They Want You Hopeless: The Psychology of Empire & Resistance, w/ Lara Sheehi

As Israel’s genocide in Gaza continues and Lebanon faces ongoing aggression and political pressure to capitulate, many people are grappling with fear, exhaustion, and despair.

But what if hopelessness itself is part of the strategy?

Psychoanalyst and author Lara Sheehi joins Dispatches with Rania Khalek to discuss the psychological dimensions of fascism, empire, colonial violence, and resistance — from Israeli psychological warfare and sexual humiliation as a tool of domination, to the weaponization of sectarianism in Lebanon, the role of media propaganda, and why revolutionary optimism is itself a political act.

Sheehi also discusses her new book, From the Clinic to the Streets: Psychoanalysis for Revolutionary Futures, and explains why the work of Frantz Fanon is more urgent than ever.

Topics include:

•Psychic militancy and psychological warfare

•How fascism reshapes society psychologically

•Israeli violence, humiliation & domination

•Lebanon, sectarianism & capitulation politics

•Why empire depends on despair

•The limits of liberalism

•The politics of the wellness industry

•Media propaganda and psychological control

•Revolutionary optimism and resistance

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