Page - 45 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 04/01

Trauma and Conformity | 45www.jrfm.eu 2018, 4/1, 35–46 of any regime other than the regime that he had established for himself. Breivik withdrew from social pressure and murdered. Does the killing carried out by Breivik suggest that social pressure can also be valuable and has the power to channel certain behaviours. TRANSGRESSING PSYCHOLOGY In this article I have discussed the psychological perspectives in two documen- taries about extensive and well-organised violence against defenceless peo- ple. The Act of Killing is about trauma; Das radikal Böse is about conformity. These perspectives are applied to the actions of the perpetrators and reveal what might occur before a mass killing and what the consequences are. They elucidate what makes individuals mass murderers and what their killing can mean for the remainder of their lives. The adoption of these perspectives also hides however, certain crucial issues from view. The use of the concept of trauma blurs the distinction between per- petrator and victim, while the concept of conformity is employed such that its potentially beneficial functions are concealed. In both cases the use of psychological concepts needs interpretation that extends beyond psychology. We require a more normative reading that indi- cates that on essential points the trauma of the perpetrators is incompatible with the trauma of the victims. We also require an interpretation that points out that conformity as such is not necessarily unwelcome, but that it sometimes has undesirable consequences. Judging an action as conformist or non-conformist in a social-psychological sense is not the same as judging whether that action is unjust or just. What is desirable is determined from a substantive, normative position. Here we can turn to one of the experts in Das radikal Böse, priest Patrick Desbois, who does his utmost to record the graves of the Jewish victims of the Einsatzgruppen in the Ukraine. Desbois suggests that the moment people claim to be superior to others can be regarded as the first step towards the destruction of those con- sidered inferior. Those who claim their own humanity to be superior may then deny any human status to those that they deem inferior, and if they are not hu- man, they can be destroyed. Much social psychological research confirms this suggestions by Desbois.16 Declaring others to be inferior can be a prelude to the destruction of these others. Do we not therefore have good reason to encourage conformity to the recognition of the equality of all peoples? 16 Smith/Mackie 2000.