Captain Alfred Dreyfus: A case study in the group dynamics of scapegoating

2018 ◽  
Vol 51 (4) ◽  
pp. 515-530 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harold Behr
Keyword(s):  
Group Dynamics ◽  
Political Ideology ◽  
Emile Zola ◽  
Group Analysis ◽  
French Society ◽  
Far Right ◽  
Army Officer ◽  
Anti Semitism ◽  
History Of

This article explores the metaphor of the scapegoat by offering a case study taken from the history of France at the turn of the 20th-century. The case is presented of a French army officer, Captain Alfred Dreyfus, whose wrongful conviction for treason created an international sensation and tore French society apart. The author outlines the general features of the scapegoating dynamic and applies them to the Dreyfus case. He sets out the flow of events from Dreyfus’s first trial through to the official declaration of his innocence a century after his conviction, illustrating the tenacity of the scapegoating dynamic when an entire nation is caught up in the process. The view is put forward that it was the dramatic intervention by the novelist Emile Zola in the Dreyfus case which arrested the scapegoating process. The author asks what the implications of this might be for group analysis. At the centre of the Dreyfus case was the fact of his Jewishness. The author depicts anti-Semitism as a deeply rooted set of assumptions based on myths about the Jews. He touches on the origins of these myths in early monotheistic theology and in the political ideology of the Far Left and the Far Right. An explanation is offered for the persistence of these myths in our culture, which may extend to our understanding of myths surrounding other peoples and societies. The author concludes with some reflections on the recurring nature of the scapegoat phenomenon.

scholarly journals Group Analytic Methods Beyond the Clinical Setting—Working with Researcher–Managers

2017 ◽  
Vol 50 (2) ◽  
pp. 217-236 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris Mowles
Keyword(s):  
Group Analysis ◽  
Change Processes ◽  
Analytic Thinking ◽  
Organizational Research ◽  
Organizational Contexts ◽  
Professional Management ◽  
History Of ◽  
Set Up ◽  
Management Scholarship

Group analytic scholars have a long history of thinking about organizations and taking up group analytic concepts in organizational contexts. Many still aspire to being more of a resource to organizations given widespread organizational change processes which provoke great upheaval and feelings of anxiety. This article takes as a case study the experience of running a professional management research doctorate originally set up with group analytic input to consider some of the adaptations to thinking and methods which are required outside the clinical context. The article explores what group analysis can bring to management, but also what critical management scholarship can bring to group analysis. It considers some of the organizational difficulties which the students on the doctoral programme have written about, and discusses the differences and limitations of taking up group analytic thinking and practice in an organizational research setting.

The Jews, the Revolution, and the Old Regime in French Anti-Semitism and Durkheim's Sociology

2011 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 248-271 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chad Alan Goldberg
Keyword(s):  
French Revolution ◽  
Emile Durkheim ◽  
Sociological Perspective ◽  
French Society ◽  
Old Regime ◽  
Anti Semitism ◽  
Alternative Vision ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The French Revolution

The relationship between European sociology and European anti-Semitism in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries is investigated through a case study of one sociologist, Émile Durkheim, in a single country, France. Reactionary and radical forms of anti-Semitism are distinguished and contrasted to Durkheim's sociological perspective. Durkheim's remarks about the Jews directly addressed anti-Semitic claims about them, their role in French society, and their relationship to modernity. At the same time, Durkheim was engaged in a reinterpretation of the French Revolution and its legacies that indirectly challenged other tenets of French anti-Semitism. In sum, Durkheim's work contains direct and indirect responses to reactionary and radical forms of anti-Semitism, and together these responses form a coherent alternative vision of the relationship between modernity and the Jews.

scholarly journals Sceneteksten som aktiv partner

2018 ◽  
pp. 156-178
Author(s):  
Ellen Foyn Bruun
Keyword(s):  
Group Dynamics ◽  
Bertolt Brecht ◽  
Main Body ◽  
Theoretical Perspectives ◽  
Theatre Production ◽  
Reflexive Practice ◽  
Physically Based ◽  
History Of ◽  
Collective Resource

This article addresses theatre production working with scripts. First, I look at the hegemonic status of the play text in the history of Western theatre and how this was challenged during the twentieth century. Then I present relevant theoretical perspectives for developing methods integrating script in ensemble theatre. These are drawn from dramaturgy today and physically based improvisation. The main body of the article is a case study of a student production of The Caucasian Chalk Circle by Bertolt Brecht. The students produced their unique version of the play in collaboration. The study demonstrates how dramaturgical competence was developed as a collective resource. The findings reveal that the dramaturgical processes of text, performance and group dynamics were interdependent in a complex system. Reflexive practice therefore stands out as an important learning point. The article is aimed at teachers, directors, facilitators and students in educational contexts, and others that use theatre production as a learning arena.

The British Example

2021 ◽  
pp. 142-163
Author(s):  
Jonathan Fox ◽  
Lev Topor
Keyword(s):  
United Kingdom ◽  
Comparative Politics ◽  
Qualitative Methodology ◽  
Labour Party ◽  
Anti Semitism ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
History Of ◽  
Jeremy Corbyn

In order to place the empirical findings of this study into a more concrete context, in this chapter the authors examine the United Kingdom as a case study, using traditional comparative politics qualitative methodology. They examine the history of anti-Semitism and discrimination against Jews in the United Kingdom, focusing on the religious, anti-Zionist, and conspiracy-based explanations in this context. They demonstrate that it is plausible to argue that all three of these motives have caused discrimination against Jews in the United Kingdom. The chapter also discusses briefly the allegations of anti-Semitism by the Labour Party in recent years, specifically under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn.

The Talmudic way of thinking cannot suddenly have disappeared from us. Death instinct, anti-Semitism and Jewish traditions in the foundation matrix of group analysis

2021 ◽  
pp. 053331642110541
Author(s):  
Martin Weimer
Keyword(s):  
National Socialism ◽  
Group Analysis ◽  
The Self ◽  
Death Instinct ◽  
Creative Potential ◽  
Pleasure Principle ◽  
Anti Semitism ◽  
History Of ◽  
Group Form ◽  
Post Traumatic

One hundred years after the publication of Freud’s Beyond the Pleasure Principle (Freud, 1920), anti-Semitism is understood as the realization of the (self-)destructive force in its group form of the anti-group (Nitsun, 1996). Foulkes’ secrecy about the impacts of the German National Socialism(NS)-anti-group in his life (unlike Freud and Elias), as well as the libidinal idealization of the group, can be understood as a post-traumatic defence. But, as Nitsun (1996) has demonstrated, the creative potential of the anti-group can help to develop the group if it is analysed by the group, and can also be demonstrated by this example: the analysis of the traumatic effects of the NS-annihilation-anti-Semitism on the history of group analysis may reveal its hidden prophetic and rabbinical traditions in its foundation matrix. In this respect we can think of every group analytical session as a sign that Auschwitz did not win.

Understanding Multi-directional Democratic Decay: Lessons from the Rise of Bolsonaro in Brazil

2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 199-226
Author(s):  
Tom Gerald Daly
Keyword(s):  
Presidential Elections ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Far Right ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Usa ◽  
History Of ◽  
Democratic System ◽  
Democratic Rule ◽  
The Tropics

AbstractOn 28 October 2018 the far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro won the presidential elections in Brazil with 55% of the vote. This result has been viewed by many as yet another instance of the global rise of authoritarian populist leaders, grouping Bolsonaro alongside the likes of Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, India’s Narendra Modi, or Donald Trump in the USA – indeed, Bolsonaro has been dubbed the “Trump of the Tropics.” The focus on Bolsonaro himself reflects the strong emphasis on executives in a rapidly expanding literature suggesting the emergence of a new form of would-be autocrat who is democratically elected but who hollows out democratic rule over time. However, this Article argues that, far beyond Bolsonaro, the Brazilian experience is an important case-study as it prompts reflection on three fundamental propositions. First, any analysis of liberal democracy as the perceived object of attack must be highly cognizant of the democratic “starting point” and history of a given state. Second, an excessive focus on executive-led assaults on democratic rule can impede fuller analysis of a broader suite of actors and factors relevant to the (declining) health of the democratic system. Third, authoritarianism is a more appropriate analytical lens than populism for identifying potential democratic threats, especially in the Brazilian context.

scholarly journals Grand Guignol and new French extremity: horror, history and cultural context

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Oliver Hicks
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Context ◽  
French Society ◽  
Far Right ◽  
Social Commentary ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of Violence ◽  
The Times ◽  
French Theatre

This thesis will investigate and examine the French theatre The Grand-Guignol (1897-1962) and the film movement New French Extremity (1990s-roughly 2008). The theatre and the film movement will be examined in terms of their origins, evolutions and eventual declines. These will be related to French society and culture at the times as well as their historical contexts, for instance the long history of violence on French soil and the rise of the far-right in the 1980s/90s leading to the rise of New French Extremity. There will be an interrogation of the theatre and film movement’s use of ‘othering’, examining how they both alternately exploit the trope and subvert it, allying themselves with the so-called ‘other’. There will also be an examination of the term ‘Grand-Guignol violence’, often used colloquially to describe gruesome violence in entertainment. The term will be examined in relation to the stage violence inflicted during Grand-Guignol plays on stars like Paula Maxa and compared with the violence inflicted upon women in the mainly-female-led New French Extremity films. The escapist, entertaining violence of the theatre will also be contrasted with the nihilistic violence of New French Extremity, which often seeks to reinforce social commentary from the creative teams. The theatre and the film movement are both positioned as key moments in French horror history. This thesis will examine the ways that they are similar and the ways that they fundamentally differ, beyond their obvious stage/film barriers.

Jew and Peasant in Interwar Romania*

1988 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 201-208 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Fischer-Galati
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Political Ideology ◽  
Land Reform ◽  
Jewish Question ◽  
Political Rights ◽  
World War ◽  
Root Cause ◽  
Anti Semitism ◽  
History Of ◽  
Peasant Revolt

Common historical wisdom has it that the Peasant Revolt of 1907 and the elections of December 1937 reflected the profound anti-Semitism of the Romanian peasantry. And since the events of 1907 and 1937 have also been looked upon as decisive in determining the course of the history of the peasantry, if not of Romania as such, it seems only proper to assess the accuracy of these contentions.The revolt of 1907 was indeed a social movement directed against the exploitation of the impoverished Moldavian and Wallachian peasantry by Romanian landlords and Jewish “arendaşi” (Leaseholders). After 1907, and throughout the interwar years, Romanian historiography and political propaganda stressed the anti-Semitic character of the uprising in an effort to exonerate the absentee, and other, Romanian landowners and to emphasize the exploitative nature of Jews and Jewish capitalism. The Jewish question was organically connected with the peasant question in a variety of ways, all condemnatory of Jewish and Judaizing capitalism.As none of the major political parties of pro-World War I Romania—or, for that matter, few of interwar Romania as well—paid more than lip service to the economic and social plight of the peasants, it was convenient to regard the Jew as the root cause of all the evils affecting the peasantry. Before World War I, populists and, paradoxically, socialists enunciated political theories regarding “neoserfdom,” which, however different in origin, converged in demands for radical land reform. The reform came not because of such demands but because of the Bolshevik Revolution and the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian and Russian empires. Officially, it was unrelated to any political ideology, certainly separated from the Jewish question which, in theory, was resolved concurrently with the peasant question through the granting of citizenship and extension of political rights to the Jews of Romania. Following the countrywide agrarian reform in Greater Romania the peasant and the Jewish questions were in fact severed as Jews and Jewish capitalism had virtually no connections with the land.

Making and contesting far right sites of memory. A case study on Romania

2021 ◽  
pp. 175069802098205
Author(s):  
Francesco Zavatti
Keyword(s):  
Pivotal Role ◽  
Far Right ◽  
Memory Politics ◽  
The Past ◽  
Memory Work ◽  
Revisionist History ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of Violence ◽  
A Site

Among the strategies followed by far right groups for normalising their messages of intolerance in contemporary Europe, sites of memory play a pivotal role. Adopting an actor-centred and instrumentalist perspective of memory work and memory politics, the article considers sites of memory as products of the framing and staging of the past by the memory entrepreneurs, leading figures within the community of remembrance who, mastering the art of memorialisation, strive to establish their revisionist history within the state-endorsed memory politics. The far right memory entrepreneurs spatialise their memory work in sites of memory that downplay the history of violence of their group and present its heroic and patriotic side. The degree of success in contesting such sites shows whether the memory entrepreneurs have succeeded in normalising their messages. The article analyses the making and the contestation of a site of memory established by the far right in post-communist in Romania.

Press Propaganda and Subaltern Agents of Pan-Islamic Networks in the Muslim Mediterranean World prior to World War I

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Odile Moreau
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
World War I ◽  
North Africa ◽  
World War ◽  
Subaltern Studies ◽  
Resistance Movements ◽  
The Press ◽  
Mediterranean World ◽  
History Of

This chapter explores movement and circulation across the Mediterranean and seeks to contribute to a history of proto-nationalism in the Maghrib and the Middle East at a particular moment prior to World War I. The discussion is particularly concerned with the interface of two Mediterranean spaces: the Middle East (Egypt, Ottoman Empire) and North Africa (Morocco), where the latter is viewed as a case study where resistance movements sought external allies as a way of compensating for their internal weakness. Applying methods developed by Subaltern Studies, and linking macro-historical approaches, namely of a translocal movement in the Muslim Mediterranean, it explores how the Egypt-based society, al-Ittihad al-Maghribi, through its agent, Aref Taher, used the press as an instrument for political propaganda, promoting its Pan-Islamic programme and its goal of uniting North Africa.

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