Projection and the psychology of the masses.

        From February Fourth of last year I kept writing about the war in the Ukraine. Most of what I concentrated on was self-deception. I expected it because the west (Europe) was hiding from itself the actual reason of Russia's act of aggression. The reason is that there will not be Nato forces on the border with Russia but Ukraine could join the European Union. This last condition is Turky's condition. Joining the European union was rejected by the Union several times for reasons bad governmental Standers in the Ukraine. "All is well in the western front".Suddenly the General Manger of Nato visited and promised the Ukraine its membership(which has to  be proven FIRST by all members (24 countries I think), thus there will be forces on the borders of Russia. For more than a year the situation remained the same but with Russia having forces on the border. Then Nato 'manger general' who is known to be an idiot civilian advocate came with the notion that Europeans have their own VALUES and Russia has no rights to prevent the Ukraine from having NATO forces on its own land. On July 7 the USA supported those values and Russia  entered the Ukranian Provinces with Majority od Russian population.

During those 15 weeks I noticed a very clear and alarming political situation of Projection, Narcissistic deception, and a need to hate to continue this drama, and guilt. The Western Europeans needed all that to justify their aggression. Projection was what was needed most because it is feeds both narcissism and hate. to support this point of view I wand to emphasize something about PROJECTION. Cleanses the person from his unacceptable qualities as projecting it is a phantasmic getting rid of it. The negatives and the horrible things they talk about the Russian Doings is totally in significant compared to what the Americans did in Vietnam, the French in Algeria, the British did with all of its colonies. Few countries in Europe did those horrible things through the aggressive ones. Russia (did somethings similar with the parts that constituted the Russian federation and the imperial but by support of Russian minorities.  

The gest of the mater is that the western media has chosen Russia as the villain the could be used to dump on it ALL the sins of the west and project onto it the whole history of their barbarianism and on Putin all what their colonial heroes did to the rest of the world, projecting their guilty social intra-structures on Russia and dragging the Ukranian in a stupid frenzy of projections. 

The end of this drama-comique is a faster collapse of the European empire but with 'people' settling on a gradual sense of equality with some western European keeping on their projected sense of greatness or what Moslems say Greatness is for GOD alone.

 Change and the Inventing of the Future

    The latest International Media conveys the mess that the European Union is lately going through and taking the Ukraine with it. The strange thing is the signs of decay in the structure of the Union while the attempts to revitalize it is by adding new members. This exposed the point of its weakness: development with no planned or defined future. To make it short: development implies-implicitly- creating a new and better future. When I look at Europe now it is clearly with no plan for its future. To clarify what this means I go back to psychoanalysis. 

    It took me more than two decades of decent work to notice that the change psychoanalysis achieves comes as relinquishing few personal 'things'. but also, which is more important, restructuring a few important aspects of the future. Thinking of that over the years and revisiting back some outstanding psychoanalyses (I did) I came to realize that the success of psychoanalysis has to be by doing a decent work in reconstructing the past, because this reconstruction is- in fact- the main achievement that the analyst will participate in with the patient.  

     A clinical case is a better way to exemplify the work of linking the past with the present and future of the patient.

    

    The patient was a young twenty-one years old. He was ruminating about suicide "all the time" as long as he was awake. He did not try it but could not think of any other things if he were not involved in something he is doing. He clarified that his obsession with suicide is linked to his father' death that happened several years ago, and he heard once that it was 'possibly' suicide. The patient is the grandson of a successful, rich, powerful, highly respected, businessman who was also the head of a small ethnic population that socialized in repairing and dealing with watches and clocks. The head of the family had all four of his sons in his expanding business. The patient's father was the youngest and hated his life as repair man but secretly.  He insisted on making his son seek a professional career. That was a secret which they both kept from the grandfather.

We reached a phase in the working through in which he became aware of issue like unconsciously he becomes someone else (identification), his preoccupation with sluiced was expressing other wishes pertaining to his relationship with his father, bur suddenly (few sessions) his grandfather took the stage. It seems that having more grandchildren than children, age, changes in the business lessened that man's grip on the family. Despite that, the patient remained captive of his Suicidal Obsession. Gradual construction of the material introduced to the patient a sense of freedom to make his choices without an obligation to please (family motto). It was reconstruction that revealed to the patient a picture of possibilities, with or without the approval of others. He terminated. 

Several or maybe many years later He came to visit. After ending his analysis, he was able to get some money from his mother and move to a far continent under the pretext of exploring possibilities of business in the same area as his family's. He had a plan to do what his father wanted him to do. He preferred to study, got a degree in education, worked as a teacher for a while, studied again and became a school administrator. He left his analysis with " A desire to be a free person".

He did, because as he said " funny I wanted to be a free person, but I am happy now to be a prisoner of what I wanted to be.  

The point is that success, individual or group, depends on what the analyst helps the patient to discover about the freedom he gains from analysis.

The politician also is supposed to free a society from old 'fixation' as is happening now in Europ. This will be my next part of the issue.

 Just a reminder

People who did not and do not accept my notion of the end of the European empire are not following the news in the media, because it is not mentioned much on the USA news. Following the international news supports my idea of the of Europ's declination, which is also derived from reading works by serious historians and strict and serious media in Europe...why because PSYCHOANALYSIS is so boring nowadays.

However, the media is bringing news from Europe that supports, confirms, and proves that great historical achievements are collapsing. The point is getting out of the Cocone of clinical psychoanalysis to use it to understand LIFE.

The last phase in our progress that is making us ALL equal is on the door. what can we say about future psychodynamics<. With new lanes of separation not based on the old of who is up and who is down and for what attributes we should know that we are no longer facing the notion of of are facing new narcissisms....."I am American, and you are Albanian" so we are not equal issues of "Our Democracy and our values" anymore. It will be issues of quite different meanings.

By- By Psychoanalysis ...welcome new psychoanalysis. 

The End of the last Empire

Part 2

This introduction is meant to pave the way for psychoanalysis to contribute to a political scene that does not make sense, as psychoneurotic symptoms and conditions do and are. The European countries who ruled, exploited, and exhausted their potentials beyond the limits of existence-like the Greek, Romans, Babylonians, Inka people did before- are now showing all the signs of a dying empire. It started with the end of the Second World War and the liberation of Africa, South America, Southeast Asia, some smaller changes in the Karibian Islands too. But the most demonstrative of all these changes is the migrations of people of the old empire to the source countries of that empire. Even in its small margins it says that 'the world is no longer divided into master\slave, white\black, poor\rich etc.' One of the most perceptive books of late is entitled: The World is Flate (By: Thomas Friedman). Flattening the world is not fully done yet, and the Ukraine War attests to a foolishly stubborn Europe to hold on to its passee fictitious sense of superiority. That has proven to "always" be achieved by choosing an old inferior adversary who has become an equal to treat as a failure in progressing and catching up with civility....Russia, China.  

 

        Social matters affect the individual more than parental influence does. There is also the group meaning of certain issues like religion and morality which get additional psychological importance within their social context. That is the reason psychoanalysis should find a place in social sciences. That means psychoanalysts should bring out its method of thinking and not to twist other ways of thinking to fit psychoanalysis. Few postings before I dealt in a limited way with some psychodynamics in social contexts; like the psychodynamics of group hate, projection, self-deception, and how they will be the fabric and background of the way the Ukraine Issue will be understood and managed. I anticipated what would happen if the politicians did not open their eyes to see the danger of the ideas the media will promote. I also underlined the effect of just two European politicians (Ursula van Der Leyen!!) and Stoltenberg!!?) who occupy especially important political position, like Manager of NATO and president of the European Union. I made that an issue because it was obvious the Ukraine, that small peaceful country had been foolishly and maliciously tricked into believing what those two pompous idiotic politicians were advocating... joining the EU and NATO. 

According to the rules of the European Union and NATO itself the Ukraine could not become member of those two organizations without first getting the approval of the 24 current members. Those two politicians were calling for something that would take three or four years to happen and could fail as it did with Turikia. Those two people simply do not care about the Ukraine; the just think again of European (our). The point I am making is that China, Eastern Europe, few countries in South America, some others in different parts of the world are more advanced than Western Europe for it to claim its superiority and relying on demeaning others to feel superior and not getting better than others to feel deserving.

This is not the issue of this post but just a reminder that psychoanalysis is vey much needed at this time of 'a ridiculous war', to expose the childishness of some European politicians who hold important position in that organization. The issue is not to ignore that social psychology and group psychology are the subject and object of development and evolution (getting better in goodness or badness too). The trick is what psychoanalytic principles could guide the thinker in understanding social evolution. As a psychoanalyst I will consider group-hate, projection, negation, denial, changes in fixed repressed ideas or believes, expressing suppressed unconscious thought as thoughts of common knowledge, all that as the new wrap of social development and evolution. Those are our legitimate field of study. I will treat the current events that are proclaimed old or suppressed realities as manifestations of upcoming major social and political changes that we should expect to happen and prepare to deal with.       

        The basic undeniable fact is that everything we deal with in life is in a state of change and evolution, as our own minds also change with that. Thus, resistance to change and stopping things from evolving creates illusions that we can go back to the past to understand the present and the future. Someone like me that has lived long to remember what happened between the east and the west, the socialists and the capitalists, Russia and the West, (from Stalin to Putin and from Eisenhauer to Lesinski), I Can see the backwardness in even the vocabulary of propaganda and anti-propaganda. The main point is what will be a test to acknowledging social evolution and change; so, from food gatherers to food manufacturing and from the temporary family of males and females to Empires that kept evolving for centuries (Greek, Mongol, Assarian, Babylonian, Roman.,etc.... ). We reached the end of the last empire in known history: the European Civilization or the European Empire   

       One of the most perceptive books of late is entitled: The World is Flate (By: Thomas Friedman). Flattening the world is not fully done yet, and the Ukraine War attests to a foolishly stubborn Europe holding on to its passee fictitious sense of superiority. That has proven to "always" be achieved by choosing an old inferior adversary who has become an equal, to treat as a failure in progressing and catching up with civility. This is the seat of what we call projection because the issue at hand is not the other but the self. What the media is fabricating about US to distract from the truth [ known to the enemy as well as to people but is kept from the spectators and the donners]. It is puzzling that Russia the barbarian, savage, backward, dictatorship has changed politically and let go of colonizing its previous east European allies, while the civilized west is still countries to the what looks like the old Wasow Alliance.

The falling Western Empire is revealing the core nature of its people: relied on demeaning others to feel superior and not getting better than others to feel deserving.

Spingler was of the opinion that civilizations along with their political structures move from east to west. Even though if there were important details that could undermine this brilliant idea at least the merit telling us a lot about the Ukranian War and the obsessive compulsive hate of Russia and hoping for the dying Empires of Russia and China.   

Psychoanalysts have a great deal to say about some social phenomena because they share similar psychodynamics. I wrote few posts about the psychodynamics of group hate, projection, self-deception, and how they will be the fabric and background of the way the Ukraine Issue will be understood and managed.

        The end of the European empire and its death is unique, but that is normal because each empire is part of a whole and a point in an ingoing process. What is unique-in my view- is that the coming empire will start as a world empire not a national empire. Therefor, analysts should consider that when they get into professional debates in the future.

The End of the Last Empire: The European Empire. 

Part one

What makes me visit and revisit the topic of the Ukraine war is how much we psychoanalysts can say about the media and politicians misleading people, abusing both known intentions and nonconscious activation of personal (individual) needs, to distract from the basic facts in this seemingly meaningless conflict between two uneven powers. It is a post on the power of projection. 

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Evolution and development are unnoticeable but inevitable conditions of all matters in existence, whether material or non-material. All living things die, and anything material decays. So, as the signs of life in animals or plants wither and die, the material evidence of decay manifests in degradation of the original quality of the decaying matter. At the present time we are at a point when we should be asking: what is the matter with the world of humans? After almost a century of obvious relative peace and fast recoiling from the possibility of major wars we are now steadily toward expanding a tense situation in the Ukraine to become a serious possibility of a large war. I will venture and deal with that question by notions that I reached from outside the regular ways of arguing issues first before reaching conclusions. The end of WWII took us to a point where we thought there would be no more major wars because the last conflict ended with two atomic explosions that gave a new meaning of war.  However, the realistic reason is that it looked as if the last empire in the history of humanity- the European Empire- had completed the evolution and change of a fragmented world and a new homogenous world in beginning. It started six centuries ago and began its decay a few hundred years ago with endless internal conflicts and wars, and two atomic bombs of which one was unnecessary to use (The Nagasaki bomb).  

The falling started at the end of the second world war by the liberation of African, South America, Southeast Asia some smaller change in the Karibian islands. But the most demonstrative of all those changes is the migrations of people of the old empire to the source countries of that empire. Even though this reverse migration is small in margins it says that 'the world is no longer divided into master\slave, white\black, poor\rich etc.' One of the most perceptive books of late is entitled: The World is Flate (By: Thomas Friedman). Flattening the world is not fully done yet, and the Ukraine War attests to a foolishly stubborn western Europe to hold on to its old fictitious sense of superiority. Although Russia is not known as part of the European history of racial discrimination it practiced subtle methods of discrimination and played a similar role and adapted the same colonizing inclines to its claims to communism. This happened in middle Asia (away from noticing), in some parts of the north of Asia and mostly in Eastern Europe. Thus, with confidence it could be said that the present war in the Ukraine is an internal squabble between Easten and Western Europeans. The unity between Easten and Western European was always at the e expense of a third party like Iran, Iraq and other Muslim nations. 

Because racism is a core in Narcissism it is not easy to know what is happening in the \Ukrainian war.... two narcists fighting about who is entitled to be a genuine European master. The Western Europeans are unable to accept yet ‘old-despised Russia and China as equals. That despise has proven to "always" be done when an empire starts its end. They choose an old inferior adversary- who has become later as an equal- to treat him as a failure in progressing and catching up with civility. At the present time the old European trick of deprecating an adversary as a lower-class human, criminal to humanity, lying and hiding its vicious nature, makes the enemy suffer because of a low sense of morality. Ukrainians were easterners thus inferior- but not enemies or at least not difficult to befriend as was done with the people of the old Soviet Union.  

The case of a Dying Empire: 

The historical events that led to the war in the Ukraine are PATHETIC, and had exposed to us, psychoanalysts, a living political event that we know much about its psychological core. It might sound to you like a ridiculous explanation of a grave event, but it is not (remember the assassination of a prince that started WWI that lasted for more than four years!?).  

After WWII the European world divided into the West European league of NATO, and the Eastern league of WARSO. The events of disbanding of the USSR   and the formation of modern Russia reflected the modernization of the Eastern part of Europe and the inability of the western side of the European part of giving up the ‘silly’ sense of imperial superiority. This difficulty came directly from the USA’s taking over the leadership of the west. (New, vigorous, did not lose much yet in wars, etc.). So, the European Empire remained claiming its old inhumane status with the USA looking for chances to fill the place of the old glamour of the Westen Europeans.  

A very sad situation was created but was not interesting enough to the clinincal psychoanalyst: a dying empire is gone before a new country had a chance to take its place. The twentieth century saw handing the Batton to the USA to replace the old union of England and France. The USA accepted quietly to be the younger brother. The USA made all the right moves to keep NATO active, to keep the European economy healthy, but created crises that frightened the world and begged for protection from. Most of the sinking countries of the eastern European side of the empire remained alive, not out of honest concern, but only to deprive Russia from its old allies.  This is what created the present Ukrainian war. It is clear, like everything, that what the media in the west is using to describe the Russia’s meanness and inhumanity, etc. is a drop of tears compared with the blood bathes they created around the world over six long centuries. Just a few years ago France massacred the Algerians like flies, the British in Ismailia killing Egyptians like shooting targets, let alone the slaves from Africa and Acia. Make a comparison between Russia avoiding or limiting civilian targets compared to the USA spraying miles and miles of Vietnams jungles and vegetation with chemicals to destroy its forests. The European Empire is only humane in the European Media because it does not mention the avoided targets and mentions only the ‘discomfort's of keeping them alive without heat. The Algerians would have preferred discomfort over death. 

This introduction is meant to pave the way for psychoanalysis to contribute to a political scene that does not make sense, as psychoneurotic symptoms and conditions do. The European countries who ruled, exploited, and exhausted their potentials beyond the limits of existence-like the Greek, Romans, Babylonians, Inka people did before- are now showing all the signs of a dying empire. It started by the end of the second world war and the liberation of African, South America, Southeast Asia some smaller change in the Karibian Islands too. But the most demonstrative of all these changes is the migrations of people of the old empire to the source countries of that empire. Even in its small margins it says that 'the world is no longer divided into master\slave, white\black, poor\rich etc.' One of the most perceptive books of late is entitled: The World is Flate (By: Thomas Friedman). Flattening the world is not fully done yet, and the Ukraine War attests to a foolishly stubborn Europe to hold on to its passee fictitious sense of superiority. That has proven to "always" be achieved by choosing an old inferior adversary who has become an equal to treat as a failure in progressing and catching up with civility.  

This is the seat of what we call projection. In this case, Russia is the barbarian, savage, backward, dictatorship.... but somehow changed politically and let go of colonizing its previous east European allies. Western Europe is doing the opposite: they are holding firm to the concept of colonization and NATO.  In the case of the Hong Kong crisis, few months ago, China was the savage barbarian, uncivilized, un- European, undemocratic villain. The USA is civilized and head of the dying European empire even though it suffers from social disintegration of a large scale. Few months ago-in Hong Kong, China was the savage barbarian, uncivilized, Un European, undemocratic villain. It was not forgotten yet what the USA did in the elections in south America for the last hundred twenty years, and ending by the assassination the elected president of Chile and replacing him with a military general.