THE FEELING OF CERTAINTY PSYCHOSOCIAL PERSPECTIVES ON IDENTITY AND DIFFERENCE STUDIES IN THE PSYCHOSOCIAL STUDIES IN EDITED BY NIKOLAY MINTCHEV AND R.D. HINSHELWOOD Studies in the Psychosocial Series Editors Stephen Frosh Dept of Psychosocial Studies Birkbeck, University of London London, United Kingdom Peter Redman Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences The Open University Milton Keynes, United Kingdom Wendy Hollway Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences The Open University Milton Keynes, United Kingdom Studies in the Psychosocial seeks to investigate the ways in which psychic and social processes demand to be understood as always implicated in each other, as mutually constitutive, co-produced, or abstracted levels of a single dialectical process. As such it can be understood as an interdisci- plinary field in search of transdisciplinary objects of knowledge. Studies in the Psychosocial is also distinguished by its emphasis on affect, the irrational and unconscious processes, often, but not necessarily, under- stood psychoanalytically. Studies in the Psychosocial aims to foster the development of this field by publishing high quality and innovative monographs and edited collections. The series welcomes submissions from a range of theoretical perspectives and disciplinary orientations, including sociology, social and critical psychology, political science, post- colonial studies, feminist studies, queer studies, management and organi- zation studies, cultural and media studies and psychoanalysis. However, in keeping with the inter- or transdisciplinary character of psychosocial analysis, books in the series will generally pass beyond their points of origin to generate concepts, understandings and forms of investigation that are distinctively psychosocial in character. More information about this series at http://www.palgrave.com/series/14464 Nikolay Mintchev • R.D. Hinshelwood Editors The Feeling of Certainty Psychosocial Perspectives on Identity and Difference Editors Nikolay Mintchev R.D. Hinshelwood Institute for Global Prosperity Department of Psychosocial University College London and Psychoanalytic Studies London, UK University of Essex Colchester, Essex, UK Studies in the Psychosocial ISBN 978-3-319-57716-6 ISBN 978-3-319-57717-3 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-57717-3 Library of Congress Control Number: 2017953907 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017 This work is subject to copyright. 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The conference topic—the feeling of certainty—was one close to Karl’s heart and philo- sophical interests. This topic has the virtue of bridging a spectrum of different academic disciplines, making it particularly apt for the Centre, which has the purpose of creating dialogue between multiple perspec- tives in the academic world of the University. The editors would like to thank Karl for his intellectual contribution to psychoanalysis and psy- chosocial studies, as well as his personal contribution to the Centre for Psychoanalytic Studies. vii Contents Introduction: The Feeling of Certainty, Towards a Psychosocial Approach 1 Nikolay Mintchev and R.D. Hinshelwood The Mentality of Conviction: Feeling Certain and the Search for Truth 11 Karl Figlio What Is Subjectivity and How Can We Study It Empirically? Understanding the Feeling of Certainty Through Psychoanalysis and Ethnography 31 Nikolay Mintchev Haunted by Uncertain Refrains 49 Stephen Frosh Internal Racism: Belief in the Racist Mindset 69 M. Fakhry Davids ix x Contents Being Racist: The Certainty of a Pathological Organisation of the Personality 93 R.D. Hinshelwood ‘Instead of Trying to Help You, They Try to Screw You’: The Feeling of Certainty and the Mexican-Origin Border Patrol Agents 115 Natalia Hernández Jiménez The Primitive Container of Fascism: Masculine Anxieties and Defences in Times of Trauma and Uncertainty 129 Christina Wieland Gender Certainty as a Defence: Oedipal Conflict in Wartime Sexual Violence 149 Tamaki Noro Collective Identities, Breivik and the National Container 165 Barry Richards Index 187 Introduction: The Feeling of Certainty, Towards a Psychosocial Approach Nikolay Mintchev and R.D. Hinshelwood The concept of certainty is widely used in everyday language to designate a state of mind or experience which is rarely seen as politically charged or controversial. However, as ordinary as it may seem, a feeling of certainty can play a key role in shaping identity formation, social exclusion, preju- dice and commitment to political causes. This raises a number of impor- tant questions: what does it mean for the subject to feel certainty about her or his role in society and relationship to others? From where does the feeling of certainty originate, and how does it differ from modes of thought that are open to scepticism about the order of things? What are the consequences and effects of certainty on politics, social relations and subjectivity? N. Mintchev (*) Institute for Global Prosperity, University College London, London, UK R.D. Hinshelwood Department of Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies, University of Essex, Colchester, Essex, UK © The Author(s) 2017 1 N. Mintchev, R.D. Hinshelwood (eds.), The Feeling of Certainty, Studies in the Psychosocial, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-57717-3_1 2 N. Mintchev and R.D. Hinshelwood A good place to begin addressing these questions is by exploring the various meanings of the term. The concept of certainty can refer to both social conditions and, as suggested above, subjective experience. In the former case—when referring to the social world—the term is almost invariably used with the negative prefix un-. As a number of sociologists argue, we live in uncertain times—the economic, political and social institutions of today’s world are no longer as stable as before—they are changing as quickly as ever and we can no longer rely on them to support and define our life trajectories (Beck 2009; Bauman 2007; Zinn 2008). On the other hand, certainty is a state of mind; it is a conviction that something is right or wrong, whether it is a piece of scientific research, a political discourse, a philosophical outlook, a logical conclusion, an ethi- cal imperative or a vision of one’s self in the past, present and future. The experience of certainty as Sodré puts it, ‘is dominated by inflexibility, rigidity, as if one tyrannical thought is constantly keeping out all other points of view’ (1994: 379). At this subjective level, the opposite term of certainty is not only uncertainty, but also doubt. The latter, as psychoana- lysts since Freud have shown, can take extreme and obsessional forms, which actively disrupt the subject’s thought patterns and actions. Doubt is ‘dominated by constant oscillations, it is as if the mind is constantly thrown from side to side by opposing thoughts: no certainty can be achieved’ (Sodré 1994: 379). What must be emphasized, however, is that both extremes on the certainty-­uncertainty spectrum are problematic. If the uncertainty of today’s neo-liberal social and economic order leads to extreme forms of precarity, insecurity and anxiety, the opposite end of the spectrum repre- sents a structural rigidity that suffocates the subject and curbs its agency. In his work on ‘the precariat’, Guy Standing (2014) illustrates this point with the example of Japan’s ‘legendary “salaryman”’—a figure character- ized by lifetime employment in a single enterprise, which prevailed in the country until the 1980s (Ibid.: 28–29). The problem with Japan’s organi- zation of labour was that the underside of job security was a paternalistic relationship of dependence between employees and employers, as well as workers’ fear of leaving their company because this would signal failure. Consequently, as Standing puts it, in Japan ‘the gilded