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PARTISAN REVIEW
being is limitlessly educable , a notion that seems to imply the possi–
bility of creating a society without destructive and cruel behavior,
provided only that we develop the proper consciousness .
It is rather surprising that there have been few efforts to integrate
these three theories . In fact, the most recent of these, the learning
theory, has undertaken quite an aggressive effort of its own to be
accepted as the only valid explanatory schema .
Psychoanalysis can claim to have developed its own drive theory of
aggression-even if the developed theory does not have the same
sharpness of definition as the libido theory . Libidinal and aggressive
cathexes of the objects interfuse . In addition , ego and superego dis–
approvals or consents permanently modify the representatives of
drives . By means of this supposition , psychoanalysis avoided the
possibility that it might succumb to the danger of developing a simple
drive model for aggression, and especially for cruelty . Most of all , the
analysis of transference and counter-transference threw into relief the
extraordinary complexity of real and fantasied object relations , inclu–
ding a vast array of destructive and cruel fantasies .
However, we must confess-and it is especially regrettable in
connection with our understanding of the development of cruel
behavior-that psychoanalysis still lacks , as H.
1.
Krysmanski has stated
it , " ... a differentiated understanding of society as the mediating
system in which outer, cultivated nature , and inner , unfolding nature ,
objectify . " It is to be hoped that psychoanalysis, with the development
of just such a differentiated theory of society, will learn to designate
those unconscious processes which take place in the individual , but
which are generated by the participation of the individual in collective
moods and in a general consciousness . In any case , psychoanal ysis has
shown in its development that it has not forgotten Freud's own devel –
opment , that it is capable of accepting new experiences and incorpor–
ating them in its theoretical framework .
In what follows, we will consider not only" private cruelty," but
equally the even more cruel behavior toward defenseless victims that is
collectively inflicted , tolerated , and sometimes repeated through
generations . The history ofpogroms , taken as an example , shows what
has been done step-by-step to minorities who are declared
to
be arch–
enemies of a dominant group. They lose in their oppressors ' eyes their
identity as human beings . What is done under such dehumanized
