On: A boycott by passport [Letter]

The Editors regret publishing Kemp (2005) that contained partisan hatefulness. With the following letter from Warren Poland, we close the discussion.

Dear Sirs,

At a time when science is under political assault around the world and intellectual freedom faces powerful polemical enemies, Gabbard and Williams (2002)—along with the editors of most psychoanalytic journals—spoke out to “condemn recent actions that have denied academic freedom to individuals solely on the basis of their nationality”. In a responsive letter, Kemp (2005) condemned that editorial statement in a “condensed response” that “subsitute[d] for a reasoned analysis of the original editorial” [his words].

Having made their eloquent and sensitive point, I believe the editors were prudent in resisting the temptation to descend from their academic concern into the polemics of international events. However, one statement made by Kemp is so vilely destructive that it cannot be allowed to stand unanswered: He writes, as if it were a fact rather than his passionate prejudice, “Zionism is a racist ideology.” Even under the sway of the numerical power of the Arab states, the United Nations has properly repudiated that canard. What Kemp's intemperate partisanship leaves absent from his letter is a respect, if not a sympathy, for the horrors and sufferings of humanity on both sides in the Middle East conflict.

Despite his incendiary provocations, best dealt with outside the IJP arena, Kemp's letter opens another point cogent to both psychoanalytic practice and theory. “The fundamental principle from which all other principles of analytic technique derive is regard for otherness, the analyst's profound and genuine respect for the authenticity of the patient's self as a unique other, an other's self as valid as the analyst's own” (Poland, 1996, p. 7). The union of ego and superego that underlies spiritual pride, telling me that I alone know and therefore have the right to impose my understanding, undermines valid anal