The hate script – A radical transactional analysis perspective

This essay employs Radical TA theory and deconstructionism to explore the psychology of unconscious biases. The author’s own upbringing, in communist Romania during the 1980s, and the widespread discrimination against the Roma are used as a case study. Antiziganism is interpreted both as a symbolic abhorrence we hold against our own potential to fall and become outsiders and as a fixated ‘I’m not OK, you’re not OK’ life position, in extreme cases relating to hamartia. The role of authoritarianism is explored in relation to different levels of script (societal, cultural and individual) while dissidence is seen as relying on direct input from a proposed metascript level: humanity at large + the ecosystem. The term Other is capitalised throughout the essay to denote the tensions between I/us and another ethnic, gender, racial, etc., group. Gypsy and Roma are used to represent historical discrimination (the former) and the politically correct address (the latter) according to context.