On Hatred: Perpetrator Fragments and Totalitarian Objects

Abstract

In times of political extremis, the author probes the evoked hatred that threatens to transform her into the dehumanizing totalitarian object that is inciting her hatred. This article explores the trans-generational inheritance of perpetrator objects that can reignite in such inflammatory times – in our psyches, and in cultural spaces. How do we recognize, embrace, and constructively use these persecutory parts of ourselves, to illuminate the distinction between facilitating rage and annihilating hatred? Instead of trying to create a better sealant on our “depressive containers,” what would happen if we looked through the cracks in that container? Would something new appear that might restore the alliances that totalitarianism fractures? This question is probed in reference to U.S. colonial era, and in relation to the voices of Black feminist psychoanalysis.

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