The Family Lie: Afterword to the Foreword by Susan Marks

Abstract I wrote these thoughts in response to Susan Marks’ critique of the metaphor of the world as a family. I read Marks’ article while a genocide was raging relentlessly, so, of course, my thoughts revolved around the failure of the international community and of international law and its institutions to do anything to stop it. What kind of family fails so dramatically at curbing such extreme violence, I wondered. Using a psychoanalytic lens, I analyse the development of the superego in individuals, in groups and, finally (and most unsuccessfully), in states. Adding to Marks’ suggestion for a sublation of the family, I suggest a sublation of international law and a move away from its focus on states to a focus on individuals. My article deplores the insistence on homogeneity in groups, whether the group is formed around family, kinship, ethnic identity, religion, race or nationhood. Such insistence inevitably leads to exclusions and, in the worst instances, to genocide.