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Frontpage Interview guest today is Kenneth Levin, a clinical instructor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, a Princeton-trained historian, and a commentator on Israeli politics. He is the author of The Oslo Syndrome: Delusions of a People Under Siege. FP: Kenneth Levin, welcome to Frontpage Interview.
Levin: Thank you, Jamie. A pleasure to be with you.
FP: I want to talk to you today about how the Oslo Syndrome infects the West overall. But let’s first begin by you telling us what the Oslo Syndrome is itself.
Levin: The Oslo Syndrome, taking Israel’s Oslo agreements with Yasir Arafat and his PLO as a model, refers to the inclination of some within populations under chronic attack to take to heart the indictments of their attackers, however hateful or absurd, and to insist, despite all evidence to the contrary, that sufficient concessions and self-reform will appease the attackers and end the threat. It is particularly found within minorities that are subjected to continual marginalization, denigration and assault by the surrounding majority, or small states under chronic siege by their neighbors. But, as the aftermath of 9/11 has demonstrated, even segments of powerful nations can react in this way when confronted by a threat for which there is no simple or quick solution.
FP: So the Oslo Syndrome has infected the American, and wider Western, response to the existential threat posed by Islamo-fascism, right? There is a widespread refusal in the U.S. and in the West to acknowledge the threat is there. What is the psychology behind that refusal?
Levin: The basic psychological motivation involves the powerful wish to be in control of one’s fate and, more particularly, people’s wish to believe that they can extricate themselves from painful and threatening situations.The paradigm on the level of individual psychology is the psychology of chronically abused children, which typically means those abused by parents or parent surrogates. Such children almost invariably blame themselves for their predicament. This is often attributed to children’s naivete, but children are not that naive. The son of an alcoholic father who comes home in a drunken rage several nights a week and beats him knows he’s being abused. But he will typically suppress that awareness and choose to believe that if he only behaved better he would be treated better. To understand why, consider the child's options. He can recognize the reality of his predicament, his essential helplessness, and resign himself to that reality. Or he can delude himself into believing that he is somehow "bad" and that if he becomes "good" his father will reciprocate and his situation will improve. The latter requires his enduring the "guilt" of feeling he is "bad" but preserves the fantasy that he has control over his situation and so fends off hopelessness. Children tend to avoid hopelessness at all costs, and adults do the same.
To either deny the threat of Islamo-fascism and see 9/11 as the work of a small group of terrorists who can be put out of business by issuing Interpol arrest warrants, or to blame America for 9/11, attribute the attacks to America’s being "bad," however that is defined, and insist that sufficient American reform and amends will end the threat, serves that same psychological impulse. The self-delusion serves to reduce an existential challenge to one manageable and resolvable by relatively easy steps entirely within the target’s own control.
Now clearly there were significant segments of American, and broader Western, society, including, for example, large portions of academia and what might be labeled the wider intellectual and cultural elite, who were predisposed to blame America first well before 9/11. Particularly in the wake of the demise of the Soviet Union and end of the cold war, those sympathetic to the anti-capitalist line have embraced even more fervently a variation on that perspective that had been gaining popularity at least since the 1970's. This has entailed the advocacy of internationalism and international institutions and championing of non-Western and anti-Western causes, as well as, of course, the denigration of Western capitalism and culture, especially American capitalism and culture.One can argue that such voices were obviously predisposed either to diminish the significance of the 9/11 attacks or to blame them on American policies. But this is hardly sufficient explanation for why those cadres within American and broader Western society who had previously subscribed to such views insisted on construing 9/11 through the prism of their established biases. People can embrace ideological orthodoxies from the unworldly retreats of academia but rapidly change their views when ugly realities intrude on their ivied retreat and confront them with deadly threats.Many within Western elites, and indeed within broader Western societies, including in America, have, in fact, clung to their former construction of reality in the wake of 9/11 and of subsequent terror attacks across Europe, north Africa and Asia. They have done so in the face of explicit statements by Islamo-fascist leaders and their cadres of their intentions and aspirations and of the fact that their ultimate grievance is not with any particular Western policies but rather with the existence of Western society and the challenge it presents to the supremacy of Islam as the Islamo-fascists understand it. That so many in the West hew to their former perspectives despite the agenda spelled out by the Islamo-fascists, and despite the wide support Islamo-fascism enjoys in the Muslim world and among Muslims in the West, is not simply a consequence of these Westerners remaining true to their old ideological perspectives. Rather, it is indicative of how the hold of those perspectives has been reinforced by fear of the Islamo-fascist threat and by these people's wish to avert their eyes from that threat and pretend it either does not exist or is readily manageable.For Western acolytes of anti-Western perspectives, and for the much wider circle of supporters such views now enjoy in terms of attitudes toward the Islamo-fascist threat, it is much easier to hate George Bush, blame all the threats confronting America on his policies, and see salvation in reforming those policies and talking to the Islamo-fascists and offering economic aid and other forms of redress, than to acknowledge the genuine nature of the threat and blame the perpetrators of worldwide Jihad.Consider the ease with which those on the political Left who take this stance are willing to compromise what have traditionally been core leftist values to appease Islamo-fascism. Such compromises include the widespread silence on the abuse, indeed frequent murder for reasons of "honor," of women; the similar silence on the abuse and murder of homosexuals; the ready compromise of separation of church and state in order to provide Islamic teachings a privileged place in some schools and public universities and other public institutions; the similar ready compromise of free speech and granting to Islamist groups rights of censorship. Such abandoning of core values is just one indication of the degree to which the soft line on Islamo-fascism taken by those who have long espoused views critical of the West is not merely a function of devotion to old ideological verities but reflects a desire to assuage the Islamo-fascist threat...
Levin: Thank you, Jamie. A pleasure to be with you.
FP: I want to talk to you today about how the Oslo Syndrome infects the West overall. But let’s first begin by you telling us what the Oslo Syndrome is itself.
Levin: The Oslo Syndrome, taking Israel’s Oslo agreements with Yasir Arafat and his PLO as a model, refers to the inclination of some within populations under chronic attack to take to heart the indictments of their attackers, however hateful or absurd, and to insist, despite all evidence to the contrary, that sufficient concessions and self-reform will appease the attackers and end the threat. It is particularly found within minorities that are subjected to continual marginalization, denigration and assault by the surrounding majority, or small states under chronic siege by their neighbors. But, as the aftermath of 9/11 has demonstrated, even segments of powerful nations can react in this way when confronted by a threat for which there is no simple or quick solution.
FP: So the Oslo Syndrome has infected the American, and wider Western, response to the existential threat posed by Islamo-fascism, right? There is a widespread refusal in the U.S. and in the West to acknowledge the threat is there. What is the psychology behind that refusal?
Levin: The basic psychological motivation involves the powerful wish to be in control of one’s fate and, more particularly, people’s wish to believe that they can extricate themselves from painful and threatening situations.The paradigm on the level of individual psychology is the psychology of chronically abused children, which typically means those abused by parents or parent surrogates. Such children almost invariably blame themselves for their predicament. This is often attributed to children’s naivete, but children are not that naive. The son of an alcoholic father who comes home in a drunken rage several nights a week and beats him knows he’s being abused. But he will typically suppress that awareness and choose to believe that if he only behaved better he would be treated better. To understand why, consider the child's options. He can recognize the reality of his predicament, his essential helplessness, and resign himself to that reality. Or he can delude himself into believing that he is somehow "bad" and that if he becomes "good" his father will reciprocate and his situation will improve. The latter requires his enduring the "guilt" of feeling he is "bad" but preserves the fantasy that he has control over his situation and so fends off hopelessness. Children tend to avoid hopelessness at all costs, and adults do the same.
To either deny the threat of Islamo-fascism and see 9/11 as the work of a small group of terrorists who can be put out of business by issuing Interpol arrest warrants, or to blame America for 9/11, attribute the attacks to America’s being "bad," however that is defined, and insist that sufficient American reform and amends will end the threat, serves that same psychological impulse. The self-delusion serves to reduce an existential challenge to one manageable and resolvable by relatively easy steps entirely within the target’s own control.
Now clearly there were significant segments of American, and broader Western, society, including, for example, large portions of academia and what might be labeled the wider intellectual and cultural elite, who were predisposed to blame America first well before 9/11. Particularly in the wake of the demise of the Soviet Union and end of the cold war, those sympathetic to the anti-capitalist line have embraced even more fervently a variation on that perspective that had been gaining popularity at least since the 1970's. This has entailed the advocacy of internationalism and international institutions and championing of non-Western and anti-Western causes, as well as, of course, the denigration of Western capitalism and culture, especially American capitalism and culture.One can argue that such voices were obviously predisposed either to diminish the significance of the 9/11 attacks or to blame them on American policies. But this is hardly sufficient explanation for why those cadres within American and broader Western society who had previously subscribed to such views insisted on construing 9/11 through the prism of their established biases. People can embrace ideological orthodoxies from the unworldly retreats of academia but rapidly change their views when ugly realities intrude on their ivied retreat and confront them with deadly threats.Many within Western elites, and indeed within broader Western societies, including in America, have, in fact, clung to their former construction of reality in the wake of 9/11 and of subsequent terror attacks across Europe, north Africa and Asia. They have done so in the face of explicit statements by Islamo-fascist leaders and their cadres of their intentions and aspirations and of the fact that their ultimate grievance is not with any particular Western policies but rather with the existence of Western society and the challenge it presents to the supremacy of Islam as the Islamo-fascists understand it. That so many in the West hew to their former perspectives despite the agenda spelled out by the Islamo-fascists, and despite the wide support Islamo-fascism enjoys in the Muslim world and among Muslims in the West, is not simply a consequence of these Westerners remaining true to their old ideological perspectives. Rather, it is indicative of how the hold of those perspectives has been reinforced by fear of the Islamo-fascist threat and by these people's wish to avert their eyes from that threat and pretend it either does not exist or is readily manageable.For Western acolytes of anti-Western perspectives, and for the much wider circle of supporters such views now enjoy in terms of attitudes toward the Islamo-fascist threat, it is much easier to hate George Bush, blame all the threats confronting America on his policies, and see salvation in reforming those policies and talking to the Islamo-fascists and offering economic aid and other forms of redress, than to acknowledge the genuine nature of the threat and blame the perpetrators of worldwide Jihad.Consider the ease with which those on the political Left who take this stance are willing to compromise what have traditionally been core leftist values to appease Islamo-fascism. Such compromises include the widespread silence on the abuse, indeed frequent murder for reasons of "honor," of women; the similar silence on the abuse and murder of homosexuals; the ready compromise of separation of church and state in order to provide Islamic teachings a privileged place in some schools and public universities and other public institutions; the similar ready compromise of free speech and granting to Islamist groups rights of censorship. Such abandoning of core values is just one indication of the degree to which the soft line on Islamo-fascism taken by those who have long espoused views critical of the West is not merely a function of devotion to old ideological verities but reflects a desire to assuage the Islamo-fascist threat...
By Jamie Glazov
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