November 18, 2000
By CRISTINA DEL SESTO
Dr. Robert Jay Lifton has spent more than half a century pondering
subjects like genocide, terrorism and nuclear extinction, but he
says he is not gloomy: "One's life work can be devoted to dreadful
events without becoming deeply pessimistic."
Dr. Lifton, 74, is sitting in his sunny, book- lined office in his
home overlooking Central Park West. Wearing his signature cravat,
he is calmly talking about nuclear weapons, the dreadful subject
currently on his mind. Unfortunately, to Dr. Lifton, a prolific
author who is a psychiatrist and the director of the Center on
Violence and Human Survival at John Jay College of Criminal
Justice, nuclear weapons aren't on the minds of most Americans.
Distressed by the ho-hum attitude toward a threat to human
survival, Dr. Lifton agreed to help organize a conference on the
subject. Beginning yesterday and titled "The Second Nuclear Age and
the Academy," this weekend's gathering is intended as call to
action for scholars.
"Our conception in designing the conference was specifically to
challenge the academic community, from administrators to professors
to students, to take up this matter again," Dr. Lifton said. "The
academy has always been a source of creative ideas and action on
nuclear weapons. We want to reinvigorate the academy, educate and
spread awareness."
To Jonathan Schell, a speaker at the conference who is the author
of several books on nuclear weapons, no one is more suited to this
task than Dr. Lifton. "Bob has spent a lifetime producing
pioneering studies on the nuclear question and the human response
to nuclear as well as other large-scale dangers," he said. "He has
been particularly useful in elucidating the phenomenon of denial,
which, when it comes to nuclear weapons, is something we are
confronting right now."
Dr. Lifton's work, which mixes journalism, scholarship and
activism, is sometimes described as psychohistory the
relationship between individual psychology and historical change.
He is best known for his studies of genocide. In 1969, he won a
National Book Award for "Death in Life: Survivors of Hiroshima"
(Random House) and was nominated for another one in 1974 for "Home
From the War: Vietnam Veterans Neither Victims nor Executioners"
(Simon & Schuster). In 1986, he wrote "The Nazi Doctors: Medical
Killing and the Psychology of Genocide," (Basic Books), which tried
to explain how a profession devoted to saving lives could become
the instrument of genocide. And last year came "Destroying the
World to Save It: Aum Shinrikyo, Apocalyptic Violence and the New
Global Terrorism," about the fanatical Japanese cult (Metropolitan
Books).
His most recent book, "Who Owns Death: Capital Punishment, the
American Conscience and the End of Executions," published this
month by William Morrow, is a critical examination of the ethical
and psychological aspects of the death penalty.
Dr. Lifton's psychological analysis has its critics. Theodore
Postol, professor of science, technology and national security
policy at M.I.T., said that Dr. Lifton and those who subscribe to
his approach tended to ascribe psychological disorders to those
whose opinions differed from their own.
"Characterizing existential dilemmas in psychological terms
strikes me as not capturing the problem," said Mr. Postol, who is
also a speaker at the nuclear conference. "Lifton talks of
psychic-numbing. There's numbing for all kinds of things. I'm not
sure what that tells us. The real world is complex and sometimes
none of the choices we have are good ones. If Attila the Hun is
coming through, it's not a matter of being moral. It's kill or be
killed."
These days, Dr. Lifton is less inclined to use the term
psychohistory than when it was made popular in the late 1950's by
the psychologist Erik Erikson, who was, Dr. Lifton says, "more than
a mentor but less than a guru" to him. Certainly, the method and
tradition has long been in existence, used by Freud among others.
"The word `psychohistory' has become a red flag," Dr. Lifton said.
"Irresponsible work has been done in its name. What I really mean
by a psychohistorical approach is using psychological methods for
historical problems. I do direct interviews with people whether
it be survivors of Hiroshima or Nazi doctors and immerse myself
in the immediate environment and history of whom I'm studying."
When it comes to the nuclear weapons debate, said Charles B.
Strosier, co-director of the Center on Violence and Human Survival,
Dr. Lifton's greatest contribution is his identification of a
phenomenon he calls "collective numbing" or a societywide denial,
and how that denial is linked to the government's embrace of
nuclear weapons.
Mr. Schell, who is also a Peace Fellow at the Nation Institute,
agrees that the problem of denial is particularly relevant. "The
post-cold-war generation knows less about nuclear danger than any
generation," he said. "The idea, in the movie `Armageddon,' that a
nuclear weapon saves us from a fictitious threat when, in reality,
we are actually threatened with nuclear destruction just sums up
Hollywood and American culture right now. There is a complete
reversal of the normal iconic imagery of nuclear weapons."
In examining his own psychohistory, Dr. Lifton is vague about what
led to his interest in genocide and state-sponsored killing. "In
our family, I didn't know of anybody that was killed in the
Holocaust, but I had a sense, as a Jew, of our great tragedy," he
said. "I'm sure it enters into the work that I do, but it isn't a
conscious cause and effect. I am deeply concerned with universal
issues."
Dr. Lifton, who grew up in Brooklyn, did his psychiatry residency
in New York City. During the Korean War he was a captain in the Air
Force, serving in Tokyo and Korea.
In 1985 he and Mr. Strosier founded the center with a $400,000
grant from the MacArthur Foundation. He is also a distinguished
professor of psychiatry and psychology at the City University of
New York.
Dr. Lifton's father, who owned an advertising and merchandising
business, graduated from City College in 1918. "For the rest of his
life," Dr. Lifton said, "he remained deeply grateful for his
education, and he was even head of the alumni for a while." He
added, "In a way coming to CUNY was a coming home for me."
The center sponsors programs on nuclear weapons, racial violence,
the psychology of fundamentalism and animal rights. "The scholars
that participate in our programs don't all share the same political
views," said Dr. Lifton, who refuses to attach a political label to
his own views. "But they have a critical perspective on violence in
society and the hopeful possibility for change."
Mr. Strosier is somewhat less vague about the center's politics.
"There are other academic research centers that ponder the issues
of nuclear threats," he said. "But from our point of view, they are
part of the problem, not the solution, because they don't approach
nuclear weapons from a critical point of view. They're moderate,
mainstream and accommodating."
Dr. Lifton would certainly prefer to see nuclear weapons
abolished, but he concedes that it is not practical at the moment.
"Having a goal is important even if it is not immediately
attainable," he said. "I feel absolute about nuclear weapons. I
think they are evil objects, but it's wiser to talk about
denuclearization than abolition."
Other scholars argue, however, that the threat of nuclear
apocalypse is not so urgent since the end of the cold war in 1991.
Mr. Postal said: "I'm not hostile to his arguments regarding
nuclear weapons, but I don't share his views. He says the existence
of nuclear weapons is immoral and wants to be rid of them.
Sometimes you do evil to prevent greater evil. The ultimate immoral
thing to do is to give soldiers weapons that don't work."
Frank Winters, a professor of ethics and international affairs at
Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service, said: "I no
longer think nuclear war is the biggest threat to the United
States. I'm more concerned with our getting dragged into civil wars
in developing nations."
The "Second Nuclear Age" conference, the biggest event the center
has organized, may be Dr. Lifton's valedictory in some ways. Next
fall, he and his wife, Betty Jean, plan to move to Cambridge,
Mass., to be closer to their two children and grandchildren. But
his preoccupations will remain. He will still be involved with the
center at John Jay as well as continuing to work on violence and
peacemaking at Harvard University.
"I believe we must look into the abyss to see beyond it," he said.
"I'm a hopeful person."
Copyright 2000 The New York Times Company