Pseudospecies
(via MC)
— Barrett, Deirdre. Supernormal Stimuli: How Primal Urges Overran Their Evolutionary Purpose. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2010. Kindle.
Erik Erikson, a psychoanalyst who met Konrad Lorenz in the years after World War II, proposed the concept of the “pseudospecies”: The term denotes that while man is obviously one species, he appears and continues on the scene split up into groups: from tribes to nations, from castes to classes, from religions to ideologies…which provide their members with a firm sense of unique and superior human identity.
Our “pseudospecies” are those who look like us, believe the same things, or speak our language. Erikson said the pseudospecies provides people with a positive sense of identity but also obliterates our sense of other humans as our kin.
Any national or religious identity always involves a myth of being the superior or chosen ones. Its dark side is a projection of negative, inferior, or evil traits onto other groups.
— Barrett, Deirdre. Supernormal Stimuli: How Primal Urges Overran Their Evolutionary Purpose. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2010. Kindle.
