History as the Normalization of the Fantastic
by Richard A. Koenigsberg
“What is at the root of this tendency to 'normalize the fantastic and unspeakable'—to conceive and write about horrific episodes of collective destruction and mass-murder as if these events are neither extraordinary nor pathological? What lies behind this desperate struggle to maintain our belief in the 'goodness' of civilization—in spite of the vast devastation that has been wrought in its name?”
Dear Colleague,

You may wish to scroll down to the table below before you read this edition of the LSS Newsletter. To summarize: 65 million troops were mobilized in the First World War; nearly 9 million were killed, 21 million wounded and nearly 8 million men were prisoners or reported missing in action.

Thus, an extraordinary total of over 37 million casualties, 56% of all men mobilized.
What a fantastic event! What a massive, monumental ritual of destruction, or self-destruction. Yet historians write about the war without flinching, as if “nothing special” occurred. Omer Bartov observes that the main trend of modern history is to "domestic the fantastic and to normalize the unspeakable."

Norman O. Brown suggests that human history is the "history of a neurosis." Having studied the First World War and Holocaust for the past 30 years, I would go further and suggest human history (“political” history, that is) is the history of a psychosis.  Because this psychosis is shared by so many people—so common—it has come to be perceived as “normal.”

What is at the root of this tendency to “normalize the fantastic and unspeakable”—to conceive and write about horrific episodes of collective destruction and mass-murder as if these events are neither extraordinary nor pathological? What lies behind this desperate struggle to maintain our belief in the “goodness” of civilization—in spite of the vast devastation that has been wrought in its name?

Having acknowledged the pathology and destructiveness inherent within dimensions of the historical process, we turn toward comprehending the meaning of these fantastic events. Why did human beings bring them into existence?

The most significant factor impeding our effort to understand historical episodes of mass-murder is the assumption of rationality. Western thought revolves around this persistent, determined effort to pretend that human beings are guided by “rational thought”—that they know what they are doing.

This assumption of rationality—refusal to recognize irrationality as the source of political events—is especially common among academic political scientists and historians. After more than 100 years of Freud, some people acknowledge that individuals are driven by motives of which they are unaware. We find it more difficult to acknowledge that the entire historical process is driven by motives of which human beings are unaware.

Presumably, the nations of First World War were pursuing their “interests”. Each nation had reasons for going to war. Yet look at the results. Reflect again on the table below—the massive casualties. Did all of this happen by chance? Was the entirety of the war a monumental “accident”? If an individual engaged in behaviors that resulted extraordinary self-injury, we would be alert to the self-destructive motives.

For some reason, we find it difficult to acknowledge the self-destructive motives underlying the behavior of historical actors. Massive volumes are written calculating how one event lead to another. Yet few articulate the underlying psychological dynamics that generated the events.

It is almost as if psychology has been banned from the domain of history. History positions itself as a domain “beyond good and evil;” a realm that seems to go on by itself, independent human motivation.

What’s more, it’s a domain of culture where anything and everything can happen—is allowed to happen. Anything and everything happen—extraordinary, bizarre, fantastic events—but we refuse to state the obvious: that a profound sickness or pathology lies at the core of the historical process.

Best regards,
Richard Koenigsberg

White, Matthew - First World War Casualties

Source: Historical Atlas of the Twentieth Century

Countries Total
Mobilized
Killed
& Died
Wounded Prisoners
& Missing
Total
Casualties
Casualties %
of Mobilized
Allied Powers
Russia 12,000,000 1,700,000 4,950,000 2,500,000 9,150,000 76.3
France 8,410,000 1,357,800 4,266,000 537,000 6,160,800 76.3
British Empire 8,904,467 908,371 2,090,212 191,652 3,190,235 35.8
Italy 5,615,000 650,000 947,000 600,000 2,197,000 39.1
United States 4,355,000 126,000 234,300 4,500 364,800 8.2
Japan 800,000 300 907 3 1,210 0.2
Romania 750,000 335,706 120,000 80,000 535,706 71.4
Serbia 707,343 45,000 133,148 152,958 331,106 46.8
Belgium 267,000 13,716 44,686 34,659 93,061 34.9
Greece 230,000 5,000 21,000 1,000 17,000 11.7
Portugal 100,000 7,222 13,751 12,318 33,291 33.3
Montenegro 50,000 3,000 10,000 7,000 20,000 40.0
Total 42,188,810 5,152,115 12,831,004 4,121,090 22,104,209 52.3
Central Powers
Germany 11,000,000 1,773,700 4,216,058 1,152,800 7,142,558 64.9
Austria-Hungary 7,800,000 1,200,000 3,620,000 2,200,000 7,020,000 90.0
Turkey 2,850,000 325,000 400,000 250,000 975,000 34.2
Bulgaria 1,200,000 87,500 152,390 27,029 266,919 22.2
Total 22,850,000 3,386,200 8,388,448 3,629,829 15,404,477 67.4
Grand Total 65,038,810 8,538,315 21,219,452 7,750,919 37,508,686 57.6