World War II

“ . . . psychiatrists argued that certain groups and environmental characteristics rendered people less vulnerable to fear. Indisputably, the most important of these were loyalty to one’s comrades and confidence in one’s leaders. . . . Foreigners (especially Jews) were accused of emotional weakness. . . . Finally, psychiatrists never tired of implying that men who collapsed under the strain of war were ‘feminine’ or ‘latent homosexuals’. . . . the psychiatric profession dedicated itself to delineating a philosophy of the emotions which would render fear reactions ethically illegitimate and would enable people to build up their ‘will power’ so that they would not succumb to fright. These psychiatrists did not eschew moral pronouncements; they encapsulated them” (Bourke, 230, 231).