Page:The International Journal of Psycho-Analysis III 1922 1.djvu/113

 BOOK REVIEWS 105

as such, that is, the distinction of a number of human bein^ from other members of the same species, was born in the crisis in which that distinction is still most marked, i.e. in war. It was after the re- pression of the natural aggressiveness of the parricidal brothers towards one another that the repressed aggressiveness could be projected beyond the limits of the horde into a national ideal, whilst the homoerotic im- pulse of the ' Mdnnerbund' became sublimated into patriotism. This projection and sublimation is still the most marked feature of the nationalistic attitude in peace and war. By the 'will of the nation' the autlior means something over and above tlie unconscious tendencies and strivings which dominate the collectivity; he accepts an active and combative nationalism and lays great stress on the conscious and self-conscious character of national volition (Ch, XI), Nations evolve from the unconscious to the conscious, from an organism to a 'social contract'. McDougall calls the nation a 'contractual organism', thus projecting the ideas of Rousseau into the future instead of the past

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In our opinion and terminology 'the psychological justification of patriotism' which our author attempts to give as against the anti- nationalists (p. 180) consists in the fact that it affords a goal of subli- mation which stands midway between the family and humanity and is thus in a position to draw away parts of the Oedipus complex from its original point of fixation. On the other hand, the fundamental con- dition for the existence of a real national spirit is the existence of the foreigner, the enemy. All the ill-wili existing among the members of the same family (nation) become repressed and will be projected on to the foreigner, who is thus transformed into a veritable demon. National life is a perpetual war (psychic and real) against this extra- territorial objectivation of our own Unconscious,

The question of the various ideals that dominate the psyche cA nations is one of high interest (p. 183), Perhaps we may hope for a differential psychology of nations built up on the study of their various ideals, or rather on the study of the unconscious complexes for which these ideals are the substitutes. The desire to conquer the whole world would be an ideal actuated by the unsatisfied part of the Oedipus complex, the Earth being one of the most frequent substitutes for the mother (cf: the oracle on the triumph of him who first kisses his mother, Brutus kissing the symbol instead of the original), whilst the caste-system of India is a reversion to endogamy which completely arrested the development of an originally active people. The desire of France with a stagnant population for territorial increase and colonies looks like an over-compensation of the fear of losing what she actually possesses : a dread which is probably connected with national infecundity in a specially deeply rooted castration-complex. (For McDougall's views