INSTITUTIONAL DENIAL ABOUT THE DARK SIDE OF LAW SCHOOL

[bermuda]

Very thoughtful posts on this thread, I feel the need to connect them to some other ones.

They've scattered them all over, systematization is really needed.

[knicks33]

I haven't read through the entire thread, so my points may be redundant.

If you saw my original thread, I gave you my background as a student. I attend a school in the 18-25 range, have poor grades. (Estimate: 29-35 percentile), and am strongly considering leaving school altogether. I agree with the OP that law school places emphasis on extrinsic factors only. The schools also value some students much more than others.

At my school it is known that the vast amount of money the Career Services Department receive is dedicated to helping students in the top 20% get jobs. For the rest of us they suggest cold calling people for jobs.

At my externship, I saw how what firm you worked at or what school you attended automatically affected how you were viewed as a lawyer. 

If a potential student reads this, I would state that law schools place students in a hierarchy, and students themselves begin to view themselves solely in terms of their rank (Grades, Job, and Journal are the only things that matter). The idea of being a lawyer is still desirable to me and something I would like to do, but the negatives that go along with this career do exist. You will be judged based on the grades you get, which determine the job you will receive, and you in turn begin doing this to others

[aver]

Wilhelm Reich, like Freud, was a medical doctor. At first he had been interested in the physiology of sex but then, under Freud's influence, became interested in its psychology as well. But he always retained an interest in physiology and was the one of Freud's followers who took the most seriously Freud's hypothesis that there existed a material energy form called "libido" or "instinctual sexual energy" and set about trying to find it.

His break with Freud did not come over this, but over politics. Freud was an ordinary defender of liberal capitalism and wanted to keep his theories as essentially a clinical cure for certain forms of mental illness. Reich didn't agree. He felt that a free society could exist if people in general were taught to take a rational attitude to sex. This led him in 1927 to join the Communist Party, from which he was to be expelled in 1933. Reich offered an explanation as to why fascism had developed: sexual repression in early childhood. According to him, the particular form of sexual repression and family life practised in pre-Nazi Germany led to people, including workers, coming to have an authoritarian personality which inclined them to follow and be dependent on leaders, who represented the patriarchal father-figure they had been brought up to believe in and which, as a result, they had a psychological need for.

Wilhelm Reich has been incredibly misunderstood and maligned, and almost everything he has written has been misinterpreted. Particularly is this true of his sexual theories. The usual distortion is that he advocated "free" sexual expression -- "obey that impulse" -- amounting to a wild and frantic promiscuity ever seeking a mystical, ecstatic orgasm that is supposed to cure all neuroses and even physical ills. This could, presumably, be accomplished by sufficient practice and knowledge, and it would free everyone of his inhibitions and repressions. In order to achieve this end and, incidentally, to satisfy their own countertransference needs, Reich and his followers were said to masturbate their patients and to have sexual relations with them. (It was never explicitly stated whether homosexual relations were included; if not, then half of the patients must have felt neglected.) In any event, they conjured up an exceptional sexual prowess and lack of discrimination on the part of Reich and his followers. This distortion, of course, came from the sex-starved neurotic longing of some of the reviewers and readers of orgonomic literature, and surprisingly, even more from those who knew nothing of Reich and his writ-ings. It was not based on anything Reich ever wrote or practiced.

Freud believed that culture and instinct were antithetical and that the baby was born with both libidinal and destructive drives. He believed, thus, that the destructive drive legitimately required repression for an orderly society and that, in the last analysis, society was correct in imposing such restrictions -- otherwise, there would be chaos. Reich believed that the baby was born without destructive drives and with only the primary 11-bidinal (love) drive, and that he was capable of regulating himself if allowed to function naturally. He believed that the destructive drives were a result of the repression of the libido, which then built up tension and pressure that could express themselves only forcefully and brutally. In this view, society is wrong in restricting the natural drives of the child, for it thus forces on him irrational and neurotic behavior.

Reich has also made a perfect analyses of the psychological processes involved in the reproduction of authoritarian civilization.

[escheat]

[...] Thus the supporter of fascism or Stalinism escapes from freedom into a new idolatry in which Mussolini, a cowardly braggart, became a symbol for maleness and courage. Hitler, a maniac of destruction, was praised as the builder of a new Germany. [...]

It is believed that Mussolini never killed anyone with his own hand -- he did command others to kill people, but he did not do anybody himself; Hitler, on the other hand, is known to have killed with his own hand.

Mussolini is something of a tragi-comic figure in world history. He is overshadowed by Hitler, Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt and remains as more of a footnote in the history of WWII. From the moment he had been overthrown in July 1943, arrested, then rescued by the Germans and forced by Hitler to take up the reins of government once again by setting up the Salo Republic, Mussolini had been a miserable figure in the grip of anger, shame and depression. The Germans had lost faith in him and humiliated him almost daily, denying him any real exercise of power, brutalizing and even enslaving his people and stealing his country's assets. By the time he was freed by the Germans from captivity there was no real role for him to play. He was despised by his own people and seen as a joke to almost everyone.

[wesclark]

[...] Thus the supporter of fascism or Stalinism escapes from freedom into a new idolatry in which Mussolini, a cowardly braggart, became a symbol for maleness and courage. Hitler, a maniac of destruction, was praised as the builder of a new Germany. [...]

It is believed that Mussolini never killed anyone with his own hand -- he did command others to kill people, but he did not do anybody himself; Hitler, on the other hand, is known to have killed with his own hand.

Mussolini is something of a tragi-comic figure in world history. He is overshadowed by Hitler, Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt and remains as more of a footnote in the history of WWII. From the moment he had been overthrown in July 1943, arrested, then rescued by the Germans and forced by Hitler to take up the reins of government once again by setting up the Salo Republic, Mussolini had been a miserable figure in the grip of anger, shame and depression. The Germans had lost faith in him and humiliated him almost daily, denying him any real exercise of power, brutalizing and even enslaving his people and stealing his country's assets. By the time he was freed by the Germans from captivity there was no real role for him to play. He was despised by his own people and seen as a joke to almost everyone.

Sounds like LS.

[largess]

4) Thinking "like a lawyer": Defining people primarily according to their legal rights, and trying to understand, prevent and resolve problems by applying legal rules to those rights, usually in a zero-sum manner. This involves close inspection of words and writing to look for defects in an adversary's position or which may create future problems for a client. It is fundamentally negative, critical, pessimistic, and depersonalizing. This method of thinking is conveyed and understood in law schools as a new and superior way of thinking, not a strictly limited legal tool.

We call it thinking "like an ass".

lol

[PI]

But almost always, during the initial stage of the struggle, the oppressed, instead of striving for liberation, tend themselves to become oppressors, or "sub-oppressors." The very structure of their thought has been conditioned by the contradictions of the concrete, existential situation by which they were shaped. Their ideal is to be men; but for them, to be men is to be oppressors. This is their model of humanity. This phenomenon derives from the fact that the oppressed, at a certain moment of their existential experience, adopt an attitude of "adhesion" to the oppressor. Under these circumstances they cannot "consider" him sufficiently clearly to objectivize him -- to discover him "outside" themselves. This does not necessarily mean that the oppressed are unaware that they are downtrodden. But their perception of themselves as oppressed is impaired by their submersion in the reality of oppression. At this level, their perception of themselves as opposites of the oppressor does not yet signify engagement un a struggle to overcome the contradiction; the one pole aspires not to liberation, but to identification with its opposite pole.
 

Projective Identification is a psychological term first introduced by Melanie Klein of the Object relations school of psychoanalytic thought in 1946. It refers to a psychological process in which one person projects a thought, belief or emotion to a second person. Then, in most common definitions of projective identification, there is another action in which the second person is changed by the projection and begins to behave as though he or she is in fact actually characterized by those thoughts or beliefs that have been projected. This is a process that generally happens outside of the awareness of both parties involved, although this has been a matter of some argument. What is projected is most often an intolerable, painful, or dangerous idea or belief about the self that the first person cannot accept (i.e. "I have behaved wrongly" or "I have a sexual feeling towards ...." ) Or it may be a valued or esteemed idea that again is difficult for the first person to acknowledge. Projective identification is believed to be a very early or primitive psychological process and is understood to be one of the more primitive defense mechanisms. Yet it is also thought to be the basis out of which more mature psychological processes like empathy and intuition are formed.

Many authors have described the mechanism of projective identification. Ogden (1979, 1986) describes a process in which part of the self is projected onto an external object. The external object (the second person) experiences a blurring of the boundaries or definitions of the self and other. This takes place during an interpersonal interaction in which the projector (the first person) actively pressures the recipient to think, feel and act in accordance with the projection. The recipient of the projection then processes or "metabolizes" (mirrors or explains) the projection so that it can then be re-internalized (re-experienced and understood) by the projector (see example). Different definitions of projective identification exist and there are disagreements as to a number of its aspects, for example: where does the process begin and end, exactly what is "projected" and what is "received", is a second person required for projective identification to take place, does projective identification occur when it is within the awareness of either party involved, and what is the difference between projection and projective identification. Young (1994, ch. 7) provides a detailed history and conceptual analysis of these issues.

Ogden (1982) describes the process of projective identification as simultaneously involving a type of psychological defense against unwanted feelings or fantasies, a mode of communication, and as a type of human relationship. As a defense a psychiatric patient, for example, can use PI to deny the truth of unwanted feelings or beliefs by projecting them into the other person. Additionally, because the analyst begins to unknowingly enact these feelings or beliefs (even though they were originally uncharacteristic of him or her), the patient is in a sense "controlling" the interaction with the analyst. This is often experienced by the analyst as a subtle pressure to behave or believe in a particular way; but it is an influence to which the analyst usually is not attentive or which is not experienced consciously. By influencing the analyst's behavior, the patient prevents exploratory, original and vulnerable material from coming into the discussion.

Projective identification functions as a mode of communication as well. The sender "gives" his or her unwanted thoughts or feelings to the receiver. Instead of describing these thoughts or feelings in discussion, the unwanted content is communicated directly or recreated in the receiver by actions, facial expression, bodily attitude, words or sounds, etc. By experiencing it himself, the receiver may understand what the sender is experiencing, even if the sender is unaware of it. Projective identification often occurs not as an isolated incident, but as a series of projections and identifications and counter-projections and counter-identifications that evolve in a relationship over time. An example of this might be the mother/infant dyad or a husband and wife pairing. In such cases there is an ongoing emotional economy or transaction between the partners that takes place over the course of an entire relationship.

Here is a simple example of projective identification in a psychiatric setting: A traumatized patient describes to his analyst a horrible incident which he experienced recently. Yet in describing this incident the patient remains emotionally unaffected or even indifferent to his own obvious suffering and perhaps even the suffering of his loved ones. When asked he denies having any feelings about the event whatsoever. Yet, when the analyst hears this story, she begins to feel very strong feelings (i.e. perhaps sadness and/or anger) in response. She might tear up or become righteously indignant on behalf of the patient, thereby acting out the patient's feelings resulting from the trauma. Being a well-trained analyst however, she recognizes the profound effect that her patient's story is having on her. Acknowledging to herself the feelings she is having, she suggests to the patient that he might perhaps be having feelings that are difficult for him to experience in relation to the trauma. She processes or metabolizes these experiences in herself and puts them into words and speaks them to the patient. Ideally, then the patient can recognize in himself the emotions or thoughts that he previously could not let into his awareness. Another common example is in the mother/child dyad where the mother is able to experience and address her child’s needs when the child is often unable to state his own needs at all. The above examples describe projective identification within the context of a dyad. However, PI takes place within a group context as well. Another notable psychoanalyst Wilfred Bion (1961) described projective identification in the following way: "the analyst feels he is being manipulated so as to be playing a part, no matter how difficult to recognize, in someone else's fantasy" This ongoing link between internal intra-psychic process and the interpersonal dimension has provided the foundation for understanding important aspects of group and organizational life. Bion's studies of groups examined how collusive, shared group phenomena such as scapegoating, group-think and emotional contagion are all rooted in the collective use of projective identification. In fact, sociologists often see projective identification at work on the societal level in the relationship of minority groups and the majority class.

[collige virgo rosas]

Projective Identification is a psychological term first introduced by Melanie Klein of the Object relations school of psychoanalytic thought in 1946. It refers to a psychological process in which one person projects a thought, belief or emotion to a second person. Then, in most common definitions of projective identification, there is another action in which the second person is changed by the projection and begins to behave as though he or she is in fact actually characterized by those thoughts or beliefs that have been projected. This is a process that generally happens outside of the awareness of both parties involved, although this has been a matter of some argument. What is projected is most often an intolerable, painful, or dangerous idea or belief about the self that the first person cannot accept (i.e. "I have behaved wrongly" or "I have a sexual feeling towards ...." ) Or it may be a valued or esteemed idea that again is difficult for the first person to acknowledge. Projective identification is believed to be a very early or primitive psychological process and is understood to be one of the more primitive defense mechanisms. Yet it is also thought to be the basis out of which more mature psychological processes like empathy and intuition are formed.

Many authors have described the mechanism of projective identification. Ogden (1979, 1986) describes a process in which part of the self is projected onto an external object. The external object (the second person) experiences a blurring of the boundaries or definitions of the self and other. This takes place during an interpersonal interaction in which the projector (the first person) actively pressures the recipient to think, feel and act in accordance with the projection. The recipient of the projection then processes or "metabolizes" (mirrors or explains) the projection so that it can then be re-internalized (re-experienced and understood) by the projector (see example). Different definitions of projective identification exist and there are disagreements as to a number of its aspects, for example: where does the process begin and end, exactly what is "projected" and what is "received", is a second person required for projective identification to take place, does projective identification occur when it is within the awareness of either party involved, and what is the difference between projection and projective identification. Young (1994, ch. 7) provides a detailed history and conceptual analysis of these issues.

Ogden (1982) describes the process of projective identification as simultaneously involving a type of psychological defense against unwanted feelings or fantasies, a mode of communication, and as a type of human relationship. As a defense a psychiatric patient, for example, can use PI to deny the truth of unwanted feelings or beliefs by projecting them into the other person. Additionally, because the analyst begins to unknowingly enact these feelings or beliefs (even though they were originally uncharacteristic of him or her), the patient is in a sense "controlling" the interaction with the analyst. This is often experienced by the analyst as a subtle pressure to behave or believe in a particular way; but it is an influence to which the analyst usually is not attentive or which is not experienced consciously. By influencing the analyst's behavior, the patient prevents exploratory, original and vulnerable material from coming into the discussion.

Projective identification functions as a mode of communication as well. The sender "gives" his or her unwanted thoughts or feelings to the receiver. Instead of describing these thoughts or feelings in discussion, the unwanted content is communicated directly or recreated in the receiver by actions, facial expression, bodily attitude, words or sounds, etc. By experiencing it himself, the receiver may understand what the sender is experiencing, even if the sender is unaware of it. Projective identification often occurs not as an isolated incident, but as a series of projections and identifications and counter-projections and counter-identifications that evolve in a relationship over time. An example of this might be the mother/infant dyad or a husband and wife pairing. In such cases there is an ongoing emotional economy or transaction between the partners that takes place over the course of an entire relationship.

Here is a simple example of projective identification in a psychiatric setting: A traumatized patient describes to his analyst a horrible incident which he experienced recently. Yet in describing this incident the patient remains emotionally unaffected or even indifferent to his own obvious suffering and perhaps even the suffering of his loved ones. When asked he denies having any feelings about the event whatsoever. Yet, when the analyst hears this story, she begins to feel very strong feelings (i.e. perhaps sadness and/or anger) in response. She might tear up or become righteously indignant on behalf of the patient, thereby acting out the patient's feelings resulting from the trauma. Being a well-trained analyst however, she recognizes the profound effect that her patient's story is having on her. Acknowledging to herself the feelings she is having, she suggests to the patient that he might perhaps be having feelings that are difficult for him to experience in relation to the trauma. She processes or metabolizes these experiences in herself and puts them into words and speaks them to the patient. Ideally, then the patient can recognize in himself the emotions or thoughts that he previously could not let into his awareness. Another common example is in the mother/child dyad where the mother is able to experience and address her child’s needs when the child is often unable to state his own needs at all. The above examples describe projective identification within the context of a dyad. However, PI takes place within a group context as well. Another notable psychoanalyst Wilfred Bion (1961) described projective identification in the following way: "the analyst feels he is being manipulated so as to be playing a part, no matter how difficult to recognize, in someone else's fantasy" This ongoing link between internal intra-psychic process and the interpersonal dimension has provided the foundation for understanding important aspects of group and organizational life. Bion's studies of groups examined how collusive, shared group phenomena such as scapegoating, group-think and emotional contagion are all rooted in the collective use of projective identification. In fact, sociologists often see projective identification at work on the societal level in the relationship of minority groups and the majority class.

A recent enthusiast compared the significance of Klein's 'discovery' of projective identification with the discovery of gravity. It is undoubtedly an important but complex subject. The notion of projection is relatively straightforward. The depressed young man lying on a beach who said 'everyone on this beach looks utterly miserable' was clearly attributing to others his own affective state. We commonly attribute our more difficult and unacceptable feelings to others -- for example, blaming those that are close to us for our own shortcomings. Externalization, the outward limb of projection, allows us to disown responsibility and to feel an illusory sense of mastery over our impulses. If our unwanted impulses and feelings are reflected, like a boomerang, resulting in feeling of being under constant attack, the projection has gone full circle and leads to anxiety, or if extreme, paranoid delusions.

Identification, similarly, refers to the process by which self-representations are built up and modified during development, as distinct from the conscious copying of imitation. As Klein originally conceived it, projective identification combines these two notions in a highly specific way. She described it as a phantasy in which bad parts of the infantile self are split off from the rest of the self and projected into the mother or the breast. As a result, the infant feels that his mother has 'become' the bad parts of himself. The projection is 'into' rather than 'onto' the object -- prototypically the mother or the analyst -- and what is projected is not so much a feeling or an attitude, but the self, or part of it. Klein imagined that in the paranoid-schizoid position the infant might project 'bad' sadistic parts of himself into the mother's body in order to control and injure her from within. If these are then reintrojected -- introjective identification -- the individual contains a bad identificate, a potential source of low self-esteem or self-hatred.

In this original formulation, projective identification was defensive, intrapsychic, and solipsistic, a mental transaction involving the self and a perception, but not the participation of the other. How does then projective identification differ, if at all, from projection? Klein maintained that projection is the mental mechanism underpinning the process, and projective identification is the specific phantasy expressing it. Spillius suggests that it adds depth to Freud's notion of projection by emphasizing that a phantasy of projection is only possible if accompanied by a projection of parts of the self. In contrast, many American writers distinguish projection and projective identification by whether or not the recepient of the projections is emotionally affected or not by the phantasy. If projective identification is seen as an interactive phenomenon, then the recepient of the projection may be induced to feel or act in ways that originate with the projector.

[centripetal]

A recent enthusiast compared the significance of Klein's 'discovery' of projective identification with the discovery of gravity. It is undoubtedly an important but complex subject. The notion of projection is relatively straightforward. The depressed young man lying on a beach who said 'everyone on this beach looks utterly miserable' was clearly attributing to others his own affective state. We commonly attribute our more difficult and unacceptable feelings to others -- for example, blaming those that are close to us for our own shortcomings. Externalization, the outward limb of projection, allows us to disown responsibility and to feel an illusory sense of mastery over our impulses. If our unwanted impulses and feelings are reflected, like a boomerang, resulting in feeling of being under constant attack, the projection has gone full circle and leads to anxiety, or if extreme, paranoid delusions.

Identification, similarly, refers to the process by which self-representations are built up and modified during development, as distinct from the conscious copying of imitation. As Klein originally conceived it, projective identification combines these two notions in a highly specific way. She described it as a phantasy in which bad parts of the infantile self are split off from the rest of the self and projected into the mother or the breast. As a result, the infant feels that his mother has 'become' the bad parts of himself. The projection is 'into' rather than 'onto' the object -- prototypically the mother or the analyst -- and what is projected is not so much a feeling or an attitude, but the self, or part of it. Klein imagined that in the paranoid-schizoid position the infant might project 'bad' sadistic parts of himself into the mother's body in order to control and injure her from within. If these are then reintrojected -- introjective identification -- the individual contains a bad identificate, a potential source of low self-esteem or self-hatred.

In this original formulation, projective identification was defensive, intrapsychic, and solipsistic, a mental transaction involving the self and a perception, but not the participation of the other. How does then projective identification differ, if at all, from projection? Klein maintained that projection is the mental mechanism underpinning the process, and projective identification is the specific phantasy expressing it. Spillius suggests that it adds depth to Freud's notion of projection by emphasizing that a phantasy of projection is only possible if accompanied by a projection of parts of the self. In contrast, many American writers distinguish projection and projective identification by whether or not the recepient of the projections is emotionally affected or not by the phantasy. If projective identification is seen as an interactive phenomenon, then the recepient of the projection may be induced to feel or act in ways that originate with the projector.

Not only that, collige, but in terms of feelings experienced by the projector there is a clear difference between the two phenomena. When projective identification is at work, the projector feels at one with the other person. An "I am you" feeling. This is not the case in simple projection. Also, for the receiver, projective identification is far more disturbing and more difficult to deal with than a simple projection.

[carpenoctm]

[...] However, PI takes place within a group context as well. Another notable psychoanalyst Wilfred Bion (1961) described projective identification in the following way: "the analyst feels he is being manipulated so as to be playing a part, no matter how difficult to recognize, in someone else's fantasy" This ongoing link between internal intra-psychic process and the interpersonal dimension has provided the foundation for understanding important aspects of group and organizational life. Bion's studies of groups examined how collusive, shared group phenomena such as scapegoating, group-think and emotional contagion are all rooted in the collective use of projective identification. In fact, sociologists often see projective identification at work on the societal level in the relationship of minority groups and the majority class.

It has been described as the basic building block for generating thoughts out of experiences and perceptions. At this same level of generality it is also described as 'the earliest form of empathy' and 'the basis of the earliest form of symbol-formation'. Looking to later developments and more broadly, the related notion of 'container-contained' has been described as 'an attempt to raise the concept of projective identification to a general theory of human functioning -- of the relations between people, and between groups; of the relationships between internal objects; and of the relationships in the symbolic world between thoughts, ideas, theories, experiences, etc.' These are large claims -- very exciting, uplifting, constructive. Yet this same mechanism is seen to be operative at the heart of autism by Meltzer and his co-workers. He also describes it as 'the mechanism of narcissistic identification... and the basis of hypocondria, confusional states, claustrophobia, paranoia, psychotic depression and perhaps some psychosomatic disorders,' as well as the sovereign defence against separation anxiety. Relinquishment of excessive projective identification is described as the precondition of achieving a fully-dimensional inner world. As he says in his essay on 'The Relation of Anal Masturbation to Projective Identification', 'The feeling of fraudulence as an adult person, the sexual impotence or pseudo-potency (excited by secret perverse phantasies), the inner loneliness and the basic confusion between good and bad, all create a life of tension and lack of satisfaction, bolstered, or rather compensated, only by the smugness and snobbery which are an inevitable accompaniment of the massive projective identification.' It has also been described as central to the most social Darwinist forms of ambitious competitive, survivalist conformism, in the concept of 'the claustrum', in which patients use excessive projective identification a desperate defence against schizophrenic breakdown. Projective identification is also the basic mechanism in, sectarianism, virulent nationalism, fanatical religiosity and blind obedience to political and gang leaders.
 
Psychology with public questions in mind. Freud was quite explicit in avowing his belief that all social, cultural and political phenomena were only -- and he did mean only -- the familiar phenomena of id, ego and superego, along with the Oedipal triangle, operating in a new sphere. He even avowed that 'Strictly speaking, there are only two sciences: psychology, pure and applied, and natural science.' There is, according to Freud, no place for truly social explanations; sociology 'cannot be anything but applied psychology.' Now, to revert to the rescue operation. The first helpful notion is the Marxist critique of a well-known maxim in political science known as 'Lasswell's Formula' stating that private interests get projected onto the public realm and then represented as the common good. The ruthless economic self-interest of a Rockefeller is defended as generating good for all. He used the analogy of competition among roses leading to the American Beauty Rose, his pretty analogy for Standard Oil recently cosmetically renamed EXXON of Exxon Valdeez oil spill fame. Versions of this maxim have been offered throughout history, for example, in the self-assigned civilising missions of colonialists or imperialists.

Where did the particular conception of private interests come from before they got rationalised as the public good? This is both a familial and an ideological question. It invites us to look at both the psychoanalytic and the socialising process of development. Freud famously pointed out that the child does not acquire the parent's values but the parents' superego. This has an inherently conservative influence on the personality and provides a significant brake on social change. How we acquire values in the family? We are greatly aided in doing so by recent research on the transmission of superego in particularly distressing family histories -- those of holocaust survivors, showing us how direct and coercive these forms of inherited distress are and how they come to be acted out 'unto the seventh generation' -- or at least in the generations to which we have so far had analytic access. What is true of the transmission of trauma in holocaust survivor provides a model for how values get implanted in the process of socialisation and transmitted through the generations.

Psychoanalytic writers of varying degrees of radicalism have essayed about this, basing their own work on attempts to make sense of the rise of Nazism and its aftermath -- the classical writings of the liberal Eric Fromm, the anarchic libertarian Wilhelm Reich, and the libertarian marxist Herbert Marcuse. Whatever one may feel about their respective politics and views on specific theoretical issues in psychoanalysis, these men wrote powerful works on how an epoch's values get into the unconscious value systems of people. We're talking about Fromm's essays when he was in liaison with the Frankfurt School and his book, 'Fear of Freedom' (called 'Escape from Freedom' in America); of Reich's essays collected as Sex-Pol and his masterpiece, 'The Mass Psychology of Fascism'. With respect to Marcuse, his remarkable philosophical investigation into 'Freud, Eros and Civilization', the companion volume in which he mounts a critique of the ideology of industrial capitalism, 'One Dimensional Man' and his essays on how conformist pressures are eroding the role of the father, the superego and the family, collected in 'Five Lectures'. Making due allowance for the consequences of their differing views on how change comes about and how refractory human nature is, they share a psychoanalytic perspective on how we come to conform -- how consent is organised, how hegemony is instanced in the hearts and minds -- the unconscious minds -- of human beings.