Race, Rage, and Resistance: Philosophy, Psychology, and the Perils of Individualism (Psychology and the Other)

This timely collection asks the reader to consider how society’s modern notion of humans as rational, isolated individuals has contributed to psychological and social problems and oppressive power structures. Experts from a range of disciplines offer a complex understanding of how humans are shaped by history, tradition, and institutions. Drawing upon the work of Lacan, Fanon, and Foucault, this text examines cultural memory, modern ideas of race and gender, the roles of symbolism and mythology, and neoliberalism’s impact on psychology. Through clinical vignettes and suggested applications, it demonstrates significant alternatives to the isolated individualism of Western philosophy and psychology. This interdisciplinary volume is essential reading for clinicians and anyone looking to augment their understanding of how human beings are shaped by the societies they inhabit. Cover Half Title Series Page Title Page Copyright Page Dedication Table of Contents List of figures Preface Notes on Contributors Introduction: Intergenerational Strains The lost urgency of generationality Myth, tradition, and gender The task before us Notes 1. Open Wounds: Discerning, Owning, and Narrating Deep History Erasure Excursus: the narrative unconscious and the psycho-politics of erasure Discerning Owning Narrating Notes References 2. Frantz Fanon and Psychopathology: The Progressive Infrastructure of Black Skin, White Masks Notes References 3. American Cultural Symbolism of Rage and Resistance in Collective Trauma: Racially-Influenced Political Myths, Counter-Myths, Projective Identification, and the Evocation of Transcendent Humanity Projection and the reductive as a hindrance to ethical engagement with the other Environmental stewardship and nature as an other: evocation of a call to ethics and transcendent culture in the midst of microcosms in America and within the self Prosocial resistance or pacifism? Two responses to our responsibility to the other Polarities and boundaries within the self as co-creators of alterity Sources and effects of myths and counter-myths: The need for the numinous in the development towards cultural transcendence Pathological meta-projections Non-fundamentalist religion, apophatic mystery and myth in the service of prosocial transformation of language and culture during movement from the reductive Defensive counter-myths and religious pathology Narrative polarities as energy Notes References 4. Neoliberalism and the Ethics of Psychology Notes References 5. Black Rage and White Listening: On the Psychologization of Racial Emotionality Situating Black rage and white listening Racial feeling as abnormality The emotionalization of race Listening and neoliberal containment Inaccessible rage as catharsis Conclusion: toward a recovery of racial emotion Notes 6. Jouissance and Discontent: A Meeting of Psychoanalysis, Race, and American Slavery Jouissance and the modern institution of slavery Constructing a soul and a racial self Conclusion: masking and unveiling the real Notes References 7. The Nasty Woman: Destruction and the Path to Mutual Recognition An overview of dissociation, complementarity, Oedipal problems, and gender Active dis-association from patriarchy Danger of cutting off and staying separated Examples from mythology and clinical practice Relational maturity: the nasty woman’s child Conclusion Notes References 8. Another Voice from Radical Ethics: Denmark’s Knud Løgstrup Løgstrup and Levinas. Notes References 9. Identity-as-disclosive-space: Dasein, Discourse and Distortion Introduction Being-in-language Being-in-distortion Being-in-identity Being-disclosive-space Conclusion Notes References 10. Finding the Other in the Self Distinguishing self from other Othering and fear Othering and rage Othering and envy Othering and shame Myths of psychological and moral progress Some implications Respect Ongoing self-scrutiny and acknowledgment of limitation Notes References 11. After the World Collapsed: Two Culturally Embedded Forms of Service to Others Following Wide-Scale Societal Traumas Forms of service to others following wide-scale societal traumas The ethical philosophy of Levinas Ethical responsibility of selflessness Clinical vignettes Conclusion: altruism and remembering Notes References Index This timely collection asks the reader to consider how society's modern notion of humans as rational, isolated individuals has contributed to psychological and social problems and oppressive power structures--back cover