WITHOUT BORDERS: THE
BORDERLINE CASE OF UNITED EUROPE
7 febbraio 2003
the strong are as naturally inclined
to separate
as the weak are to congregate (Nietzsche)
1
Freud has shown that the number
three is the symbol of the male genital, and that as such it
became a sacred number:
What seems certain is that a number of tripartite things that
occur in nature - the cloverleaf, for instance – owe their
use for coats of arms and emblems to this symbolic meaning.
Similarly, the tripartite lily – the so-called fleur-de-lis
– and the remarkable heraldic device of two islands so
far apart as Sicily and the Isle of Man – the triskeles
(three bent legs radiating from a center) seem to be stylized
versions of the male genital. Likenesses of the male organ were
regarded in antiquity as the most powerful apotropaic
(means of defense) against evil influences, and, in conformity
with this, the lucky charms of our day can all be recognized
as genital or sexual symbols
2.
Therefore, the French tripartite lily, the triskeles, and other
tripartite stylizations of the male genital are a phallic symbol
equivalent to the Roman eagle, which is a male genital symbol,
and to the Byzantine, Absburgic and Russian eagles.
The number three symbolizes completeness and perfection. As
such, it became a sacred number. Castration, the undoing
of such completeness, becomes a sacrilege act. The number
three appears in heraldic devices and on flags because it symbolizes
sovereignty and untouchableness.
Therefore, it functions as instrument of warning and admonition:
“Beware, our phallic symbol is complete, untouched, and
as such it is sacred”.
When the French tripartite lily and other monarchic phallic
symbols were substituted by the three-colored flags of the European
nations, which during the 19th century had just liberated
themselves from their absolute rulers, they substituted one
phallic symbol with another, but not exactly the same.
The 3 of the three-colored flag has indeed a further meaning.
Through the process of abstraction, it became more general and
it unconsciously assumed the sense of liberty, fraternity, and
equality.
The stylized male genital symbol of absolute monarchies had
a significance of threat by a tyrannical Father, who
shows off his own menacing phallic symbol before the Horde of
the Brothers, the sons, in order to induce them into blind obedience.
A tripartite genital symbol, as the Empires’eagle, had
an apotropaic (means of defense), not only against the
enemy, but also versus the people themselves.
Those were the phallic symbols of the absolute rulers, Father
imagines for their subjects.
When the United Brothers rebelled, and declared “liberté,
égalité, fraternité”, they dethroned
their own monarchs, castrated from their flags their phallic
symbols, and substituted them with their own: a Three-color
in which the number 3 condensed the significance of sovereignty
vis a vis other nations with the meaning of freedom from
the rule of the Father and that of equality between the Brothers,
who had came into a coalition against him.
Therefore, we should not be surprised if, after the revolutionary
movements of the 19th century, European nations adopted
Three-color flags as their own phallic symbol, which represent
also the symbol of democracy.
Constitutional monarchies abstained, indeed, from putting on
their flags stylizations of the male genital, and those remained
the symbol of absolute monarchies, like the Austrian Absburgs
and the Russian Romanovs.
The English chose to show, as national symbol, colored stripes
combined in a triple intermingling pattern, as a declaration
of collaboration between the different social classes, a supposed
harmony between the regime of the Father and that of the Sons.
The Italian Savoia acted accordingly, when they adopted the
Three-color, and overlaid on it their own phallic symbol.
The national liberation movements, and the institution of Republics
of the last two hundreds years, are to be interpreted non only
in their limited scope, but also as the expression of a general
movement of rebellion against the authority of the Primeval
Father, which sucks its energy and has its roots in the rebellion
of the Primeval Horde. It is a historical development that has
its precedent in the prehistory of mankind.
The French Revolution was the spark that activated the fire
of the prehistoric rebellion, after a secular sense of guilt
had induced the peoples into accepting again the sovereignty
of the Father’s imago. A historical regression that
began with the renunciation of Greek democracy, was implemented
with the Roman emperors, and accellerated after the crisis that
took hold of the ancient world.
The trial tempted at the beginning of the second millennium
by the Free Comuni, first steps to regain ancient lost freedoms,
was aborted.
The first step in a large wave is always aborted, and followed
by a retrenchment.
Only the following trials are successful, and only in numerous
waves and counter-waves. The wave is never linear. Every upsurge
in the main direction is followed by a counter-wave, induced
by a sense of guilt.
In a schematic way, we can say that two steps of retrenchment
follow every three steps, until the wave is completed, and it
is aborted under the burden of its own success and the accumulated
sense of guilt. At this point, the civilization is aborted and
there is a return to the starting point, as it happened to the
civilizations of the ancient Middle East: Sumerians, Egyptians,
Babylonians, Persians etc.
In the West, the last upsurge began with the French Revolution.
After the first orgiastic acting out of liberation, which was
a repetition of the prehistoric orgy that came after the primeval
murder of the Father, and was characterized by total instinct
gratification, came the repression, induced by the terror of
retaliation and of the return of the dethroned father and his
vengeance.
After the orgiastic explosion of the first stage of the French
revolution, came the terror of Robespierre.
Freedom and repression alternate in waves and counter-waves,
and a self-conscience is acquired in the process, which in sociology
is called “civil and human rights”.
The Ego of the peoples is acquired in the same way as the Ego
of the single: in a long process of trials and errors, through
the mutual interaction between the needs of the Id and the requirement
of the Ego, in a tormented dialogue with the paternal imago.
Like for the single human being, a collectivity reaches self-conscience
through identity, and comprehension of its own capabilities
and limitations.
Henceforth, with the gradual and struggled acquisition of civil
and human rights,
took hold the perception of the existence of borders.
Borders encircle the temenos, the sacred area in which
identity, rights, and duties are implemented. As in the Greek
polis, prototype of the freedom acquired by the liberated Horde
of the Brothers after a long trial towards maturity, decisions
are taken in situ, namely, in the same place where they
are to be implemented.
The Law is discussed, accepted, and enforced by the same citizens
who have decided to submit to it, in force of the sacredness
of the Covenant between the brothers, with the aim of preserving
social order by right and not by force, as, instead, it had
been by the tyranny of the primeval father in prehistoric times.
On the contrary, a horde, which, under the burden of the sense
of guilt, renounces its rights and its freedom, and delegates
the formulation of the Law to a superior instance, does not
need borders. Furthermore, they become superfluous and are perceived
as intruding, damaging, and demanding, because they put a pressure
on the group to take responsibility for its own fate.
Such a horde, like a single without identity, becomes borderline,
beyond borders and border-less.
A group, which is exhausted, oppressed by a sense of guilt,
and which is eager to get rid of its own liberties, rationalizes
its symptom with the most absurd arguments.
The main rationalizations of the fans of the European Union
are as follows:
1) Borders between nations are the cause for mutual hostility
and aggression. In a borderless society, there will be no conflict
of interests, no motivation for mutual aggression and, therefore,
wars will be avoided.
2) One sole currency, namely, the same economic policy, will
result in a more efficient economy, to the benefit of all.
3) Decisions taken at the macro level and in a centralized way
are more like to be the right ones.
The first argument is equivalent to saying: “If we outlaw
endogenous aggression, it will no more exist”. As a matter
of fact, the intention of the architects of the European Union
is not to abolish aggression, but to channel it to their own
aims, at the expense of national interests. Eventually it will
be directed towards the external world, namely, the United States
of America.
It may take a couple of decades, but the final outcome might
be only that.
The second rationalization is equivalent to preventing the single
communities from deciding their own social priorities. The decision
on how distributing the national product among the different
social classes is no more taken close to where the income is
generated, but by somebody, far away, who is not invested of
the collective vicariate.
The fate of the orphans and the widows of Sicily, Northern Spain
and Greece will be decided in Brusselles and in Berlin.
The third is equivalent to saying: “You have proved of
being irresponsible and stupid children, who cannot take on
themselves the managing of their own affairs. Therefore, from
now on, somebody else, who knows better, will take the decisions.
Somebody who has the natural gift of exercising power, whose
face you are not entitled to know, and whose decisions you are
not capable of criticizing.
The Law will be the one which best serves the interests of a
class of bureaucrats who are beyond the reach of an effective
criticism, and who do not have to account for their actions
to anyone, because they are faceless and ubiquitous.
At first glance, this omnipotent imago seems to be a
paternal one, with its omnipresence and unlimited wisdom. However,
if we take a closer look, we shall see that more than a paternal
instance, by the severe and repressive connotation, this new
phallic monster has all the peculiarities of the maternal intrauterine
imago, which mercifully absorbs all her floating helpless
sons.
In these very days (December 2002), she has declared that is
going to accept, and to include into her enormous womb, ten
more whole nations, all together, without any pettiness in her
loving attitude. Without any ugly consideration for nationality,
cultural background, or embedded differences: everyone will
be accepted, nurtured, and equally loved. The Turkish guy, the
only ugly duck, will have to keep waiting for a little longer,
until he, too, becomes a beautiful swan. After all, not being
a Christian, he must first prove of being fit to be included
among the civilized nations.
United Europe is, therefore, an enormous placenta, Mater
Matuta, Nutrix (nurturing) and Polymastos (by
the many breasts, like Artemis the Ephesine), who can breastfeed
and digest in the same condensation everyone who is eager to
take refuge into the shadow of her mercy.
At difference from the Old Empires, which annexed other peoples
and territories by force, and wore the connotation of more or
less brutal tyrannical Fathers, Mother Europe succeeded in making
them begging for annexation. Her tentacles look like benevolent
breasts, and lucky the ones who can be called her sons.
After all, what are freedom and independence, when in exchange
love and maternal milk are offered without restrain?
John Laughland, commentator of European affairs, in his important
book TheTainted Source, says:
An independent nation-state is the political expression of a
people taking up the challenge of running its own affairs, and
throwing off the torpor of empire. An independent nation –
state is one in which decisions are taken politically, in virtue
of public debate and opposition. Being a political form of human
association – that is, one in which conflict is recognized
and even institutionalized as a healthy constituent of the body
politic – it is one, which generates law, not directives.
To believe that constitutional independence or sovereignty are
irrelevant as concepts is to believe that political liberties
and the rule of law can exist without the state...[omissis]...Laced
with the soporific language of inevitability and determinism,
this administrative approach to government evacuates the notion
of political choice and leadership. It thereby makes government
anonymous, and befogs the lines of responsibility, which are
the very sinews of democracy. It leaves no room for the notion
which is at the heart of the doctrine of “the rule of law”:
that citizens interact intelligently with one another within
the framework of the law, on the basis of their understanding
of the situation in which they find themselves. By ignoring
or downplaying this, the basic fabric of a free society –
by failing to see that the very inpredictability of individual
economic behaviour is strength – this plannificatory vision
also risks destroying the source of prosperity.
The belief that parlamentary rule is anarchic, that the market
is disorganized, and that the free interaction between nations
leads to war is an old one...
3
The author analyzes in depth
the historical background of the planning of the European Union,
and exposes the lies and the real political motivations, which
brought to its implementation.
What interest us are the collective psychological latent needs
that made it possible. It is the final outcome of a long process,
which began with the rebellion of the Horde and ends with the
sense of guilt for its own success, a retrenchment, and a collective
psychosexual evolutional regression.
It is the symptom of a collective psychic process, at the apex
of which the group which succeeded in liberating itself from
the authority of the Father, and from the straightjacket of
its limitations, chooses to renounce the acquired liberties,
and to delegate them to an authority, perceived as a parental
imago, which will take on the responsibility. Then, the group
regresses to an amorphous condition of lack of identity, which
in psychoanalysis is called Borderline Disorder.
Freud, in Totem and Taboo (IV, 5), explains the sequence
of events, which took place after the Primeval Patricide.
The sense of guilt induced the Horde into renunciation of the
fruit of the sin, namely, the women. In our instance, the women
are equivalent to the identity, which is always achieved only
at the Oedipal – genital level, and to liberties and borders,
because those were the achievements of the peoples of Europe
during the 19th century, as consequence of the rebellion
against their absolute oppressing monarchs.
According to Freud, the institution of matriarchy was the consequence
of the sense of guilt.
What Freud has defined as matriarchy is equivalent to a regression
from the genital level, and from the identity acquired at that
stage, to the oral and intrauterine (fetal) level
4.
It seems that the first prehistoric societies, which emerged
from the Horde, at the first stage had regressed to what Melanie
Klein calls “the schizoid position”, namely, to the
stage at which is the newborn baby, who cannot distinguish between
himself and the maternal breast
5.
There are still tribes in the Pacific Ocean islands, which have
not yet emerged from this stage, while the rest of mankind,
by steps and counter-steps, managed to regain higher levels
of psychosexual evolution.
The long way towards civilization was an endless struggle to
regain the genital level. Each culture at its own way and pace.
Each culture through waves, that are not concomitant, and through
different stages of regression.
It seems that Western culture has been the more successful of
all in this trial, so far.
It had managed to regain almost all of the achievements reached
at the peak of democracy and independence at the times of ancient
Greece.
Then there had been a regression, and with the beginning of
the second millennium another quite successful trial.
Now, we are witnessing a powerful wave of regression to the
fetal level. The schizoid position is not very far. Since this
stage of psychosexual evolution is characterized by massive
splitting and projective identification, we can now better understand
why anti-Semitism is on the rise in Europe today. During the
history of Western civilization, the Jews have always been targeted
as the object of the splitting and projection mechanism.
The European flag is no more, therefore, a Three-color, symbol
of the successful Horde of the Brothers, and what is worse,
even not an Imperial Eagle, a tripartite lily or a triskeles,
phallic symbols of the tyrannical Father, but a circle, symbol
of the placenta and of a regression through all the previous
stages of evolution, achieved in the course of such a long and
hard struggle
A circle, to which are added more and more new little stars
6. A circle, which
is endlessly expanding, like the imago of a hungry placenta
which devours her sons, to protect and to nurture, and eventually
to destroy them.
The rule of the Father
The liberated sons
All the way back into the
placenta
© Iakov Levi
1
Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals, Third
Essay, section 18. 
2
Sigmund Freud, “Symbolism in Dreams"; "Introductory
Lectures on Psychoanalysis" (1915-1917) in The Standard
Edition of the Complete Works of Sigmund Freud, Ed. and
Trans. J. Strachey, Hogarth Press, London 1964, Vol.XV, pp.163-4.
3
The Tainted Source. The Undemocratic Origins of the
European Idea, Little, Brown and Company, London 1997,
pp.6-8.
4
Lloyd deMause has summed up the description of the fantasies
of Paleolithic hunters as they emerge from paintings and artifacts,
in “Fetal Origins of History”, in Foundations of
Psychohistory, Creative Roots, New York 1982, pp. 272-282.
5
The characterizations of that stage of psychosexual evolution
are: Primary-process thinking, symbiotic omnipotence, gender/zonal
confusion, splitting and projective identification, sado-masochistic
disorders.
6 The coin of 1 Euro is
always a human imago encircled by stars, symbol of the
fetus in the womb, which floats in the amniotic liquid.
In questa Rubrica vengono pubblicati articoli di Autori appartenenti a scuole teoriche diverse. Il Comitato scientifico di "Scienza e Psicoanalisi" si occupa unicamente di verificare l'attendibilità delle fonti.
