Responsibility as a Way of Hope in the Nuclear Era: Some Notes on F. Fornari's ‘Psycho-Analysis of War’

This is not so much a formal paper as an extended review of Fornari's book ‘The Psychoanalysis of War’ and as with all such reviews needs first of all to be placed in its proper historical and social context. We have to take account, for example, of Fornari's background as a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst trained in the Italy of the early fifties. In common with many of his generation he was deeply interested in politics, sociology, literature and philosophy and was writing for an audience equally interested in these topics. His country, with its Jesuit art of compromise and its notorious political corruption nevertheless nurtured a strong anti-facist movement to which Fornari belonged in the late years of the war.

His thinking took place at a time when Europe was split into various factions, particularly over the problem of post war Germany and the Eastern Block, and when a kind of equilibrium was established in nuclear weapons through stockpiling by the Americans, Russians and Europeans. This equilibrium was based on the Yalta agreement which divided Europe at the end of the war.

Fornari tried to argue on the need to diminish splitting in political, social and ideological areas and insisted that we treat our enemies as neighbours with whom we have to learn to survive, if we want to avoid nuclear catastrophe. This message was eminently rational and led to fascinating ideas but was also provocative and could seem naive and even confused especially in a country like Italy with its Manicheistic tradition where psychoanalysis was attacked from one side by

Footnote: These notes were originally presented at a meeting of Psychoanalysts for the Prevention of Nuclear War (PPNW) in March 1985. Franco Fornari could not attend that meeting but conveyed how moved he was that his work had finally been discussed and acknowledged in Great Britain. On May 22nd 1985 he died suddenly and unexpectedly in Milan at the age of 64 having given a lecture at the University and on his way to se