The Psychology of War: Comprehending Its Mystique and Its Madness - Hardcover

Leshan, Lawrence

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9781879360204: The Psychology of War: Comprehending Its Mystique and Its Madness

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1879360209 ISBN 13: 9781879360204

Publisher: Noble Pr, 1992

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"Why war?" Albert Einstein once asked Sigmund Freud, a question that Freud was not alone in being unable to answer. War has bedeviled humankind at least since the beginning of recorded history.
But whatever instincts, beliefs, or economic imperatives drove people to armed conflict in the past, they have been far outstripped by war's ever greater destructiveness - now, more than ever, in our post-nuclear era. Even though the fate of the world may be at stake, why does war continue to exist? And what, if anything, can be done to stop it?
In this book Lawrence LeShan furnishes a masterful overview of how different cultures, historians, and thinkers have regarded war over the centuries, and acknowledges humankind's undeniable attraction to war. His analysis of the "psychology of war" illustrates how war fulfills crucial human needs.
Despite its horrible costs, humans pursue war because it allows them to become part of a larger cause, while at the same time intensifying their sense of individuality. By better understanding this process, LeShan believes we can discover what we have to do to eradicate war.

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From the Publisher:

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF WAR is a stunning anatomy of a problem that the greatest thinkers have failed to solve, the question why humans so universally and frequently fight wars. Our wars have become more lethal, yet our affinity for war hasn t changed.

Unlike preceding attempts to explain the phenomenon psychologically, LeShan doesn t examine the motives that might lead to war, but the way in which our minds process information: When we go to war, our perception of reality of what we are and what is happening in the world around us is quite different from that which we commonly use in peacetime.

This mythic mode of thinking, as the author calls it, leads us to assumptions that we would not make during peacetime, such as: We are good, the other side is evil; we will triumph over evil if we win; our future will be safe and prosperous, etc. In the mythic mode, we develop a readiness to engage in war at all cost even if the outcome is highly doubtful or a non-aggressive solution possible.

About the Author:

Lawrence LeShan is a psychologist, educator, and author or co-author of eleven books, including The Psychology of War; The Medium, The Mystic, and The Physicist (both with Helios Press); and the popular How to Meditate. He has worked as clinical psychologist, psychotherapist and researcher for more than 50 years, including six years of psychological service in the U.S. Army. He holds a M. S. in Psychology from the University of Nebraska and a Ph.D. in Human Development from the University of Chicago and has taught at Roosevelt University, Pace College, and the New School for Social Research, among other. He has lectured extensively in Europe, the United States, and Israel, and his books have been translated into eleven languages. He lives in New York City.

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