Rupert Brodersen
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The London School of Economics and Political Science Rage, Rancour and Revenge Existentialist Motives in International Relations Rupert Brodersen A thesis submitted to the Department of International Relations of the London School of Economics for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, London, August 2014 1 Declaration I certify that the thesis I have presented for examination for the MPhil/PhD degree of the London School of Economics and Political Science is solely my own work other than where I have clearly indicated that it is the work of others (in which case the extent of any work carried out jointly by me and any other person is clearly identified in it). The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. Quotation from it is permitted, provided that full acknowledgement is made. This thesis may not be reproduced without my prior written consent. I warrant that this authorisation does not, to the best of my belief, infringe the rights of any third party. I declare that my thesis consists of 85,595 words. 2 Abstract Emotions are gaining an increasingly prominent role in the study of International Relations. As a relatively new frontier, there is still considerable work to be done in streamlining various efforts into a systematic study. These efforts have largely circled on describing the cognitive and action potential of specific emotions, such as anger, fear and trust. This thesis is concerned with an extreme emotion, the emotion of rage. I stress the action potential of revenge, as well as the cognitive elements at play here, most specifically the issue of abrupt changes to morality. I use both Greek and Nietzschean philosophy to construct a binary approach to rage that acknowledges both the violent and bloody manifestation - we still witness today - as well as the silent, non-violent rancour that searches for an opportune moment before exploding into action. 3 Table of Contents Abstract 3 Table of Contents 4 Acknowledgments 7 Introduction 9 Chapter 1: Rage in Ancient Greece 20 Nomos: The Divine Order of Man-made Laws 22 Nomos In Euripides’s Hecuba 25 Rage in Homer’s Iliad 31 The Fractured Psychology of the Thymos 36 Erinyes, Guardians of Nomos 39 Pollution in Ancient Greece 44 Modern Use of Disease Metaphors 47 Conclusion 49 Chapter 2: Rage as Social Emotion 52 The Use of Emotions in IR scholarship 53 Theories of Emotion 59 Neurology of Human Aggression 66 Moral Foundation of Negative Emotions 69 Appraisal in Negative Emotions 71 Typology of Negative Emotions 74 Conclusion 86 Chapter 3: Dynamics of Group Rage 89 Social Identity and the Need for Community 92 Inter-Group Dynamics 95 4 Existential Group Threats 98 Threat to Group Inclusion 98 Threat to Group Integrity 100 Threat to Group Esteem 101 False Legitimacy in Inter-Group Relations 103 Out-Group Derogation in Inter-Group Violence 108 Moral Certainty in Violence: Demonization versus Dehumanization 113 Conclusion 117 Chapter 4: Justice in Revenge 119 Justifying Revenge or Avenging Justice 124 Retribution versus Revenge 130 Mimetic Revenge in Euripides’ Hecuba 133 Sanctioned Revenge 134 The Objective of Revenge 137 Comparative Suffering Hypothesis 137 Understanding Hypothesis 138 Salted Earth Hypothesis 139 Nietzsche and the temporal nature of Revenge 141 Displaced Revenge 144 Conclusion 150 Chapter 5: Ressentiment - Revenge of the Weak 152 Suspended Revenge 153 Ressentiment as Displacement 156 The Lambs and Birds of Prey 159 The Priests and Knights 163 5 The Fox and the Sour Grapes 168 Variances of Ressentiment 172 Ressentiment as Past-Orientated Revenge 181 Conclusion 183 Chapter 6: Reconciliation Strategies - A Critique 185 Lustration 189 Common Enemy 191 Story Telling 193 Public Remembrance 195 Apologies 296 Acknowledgment 199 Forgiveness 202 Forgiveness & Punishment 205 Nietzschean Vindication 207 Conclusion 214 Conclusion: Rage Strategies - An Outline 216 Rage Strategies 218 Revenge 218 Displaced Revenge 219 Suspended Revenge 220 Ideational Ressentiment 221 Sour Grapes Ressentiment 222 Erinyes beneath Turtle Bay 223 Bibliography 225 6 Acknowledgments I want to thank my supervisor, Christopher Coker, for his unwavering support and patience. I also want to thank my friends and family for their encouragement. Lastly, I want to thank my colleagues in the International Relations Department for their inspiration and their passion. 7 The fire is in the minds of men and not in the roofs of houses. Fyodor Dostoyevsky 8 Introduction A particularly interesting myth found in the plays of Ancient Greece tells of the dreaded Erinyes, a gang of three sisters dressed in tattered black robes. Their faces are covered in blood with discharge seeping from their eyes. They prefer dark places hiding their shrivelled faces and featherless wings. They do not speak but shriek and hiss and feast on human flesh. Modern culture would describe them as ghoulish vampires, half animal, half something once human. In the Greek myths in which they feature, the Erinyes show up after a terrible crime is committed. They lust for the blood of the criminal, besieging others, hissing and howling, incessantly screeching: “Get Him, Get Him, Get Him”. Their names are Alecta, the angry; Megaera, the grudging; and Tisiphone, the vengeful, and they are the personification of rage and revenge impulses in Ancient Greece. They are known as harbingers of disorder and civil war. Their lust for revenge is insatiable; every crime committed demands total punishment. But tragically every punishment becomes a crime in its own right, leading to endless cycles of violence. Their reputation is so fearsome that kings will dare not touch individuals, if they are rumoured to court the presence of these demons. It is hard to believe, but the Erinyes have an indispensable role in society; they are the ultimate guardians of order and fierce defenders of the rule of Zeus. Their unsightly presence is not accidental or the product of some curse but a clear and causal reaction to a breach of law and dismissal of Zeus’ order. The Erinyes appear and demand blood whenever subjects break the most sacred laws by murdering a fellow citizen. Their presence, in other words, is a natural reaction to acts of great wrongdoing and injustice. But despite such noble calling, their distorted and ghoulish appearances belie the very sense of civic duty and wisdom their presence implies. On the contrary, they resemble the uncivilized impulsiveness and carnal desires attributed to all those who undermine civil order by giving in to unthinking passions and private concerns. The raging Erinyes are at once cause and consequence, as well as judge and executioner. In today’s culture, the Erinyes are a mere shadow of their former self; they survive as vampires, witches or demons in scary movies preying on innocent teenagers. Their ghoulish and repulsive appearances still inspire fear but they have lost their political and judicial mandate. The underworld they represent no longer bares resemblance to ideas of political 9 injustice and civil disorder. This thesis in many ways aims to rehabilitate the myth of the Erinyes and return rage and revenge to their rightful place as reactions to injustice and wrongdoing. In Ancient Greece the connection between injustice and revenge was understood and gravely lamented. Playwrights tried to warn, explain, educate and ultimately resolve the inevitable curse of revenge cycles that would plunge entire communities into prolonged warfare, ending in death and devastation. Today’s world shares too many similarities to ignore the lessons of this ancient emotional economy. At the time of writing, the South China Sea is measuring up to become a critical boiling point in regional South East Asian relations and a litmus test for how Asian countries deal with China’s inevitable rise and concomitant hegemonic privileges and rights. Ukraine continues to be a battleground for separatist ambitions, fuelled by old rivalries reminiscent of the darkest days of the Cold War. The Middle East remains a timeless kaleidoscope of violence, grievance, bloodshed and uncompromising religious and moral fervour. The traditional view of warfare as a continuation of politics loses much of its appeal when those involved are fighting against their own nation or desire to see their opponent suffer rather than achieve long-lasting strategic aims. The discipline of International Relations has been slow to adopt a more modern psychological understanding of violence, instead only gradually weaning itself off a disastrous dependence on rational actor models and a far too narrow view on motivations in international affairs. The last decade has seen a rise in scholarship concerned with emotions in International Relations. Early explorations into neuroscientific research introduced the role of emotions into the field of cognition, making important qualifications on how nations – or specifically their leaders – make decisions, discount risk and select information. The events of 9/11 provoked renewed interest in the motivational aspect of emotions, constructing linear causalities regarding how event X causes emotion Y, and in turn how emotion Y leads to response Z. Under the headwind of the terrorist attacks, scholars began researching concepts like humiliation, slights and ontological displacement to understand why groups engage in terrorist activities and seek such terrible results. These two streams have come together in the last few years and carried emotions into the mainstream of International Relations scholarship. The traditional study of interest-based politics was not supplanted but certainly forced to accommodate new insights and new modes of analysis. Emotions have become a 10 serious and dynamic new field of study, with an explanatory power quickly outstripping any rational actor model-based analysis. The aim of this thesis is to contribute to our understanding of violence by exploring two distinct philosophical treatments of the “revenge” emotion. I pay homage to the causal view of emotion that some serious injustice or mistreatment leads to a desire for revenge; however the core of this research concerns itself with the cognitive and moral aspect.