The Ramazzini Institute
for Occupational and Environmental Health Research   

Who Are We?

     A reader from Germany e-mailed TheEditors@RamazzinUSA.org: “You write about the historical mechanism of the 9/11 tragedy in New York [See archives Volume Two, Number Four. Fourth Quarter 2001]… What about the mind of the terrorist … What happens to the individual mind in  history? …  Is the mind or the society responsible?” 
    When the tide of terrorism began to engulf the entire West, beginning with World War I, C.G. Jung a founder of psychoanalysis had a cogent insight.
      “… Psychic evolutions do not as a rule keep pace with the tempo of intellectual developments. Indeed, their very first goal is to bring a consciousness that has hurried too far ahead into contact again with the unconscious background with which it should be connected….It is a task that today faces not only individuals but whole civilizations. What else is the meaning of the frightful regressions of our time? The tempo of the development of consciousness through science and technology was too rapid and left the unconscious, which could no longer keep up with it, far behind, thereby forcing it into a defensive position which expresses itself in a universal will to destruction. The political and social isms of our day preach every conceivable ideal, but, under this mask, they pursue the goal of lowering the level of our culture by restricting or altogether inhibiting the possibilities of individual development. They do this partly by creating a chaos controlled by terrorism, a primitive state of affairs that affords only the barest necessities of life and surpasses in horror the worst times of the so-called "Dark" Ages. It remains to be seen whether this experience of degradation and slavery will once more raise a cry for greater spiritual freedom.
    “This problem cannot be solved collectively, because the masses are not changed unless the individual changes. At the same time, even the best-looking solution cannot be forced upon him, since it is a good solution only when it is combined with a natural process of development. It is therefore a hopeful undertaking to stake everything on collective recipes and procedures. The bettering of a general ill begins with the individual, and then only when he makes himself and not others responsible. This is naturally only possible in freedom, but not under a rule of force, whether this be exercised by a self-elected tyrant or by one thrown up by the mob. “
     While Jung emphasizes the individual, others would argue that the necessary condition of freedom is a development of community. The human, in this weltanschauung, is not an atom, There is no homogeneous human mass. We create the organic social structures in which we act, directly and through peer group leaders. Thus change and responsibility are morally [and ecologically] allocated. 
     How should the allocation take place? Mohamed El Baradei, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, in an editorial published by The New York Times on February 12, suggests that “we must abandon the traditional approach of defining security in terms of boundaries - city walls, border patrols, racial and religious groupings. The global community has become irreversibly interdependent, with the constant movement of people, ideas, goods and resources. In such a world, we must combat terrorism with an infectious security culture that crosses borders - an inclusive approach to security based on solidarity and the value of human life. In such a world, weapons of mass destruction have no place.”