Robert M. Young Online Writings
'Psychoanalysis, Terrorism and Fundamentalism' 80K
I was asked again this year to give a keynote talk to the distance learning MA students in Psychoanalytic Studies at Sheffield University a year after 9/11. It was suggested that I should revamp my talk on 'Fundamentalism and Terrorism' of a year earlier, but I felt that it was very much of the moment, so I drew on parts of it but centred my remarks on what psychoanalysis has to say to help us understand matters above the individual level, including fundamentalism and terrorism. You could say that I reversed the order of priority from that of the earlier paper and said rather more about the psychoanalytic theory. The paper is also more reflective, but there is still urgency, since we are on the brink of war with Iraq, and reflection is just as much at a premium in the heat of this fraught historical moment as it was in the wake of the attacks on New York and Washington and the failed attack that crashed in Pennsylvania.