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Published on: July 4, 2007
Working through the end of civilization
1Committee on Social Thought, University of Chicago, IL 60637-1539, USA. jlear@uchicago.edu
The International Journal of Psycho-Analysis
|March 30, 2007
Summary
The Crow Nation creatively adapted to existential threats using collective dream-visions, transforming shame and humiliation. This cultural resilience offers new insights into psychoanalytic theory and civilizational collapse.
Area of Science:
- Cultural Psychology
- Psychoanalytic Anthropology
- Sociology of Culture
Background:
- Civilizations face existential threats requiring adaptive responses.
- The Crow Nation's history provides a case study of cultural adaptation.
- Psychoanalytic theory offers frameworks for understanding psychological and cultural change.
Purpose of the Study:
- To examine how a civilization, specifically the Crow Nation, navigated threats of destruction.
- To explore the role of psychoanalytic concepts, particularly dream-visions, in cultural adaptation.
- To investigate the implications of cultural collapse for psychoanalytic theory.
Main Methods:
- Historical case study of the Crow Nation and Chief Plenty Coups.
- Application of psychoanalytic concepts (ego ideal, shame, humiliation).
- Analysis of collective dream-visions and interpretation as adaptive mechanisms.
Main Results:
- Collective dream-visions enabled the Crow Nation to form a new ego ideal, transforming shame and humiliation.
- This process facilitated psychological structural transformation and redefined Crow flourishing.
- Civilizational collapse can impact culture broadly, with complex psychological states in individuals not solely reducible to trauma.
Conclusions:
- Cultural adaptation can be facilitated by collective psychological processes like dream-interpretation.
- Psychoanalysis must consider cultural-level destruction and its complex individual psychological effects.
- Understanding how cultures process existential threats is key to comprehending cultural resilience and transformation.
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