kay – Page 6 – Shadow in the USA

Let’s Keep Unscrupulous Psychopaths from Ruling the World

Posted on September 9, 2018 by kay

Donald Trump likes to say he’s the “greatest.”

This is what Swiss analytical psychologist Adolf Guggenbuhl-Craig had to say about “great” men 20 years ago. It is more true, and more chilling, than ever.

“Contrary to popular belief, there are certain advantages to being a psychopath or compensated psychopath. Many of them have a relatively easy time adapting to society, unencumbered as they are by moral or neurotic scruples. They replace the lack of love or of true relationship with a love of power, something they can achieve without too much difficulty owing to the absence of moral or Eros-related restraints…

It is little wonder that psychopaths occupy so many of the top positions in society and rather astonishing that there are not more in such positions. Let me put it somewhat differently. One of the major problems of any society, of any political or large organization in general, is that of preventing unscrupulous, socially adapted psychopaths from gradually taking over the helm.

There are many countries in which the problem is a long way from being solved. There are even certain countries whose political organization encourages psychopaths to rise to positions of power, where only psychopaths can achieve such positions. It is not difficult to imagine in what spirit such nations are ruled. Nazi Germany is good example.

All dictorial forms of government, be they left-wing or right-wing regimes, are certainly to some extent dominated by psychopaths. Stalin was probably a psychopath, with a pronounced shadow and a decided power drive. Trotsky, originally his friend, was more of an idealist, but observe: Stalin died of natural causes at a ripe old age; Trotsky was murdered. There seems to be some truth to the expression, “the good die young.”

One is inclined to ask how, in a democratic country, we may prevent psychopaths from inveigling their way to the top. The power of the highest administrative positions is so strictly curtailed in Switzerland, for example, that it hardly tempts psychopaths. It seems to me even more important that the people be able to see through a psychopath, to see through their own psychopathic side. In most democracies, this ability is well enough developed so that a dangerous psychopath is usually detected when he appears on the scene.

I am convinced that a democracy whose citizens are incapable of discerning a psychopath will be destroyed by power-hungry demagogues. In Switzerland the resistance towards “great men” and the preference for mediocre political figures would seem to result from an instinctual desire to prevent psychopaths from coming to power.

Although there is certainly such a thing as a “great man,” many such figures are probably nothing more than unrecognized psychopaths. Think of personages such as Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, Napoleon, William II of Germany and many, many other more or less esteemed leaders of the past and present. These “great” criminals–and one must include Hitler and Stalin among them–destroyed the lives of millions. Themselves “erotically” stunted, they succeeded in obtaining recognition and power over societies in which they, themselves, felt shut out, power which was necessary to maintain the illusion that they actually belonged.

Happy the nation which gives such “great” men (and women) short shrift.”

Excerpted from Eros on Crutches, in Meeting the Shadow, edited by Connie Zweig and Jeremiah Abrams. [Bold type of certain phrases added.]

Three Cheers for Roland Paris

Posted on June 12, 2018 by kay

I am cheered to see an apt psychological summation of the human shadow emerge from the world of politics.

When US President Donald Trump re-acted with a characteristically mean personal attack after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said something Trump didn’t like about trade between their two countries — which was simply the truth, had been said before, and should have been no surprise at all to Trump — Roland Paris, a former advisor to Trudeau and a Professor of International Affairs at the University of Ottawa had this to say on twitter about Trump:

“Big tough guy once he’s back on his airplane. Can’t do it in person, and knows it, which makes him feel [weak]. So he projects these feelings onto Trudeau and then lashes out at him. You don’t need to be Freud. He’s a pathetic little man-child.”

Thank you, Roland. For stating exactly how the deadly cycle of denial, projection, and blame is manifesting yet again in the current president of the United States.

Thanks also to other political analysts, who pointed out: since Trump was on his way to a meeting with another famously cruel dictator, he thought a personal trouncing of someone who dared to disagree with him would make him look tough in the eyes of the other dictator.

How low we have sunk.

The problem with them or us

Posted on March 7, 2018 by kay

The problem with rigid dualistic thinking — us or them, black or white, good or bad, my way or the highway — is that it leaves out everything except one’s own narrow point of view.

Like the blind men and the elephant, you think it’s like a snake, he thinks it’s like a tree, and she thinks it’s like a house. Without better sight, without actually taking in the entire creature, the blind men are never going to be able to agree about the elephant.

Unless today’s rampant partisanship is the last gasp of rigidly dualistic nationalism, we are in severe danger of being squashed by the elephant.

Remember how lovely the earth looked in those pictures taken from the moon? It wasn’t fractured into a million pieces. It was one thing, one whole thing.

Taking rigid nationalism this far into the 21st century puts that one whole thing at risk.

The Devils Within

Posted on March 5, 2018 by kay

If we use the simple definition “your shadow is the part of yourself you don’t want to admit,” what’s going on in our country – well, hell… what’s going on around the world —begins to make more sense.

It’s easy to think that others are more violent. That others are causing problems.

It’s hard to own up to the violence and the problems within.

“The only devils in the world are those running around in our own hearts. That is where the battle should be fought.” –Mahatma Gandhi

What I’ve been saying…

Posted on March 1, 2018 by kay

There could be no better illustration of how the human shadow works than the news these last two years. We’ve let ourselves be whipped up into opposing camps, gotten too busy blaming the other party to practice democracy or face obvious problems.We elected a feckless buffoon because he instinctively knew how to turn us against one another, because he was the brashest bully on the playground, not because he knew anything about how to respectfully lead a powerful country on a small, rapidly changing world.

And now we’re reaping the rewards. Democracy is in decline all over, aided by creepy technology we are just beginning to find out about. Russia and North Korea are waving their nuclear arms, China is turning into a dictatorship, the USA has gone from world leader to world laughing stock, and children at school are gunned down by weapons that have no business being anywhere except on a battlefield.

Know why book sellers can’t keep George Orwell’s 1984 in stock? Because the middle chapter of the book, “Why There Must Always Be A War,” feels like it’s coming true: the rallies to deride others, the hateful rhetoric about whole groups of people, the poverty and misery in most people’s everyday lives, versus the wealth and privilege accorded the powerful and the few.

THAT, dear reader, is what I’ve been talking about. THAT is how the collective human shadow works.

“Learning to integrate shadow material is the single most important task facing mankind, as the failure to do so will lead to the extinction of the human race.” — Carl Jung

“We need an essentially new way of thinking if mankind is to survive.” — Albert Einstein

This is TOO obvious

Posted on June 19, 2017 by kay

You’d think Donald Trump would be the perfect topic for a blog that tries to explain the human shadow. You’d think I’d be perfectly happy. But in truth, writing about the Donald gets incredibly boring. The shadow side of his administration is so out in the open and so distinctly obvious that it’s hardly worth mentioning, psychologically speaking. But… as long as he’s in power, I gotta keep doing it.

What do you call it when someone says things over and over which are known to be false? Doublethink. There weren’t “the most people ever” at Trump’s inauguration, and saying there “were too” over and over again will not make it so. There was no “crookedness” in Hillary’s campaign, or reality to the “birther” and “wiretap” controversies about Obama, and there never will be. Nor did Trump get the “most votes ever.” (Any kid in elementary school would call this sort of behavior lying, but I defer to Mr. Orwell’s elegant term.)

What do we call it when someone uses euphemistically vague language with strong emotional overtones to promote a particular political agenda? Newspeak. Are Americans really the greatest? How so? Are we born with better circulatory systems or larger brains?

Why would someone who regularly calls his former opponent “crooked” without a shred of evidence, someone who actually called this opponent a “devil” in a nationally televised debate, be so shocked at the viciousness in Washington?

Why do we need to make others look bad in order to make ourselves feel good?

Denial. Projection. Blame.

We all do it. This is the pot calling the kettle black; the best defense being a good offense, et cetera. But Donald Trump is extreme.

George Will wrote recently that he thinks Trump has a dangerous disability. I agree. This is not just a man who has been known to lie on occasion. This is a man who doesn’t even know when he’s lying. He simply says whatever he feels like he needs to say to get himself out of whatever predicament he’s gotten himself into. Merely to make himself feel better at the moment. This is a man who protects his ego at the expense of any and all — truth be damned, country be damned.

And this man leads a large political party full of men who apparently don’t care if he lies, as long as they get to stay in power.

Not good.

Doublethink. Newspeak.

Posted on January 22, 2017 by kay

Doublethink: Accepting two mutually contradicting beliefs as being simultaneously correct. As in thinking, Sure, Donald Trump is selecting the wealthiest people he can find to be in his cabinet, while also thinking Sure, Donald Trump really cares about middle class America.

Newspeak: Ambiguous, euphemistic language used chiefly in political propaganda. Aren’t I the greatest? Sure, I’m the greatest. Everybody says so. I can make American great again because I’m the greatest.

He may not be much else worth mentioning, but Trump is a master of doublethink and newspeak.

I was worried that we’d never be able to figure out what was going with Donald in charge, but, after this inaugural week, I wonder no more.

To know what’s actually going on, all we will have to do is believe the exact opposite of whatever he says is going on.

Trumping

Posted on October 21, 2016 by kay

When I hear someone say whatever they want, however they want, to whomever they want, with no thought for truth or accuracy or fairness, much less common human decency;

when I know that someone is speaking simply to create an effect or to gain an advantage,

I’m going to call it “Trumping” from now on.

Technology–up! Patience and spirituality–down.

Posted on May 27, 2016 by kay

Yesterday I spent an hour online with our cable and internet provider, trying to set up a land line (dinosaurus as that sounds, we live too far out of town for cell service to be safe as the only alternative) and when David got home he spent another hour with them online. Then he still had to go into a brick and mortar store this morning to finish the deal. Everything about the process was frustrating and time consuming. Nothing about it could possibly be considered progress, except that the company employed as few actual live people as possible.

I don’t really understand this. How can technology advance so rapidly while our ability to actually get something done reaches new lows? Is that progress? What is progess, anyway?

Is it having microwave ovens? (Which cook so fast we get impatient when it takes 2 minutes to boil water.)

Is it having high speed internet or cell phones or wifi ? (Where we connect ourselves to the whole world via increasingly tiny electronic devices while we tune out the living beings right next to us.)

I’m afraid each speedy new technological device only makes us more impatient with each living breathing moment, only takes us further from the here and now … Which would be OK — hoky here and now shit, who needs it? — except that our bodies, those mysteriously interconnected physical, mental and spiritual temples which we inhabit, call the here and now home. They can only go so fast for so long, before they start breaking down.

Modern times are stressful. In very weird ways. Because the shadow aspect of all the devices that are supposed to make our lives easier and faster and more fun is: they don’t. It just ain’t so. Nobody’s talking about it — it would be very bad for business indeed — but our devices actually complicate, frustrate, and impoverish our lives as much as they enrich them. They’re so fast and so necessary to our overall entertainment and trendiness that we rely on them more and more every day, but when they quit working, as they often do, they’re far too complicated to fix. And expensive? Squished bug guts! What families pay per month today for electronic technology is more than families paid twenty years ago for their mortgages. These wonderful things are not at all affordable. We just can’t live without them, so we buy them anyway. Which creates another chronic stress, called chronic poverty.

Robert Bly said once, while lecturing on the human shadow, that “for every technological advance there’s a necessary and corresponding spiritual loss.” If we don’t get better at managing all the products our peers can think of, ole Robert might just be proven right.

Donald Trump, Shadow of the USA

Posted on March 29, 2016 by kay

What’s worse than Trump himself?

How many people don’t have a clue –will never have a clue– that they only like him because he expresses the worst parts of themselves. The parts they keep hidden until someone like Trump comes along and gives them permission to act out.

He really is the shadow of the USA.

He’s what you find when you turn over the “God Bless America!” rock.