Generational forgiveness and historical injustices: perspectives of descendants of victims of Apartheid-era gross human rights violations in South Africa

This study explored the issue of generational forgiveness in the political sphere in contemporary South Africa. It is based on qualitative interviews conducted with 20 children and grandchildren (females?=?10, males?=?10) of victims of Apartheidera gross human rights violations. The interview data were interpretively analysed to uncover underlying meaning. The results yielded three main themes namely: the myth of forgiveness in politics; political forgiveness as an inherently difficult human enterprise; and the intrinsic value of political forgiveness. Findings suggest that political forgiveness is likely if solutions are found to persistent poverty and inequality, which are structural legacies of the past.     

The Pedophile and the Pious

Abstract

This chapter is an attempt at providing heretofore unpublished and essential background information and historical understanding about clerical sexual abuse, which might allow some to contextualize differently the serious problem in the Roman Catholic and other faith based communities in the United States. Discussion indicates some variables that might provide researchers with clear markers for differentiation. Directions for future research are discussed.     

Review of Jesus

This new psychobiographical analysis of Jesus by Donald Capps promises to be a controversial but important book. While the venture is an engaging one, new theses about what and why Jesus did what he did suffer the same sorts of challenges as have traditional and critical presentations of the historical Jesus. This review engages theological issues and their implications, historical judgments and their plausibility, and methodological approaches and their fruitfulness.     

Innocence Without Naivete,Uprightness Without Stupidity: The Pedagogical Kavannah of Emmanuel Levinas

While it is impossible to transfigurephilosophical and Judaic thought of EmmanuelLevinas into a moral agenda for education orthe programmatic regularities of a pedagogicalmethodology, this paper argues for theimportance of his work for re-openingeducational questions. These questions engagethe problem of what it could mean to livehistorically, to live within an uprightattentiveness to traces of those who haveinhabited times and places other than one'sown. In this sense, I address the problem ofremembrance as a question of and for history,as a force of inhabitation, as an inheritance weare obligated to live within, that intertwineswith our sense of limits and possibilities,hopes and fears, identities and distinctions.Substantively, this problem is manifest in howone attends to the experiences of others: howone reads, how one views, and how one listens,always historically specific normalizedpractices that in any given epoch are ingrainedin what it means to live in consort withothers, to live as though the lives of otherpeople mattered. The paper seeks to display thefecundity of the thought of Levinas forre-thinking such issues.     

The puzzle of Freud's puzzle analogy: Reviving a struggle with doubt and conviction in Freud's Moses and monotheism

In this paper the author points to a puzzle raised by Freud's contradictory use of an analogy of a jigsaw puzzle. She shows how, through the attempt to resolve this puzzle, meanings and implications of Freud's difficult struggle with his search for truth in Moses and monotheism come alive, both in Freud's writing and in the author herself. Central to this struggle is an encounter with the sources of doubt and conviction that ultimately allows one to embrace ideas experienced as true, although they are not demonstrable evidentially. The paper sheds light on the importance of Moses and monotheism as a theoretical text that reflects on developments in Freud's thinking on truth, and the possibility, dangers and inherent difficulties of grasping it.     

Reflections on trauma,symbolization and psychic pain in a case of neurosis and a case of psychosis

This paper seeks to advance some considerations on trauma, historical reality, its symbolization and the psychic pain generated by the investigation of unconscious processes in psychoanalytic treatment. These themes will be explored by demonstrating the differences arising between traumatic experiences and their expression in phantasy, as they occurred in a case of neurosis and another of psychosis. In each case, the differences in the features of the symbolization and the processes of working through shall also be taken into consideration. Particular attention shall be paid to the specific difficulties encountered by the analyst in the interpretative treatment of the trauma resulting from the amount of psychic pain induced in the patient, which at times proves to be an insurmountable barrier and a destructive distortion of the process.     

From marginal to mainstream: The role of perceived social norms in the rise of a far‐right movement

The present research intends to shed light on the processes enabling political minorities to transition into normatively acceptable groups, by investigating how a previously marginalised far‐right movement (the French National Front) is progressively becoming mainstream. Drawing on the social representations approach, we argue that perceived social norms play a pivotal role in this process. Using a longitudinal and experimental design, the study (N = 233) was implemented in the ecological context of the 2012 French presidential election at a Parisian university campus, a traditional anti‐far‐right bastion. We tested whether the electoral campaign altered the perceptions of social norms, whether the perceived social norms were easily malleable in this specific context and, most important, whether they influenced people's willingness to speak out in public against the far‐right movement. The findings support affirmative answers to all three questions. We conclude that, in periods of collective uncertainty, changing perceptions of social norms might play an important role in the weakening of public opposition to far‐right movements. This, in turn, helps to explain the recent transition to mainstream recognition of a number of previously marginalised political movements in Europe and around the globe.     

Central-Eastern European Collective Experiences

The social-psychological phenomena in the post-communist countries of Central-Eastern Europe can be understood only if studied in terms of their pre-communist past. These countries have a complex history. The events relating to dictatorship, democracy and nation are particularly conspicuous. The present study examines the meanings of the terms ‘dictatorship’, ‘democracy’ and ‘nation’ in Hungary, from 1973 until 1995, using the semantic differential. It is argued that the changes in the meanings of these terms can be explained in terms of socio-political changes in Hungary. (© 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.)     

Freud's paternity crises

This article reexamines the interpretation of the significance of the Aliquis slip and related materials in terms of a family crisis in 1900 involving Freud, Anna Freud Bernays and their youngest sister Paula. It contends that Ernest Jones and Anna Freud later hid this story from history, largely for family reasons. It supports this contention by drawing on Ernest Jones and Anna Freud's archived letters, Anna Freud Bernays’ memoirs, the complete Freud‐Fliess letters and other historical sources and compares them to The Origins of Psychoanalysis and to Ernest Jones’ biography of Freud. It shows how events during the crisis manifested themselves in Freud's On Dreams, the Aliquis slip, and the banking error story. It rejects Peter Swales’ hypotheses about Freud and Minna Bernays being part of the Aliquis slip, but accepts Didier Anzieu's idea that Minna Bernays was the subject of the banking error story. It shows that the motive for the historical repression of the story began with Freud, but was over determined and included guilt and pain that developed when Paula and other sisters got caught up in the Nazi takeover of Austria.