In this deeply thoughtful book, Elisabeth Young-Bruehl turns a critical lens on prejudice. Surveying the study of prejudice since World War II, Young-Bruehl suggests an approach that distinguishes between different types of prejudices, the people who hold them, the social and political settings that promote them, and the human needs they fulfill. Startling, challenging, and courageous, this work offers an unprecedented analysis of prejudice.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Rejecting the common assumption that prejudice is a generalized attitude, this dense psychoanalytic study asserts that different prejudices fulfill different needs for various character types. Anti-Semitism, racism and sexism?three "ideologies of desire," or backlashes against movements for equality?all involve stereotypes, projection and faulty generalization, declares psychotherapist Young-Bruehl, biographer of Anna Freud and Hannah Arendt. But the similarities end there, she argues. She links anti-Semitism to the obsessional personality, given to fixed ideas and to sadistic behavior. Racism, in her framework, exemplifies the hysterical character, who unconsciously appoints a group to act out forbidden sexual and aggressive desires. Sexism, a prejudice of the (usually male) narcissistic personality, betrays a desire to control the differences between males and females. Young-Bruehl also probes the roots of homophobia, calling gays and lesbians "all-purpose victims" who fulfill the twisted needs of various prejudiced character types, and she also addresses ethnocentrism, calling it a universal form of prejudice that protects group identity.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Clearly written and accessible to general as well as scholarly readers, this is a major work in personality and culture that asserts the plurality rather than the unity of prejudice. The author, a professor at Haverford College and a psychotherapist, integrates psychoanalytic concepts with sociological and historical readings. Young-Bruehl deals with anti-Semitism, racism, sexism, homophobia, and classism, separating the prejudices into ethnocentricisms and ideologies of desire. She develops a characterological model of hysterical, obsessional, and narcissistic types and rejuvenates parts of psychoanalytic theory. Impressively erudite, she knows "how culture shapes the study of itself." Young-Bruehl confronts a great and enduring scourge of humanity while enriching many fields. Along with new and challenging ideas, this book provides an indispensable survey of past scholarship.?E. James Lieberman, George Washington Univ. Sch. of Medicine, Washington, D.C.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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