That dream, finally, explains the intimate relation between fundamentalism and violence. In most cases, that connection remains a potential in the group self. But not always. Such motivations exist in a context of rage. Psychoanalysis got off track for many decades in its ideas about aggression and the death instinct. What we yearn for is an understanding of the distinction between aggression, something in the human repertoire that mostly serves life affirming purposes, and rage, that fuels violence in the individual and the collective.
The talk will end with developing this distinction and explaining why Heinz Kohut’s remarkable ideas about rage allow for a sophisticated understanding of why people hurt others in terrible ways and why groups engage in amazing acts of war, genocide, and violence.
