The psycho-analytic study of the familyFlugel, J. C. (John Carl)
Science
The psycho-analytic study of the family
Flugel, J. C. (John Carl)
Families; Marriage; Parent and child; Psychoanalysis
[Sidenote: The attitude of the individual to the state:]
Probably the most important displacement of this kind from the
sociological point of view is that in which parental attributes are
transferred to the community, state, or country. The mental ties that
bind the individual to the community are of course complex in nature,
comprising emotional and intellectual factors belonging to a variety
of psychic levels. Among the most fundamental and deep seated of these
factors are, as Ernest Jones[148] has pointed out, those that take their
origin in feelings that regard the self, the mother and the father
respectively.
[Sidenote: Self-regarding tendencies]
The self-regarding tendencies are enlisted in the service of
patriotism;--on the conscious, intellectual level, through a recognition
of the community of interest between the individual and the state; on the
more primitive, emotional and unconscious level, through a process of
identification of the individual with the state, as a result of which
the former participates in the successes and failures of the latter in
much the same way as if they affected him directly and principally in
his own person. In these latter respects the feelings of the individual
towards the state are similar in many ways to those that are involved in
a corresponding identification of the self with the family, the school
or any other group with whose prosperity and honour the well-being and
self-respect of the individual is bound up.
[Sidenote: Mother regarding tendencies]
The displacement of the mother-regarding feelings on to state is, it would
seem, chiefly connected with the ideas of being nourished, trained and
protected, on the one hand, and of actively protecting, on the other. Thus
we tend to regard our native land as a great mother who brings into being,
nourishes, protects and cherishes her sons and daughters and inspires them
with respect and love for herself and her traditions, customs, beliefs and
institutions; in return for which her children are prepared to work and
fight for her--and above all, to protect her from her enemies; a good deal
of the horror and disgust which is inspired by the idea of an invasion of
one's native land by a hostile army being due to the unconscious tendency
to regard such an invasion as a desecration and violation of the mother.
[Sidenote: Father-regarding tendencies]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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