the nature of the passions and desires underlying Nazi Anti-semitism is to reveal the psychic source of the discourse. 
 
      Hitler provides a sense of the depth of emotion, degree of anxiety that generated the Final Solution in the following passage: 
 
      It is only rarely that the life of peoples suffers from such convulsions that the deepest foundations of the edifice of social order are shaken and that this social order itself is threatened or destroyed. But to-day who will refuse to see or even deny that we find ourselves in the midst of a struggle which is not concerned merely with the problems of frontiers between peoples or States but rather with the question of the maintenance or annihilation of the whole inherited human order of society and its civilizations? 
 
      To understand "why narratives replicate" is to reveal the psychic source and function of discourse. Rudolf Hess often said, "Hitler is Germany, just as Germany is Hitler." Hitler identified his own body with the body politic. He called the Jew a "ferment of decomposition" working to "dissolve human culture." The discourse of German nationalism was the "grand narrative" that held Hitler together. Hitler experienced the fragmentation of the narrative of nationalism as the breakdown of his own body. 
 
      By studying and analyzing metaphors and images contained within a particular ideology, it is possible to reveal the meaning of the ideology. To reveal the meaning of an ideology or cultural discourse is to understand WHY IT BECAME A MEME. 
 
      We have no trouble understanding the reasons for the existence of air-conditioners and light bulbs. We know that they were created in order to fulfill a human purpose. In the case of cultural inventions such as war and genocide, however, there is a tendency to disavow the human source. We experience these inventions as if coming from outside a human dimension. 
 
      We begin to comprehend cultural formations such as war and genocide when we acknowledge that they are NO DIFFERENT THAN AIR CONDITIONERS OR LIGHT BULBS. They are human creations. They exist for a reason. 
 
With regards, 
 
Richard Koenigsberg 
 
 
Richard Koenigsberg, Ph. D. 
Director, Library of Social Science</HTML>

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