The Mythology of Life

"The essence of drama is to force the characters to make difficult decisions and then live with the consequences."

I've been a watcher of the History channel for years and years thanks to my lifelong interest in history.  For a long time it was a pretty good channel, even if it did tend to become repetitious with the endless documentaries on WW2.  However, over the last few years the quality of programming on the channel has been steadily decreasing, in large part because it's no longer really about history.  Take this diagram I got off the Voltage Blog website:

This percentage listing of types of programming on the History Channel seems pretty dead on to me.  The abundance of occult and fringe history material has gotten so bad that they really should change their name to the "Paranormal Channel".  Or perhaps the "Ice Road Truckers" channel.  Either way, actually history is becoming hard to find on the so-called History Channel. 

I think this relates to psychology and skepticism as, in my experience, a good understanding of history is an important part of understanding the mental workings of human beings.  You can find examples of all types of psychological phenomenon throughout the events of history, from mass archetypal movements to the inspirations that drive lone individuals to attempt to change the world.  History also helps in general ways by giving us the context for modern events -- the turmoil in the Middle-East, for example, makes no sense unless you understand the last 200 years of history in the region. 

Quite simply, a good understanding of history is essential to having a good understanding of the world.  Too bad that the very channel that's supposed to provide it seems so reluctant to offer anything of real substance.

I haven't been doing much with this blog lately for which I apologize.  The primary reason for this is that I've been spending my excess time preparing for a gaming convention coming up in June (you can read about it at my other blog here).  I will try to update this blog as I can, but for the next month it's liable to be meager.  Expect a lot more after the convention when my time frees up.

Here is another link dealing with skepticism and how ignorance can threaten lives -- Why Does the Vaccine/Autism Controversy Live on?

This is perhaps the most pernicious of anti-science movements out there.  Vaccines are arguably one of the greatest inventions of mankind, one that literally has saved millions of lives.  However, I wonder if its very success has led people to take it for granted.  As a result they are more apt to fall prey to notions like vaccines cause autism.  As the link illustrates all the evidence shows that there is no link between the two and that, in fact, the idea is based on nothing but misunderstandings and fear.  Anti-vaccine fears kill people and cause many more to endure unnecessary pain.  My fear is that this movement won't go away until enough people have suffered to make it tragically clear just how wrong it is.

Here is a good article for those who might think there is something to homeopathy -- Swines and Birds and Homeopaths, Oh My!

Although some may doubt it, I think Jung's ideas and skepticism go together quite well.  In a sense his ideas detail the psychological reasons behind people believing in self-serving or even complete falsehoods.  Homeopathy is both of these.  Not only have numerous scientific studies shown it doesn't work, but even its founding theory makes no sense -- water somehow has a memory that allows it to be used for healing.  In effect, Homeopathic so-called cures are nothing more than glasses of water!

We should all be open to new and perhaps unlikely notions, but we shouldn't believe in something that has been thoroughly disproven. 

As I stated last time as the Ego develops it comes to see some potential human qualities as being “me” material while at the same time seeing opposite qualities as “not me” stuff.  In short, the Ego is defined as much by what it sees itself as not being as what it sees as it being.

Ideally, even as the healthy Ego disassociates from some human psychological material it does not do so in a manner that leaves a strong residue of fear.  Sure, the person may not see a part of their potential as being “me”, but if and when the time comes that they begin to realize that such material really is part of themselves their reaction will be one of curiosity and openness.  However, because this “not me” stuff represents a fundamental threat to the individual’s sense of self (e.g. it suggests possible Ego death) it is more typical for a person to develop strong defenses against accepting it.  These defenses manifest as emotions such as hate or fear, with the intensity increasing the more threatened the individual feels.

These reactions are a defense mechanism of the Ego to protect itself from potential angst and pain.  Think of about it – if you whole sense of being is wrapped around certain ideas as to what you are – beautiful, smart, courageous, outgoing – the more you identify with those traits the more, by necessity, you will be afraid of acknowledging the opposite within yourself – that you are ugly, dumb, cowardly, or shy.

Here is a “living” example of what I mean.  It’s taken from a famous movie of a famous real life event.

 

Note the intensity of Patton’s reaction – he is livid at the apparent cowardice of this shell-shocked soldier.  Given his own personality Patton’s reaction is hardly surprising.  He was well known for his strong identification with courage and bravery in battle.Now look at his reaction from a Jungian perspective – because Patton’s Ego so strongly identified with the notion of being courageous in the face of danger the opposite reaction he saw in the “cowardly” soldier represented a direct assault of his own sense-of-self.  The soldier’s cowardice had to be wrong as to accept its validity suggests that Patton’s own idealization of bravery might be false.  Therefore, although Patton consciously felt anger toward the soldier unconsciously he was acting from fear.  All anger and hatred ultimately comes from inner, unacknowledged fear.

What would be a more healthy reaction on the part of Patton?  It wouldn’t be to go to the other extreme and accept cowardice as a virtue.  Rather, it would be to understand the reasons why the soldier acted the way he did and, more importantly, that such motivations lied within Patton as well.  After all, in many ways picking up a gun and rushing out to kill someone is an unnatural act.  The soldier’s own psyche was merely rebelling against something it saw as wrong, even abhorrent.

Where Patton goes wrong is that he no doubt sees the only alternative to his idealization of bravery to be an idealization of cowardice.  That is, his own mind sets up a circumstance where courage is the only possible choice because the only possible alternative is so obviously wrong.  Such black and white thinking is a classic attribute of an Ego Defense in action.  The way to avoid such a trap is to realize that the true answer isn’t either/or, but rather a greater realization built upon understanding the mixture of the two opposing ideas.

I just watched the pilot for Caprica, a new series that will eventually be showing on the Sci-fi Channel (at least here in the States).  For those that don't know Caprica is a prequel to the revamped Battlestar Galactica which itself just ended as a series.  I found Caprica surprisingly good.  It definitely caught my interest and I await the full series eagerly.  I especially enjoy how the setting of the show is a sophisticated human society with technology that is at most 100 years ahead of ours.  That and the fact that since we know the whole world is doomed to destruction I have a genuine interest in seeing how the world of Battlestar Galactica came to be.

I'm posting about Caprica here because it is my intention to eventually use movies and television shows as examples of Jungian concepts in action.  That is, drama tends to distill the archetypes down into forms more easily seen than in regular life, thereby making such visuals handy for illustrating important Jungian ideas (I do this all the time in the talks I've given).  I am holding off on such material here until I have gone into enough basic material so that the examples I'll eventually use make sense.

When we are born we have no sense of self, no understanding of “who” we are, no individual identity.  Theoretically, in psychological terms we could develop into anything human – male/female, brave/cowardly, expressive/introspective, etc.  However, this doesn’t mean we are a proverbial blank slate that can be shaped by events into anything.  Rather, our development proceeds in a manner consistent with both our external reality and our innate abilities and predispositions.

Take for example a fictitious newly born baby girl named Susan.  Although just born she possesses obvious traits important to her future identity, most notably her gender.  At the same time she is emerging into a world that already has expectations of her.  Perhaps her parents see her as growing up into a doctor, for instance.  There are also other more subtle outside factors at work such as cultural assumptions as to what a “good” girl “should” be.

As she matures and gains both knowledge and experience Susan will inevitably discover that some ways of behaving are more advantageous to her than others.  Just what these are depends greatly on both innate and exterior factors.  The point is that as she goes along Susan will be forced to take on these habitual behaviors – and the beliefs that justify them – as a consequence of growing into adulthood.  We can’t as a practical matter be all things to all people.  We human beings are limited entities with limited time to spend on mastering skills.  As such we will quite unconsciously begin to specialize in those psychological attributes that give us the most bang for our personality buck.

In the case of Susan perhaps she happens to be unusually bright and studious, the sort of young kid with the potential to excel in school.  Combine this support parents and teachers and Susan could easily begin to accept “bright and studious” as part of her self-identity.  At the same time perhaps she inherently shy or at least has problems adjusting to social situations.  Thus, even as she starts to accept the positive self-conception of being intelligent she may at the same time be accepting the negative self-conception of being unlikable.

As time goes on and Susan experiences more of life she gains practical experience when it comes to what works for her and what does not.  At the same time the older she gets the more she will be pushed to adopt a definitive personality, something that gives her a sense of purpose and the ability to concentrate on goals of self-fulfillment.  The more this happens the more her personality coalesces into a distinct entity to the exclusion of other possibilities. 

Remember, when she was born her potential was nigh limitless, but as she specializes on a limited set of skills and personality attributes the more she disassociates from other sorts of potential.  To put it more simply, the more some small set of attributes become “me” stuff the more that everything else becomes “not me” stuff.  For instance, as an intellectual she may regard sports as wasteful, even boorish.  Psychologically speaking she is distancing her self-identity from that psychic material she associates with sports.

It’s important to realize that this doesn’t happen consciously, but rather automatically and unconsciously.  It’s not like she decided at age five to become an intellectual over an athlete.  Rather, it was just where circumstances, social expectations, and her own innate capabilities led her.  Quite literally by the time she gains the necessary self-awareness to start asking herself questions about who she is as a person she’s already made the fundamental decisions as to what that’s going to be!

Although she may be acquiring her adult personality unconsciously, in the process she is setting herself up for potential psychological difficulties.  That is because in favoring some of her potential she is disfavoring other parts.  That can end up putting the differing portions of her psyche in conflict – that is, neurosis.

More to come…

Perhaps the primary reason I started this blog was to explain a portion of Jungian Theory that is not well known, one that I call Archetypal Roles.  Put simply, they represent the eight possible basic roles -- four masculine, four feminine -- that any particular individual uses as the basis for their own self-identity.  Each is an archetype and one of them is the archetype that forms the foundation of your Ego-complex.  In effect your Archetypal Role represents your self-perceived role within the larger reality of your society.  In this I am not talking about something as superficial as your occupation, but rather something far more basic (although your Role may very well have influenced your choice of career).  Take human society and reduce the various functions people play within it to their most fundamental and you'll end up with the eight Archetypal Roles.

As stated there are four masculine Roles -- Father, Warrior, Seeker, and Sage -- and four feminine Roles -- Mother, Amazon, Companion, and Mediatrix.  Explaining all of these will take time (I could easily write a book on the subject) so today I just want to start off with a sheet on Archetypal Roles I did for a presentation some years ago.  You can download it right here (it's in PDF format). As I go along I will give more information, but for now this is a good place to start.

I wanted to make everyone aware of one of my favorite Jungian books of all time -- Jung and the New Age by David Tacey.  I must have read it ten times.  Tacey does a terrific job of illustrating the differences between Jungian thought and New Age beliefs, particularly how the latter tends to appropriate the former for its own ends.

I think this is a major issue -- something I see all the time is people blurring the line between the two.  Jung's approach was ultimately empirical.  He wanted to understand the human psyche much like a scientist wants to understand how the universe works.  By comparison, the New Age is a belief system that, like all belief systems, is more about faith and feeling better about yourself than figuring out the truth no matter how painful it might be.

This is not to say that New Age thought is somehow "bad".  My point is that Jungian thought should not be seen as just an extension -- or, at least, endorsement -- of the belief system.  Like Mr. Tacey I think Jung would have as many criticisms of New Age belief as agreements.  New Age thought has a tendency to offer spirituality without much responsibility, as if the point of existence was only to make you feel special.  Yet, greater psychological self-awareness -- what Jung referred to as Individuation -- is in many ways a "downer".  It's about realizing you aren't special, that you are just a flawed human being living in a world of limitations.

Anyway, I strongly recommend this book, especially if you aren't sure what the differences are between Jung's ideas and New Age belief.  You won't be disappointed.