Ressentment and Bitterness - Part III
The two common abreactions affect society just as much as they affect the individual. Therefore they lead to two forms of social abreaction, which I call laws of social change. The morality of an age determines what is good and evil, and these ideas form the content of social abreaction. The intensity of these abreactions depend on the rate of social change: the faster the change the greater are the effects of abreaction.
The social abreaction of guilt starts from the excitement of catharsis and ends in resentment. The intensity of the former helps to determine the intensity of the latter. Politically the resentment generates Conservative, even Fascist, attitudes. Social change may start from left-wing views but always ends in a right-wing backlash. The euphoria of revolutions leads to political dictatorship. Politically, resentment is used to establish control over people who have no self-control or who are weak, that is, those who are immoral, or who have no standards, or who are perceived to be degenerate (usually these criticisms are seen to be relevant only to the poor). Governmental social care programmes are cut back as the poor are blamed and penalised. In addition, asylum seekers to Britain are re-classified as economic migrants who are seeking to sponge off state welfare ; this label allows the state to reject them as undesirables.
Second Law of Social ChangeThe social abreaction of pride starts from sorrow and ends in bitterness. This abreaction usually ends in forms of Nazism, such as police death squads, the Stalinist political show-trials of the 1930s, and political or sectarian genocide. Bitterness is always worse than resentment. So Nazism is always worse than Fascism. Bitterness is used to reject claims of equality from other sectors of society. Such sectors are perceived to be inferior. Hence racialism, ethnic conflicts, and disputes between religions come to the foreground during social change.
ExamplesAbreaction is not a new phenomenon of the twentieth century. It has existed from historical times, perhaps even from the first moment that primitive man created society. Therefore neither Fascism nor Nazism are new phenomena. It is only the content of social abreaction that changes as eras change ; the process itself is invariable. In the person, these two abreactions can follow one another. So too these two abreactions can follow one another in social abreaction. The difference between the change within the person and the change within society lies in the time that is taken to assimilate the abreactions. The effects of abreaction on the person may last for weeks or months, whereas the effects of social abreaction may last for years or even decades.
I give examples of dramatic historical change involving social abreaction.
- The most decisive shift in ancient thinking occurred in Athens in the fifth-century BC. Socrates switched philosophical thought from cosmological themes to themes of morality and virtue. This event took place in the aftermath of Athens’s defeat in the war with Sparta. The change of fortune of Athens led to a change in philosophical reflection. Social abreaction was the backdrop to philosophical ideas that became centred on what is good in life and what is to be rejected because it produces weakness in character. Resentment underpinned Plato’s criticism of art.
- The French Revolution of 1793 illustrates both abreactions. The first stage of change ended in the white terror (Fascism) of Robespierre and the Committee of Public Safety. This was then followed by the red terror (Nazism).
- After World War II the British Labour government created the National Health Service. This was a product of the catharsis generated by the end of the war. With hindsight we can see that if the Health Service had not been created at that moment then it would never have been created at all due to unfavourable political conditions in modern times.
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