Lenguajes de la psique, voces de la naciónel peso del psicologismo en la representación académica y social del nacionalismo

Abstract

The thesis explores the influence that psychology has had throughout the 19th and 20th centuries on the academic and social representation of nationalism. It seeks to retrieve a series of psychological currents or schools that have carried notable weight in the way in which we have imagined the nation and interpreted the political ideology of nationalism: the psychology of the peoples, the psychology of the masses and the social psychology of prejudices. Before all else, it is based on the premise that the nation is a form of social and political organisation linked to secular culture, to the intellectuals and men of letters, to the language of the academy and of science. Poets, painters, musicians, novelists, playwrights, but also historians, philologists, archaeologists, anthropologists, philosophers and, finally, psychologists have given life and even voice to the national community. In this case we focus our attention on psychology’s contribution to the processes of imagining the national community and nationalism. To this end we divide the work into two classes or types of psychological theories or currents: on one hand, the ‘naturalising’ psychologies of nationalism; on the other, the ‘critical’ psychologies of nationalism. Outstanding among the former is the psychology of the peoples and the studies on national character, which had considerable repercussion throughout the 19th century and the first half of the 20th. Noteworthy among the critical contributions of nationalism are above all those that emerged after the First and Second World War from the premises of the psychology of the masses and psychoanalysis. Whilst the psychological language is losing momentum in the more specialised or academic literature, its influence continues to be considerable in the profane discourse on the nation, on the national character or on nationalism.