One Mind, Heart, and Spirit

This chapter presents the reductionist traps in applying psychosocial theory to political and social analysis whenever the analytical concept of “mass mind” is applied in the context of political history to explain intersectarian violence. It thus outlines the methodological risks in efforts to dehistoricize explanations of collective behavior on the basis of presumed immutable psychosocial forces that “psychologize” violent behaviors by conflating macro-, meso-, and microlevels of analysis. This chapter emphasizes the methodological fallacies attached to levels of analysis by indicating the risks entailed in psychologizing groups and sociologizing individuals. Analysis also indicates the importance of examining collective violence through methods of interpretation that include the psychodynamics of reification, “theft-enjoyment,” and cultural styles of the macabresque.

Context (archaeology) · Epistemology · Interpretation (philosophy) · Political science · Politics · Psychoanalysis · Psychodynamics · Psychosocial · Psychotherapist · Reductionism · Reification (Marxism) · Sociology · History · Law · Philosophy · Psychology · Race, History, and American Society · Social Psychology