CONTEMPORARY PROPAGANDA AND PROPAGANDISTIC STATES OF MIND: A PSYCHOANALYTIC VIEW
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.32782/upj/2023-3-4Keywords:
propaganda, propagandistic states of mind, Russian propaganda, psychoanalysis of propaganda, inability to mournAbstract
The review of psychoanalytic research of propaganda, its connection with individual and group mechanisms of denial, retractive action, and projective and introjective identification are presented in the paper. The subject areas and results of the psychoanalytic research of propaganda during periods of WWI and WWII are described, including the difference between democratic and totalitarian forms of propaganda as a shift from ego to super-ego-centered position; the evolution of Western propaganda to the more rational and less moralistic and emotional discourses; the fundamental difference of psychoanalytic and propagandistic aims on individual, social and intrapsychic levels. In this context, the question of the opposite processes of contemporary propaganda is asked; Russian propaganda is considered an extreme example of such processes. Its features are studied and compared with the classical forms of XX-century propaganda, and it is suggested that the differences are the polymorphism of Russian propaganda and the absence of its strong link with systemized ideology. Despite some important closeness with all contemporary propaganda, the inherent model of individual/society interaction makes Russian propaganda more related to the classical totalitarian forms. The concept of “propagandistic states of mind” is suggested, it describes an internal psychic constellation that suppresses ego functioning by a destructive part of the self that distorts the thinking and reality testing. It makes especially actual an anti-propagandistic potential of psychoanalysis, both on the individual and the social levels. This thesis gets more meaning in the light of the hypothesis about propaganda because of the inability to mourn and to work through collective traumatic experiences, including the loss of previous forms of collective identity.
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