Individual presentation:
• Michael Conforti:
Global VIolence and Transgressions Against Innate Moral Codes
(60 min)

Abstract:

Back in 1931-1932, on the eve of the greatest irruption of destructive forces the world had ever seen, Einstein and Freud began a conversation seeking to understand the underlying psychological dynamics driving men to engage in war. Einstein first wrote to Freud, asking, “Is it possible to control man’s mental evolution to make him proof against the psychosis of hate and destructiveness?” Freud responded, “You are amazed that it is so easy to infect men with the war-fever, and you surmise that man has in him an active instinct for hatred and destruction… I entirely agree with you. I believe in the existence of this instinct and have … been at pains to study its manifestations.”

This presentation aims to investigate these underlying psychological dynamics with a focus on despotic world leaders — often victims of their own trauma. We will inevitably hear echoes of Freud’s words: “We repeat what we do not want to remember,” and Jung’s recognition that “what we do not face consciously will come back to us as fate.” Perhaps these words will allow us to understand the migration of such projections, emerging as catastrophic events in the outer world? Due to the inability to reflect on the consequences of their actions, under the guise of political decisions and policies, and as Hitler believed, for example, all carried out for the betterment of humanity, they project their psychological deficits onto the world stage. The outer world becomes the canvas expressing the tortured yet denied internal world of these leaders, and we — their constituents — are forced to carry their projected agonies, to live in the same tortured world they’ve inhabited.

Not only did Einstein and Freud address the question of why war? They asked if it is reasonable to hope for peace. A colleague once said, “The greatest evil is making someone carry our own evil.” Their psychological defenses, especially regarding consciously addressing these more than crippling projections, not only incapacitate their ability for any personal redemption but also eclipse the emergence of peace in the world. After more than 45 years of psychoanalytic practice, it is now clear that refusing to accept the consequences of our transgressions stands as the progenitor of crimes against humanity. To curtail the escalation of these cycles of violence, one needs to suffer the regrets of one’s moral failures. This is necessary for the hopeful emergence of a sustained peace in the world.

Keywords: despotic leadership, destructive aggression, moral failure, projection, psychoanalysis, psychohistory, war, world leaders

Short Bio:

Dr. Michael Conforti is Jungian Analyst and Founder/Director of the Assisi Institute: The International Cetner for the study of Archetypal Patterns. His books are translated into Italian, Russian and Spanish. He has presented his work at The C.G. Jung Institute — Zurich and Jungian organizations in Australia, Canada, Colombia, Denmark, Ecuador, Greece, Israel, Italy, Russia, South Africa, the Ukraine and Venezuela. He can be reached at .