Psychologist Says Hatred of Russia Has Become 'Social Norm' in U.S.

Psychologist Samuel Z. Klausner asserted last night that anti-Russian sentiment in the U.S. has become a "social norm," similar in many ways to the hatred of Jews in Nazi Germany.

"The Russians are different from us, they are separate, and they exist at cross-purposes from us," he said. "In certain epochs of American history we turn on our hatred of the Soviet Union, and at other times we turn it off." Klausner told the Ford Hall Forum that hope for peace with Russia exists because this hatred "is not explicable in purely paychological terms."

The situation in Germany was somewhat different, Klausner said. "Jaws were defined as enemies of the state, were deprived of their citizenship and right to work. they began to appear different; dehumanization was taking taking place."

Klausner explored the violent hatred of Jews of one man, Rudolf Hess, commandant of the Auschwitz death camp. Seeing Jews who had lost their identities, whose sole aim in life was to avoid the gas chamber, he could hardly avoid becoming totally oblivious to their feelings.

The case of Hess, Klausner said, was a clear example of the infusion of social pressures with the individual's personality."

Klausner's speech, "Understanding Our Loves and Hates," also explored the Turkish people's hatred of Armenians and Greeks. the roots of this hatred, he claimed, were found in the social instability of the Ottoman Empire. The Turkish government felt the solution to this instability lay in a "Westernization" of the country.

Turks who visited the West returned to the country with moders military ideas, Western thought and the concept of nationalism. After nationalistic sentiments evolved in the country, "the notion of being a Turk became extremely important." The Turks massacred many Armenians and Greeks, he said, "in an effort to "Turkify' them."