Towards a psychoanalysis of collective self-harm?

Iconic Extrajudicial Execution of Jesus through Osama by US? (Part #10)

The above argument raises the question as to whether the US -- acting on behalf of all of "us" -- has entangled itself in a complex of psycho-social processes including:

conflating the threatening Osama-of-today with the nightmare possibility of a wrathful Jesus-as-he-might-act-today (when he returns)
executing the Osama-Jesus to eliminate the threat to business-as-usual and to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness (of the haves)
embodying, through processes of self-harm, this defensive destruction of an icon so central to the psyche and worldview of believers
setting aside convention and due process to enable unquestionable extrajudicial action
affirming the rightness of conventionally-preferred strategic actions as an exemplification of self-righteousness
avoiding significant collective change in response to more fundamental collective challenges artfully denied

These dysfunctional processes can best be collectively comprehended and explored through myth-making. The possibility could be developed by reference to tales involving reflecting magical mirrors and depiction, notably:

The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890) by Oscar Wilde. Potentially echoing the hedonistic preoccupation with "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness", a magical portrait is painted to age instead of the person depicted (and reflect the effects on his soul of every sinful act) -- in exchange for the sale of the latter's soul. This enables the person to indulge in every debauchery whilst appearing to remain eternally young. The US use of public relations magic and image management may be seen in these terms.
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs In which features a magical mirror to which the Queen characteristically asks the question: Mirror, mirror on the wall / Who in the land is fairest of all? This is a characteristic concern of the USA in its determination to remains the world's sole superpower.
Narcissus of Greek mythology Who wastes away while gazing, self-admiringly, at his reflection in water. Perhaps an appropriate allusion to the manner in which empires tend to fail, including that of the Roman Imperium (Jared Diamond, Collapse: how societies choose to fail or succeed, 2005).

For many impelled to self-harm, the motivation relates to anxiety over self-image, notably associated with low self-esteem or secret shame. The high esteem in which the US publicly holds itself may indeed conceal deep anxieties engendering self-harm. The degree to which Jesus is implanted as a sustaining central icon of this esteem -- for a people specially chosen and blessed by God -- suggests reasons why executing Osama might serve as a relief from minsconstrued identification and enthralment. It could be understood as a desperate effort to break an illusory mirror and see beyond (Stepping into, or through, the Mirror: embodying alternative scenario patterns, 2008).

There is an extensive literature on individual self-harm, typically in its more tangible physical form. The question of psychological and spiritual self-harm is both more subtle and more controversial. Of particular relevance to understanding terrorism is of course the self-harm inherent in suicide bombing, as notably reviewed by James Jones (Blood that Cries Out from the Earth: the psychology of religious terrorism, 2008; Why Does Religion Turn Violent? a psychoanalytic exploration of religious terrorism, The Psychoanalytic Review, 2006). He describes it as a form of sacrificial behavior undertaken in the name of a religious ideology and community, and therefore upheld as sacred by that community -- individuals who voluntarily become sacrificial victims and are thereby elevated to the highest level of martyrdom.

There is a certain literature on collective self-harm, again typically emphasizing tangible physical forms. The question raised by the above argument is the nature of the collective intangible forms of self-harm. Web search terms which identity some insights include: national death wish, collective death wish, civilizational death wish, global death wish, global self harm, omnicide. The results typically focus on tangible forms. The aspect which merits further examination follows from the study by Jared Diamond (Collapse: how societies choose to fail or succeed, 2005). Is there a subconscious form of collective self-harm potentially characteristic of the society described by John Ralston Saul (The Unconscious Civilization, 1995). How does this relate to the articulations by Johan Galtung of structural violence and cultural violence?

Markus Beckmann and Ingo Pies (Sustainability by Corporate Citizenship: the moral dimension of sustainability, Wittenberg-Center for Global Ethics, 2004) argue that:

Corruption, child labor, environmental degradation and human rights abuses are but a few examples of such unsustainable development that arises at the weak points of a global institutional order that fails to guarantee the rule of law, property rights or contracts.... Again, these incidents illustrate the effects of the "invisible fist" where "" in contrast to the benign "invisible hand" "" rational individual action leads to social outcomes that result in collective self-harm.

One blogger usefully presents the tendency to collective self-harm as a death wish (Death Wish: America's flirtation with national suicide, God Bless America, 25 October 2008)

It may be considered overly dramatic to say that the United States of America has a collective death wish but it certainly seems that way sometimes... No, I don"™t believe our nation has entered its death throes stage but there are many indicators that those throes are not very far down our historical road. All great empires eventually reach a point at which they are no longer sustainable as an empire and that unsustainability inevitably results in either a precipitous decline of mere years, as with the Thousand Year Reich, or a gradual decline of centuries, as in the case of the Roman Empire.

The possibility is presented with greater subtlety in relation to understanding omnicide by Christopher Williams:

Williams asks, why are human beings set on self-harm and even destruction? What is the "species mental disability" that causes this behaviour, and what can be done about it? He sees a possibility that information and education about the acute terminal decline "of humanity, possible omnicide and extinction - caused by factors such as "environmental change, new technologies, and war - may create "iatrogenic meaninglessness", which could itself become a threat to "human survival and wellbeing." "The dilemma for education is that we are 'dammed if we do and dammed if "we "don't' teach about the scale and consequences of global self-harm. The ultimate purpose of education is not just to learn, it is to increase well-being through learning."

Is enough known about the subtleties of collective self-harm to exclude the possibility that it is a characteristic of some faith-based societies?

Whereas the actions of the individual suicide bomber are conditioned by the particular mindset indicated by James Jones, might features of that thinking manifest in a complementary collective form within some faith-based societies -- including some of Christian persuasion? Ironically one striking example of mass suicide is offered by the "apostolic" community created by Jim Jones which terminated with the death of some 900 people at Jonestown in 1978. The collective psychodynamics associated with end times beliefs -- entangled with denial regarding strategic choices on constrained global resources -- may be understood as a form of collective self-harm, effectively inflicted on civilization as a whole, if only through neglect (cf Spontaneous Initiation of Armageddon -- a heartfelt response to systemic negligence, 2004; Root Irresponsibility for Major World Problems: the unexamined role of Abrahamic faiths in sustaining unrestrained population growth, 2007).

Whether understood as a collective death wish, omnicide, or otherwise, this "systemic neglect" is consistent with the concerns of Jared Diamond regarding civilizational choice. Aided and abetted by the major religions served by this, global civilization would seem to be choosing to fail -- as a process of the collective unconsciousness highlighted by John Ralston Saul (The Unconscious Civilization, 1995).

The current focus is on the deprecation of terrorism as channelled through the individual in some societies. The question is whether a systemic equivalent is present in a complementary form in other belief systems -- as implied by the concern of Johan Galtung with structural and cultural violence. Can terrorism manifest otherwise and virtually undetectably in subtle forms of incipient collective self-harm? This would be consistent with the accumulation of pressures on global society -- presaging a crisis of crises rendering current forms of terrorism insignificant.

Rather than deploring religion as an incitement to immediate terror or its insidious postponement, it is appropriate to acknowledge the effort of religions to address existential issues typically handled crudely, if at all, by other collective initiatives -- however "scientific" or "strategic". It remains to be clarified whether a form of terror is intimately associated with these existential dimensions such as to transcend conventional distinctions between individual and collective. The convenience of treating terrorism as an external dysfunctionality, characteristic of some, may inhibit recognition of its inherent nature, however religions endeavour to reframe this (Thinking in Terror: refocusing the interreligious challenge from "Thinking after Terror", 2005). How then to engage with an existential terror so central to the human way of being?

It is in this context that executing "Osama" as a simulacrum of Jesus might be a strange unconscious collective effort at a form of deicide (of which the original crucifixion is the exemplar) -- to remove the psychological keystone through which an outmoded engagement with reality is sustained.

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Towards a psychoanalysis of collective self-harm?