Volume 4 No 1 - Journal for the Study of Antisemitism

254 JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF ANTISEMITISM [ VOL. 4:249
Most worrisome are those leaders who might combine recalcitrance and
nuclear capacity with irrationality. Without a nuclear “balance of terror”
during the Cold War, it is likely there would have been a third world war.
For Israel, America’s core ally in the Middle East, a similar risk of
enemy aggression stems from the obvious interrelatedness of our national
vulnerabilities, and from our sometimes interpenetrating strategic
doctrines.
This is not the time for Americans or Israelis to argue foolishly on
behalf of a “nuclear weapons-free world.” It is time, however, for creating
an improved and up-to-date U.S. strategic doctrine, a comprehensive
and feasible plan that would jointly serve Washington’s national security
needs, and those of our critical allies in Jerusalem.”
My own conclusions are as follows:
As a psychologist and genocide researcher over several decades, I have
come to an unquestionable conclusion that our species is deeply flawed. A
great many of us do irreparable harm and destruction to life. We abuse
ourselves and others; we kill ourselves and others. Look at human history
and put aside the fairy tales—including the rosy Santa Claus general psychology
textbooks that barely present truths about human evil in many
aspects of our lives.
I have written in the professional psychiatric and psychological literature
that I believe all psychiatric and psychological diagnosis should be
built around a standard format in which there are two guiding questions or
dimensions. The first dimension is diagnosing the extent to which an individual
is doing harm to himself or herself: Disorders of Doing Harm to
Oneself. This category in effect registers the many problems for human
beings in functioning, breakdowns, and emotional suffering for which they
seek psychiatric and psychological care.
The second category refers to the harm(s) that people do to other
human beings: Disorders of Doing Harm to Others. These include the basic,
obvious kinds of abuse that so many people thrust on others, such as violence
or exploitative sexual relationships, but also the many more subtle
ways in which people do what we colloquially but correctly describe in
everyday language as “driving the other person crazy.” That is very much
the experience that many a child has with a parent who, without being
directly abusive, is twisting the child’s emotions and mind into deep
unpleasantness or terror or hurt. That is really the experience that marital
partners experience when their spouse undermines them and deprives them
of feeling respected or secure in being cared for and loved.
The problem is that these disorders are often not recognized clearly in
existing psychiatric diagnosis, and the field of mental health often walks
around and away from these disorders of harming others. For example, if