Word: storr
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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While justifying the term "paranoid" for collective social actions (such as war) Storr dropped a statistic of heavy import. Notably, that within the period 1920-1945, 59 million beings have been killed in violent acts performed by other more or less "normal" human beings...
...Storr defined the paranoid state as "attributing to others feelings or thoughts which belong to the self, through the mechanism of projection." The paranoid state is accompanied by persistent delusion, generally of a persecutory nature. The popularization archetypal examples are true: the paranoid does feel himself in the midst of a plot or enmeshed within a powerful conspiracy. He is a distrustful person, balancing himself upon a tight walk environment...
...paranoid's narcisstic beliefs of self-importance are an infantile trait, according to Storr. He is regressing to a childlike level by applying all his love to himself. This is a compensatory move," for he feels himself incapable of receiving love from outside himself, and can only project hostility and aggression...
...Pursuit of enemies and human cruelty are intimately associated with paranoid projections," proposed Storr. Large number of people are willing to accept the most absurd fantasies about "enemies," delusion beliefs about Jews, negroes, and witches. Most countries have a special "out-group" that receives paranoid projections, such as the "untouchables" of India...
...Storr buttressed his argument that latent cruelty exists in most normal individuals by referring to experiments which have shown that normal American college students will apply lethal doses of electric shock to human subjects if they are told to do so by their instructors. He also added that 80 per cent of the pornographic material enjoyed by the general public is sado-masochistic in nature...