Re: institutions, collaborations

Judy Diamondstone (diamonju who-is-at rci.rutgers.edu)
Sun, 23 Jun 1996 20:55:45 -0400

Ana's note was refreshingly blunt.... (I've taken several
metaphorical intakes of breath over xmca messages lately,
including the many-splendored Ur note Mike posted) -- It is
alarming to hear how widespread the militia ideology is.
And I thank Ana for her thumbnail outline of it:

>1. Is based on detachment from reality
>2. has a binomial system of values (good/evil); and
>3. spends enormous amount of time negatively defining Others, much more that
>the engaging in positive Self definition.
>
Ana wrote:
>I think that the militia groups'
>hatred of government does not have anything to do with their opposition to
>alienated political forms, and that alienation as an effect of social
>relations and processes is at the stake in the ideology of these groups. The
>core of their ideology was and is pure racism, hatred and intolerance of
>other ideologies and people.

And later:
>Again, I have to disagree with Jay. The militias' ideology is not a product
>od a reaction-formation, and their movement is not a modern social movement.

Ana, while I appreciate the raw, "pure" primary force of hatred, I
still assume that it is an effect of social processes/relations
I am provoked by the correspondence between group and individual
pathology to wonder about the difference between "reaction
formation" at different levels of the (eco)social system.
Psychoanalytic theory I'm sure has much to say about paranoia; t
herapists have "worked through" paranoid discourse to establish
more flexible & tolerant relations with paranoid clients.
What does social psychology have to say about
paranoia at the level of whole groups? about societal response
to such group-level phenomena?

- Judy

....................
Judy Diamondstone diamonju who-is-at rci.rutgers.edu
Graduate School of Education Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey
10 Seminary Place New Brunswick, NJ 08903

Eternity is in love with the productions of time - Wm. Blake