The persistence of anti-Semitism and its current resurgence
after a brief post-Holocaust suppression, challenge those who study
human behavior to locate the causal bases of anti-Semitism and find
approaches to combat it. This is an astonishing report of a
nine-year study of the psychodynamics of anti-Semitism. Undertaken
by Dr. Mortimer Ostow on behalf of the Psychoanalytic Research and
Development Fund, it puts flesh and bones on the discussion of
antisemitism in Sigmund Freud's 1939 classic theoretical study
Moses and Monotheism. Its close adherence to case material, and
application of psychoanalytic theory to historical data and
cultural products, yields new insights into bigotry and equity
alike.
By examining prejudiced patients and their myths, Dr. Ostow
shows the common threads of anti-Semitism in a variety of national
and cultural settings, even under supposed optimal conditions when
antisemitism is stringently controlled. The work uses the
psychiatric approach, and can be read as a study of how this area
of behavioral science reveals the interplay of the individual and
the group, cultural background and material opportunities.
The book is divided into five major segments: Psychoanalytic
interpretation of anti-Semitism in the past; clinical data on
anti-Semitic sentiments in a variety of personal and national
settings; mythological dimensions of anti-Semitism and apocalyptic
doctrines; specific anti-Semitic myths including pre-Christian
early and medieval Christian, "racial" and post-modern Muslim
anti-Semitism. The final segment focuses on the pogrom mentality,
including the Nazi phenomenon, antisemitic fundamentalism, and
black anti-Semitism.
Myth and Madness is informed by an amazing breadth of learning:
from biblical exegesis to modern sociology, from close attention to
mundane patients to evaluating mythic claims of the loftiest, and
at times most dangerous sort. This is a landmark effort--one that
will be the touchstone for theoretical and clinical works to
come.
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