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dicate lhat these dietary lawa are no longer a bar to social intercourse between Jews and Christiana in this country. Just visit any large restaurant in New York City and note the number of Jews who eat there.
It appears to me that the intensity of the compliance with these laws is in inverse ratio to the prosperity of the Jews. Prosperity, material, intellectual, or social,, liberates the Jew from the yoke of these anti-social laws. I am told that there exists a first-class Jewish (-and
' Kosher restaurant in the financial district of New York City. But all over that city it appears that there is no demand for one. If there were, it would be supplied. An at-
' ; tempt was made to run a first-class Kosher hotel in New York
; City several years ago. But it failed. This strong dietary barrier to social intercourse between Jews and Christians is being swept away more rapidly than is generally appreciated. ...
It is thus clear that nearly all the factors effective in the direction of separatism, of isolation, which are strong barriers to assimilation, are more or less rapidly being removed by the Jews as far as lies within their power to do so; as far as the Church and State are powerless to interfere in modern countries. From the social standpoint the Jews are trying their utmost to adapt themselves to their
The Oppression Psychosis
� -�^� ' ' i s^ � �
By HERBERT ADOLPHUS MILLER, Professor of Sociology, Ohio
State Unvoertity
Oppression is the domination of one group by another, politically, economically or culturally � singly or in combination. In pathology psychosis means mental disorder. In my use of the term I mean those persistent and exaggerated mental states which are characteristically produced under conditions where one group dominates another.
I do not wish to over-emphasise the Freudian basis of my theory, because there is much in the Freudian system which is not essential to i^y treatment of the problem, but at the same time there is no question but that the Freudian approach throws much light on what has hitherto not been adequately explained.
The division of consciousness into the emotional, volitional and cognitive we know is merely artificial and convenient for clearer
From the book Race*,, Nations and Classes.
surroundings, adopting the language, customs and habits of their non-Jewish neighbors, and to remove all the stigmata which in the past have kept them apart from the non-Jewish majority around them.
understanding, and is in part a holdover from the theological and metaphysical methods of thinking. We now think of these three as merely different aspects 'of the same unity and recogniie that they have their roots below consciousness; and, so far as they spring from 'instincts, go back to evjlu-iionary origins.
At the bottom of all consciousness is a "wish," "urge" or "disposition," which has its origin in an evolution in which it was preserved because it had a survival value. When the wish, urge, or wall, as we shall call it, is frustrated or inhibited it does not yield passively. It was created to struggle, and opposition stimulates it to struggle harder.
Many diseases of the individual come from inhibitions of this sort which are imposed by all sorts of conditions of life. Many are prod-ucts of convention. The psychoanalysts get rid of many abnormal states of mind simply by making the patient understand the cause, and then when possible remove the cause.
Although .a part of what I mm maintaining is analogous and not identical, I think there is no hop 5 for a world of peace and coopera-
tion Until tome similar method U applied to the problems Arising out of the conflict of groups, whether races, nations or classes. The group is an object for which it is instinctive to strive, and in ' connection with which we have our strongest emotions.
A political, economic ort cultural domination inevitably results in the frustrated will of the subject group. These may be defined as autocratic, plutocratic, or culto-cratic control. The struggle for freedom which has been so much a part of the world's history and much to the fore recently, has not been a struggle for individual freedom so much as for freedom of groups. The whole world responded immediately to the idea of "self-determination" .because it is an elemental "wish" for which people have always felt and striven though it has only recently been defined.
Freedom is not what we have so often tried to make it mean, an absence of determinism, but merely v a demand for the privilege o7 self-determination. When freedom is denied^ frustration and disorganisation result, not only for the individuals but in the relationship of societies. I mean by an oppression psychosis, then, the "balked disposition" of a group, which is reflected by all of the members characteristically.
In the struggle which always fellows on the trail of frustration.
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Heartiest Passover Greetings