atrocity-producing situation

protean self

thought reform

thought-terminating cliche

War on Terrorism

nationality

American

occupation / innovator as

psychiatrist

innovator in the field of

psychiatry

university teacher

historian

peace activist

scientific organization

American Academy of Arts and Sciences

is a coping mechanism where men are overwhelmed by unbearable fear and guilt and close themselves off as a kind of symbolic guilt.

Lifton calls 'the atrocity-producing situation.' This state is the moral equivalent of Hiroshima ground zero, a place where men are overwhelmed by unbearable fear and guilt (for their atrocities and survival). Back home, they protect themselves from their painful feelings through a 'psychic closing-off.' The end state of this process is a form of 'symbolic death,' a refuge from madness (Lifton 1967: 34, 35, 500). (Biehl vita 167)

is the development of a 'fluid and many-sided personality' which is a positive trend in mental health within modern societies.

the protean self. In the book of the same title, he states that the development of a 'fluid and many-sided personality' is a positive trend in modern societies, and that mental health now requires 'continuous exploration and personal experiment', which requires the growth of a purely relativist society that's willing to discard and diminish previously established cultures and traditions.' (wiki)

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is the idea that totalitarian regimes reduce complex human problems into highly reductive definitive-sounding phrases.

The language of the totalist environment is characterized by the thought-terminating cliche. The most far-reaching and complex of human problems are compressed into brief, highly reductive, definitive-sounding phrases, easily memorized and easily expressed. These become the start and finish of any ideological analysis.'[15]' (wikipedia)

is a misguided and dangerous attempt to destroy all vulnerability.

War on Terrorism' as a misguided and dangerous attempt to 'destroy all vulnerability'.[citation needed] (wiki)

Robert Lifton

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Robert Lifton