FANATICISM: A Historical and Psychoanalytical Study

by AndrÉ; Miklos Molnar & GÉrard de Puymège Haynal ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 28, 1982

An interesting but inconclusive mÉlange on a topic that's probably too broad for any really satisfactory treatment. Historian Molnar begins by viewing fanaticism through the eyes of the philosophes, especially Voltaire, who put the concept on the map of the Western imagination. Then, like his colleague Professor (of Psychiatry) Haynal, Molnar looks to that great avatar of the Enlightenment, Sigmund Freud, for his explanatory framework. ""One thing is constant in fanaticism,"" he observes, ""and that is that the object to which the fanatic devotes his jealous, vindictive, and monomaniacal faith must acquire in his eyes an exclusively sacred character."" Fanaticism, in other words, is a subspecies or mutant of religion, and in Freudian terms religion is a pernicious illusion. Fuel that illusion with untamed human aggressiveness (cf. Civilization and its Discontents), and you get mass psychosis. More speculatively, Haynal locates the ultimate root of fanaticism in the desire for omnipotence--which, one might have thought, is something both Judaism and Christianity would reject as idolatry--leading to the denial of death and the repression of sexuality, i.e., a lethal form of narcissism. In a fascinating chapter, ""When Lyon Was No More,"" historian and political scientist PuymÉge portrays a number of French revolutionary fanatics, notably Robespierre, Collot d'Herbois, FouchÉ, and others associated with the insane devastation of Lyon in 1793. Molnar also does a survey of anti-Semitism--concentrating, unfortunately, on an obscure trial for ritual murder that took place in rural Hungary during the early 1880s; the idea, presumably, is to show the interplay of social, cultural, and psychological factors in fanatical hatred of Jews, but the incident is too flight to bear so much interpretive weight. As if unwilling to let go of a nut they haven't quite cracked, the authors add a lengthy Epilogue and then a Postscript, neither of which settles anything. Whatever its theoretical weaknesses, though, the book's rich historical documentation and readable prose make it a useful effort.

Pub Date: Jan. 28, 1982

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Schocken

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1982

Categories: NONFICTION