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Demoralization and Re-education

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2011

Robert Waelder
Affiliation:
psychoanalyst in Philadelphia
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Extract

It was a great shock to the American public to learn that during the Korean War some American prisoners had co-operated with their captors. It was obvious that they had acted under pressure, and it came as a surprise both that helpless prisoners had been subjected to such pressures and that Americans had yielded to them. It had long been taken for granted that prisoners of war would be treated according to the gentleman's code (except, possibly, for isolated outrages). It was overlooked that modern totalitarianism had never recognized the gentleman's code but had denounced it as a fraud, meant to facilitate the exploitation of the masses.

Type
Review Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1962

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References

1 Bridgman, P. W., The Way Things Are, Cambridge, Mass., 1959, p. 261.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Oeuvres Complètes, Paris, 1864ff., 1, 2, p. 19 (my translation).

3 I.e., to the minds of those who have never had to face extreme situations.

4 Consideration of unconscious factors will add to, or alter, the picture, but it is hardly likely that a passion for unanimity would be added from this point of view.

5 Roepke, Wilhelm, Die deutsche Frage, 2nd ed., Zurich, 1945, pp. 55f.Google Scholar (my translation). See also Waelder, Robert, “Authoritarianism and Totalitarianism,” in Psychoanalysis and Culture, ed. by Wilbur, George B. and Muensterberger, Warner, New York, 1951, esp. pp. 189, 192ff.Google Scholar; and Waelder, , “Characteristics of Totalitarianism,” Psychoanalytic Study of Society, 1 (1960), esp. pp. 13ff.Google Scholar

6 Venturi, Franco, Roots of Revolution, New York, 1960, pp. 387f.Google Scholar