INTER-ETHNICITY AND IRRATIONALITY
Oravecz Robert MD

In the former decades, the issue of inter-ethnicity and especially the inter-ethnic relations came into the spotlight of the applied social science and psychology. Many of scientific concepts, intending to interpret the inter-ethnic relations and conflicts were presented.
Almost all of those theoretical concepts were developed under the shadow of group theory, fulfilling a clear pragmatic need for the understanding of persisting inter-ethnic conflicts.
The theoretical concepts of M.Sherif, Billig, Tajfel and others reflects the same conclusions:

The above mentioned psychological concepts were sufficient to interpret the surface of the phenomenon, but only the psychoanalytically based theory of Vamic Volkan met the need for an "deeper" understanding of the inter-ethnic relations, especially the problem of irrationality observed in social acting.
Through the past decades relevance of inter - ethnic concepts became even more and more respectable. The western shaped representations about inter-ethnicity were developed through the experience of inter - ethnic conflicts in the "not eastern" part of the world.
But the picture in the last few years rapidly changed. Media professionals and humanitarian mission members, working in Bosnia, Croatia and in Kosovo, collected and transferred a tremendous amount of information about the suffering of civil population in the war torn former Yugoslav countries.
This information, presented in the media contributed to the confirmation of individual suffering and facts of ethnic cleansing.
The media – presented globality and irrationality of the inter-ethnic violence was definitely overwhelming for the average Western – Europe and USA citizen.
In the face of this facts, it becomes even more clear, that the inter –ethnicity based theories are insufficient for understanding of the actual Balkan war.
Few weeks before the NATO bombing campaign the term of "fascism" almost imperceptibly appeared in the vocabulary of the global news channels, like CNN and the western politicians also.
Referring to the fact, that the media is reflecting the global social discourse, the change of vocabulary could be interpreted like a sign of paradigm shift in an attempt to modify the image of the Balkan conflict .
Indubitably, the term of fascism has a trivial, politically exploitable meaning. But from the other hand, the phenomenon of fascism was after the II. World War in the focus of very important scientific activity and very consistent psychological theories on fascism were developed.
It is well known, that the representatives of the Frankfurt Institute of Sociology (Horkheimer, Adorno, Marcuse) were deeply involved into the scientific efforts to discover the psychological aspects of fascistic ideology.
Although the fact, that the "Frankfurt Psychoanalytical Institute" existed alredy in 20's and 30's, the representatives of the "Institute" confronted the ideology of fascism only few years after the II.W.W.
The increasing totalitarian political tendencies in USA were the main motive for scientific and publicistic activity of Horkheimer, Adorno and others.
Adorno defined the fascism, like a "rebellion against the civilisation". He declared, that the re-appearance of archaic contents in the fascistic societies is less relevant, than the reproduction of this elements in the contemporary civilisation.
Referring to Horkheimer, the hostility against the civilisation cannot be understand through the irrational projections of disturbed individuals, but only through the understanding of the joy-reducing potentials of the bourgeois society.
The theoretical concepts of Horkheimer and Adorno clearly reflects the tradition of classic Freudian psychoanalysis.
They pointed out the role of Ego in supervising the reality. One of the most important Ego – functions is to take and maintain control over the relations between the Self and the world and Self and deeper psychic structures, and they stated, that this synthesis is in the case of authoritarian personality unsuccessful. Referring to the concepts of Horkheimer and Adorno, the authoritarian person is unable to develop a consistent system of values, and that is perhaps the reason, he / she becomes engaged into a searching for some kind of organising – co-ordinating power.
Klaus Theweleit developed his psychological concepts independently from the Frankfurt Institute of Sociology. He discovered the psychological presumptions of the fascism.
He identified in the paramilitary organisations (Freikorps) voluntarily organised after the I. W.W. the core of the early development of German fascism.
The theory of Theweleit pointed out the negative attitude of the "Freikorp " activists regarding to the sexuality and human body. In the centre of the negatively perceived image of joy is their fear of sexually liberated women. The fear of castration, they expressed, was deeply connected with the fear of communism.
Theweleit understood the psychological phenomenon of fascism like a preoedipal phenomenon, which had nothing to do with the psychological role of the father.
Theweleit described also the way of fascistic reality building, which tends to the absolute unification of two components. The logic of fascistic ideology seems very similar to the logic of paranoid psychosis.
It could be identified as a cognitive and behavioural strait of excluding everything, which oppose to the fragile, irrationally built reality. Exclusion in this case automatically means elimination. And elimination does not depend on any civilisational rules, (probably because there are no civilisation experiences and rules for elimination) but the elimination is "per definitionem" totalitarian and irrational.
Theweleit's theory was very useful to interpret the German fascist's phobia of femine and of communism, but he was less successful in understanding the phenomenon of German anti-Semitism. Namely, he didn't recognise the important, intellectual function of European Jewish culture which originated in their "insider – outsider" position.
Dolar Stated, that the paranoid attitude expressed against Jewish people was not motivated only by the well known economical reasons, but also by the irrational fear of "those, who possesses the knowledge". This "knowledge" was connected to the unconscious fear of fascists of impotency and castration, and they recognised it like a hidden power of Jews.
Behind the irrationality, expressed in paranoidity, stands the secret. The secret of vulnerability and impotency. (Dolar 1982).
However, the phenomenon of the fascism seems to be connected to the feelings of shame. The mechanism of exclusion and extermination of the "observer", (the "insider-outsider") could serve an unusual (but definitely successful) way of liberation from the feelings of shame.
Referring to the above mentioned, the theoretical concepts of inter-ethnicity and the fascism are not exclusive, but complementary, because they approached two different, but often confluent phenomenon in different way.
Indoubtly, the phenomenon of German fascism was a great challenge for the belief – system of the western world. The totalitarian authority was recognised like a new, unique product of the XX. century.
The belief into the certainty of the rational mind was broken by the experience of global, totalitarian and irrational ideology and praxis of fascism.
Today, from the distance of two generations, we assumed, that the experience of the W.W.II., the Holocaust, the tremendous individual and collective pain and suffering caused a great impact on the matrix of European cultures. The global starvation and losses caused a modification of collective belief systems.
The culture – modificative power of suffering depends on dysfunctional meaning – producing mechanisms, like denial and ignorance. The insufficient narrative integration causes a tabuisation of some non-integrated social contents.
Tabuisation and ignorance of individual suffering (especially of the Jews) influenced the mystification of the meaning of "fascism" and contribute to the constitution of the "inter-ethnicity" concepts. (And vice versa).
In face of contextually based presuppositions of inter –ethnicity, the difference between "victims" and "perpetrators" disappeared. "Nobody is innocent". Inter-ethnic conflicts and inter – ethnic violence is recognised in the sense of usual consequences, determined by ordinary social rules. The way, how the concepts of inter-ethnicity treats the problem of inter – ethnic violence contributes to the acceptance of the violence through the integration of the phenomenon into the global social discourse. (Look to the fabula of the movie: " The Apocalypses Now").
The research of inter-ethnicity focuses the "group" level. The "mass" becomes a peripheric term for the majority of researchers and the term of "trouble-maker" substitutes the "leader". The inter-ethnic concepts prefers the "group –" and "ethnicity –" based identity dimensions of individuals. Behavioural patterns of the "ethnically determined " persons are not explicated like unique and unusual , inspite the cruelty of inter-ethnic violence. Because this way of behaving has a great predictability in inter-ethnic conflicts of our time.
And it seem, that the predictability is an important element of the rational logic and the so – called normality. So, this is the way, the violence becomes the part of social reality.
From the other hand, the psychological concepts of fascism pointed out the crucial role of interaction between individually based meanings and the (leader oriented) mass. The psychological theories of fascism interprets the melting of the individual identity into the collective ideology, the problems of guilt, shame and the punishment.
Few decades ago, at the time of Horkheimer and Adorno, it seemed, that the phenomenon of fascism is unique, determined by more or less clear socio-economical and cultural factors. But today, it becomes even more clear, that the totalitarian, irrational ideologies are like "dragons in the cave of humanity" which could appear everywhere, at any time.
By some personal experiences, the irrational and totalitarian ideology, as an overwhelming social principle is very often observable not even at the level of global society, but in clinical and educational settings of large group also.
Zalka stated, that the large group is a specific discourse of the culture. The members of the large group are in specific "border-line" situation, showing at the same time processes and interactions specific to the level of family and small groups, but many characteristics of the cultural processes also.
The dynamic of the large group, determined by a specific contextual system is producing specific new meanings. This meaning-producing process depends on the same discursive rules, like the meanings, observed on the level of global society.
But, the coherent meaning - production presupposed the presence of a stable sociocultural structure, which could be interpreted in the sense of institutionalised social reality. Culture, through the meaning - production mechanisms constitutes the place of integration of the past, present and future, but the individual narratives and the tradition also.
Reality is structured in a discursive way. The mechanism of habituation contributes to the transparency of the coherent reality. Namely, the social reality is non perceptable for all of individuals, impregnated by the social discourse until it makes possible the non problematic communication of the community members.
So, the socio-culturally constituted reality is coherent as long, as the virtual transparency is preserved. Only the madness, the transcultural identity and the critical philosophical reflection could contribute to the distortion of the above mentioned transparency, from the position of the "insider – outsider".
Otherwise, the individual consciousness is undoubtedly impregnated by the language and discursive reality. The person is from this reason unable to reject the influence of social or ethnical discourse, because the personal identity is strongly engaged with the social (ethnic ) discourse In certain circumstances is the individual identity often overridden by the discursive logic of ethnicity and irrationality.
If the socioculturally determined reality is subordinated to certain discursive rules, the tendencies of "rebellion against civilisation" are "coded" in similar way.
The "circle of perception", described by Neisser could contribute to the understanding of
the nature of mental representations. Namely, the still present mental representations influences in a selective way the interpretation of an actual event and the anticipations of future also.... The main criteria for successful representations is the historical continuity.
So, in a situation of developing reality incoherence the relevance of mental representations is decreasing. That could contribute to the feelings of meaning - uncertainty and meaning unpredictivity which may cause the activation of some (less effective) cognitive straits. The product of a discourse, organised and presupposed in above mentioned way is the phenomenon of irrationality, expressed in a paranoid way of thinking.
The lack of stabile way of meaning creation generates a strong need for the creation of a new, alternative reality, which eliminate the frustration, based on meaning incoherence. But, this kind of reality is possible only under totalitarian circumstances.
The paranoid discourse is cognitively disconnected from the rational (fact and logic based ) reality, but practically from the civilisation also. It seems, that the reason of "rebellion against civilisation" is based on tendencies to eliminate the presence and availability of all possible alternative realities from the social space.
The large group discourse often manifests the fragmentation of reality by reducing the discourse perception to some kind of "keywords", which ignite the alternative way of cognition. This phenomenon could be interpreted like a sign of a so-called meta – reality development, which reflect the state of discourse incoherence.

SUMMARY:

The term of fascism is a semantically overburdened expression. That is the reason to look for a new expression for ideologies and authority systems, which shows the signs of

For today it is even more clear, that such kind of phenomenon is connected to the process of social transition – transformation. It appears after the symbolic "loss of the father", connected to the perspective of threatening individualisation. The symbolically interpreted "loss of authority" could be interpreted like a loss of meaning – coherence, and a consequent damage of discursive reality. The previous positive social experience of violent problem – solving could contribute to the development of irrational, violent totalitarism (and the experience of negative sanctions could effect aversively.)
The phenomenon couldn't be discovered through the exploration of the group dynamic, and personality straits of participants are also less relevant in comparation with the understanding of the discursive process, leading to the development of an irrational, totalitarian violent social system.