Collective Attachment and the Western Tradition of Coercion and Violence

Abstract

In the previous chapter I claimed that two important contemporary social narratives constructed in the United States and other parts of the Western world, the narratives supporting the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, were characterised by notable incoherence. I also argued that such incoherence indicated the operation of collective attachment representations permeated by insecurity, as I described the relevant terms in previous chapters. In Chapter 4 I discussed socio-cultural processes that underlie collective attachment and emphasised that the construction of insecure collective attachment representations is linked with practices of social coercion — socio-cultural domination, excessive restrictions in public debate, and often violence. I argued that domination of one social group over another tends to erode the collective attachment objects of the subjugated group and forcibly impose those of the dominator predisposing the latter towards the construction of incoherent collective attachment representations and often the disorganisation of the collective attachment system.