[lit-ideas] Re: 21. century European anti-Semitism
- From: John McCreery <mccreery@xxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 20 Apr 2004 13:57:34 +0900
On 2004/04/20, at 13:27, Scribe1865@xxxxxxx wrote:
> My attempts to understand violence and cruelty have lead me to these
> texts:
>
> Erich Fromm's _The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness_
> Colin Wilson's _The Criminal History of Mankind_
> Arthur Koestler's _The Ghost in the Machine_
> Norman O. Brown's _Life Against Death: the Psychoanalytic Meaning of
> History_
> Karl Menninger's _Man Against Himself_.
>
>
Important works, one and all. But all, I note, are psychological in
approach. The question that drives all of these authors is "How can
any human being behave this way?"
Having grown up in a family with a father given to occasional fits of
rage, inheriting this proclivity, and having being raised a Lutheran,
imprinted with the notion of original sin, to me the answer seems
obvious: "We all can." The more interesting question is why so often we
don't react with violence even when provoked and why the threshold
beyond which violence erupts varies as widely as it does.
John L. McCreery
The Word Works, Ltd.
55-13-202 Miyagaya, Nishi-ku
Yokohama, Japan 220-0006
Tel 81-45-314-9324
Email mccreery@xxxxxxx
"Making Symbols is Our Business"
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