ssuming that Derek still believes in the principles of hate that fueled his actions and turned him into a cult figure within the world of white supremacists. Derek, however, has been changed profoundly by his experience.
Marian F. Fatout (1992) writes, ôNeuroses are a defense used by the person for the purpose of maintaining the integrity of the organism. Four major boundary disturbances have been identified that inhibit contact between the organism and the environment and thus cause neurosis: introjection, projection, retroflection, and confluenceö (p. 84). These four concepts are clearly demonstrated in the film.
The first, introjection, is most commonly compared to the Freudian term identification. S. H. Foulkes (1990) offers the following description of the Gestalt perspective: ôIntrojection is a specific characteristic of neurotics who take into their ego as much of the outside world as they can, in order to attenuate the acuity of their free-floating and ungratifiable unconscious desires, and who thus dispose of them in unconscious [f]antasiesö (p. 61). In this film, introjection is a key reason for the white supremacistsÆ success in recruiting disaffected young white men. DanielÆs bedroom is filled with posters and flags trumpeting the Nazis and allowing him to make himself feel powerful by taking in the apparent power they suggest.
As Daniel becomes drawn into admiration for and identification with Nazi power, he begins to lose his individual identity. One of the other skinheads, goading Daniel into stating his beliefs, instead gets him to spout the ôparty lineö: ôI believe in death, destruction, chaos, filth, and greedö (Kaye, 1998), and this declaration, while clearly not what Daniel himself actually believes, gives him a sense of relief by keeping him from examining the real truth. The vague fantasies that his statement allows him, of a dark and ugly world but a world in which he can belong, ...