Abstract

GARCIA-GARCIA, Juan. Mass Subjects: Visions of Nationalism after World War I. rev.estud.soc. [online]. 2016, n.56, pp.91-103. ISSN 0123-885X.  https://doi.org/10.7440/res56.2016.07.

One of the most popular or widespread theories of nationalism postulates the existence of dark, atavistic forces, the outbreak of irrational compulsions and the regression to barbarism, in a collective process that would in any case pass through the control and unconscious manipulation of the masses. What is the origin of such an interpretation? In this article we explore the influence of biology and turn-of-the-century psychiatry in the academic representation of nationalism at the end of the Great War. As we shall see, the representation of nationalism after the war would incorporate the concepts and terms atavism, degenerationism and mass psychology, thus initiating an epistemological turn that would not be complete until mid-century, with the popularization of psychoanalysis and denunciation of the Holocaust

Keywords : Nationalism; war; mass psychology; degenerationism.

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