1. IS NATIONALISM A MENTAL ILLNESS?
The Anatomy of Extremists’ Mind
Fanaticism is found only in individuals who are
compensating secret doubts – C.G. Jung
Nationalism is defined on two levels: individual and national.
On the individual level it denotes the attitude a person has towards his/her
national identity (psychological aspect).
On the national level it is defined as the actions a nation takes when asserting
self-determination from other nation or nations (geopolitical aspect).
National identity is defined as a common origin, ethnicity or culture. As such it
is most often identified with an allegiance to a home or homeland.
INDIVIDUAL LEVEL
When it comes to the idea of home, most people agree that it is psychologically
important. Upon careful psychological analysis this notion includes not only a
physical place (house), but also a symbolic meaning, thus a feeling. The feeling
projected is most often that of security, privacy and familiarity. This makes it a
physical-emotional compound that I call limit-notion.
Attachment to a home place is seen by some sociologists as a primordial
sentiment (Fried 2000). We talk about early life attachment to a mother figure
and a place-home. Environmental psychologists talk about a “place bound
affection” through which people maintain closeness to a place (Hidalgo and
Hernandez, 2001, p. 274).

2. A nation is a cultural group, possibly but not necessarily united by a common
descent, endowed with civic ties (Seymour 2000).
Like the notion of “home”, the idea of a “nation” includes a physical place (the
nation -state) and a symbolic meaning or “ethnosymbolism” (Anthony Smith
2008). The projected feelings are those of protection, security and familiarity.
Thus “home” and “nation” become equated in the dimension of feeling.
It is important to become aware of notions that are in part reason and in part
feeling. I call them limit- notions because they are amalgams of physical reality
and a projected feeling.
Nationalism has long been ignored and considered a relic of the pre-WWII
Europe. Political philosophy there attempted to bury it under the pragmatic
symbol of the European Union. The slogan “united we are richer” gained
popularity. The implied, but not communicated meaning was “united we lose
national sovereignty”.
After the WWII nationalism seemed defeated.
The Balkan wars of the 90’s, the current economic crisis, and globalization
helped the resurrection this old ghost .
The Balkan wars
After German nationalism sparked WWII most European countries placed
safeguards in their constitutions, preventing extremist parties’ access to the
political power. The Balkan wars revealed the inefficiency of those safeguards.
Recent Economic Crisis
Under economic pressure, Europe did not show a unified response. On the
contrary the reliance on nation states once more took center stage. Germany
and France behavior revealed to the world that they were in favor of the EU
only as long as it is in their national interest.
Globalization

3. Like in the movie Up in the AIR globalization attempts to broaden our notion of
home as to include the whole “global village”. Are we ready to became as
“evolved” or emancipated as to give up the idea of “home” or “nation” in favor
of a global home or a global country? It is interesting to note that nationalism
became more prevalent as the globalization forces gained strength. For
example in the United States we established a Department of Homeland
Security. The Tea Party Movement can also be seen as a reaction to
globalization. In Europe even the most tolerant countries like the Netherlands
and Switzerland have witnessed right wing parties attempting to gain access to
political power. Psychologically speaking this response is compensatory. If the
idea of “home” or “nation” would be totally rational, rather than limit-notions,
they could be broadened. Rationally speaking it should work, but at the
emotional level it triggers an irrational response. Since we are dealing with
projections of feelings, they always evoke compensatory responses and the
outcome is less certain. Nostalgia for “home” or “nation” is a projected feeling
and nationalism is a compensatory response.
In her book “Five Roads to Modernity” Liah Greenfield distinguishes between
civic nationalism (patriotism) and ethnic nationalism (extremism). Ethnic
nationalism sees nationality as determined genetically, entirely independent of
the individual volition, and thus inherent (Greenfield Liah, Nationalism in
Western and Eastern Europe, 1995).
NATIONAL LEVEL
Germany and Russia are the quintessential example of ethnic nationalism. The
psychological factor in the development of ethnic nationalism is the sentiment
of inferiority or resentment due to national humiliation.
Prussia’s defeat by Napoleon in 1806 was humiliating and initiated a radical
transformation of the German economy and society, along Western lines. This
led to the emancipation of serfs in 1807 and opened a path for Germany to join
the developed European countries England and France. This culminated in 1871
in the Prussian-led unification of Germany. But Germany was already late in
abandoning feudal relations and joining the major European Empires. The Reich

4. responded to its Western rivals by producing extremist ideologies and
movements.
The Russian Empire suffered its own humiliation during the Crimean War (1853-
1856). In response the tsar abolishes serfdom in 1861, but it took another
humiliation (the Japanese war of 1905) to force the country out of feudal
relations. Russia joined the European pie even later than Germany. The only
response it could mount against the major Western Empires at this time was
compensatory - extremist ideologies and ethnic nationalism.
The idea of nation, Rodina for the Russians and Vaterland for Germans are
metaphors of kinship (mother or father images projected on the physical land)
and thus limit-notions. Limit notions always trigger irrational (compensatory)
responses.
In its extreme form, nationalism can be equated to a cognitive disorder. The
individual’s thought process becomes concrete. The metaphor of motherland or
fatherland loses its depth and they become the real mother or father on a
collective level. In order to join them on that level, the individual becomes
devoid of individuality and totally dissolved into the collective, the society. In
this state the individual is in a hypofrontal state in which the dorso-lateral
prefrontal cortex(DLPFC) is hypofunctional and the collective social mind takes
over his/her executive functions. The individual cognitive faculties are now
processed through the collective mind. The collective mind is ancestral,
subcortical, thus lacking adequate censorship. Under the spell of the collective
or societal mind, the individual is no different than a cognitively impaired
person. Insight is lacking because of an intentionally inhibited DLPFC.

5. DLPFC exerts inhibitory control over VMPFC (brown) and OFC (blue)
Neurobiology teaches that the dorso-lateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC)
processes analytical thinking, cognitive function and thus insight.
The ventro-medial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC) is in charge of the emotional
processing.
The orbito-frontal cortex (OFC) regulates impulses.
It could be postulated, that the information processing in the DLPFC of
extremists is impaired, leading to the disinhibition of the OFC and VMPFC.
In extremists the rational component of the limit-notion helps evade the DLPFC
censor. The censor focuses on the rational aspect only and “marks” the entire
limit-notion as “correct” or “acceptable”. The feeling component thus evades
detection.

6. Because a rational part is present in the limit-notion, the censor fails to detect
the feeling attached to it. It could be said that the feeling component of a limit
notion is a stealth aircraft that avoids radars or a virus that hides behind a
vector, cheating detection systems.
This raises another interesting question: is a half-truth more harmful than a full
lie?
In part two of this article I will elaborate on the systems neuroscience aspect of
extremism. I will be describing a top-down (inhibitory system) and a down-up
(activatory system). I will also examine the role of amygdale in extremists’
information processing.
ADONIS SFERA, MD