Hatred: The Psychological Descent Into Violence - Hardcover

Willard Gaylin is Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons and cofounder of the Hastings Center.

Gaylin, a professor of clinical psychiatry, attempts to place hatred at the center of our contemporary crises concerning Palestine and al-Qaeda. He examines hatred as a mental disorder, going beyond its normative emotional connotation into delusional thought patterns. Passionate, but irrational, attachment to a scapegoat population allows the hater to deny responsibility for failures and frustrations. Gaylin breaks down the mechanics of this process and integrates it with the risk associated with politicians and religious leaders able to manipulate such deprived persons to their own end. But Gaylin's position ignores the objective conditions of Palestinians or members of al-Qaeda that justify their hatred. As his analysis is based on a clinical model, the assumption is that objective application is possible. Yet, at points Gaylin asserts that the hatred of Americans and Israelis is based on mere jealousy and envy, and that hatred results from deficiencies of the haters. Such an analysis may be too simplistic to apply in the infinitely complicated quagmire of the Middle East. Vernon Ford
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