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wish to "self-destruct" (like lemmings or beaching whales, as Martin
Wangh reminded me), or of primitive omnipotence (as in Nazis and
their victims) probably were valid. Segal, however, did not suggest
examining the reasons or "cures" for such behavior: she expected her
listeners to accept her diagnosis on faith, and to act on it politically .
The latter responded because they recognized the mechanism of de–
nial Segal's argument relied upon as a frequent response to impend–
ing danger. And yet, they failed to question the fact that Segal "de–
nied" using her psychoanalytic know-how to mobilize fear: nor were
they aware that she thereby had left behind the "scientific" arena she
continued to invoke.
This rally was different from other such rallies because it was in
Germany, because, aside from Segal, the speakers (and all their
references and "research") were American, and because none of them
seemed to understand the intellectual and political context of their
audience. The latter responded to a variety of stimuli which had lit–
tle to do with the Anglo-Saxon concerns of the speakers . By far the
largest segment of the listeners consisted of younger Germans . Their
honest fear of once again falling for illegitimate authority had to lead
them to admire the Anglo-Saxons' denunciations of their own "lead–
ers"; and they were being reminded of last year's apprehensions about
the Pershing missiles. In addition, the depiction of President Reagan
and other Anglo-Saxon offidals mirrored their dislike of Chancellor
Kohl in whose person they (correctly) perceive the insensitivity and
Babbitry of everything they expect Germans to shed. The recently
discovered opportunism of German psychoanalysts, right after the
war, further widened the customary gap between analysts and their
candidates - a gap which has been greater in Germany than else–
where. So, when Segal or John Mack called on them not to remain
silent about their fears of annihilation, they felt implicated in the
silences of their elders, who had let the Nazis into power. And as one
remarkably honest young woman told me, the peace movement
made her feel good again, the way she had felt as a student in the late
1960s. (Since psychoanalysts, as a rule , do not follow politics closely ,
they seemed unaware of the fact that Mack publicly had admitted
that his studies of children's fear of the bomb were prejudiced ,
because the children he interviewed had been frightened by movies
or by their parents .)
The South Americans' responses to pacifism were more am–
biguous. One of them said that "Pacifist movements in the past were
communist movements, but one had to go along with them, because
