Editorial: Special Issue on Free Speech

The need for an issue of this international psychoanalytic journal on “Free Speech” was thrust upon us by the shocking massacre on January 7, 2015 of staff at Charlie Hebdo, the satirical weekly news magazine published in Paris. Following on interests of the International Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies’ editors who produced an issue of the journal (Twemlow, Parens, Mahfouz, & Scharff, 2007) as well as an edited volume (Parens, Mahfouz, Twemlow, & Scharff, 2007) on the complex issue of prejudice, “Charlie Hebdo”, as the event is now called, became a call for an examination of key large-group psychodynamics that gave rise to the massacre (New York Times, January 7, 2015). In doing so, in parallel with other social-issues-dedicated disciplines, those among us cognizant of the contribution psychoanalysis can make to shedding light on various issues of large concern to society are following Freud's (1933) call for the application of what we have learned from individual human psychodynamics in the clinical situation to issues of large consequence to “psychoanalytic large-group psychology” (Volkan, 2010). It is noteworthy that the proposition that psychoanalysis can be put into service for society was not taken just by Freud (1933) but in one much recognized instance was in fact initiated by Albert Einstein, who in a letter dated July 30, 1932, on behalf of the League of Nations asked Freud, “Is there any way of delivering mankind from the menace of war” (Freud, 1932, p. 199)? Freud's answer, a subjective answer1 that can neither be proven nor disproven (Parens, 2014, chapter 1) has led those in large-group governance responsible for solving their large-group conflict into paths of reactive passivity and misguided action that has tended to perpetuate the cyclicity of conflict among them - by positing that, given that we are born with destructive instincts, destructive conflict is unavoidable (Freud, 1932, pp. 210-211). A small number of psychoanalysts committed