Forwarded by a friend, this looks at the
Bush/US/Iraq scenario from an archetypal standpoint. -
Jeffrey
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An
archetypal analysis of how the country came to stand at the brink of
war.
By Carol S. Pearson
If I was frightened of my neighbor
because he had guns and I knew he did not like me, I could not simply declare
the need for a preemptive strike and kill him. If I had actual grounds -- say,
he had threatened me -- I could go to the police and seek protection or go to
court and try to get a restraining order. In either case, I could not say:
"Help me or I'll kill him."
If I actually did kill him -- however
fearful I was that he might someday kill me -- I would be the one treated as a
criminal. It is likely that I would be convicted and sent to jail or
executed.
Why?
No law on earth -- for individuals or nations --
allows you to kill people because they have weapons and do not like you.
Self-defense requires imminent danger.
How does the above example
differ from President Bush's doctrine of a preemptive strike? How is it
different from his going to the United Nations and saying that if it does not
act, we will attack Iraq by ourselves?
If we should have learned
anything from inventing and then dropping nuclear bombs, it is that whatever
we do, others will want to do, too. One might even think of this as a kind of
karma--what you put out comes back at you.
It is fairly obvious that
once some countries have weapons of mass destruction, other countries will
want them, including those run by ruthless dictators. They want them for the
same reasons we do.
So, if the U.S. decides that it can strike
preemptively, then every other country can--and in some cases will--as well.
Many countries have good reason to believe that we do not like them. Indeed,
our president has even publicly named countries he regards as evil. In
addition, he has treated our allies and the United Nations with disdain. It
seems to me that it is only the fact of our military might that allows the
president to presume to bully the world.
Won't other countries seek to
arm to the teeth if they think that at any time we might attack them? It often
happens that the bully who kicks sand in the other boys' faces gets beat up
when they band together against him.
Figuring this out is not rocket
science. The logic that all this inevitably will come back to haunt us seems
to me obvious enough--and it seems to be obvious to most of the rest of the
world, too.
What is happening here?
Reductive Thinking and
Archetypal
Possession
--------------------------------------------
Archetypes
can possess people -- and whole nations, as well. When this happens,
individuals and nations stop thinking straight and just live out the plot of
that archetype's story. Given enough fear, the Warrior archetype can possess
almost anyone. And when it does, the whole Warrior way of thinking kicks in.
We have been hearing it from President Bush.
It goes like this: We are
the good guys. They are the bad guys. When we defeat them, the world will be a
better place and we will be Heroes.
This makes for a good cowboy movie,
but it is lousy foreign policy.
Sam Keene, in Faces of the Enemy, shows
how normally reasonable, caring people, if they are frightened enough, will be
willing to go to war whether or not it makes sense to do so. Part of whipping
them up to kill is to present "the enemy" as less than human, avoiding any
empathy with how the other side sees the situation.
For a brief time
after 9/11, we had the opportunity to move into a more complex understanding
of the world and our own role in it. While grappling with incredible grief and
determining how to care for the families of those who died, the U.S. appeared
to be open to learning from the event--even trying to understand why many
people around the world hate us.
However, in his public statements and
speeches in the aftermath of 9/11, Bush told an archetypal story that shut
that sort of thinking down. He explained the situation simply, giving only two
reasons that others might attack us militarily or philosophically: Either our
detractors hate freedom or they are evil. And he demanded that the rest of the
world choose sides. Other nations were to be with us (and thus good) or
against us (and thus evil).
Unfortunately, for many Americans, thinking
stopped there. The fact that most people accepted this archetypal and
reductive story is not surprising. People look to their leaders for guidance,
especially when they are frightened. Thinking in a more complex way about the
world, moreover, feels much more vulnerable than retreating to the comfort of
a well-worn story, especially a story that reassures us that the problem is
entirely them, not us.
Others who understood the folly of Bush's
reductive thinking (or lack of thinking) shut up. After all, how can you say
that the Emperor is naked when everyone is raving about the quality of his new
suit?
Warrior Story, Outlaw
Behavior
------------------------------
As I have reflected on this,
I have come to think that although Bush used the Warrior/Hero story as the
myth to make meaning of post-9/11 reality, his own behavior seems more Outlaw
than Warrior. He seems to have a disdain for the law, acting as if he and, by
extension, we are above it.
Domestically, think of his "election"
amidst scandalous irregularities, his refusal to release funding allocated by
Congress for projects he does not personally favor, and the "reverse Robin
Hood" nature of his tax policy (robbing from the poor to help the
rich).
Internationally, his threat to take vigilante-like military
action against Iraq if the UN does not do his bidding was anticipated by his
pulling the U. S. out of the Kyoto and ABM Treaties, his boycott of the Human
Rights Conference, and his insistence that U.S. soldiers be the only ones in
the world who cannot be tried for war crimes by the World Court.
The
implication is that the president and the United States can live outside the
law and do whatever they please.
It is, and has been, critical that
Congress and the American people reign in Bush's Texas cowboy tendencies. How
can we demand that Saddam Hussein abide by international agreements when we do
not do so ourselves?
In Search of a More Adequate
Story
----------------------------------
So what archetypal story
can we use to make meaning of the world in which we live and take right
action?
Not the story of the Innocent, I'm sure. It will not help to
pretend that the terrorists are not dangerous, that Saddam Hussein is not a
tyrant, that petty dictators all over the world are not gaining access to
weapons of mass destruction, or that the politics within the United Nations
are not Byzantine. Similarly, it is not useful to exaggerate the U.S.'s or
Bush's culpability or to underestimate our national vulnerability.
The
Magician story may help. People influenced by the Magician archetype tend to
envision the world the way they want it to be and seek out partners who share
that vision, staying flexible and open to making the most of any avenue toward
the realization of these goals. From the Magician's point of view, if we want
peace, we need to live a story that is about peace, not war. If we want peace,
it is important to understand the world as it appears through others' eyes,
and it is necessary that we learn to be peaceful ourselves.
This would
require us to face our own Shadow. In Jungian psychology, the Shadow is that
part of us that we do not want to see in ourselves, so we project it onto
others who we then blame or judge. Typically, people do not notice their own
Shadows--but others see them.
When Bush says that Hussein has used
weapons of mass destruction before, and so could again, I remember that the
U.S. is the only nation to have dropped nuclear bombs on another country. In
the context of the time, it was certainly an understandable thing to do.
However, the rest of the world would be right to use the same logic against us
that Bush is using against Hussein--unless we show some sign that we have
learned from the experience and integrated the full horror of what we did into
our consciousness.
Within the Magician archetype, it is only when
people face their Shadows that they come into their full power. By way of
illustration, I refer you to the novels of Ursula Le Guin. Her stories are not
just good fiction. They provide advice for powerful and courageous living. In
her Earthsea Trilogy, we follow the journey of Ged, a great Magician who has
inadvertently done harm, through his magic releasing a monster into the world
that he then must track down. When he finally finds this monster, he addresses
it as Ged, his own name. In confronting his Shadow, Le Guin says, he makes
himself whole. He becomes "a man who, knowing his whole true self, cannot be
used or possessed by any power other than himself, and whose life therefore is
lived for life's sake and never in the service of ruin, or pain, or hatred, or
the dark."
Enlightened Leadership and Care in Choosing the Stories
We
Live
---------------------------------------------------------------
Our
nation is facing very difficult decisions and needs to think wisely and
deeply, and avoid self-deception. To understand a complex world, we have to
understand our own moral complexity.
Am I saying that if the U.S.
government changed its attitude, we would never again have to resort to force
to counter oppression anywhere in the world? Unfortunately, I do not think we
are at that point -- at least not yet. But it does mean that we would fight
only as a last resort to protect ourselves or others from a threat that is
immediate. In the meantime, not only would we take every opportunity to find
peaceful means of settling differences, but we also would invest in the
technologies of peace as heavily as we now invest in the technologies of
war.
Eventually, we do need to find a way to put the nuclear genie back
in the bottle and contain the spread of other weapons of mass destruction.
That can happen only with a major change in consciousness and leadership. What
we need now is a leader of the stature of a Nelson Mandela who could help the
moral authority of the United States equal its economic and military might. In
the meantime, it behooves all of us to refuse to get sucked into a cycle of
fear, blame, and reprisal so that we can become as peaceful as
possible.
In my lifetime, the Berlin Wall came down, the Iron Curtain
fell, and segregation in the U.S. and apartheid in South Africa ended. When
consciousness changes, social structures can change rapidly. Someday, it will
be possible to have peace on earth--when we heed the wisdom of all the world's
major religions and learn to love, understand, and forgive one
another.
A Call for Dialogue
-------------------
All stories
that allow us to see reality more clearly can help us think clearly enough to
avert disaster. Whether or not you agree with my analysis, I urge you to speak
out. This is our country. We have both a right and a responsibility to make
our voices heard.
This is why democracies tend to prevail. At their
best, they are true learning systems, hearing and integrating diverse points
of view and thus acting in a more considered way. But if we let intimidation
shut down dialogue--if we remain possessed or entranced by a destructive
archetypal story--we lose our greatest strength as a nation.
Carol
S. Pearson
For another view, go to:
RECKLESS ADMINISTRATION MAY REAP DISASTROUS
CONSEQUENCES
By US Senator Robert
Byrd
Senate Floor Speech -
