Thesis Proposal

Adversaries, Psychology, and World Politics
Statement of Study

In The Experience of “Negative Otherness”: How Shall We Treat Our Enemies (2002) psychologist Stephen Gilligan, Ph.D. argues for an alternative to dealing with our enemies rather than simply fighting or fleeing. He claims that these two options are often insufficient, limited in their effectiveness to resolve conflicts. Fight or flight is the traditional way in which creatures resolve conflict in the world. This calls forth images of a Hobbesian state of nature and the way creatures coexist in such a state. Gilligan writes that different ways humans display fight are: repression, domination, demonization, demonization, numbing something, analyzing, disassociating. Exhibiting flight, we: “check out,” take drugs, surrender, have anxiety, paralysis, or depression. Gilligan observes that responding in ways such as those listed above often does not seem to get us very far. We continually encounter conflict, threats to our happiness and freedom, and sometimes even other people who want to kill us. However, Gilligan poses that dealing with negative situations using fight or flight results in a continuation of cycles of violence and human suffering. Following an analysis of modern and pre-modern myths, Gilligan posits the possibility of another way to be in the world. Instead of responding to an adversary in one or another form of fight or flight, one could seek to transform a situation. He asserts that when one is able to stay connected to themselves during a conflict with a negative other, and maintain a relationship with it, the encounter can become creative, a “nonviolent event that leads to new understandings, new conversations, and new realities,” (3.) He offers us some examples of what this looks like for individuals.

A self-ascribed post-modernist, Gilligan wants to shift our consciousness from the fight and flight response. However, it must be noted that even Gandhi himself (who is put forth as an example of this third way of engaging with an adversary) said that there were situations were violence is the only correct response. (In Merton, 36) Although this may be the case, every encounter with a negative other is an opportunity to see if we can remain “connected,” and examine whether an alternate way is possible, even beneficial.

His essay is tailored to a discussion of personal psychology, but is Gilligan’s analysis of how we understand, perceive and act in relation to “negative others” applicable to social phenomena? In reading Gilligan, I believe to have discerned themes of his psychological analysis in a) religious terrorism, as discussed by Mark Juergensmeyer in his Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence, and b) in the nonviolent protest of British rule in India by the followers of Gandhi, as portrayed in Steve York’s documentary India, Defying the Crown. Is it the case that these movements exemplify Gilligan’s analysis on a large scale? I will argue that they do. The goal of my study is to defend this position and consider the implications to social struggle around the globe.

Read the rest of this entry »

Academic Writing, Politics, Psychology, sketches | 6.02.2010 11:47 | No Comments

What Merleau-Ponty and Jung Have in Common

Both talk about an “Objective Psyche.”

For Jung this was a better term for the Collective Unconscious.

Merleau-Ponty said that the Objective Psyche resides in cultural objects. In relics and landscapes, one finds proof of the presence of the Other, of other people, beneath a veil of anonymity. One is seen in the pipe for smoking, in the spoon for eating, in the bell for ringing; and it is in the perception of a human act and another man or woman that a cultural world is verified. – paraphrased from the French Phenomenologie de la Perception, 1945

sketches | 6.01.2010 10:37 | 2 Comments

Complexes

I went to a seminar at the Jung Society where Paula McKinnon talked about complexes. I would like to recount the information here.

We started out by naming what we’ve heard: father complex, power complex, inferiority complex, oedipus complex, money complex, etc, etc. We know we have a complex when there is an extreme emotional response to a situation in life.

Complexes form in childhood, in parent relationships, and in relationships we’ve had with others. They are the result of conditioning childhood experiences pertaining to instinctual patterns and survival; events, traumas and difficulties.

They can be explained in terms of cause and effect. Complexes are pieces of ourselves that were split off from the ego and driven into the unconscious through acts of repression.

Read the rest of this entry »

Psychology, sketches | 13.10.2009 20:29 | No Comments

Yoga as a Form

Yoga postures are like the Platonic Forms
Yoga is an opening
of the body
into geometric shapes.
Putting the mind
where before had just been darkness
Matter that is unaware of what it is holding
Opening to the essence of the form
Staying with the feeling
Moving through any discomfort
Perfecting the union of mind and body
Matter becoming conscious

What is it like to be a …
Triangle Mountain Tree Rock Eagle Bridge Dog Child

Philosophy, Psychology, Yoga, sketches | 23.09.2009 20:04 | No Comments

Queen Maeve of Ireland

I would like to write a bit more about Jungian analyst Joe MecNair’s presentation on Queen Maeve at Denver’s First Divine Science Church with the Jung Society.

Queen Maeve- She is relevant today in world where the archetypal feminine has been “disenfranchised.” A shadow issue is the violence in the collective unconscious, as exhibited by the explosions in Irish towns: discord between the north and the south manifest. Also it is notable that wonen’s rights is the issue of our times. In the nineteenth century it was slavery, in the twentieth, totalitarian regimes, in the 21st, it is injustice against women. Look at the crimes that are happening in other countries towards women. (It is just inconscionable, what goes on…) In countries where there are no women’s rights, there is great poverty, and then also “fundamentalist chaos.”

Queen Maeve then, stands for intoxication (mead was the drink of choice of the Celts, as it existed before wine was introduced by the Romans.) Mead is a fermented honey drink, which made by bees: a symbol of fertility. In the Celtic culture, which was strongly matriarchic, women have the prerogative to assert passion. Queen Maeve would choose the king by having sex with her chosen. She would chose who would be right for the people, she could also change her lover whenever she wanted.

“When the king and the land (a feminine principle) are one, the people are happy. In Jungian terms: if the masculine and feminine parts are in union, the psyche is happy.
As a side– there are always two aspects of archetypes- a positive and a negative. The shadow side of masculine sexuality [libido] is domination, of feminine sexuality- possessiveness.

There was a conflict between Queen Maeve and King Ailill, of Connacht. The were comparing their respective riches, and Ailill had a majestic brown bull. Her messenger told her that there was a white bull, twice as great, in Ulster. She arranged with its owner that she would borrow it in exchange for some cows and its return at the end of the year. However, one of Maeve’s men boasted that if she had not been lent the bull, she would have taken it by force. Well if that’s the case, let her take it by force, then! Was the reply. And that is how the great Cattle Raid of Cooley took place, claims the website where I found the legend McNair spoke of.

McNair spoke less on the meaning of this myth than I would have wanted, but he did mention that the bull (and animals in general, in dreams) symbolizes libido. The bigger the libido, the bigger the animal. I see shadow forces in this legend such as myth, domination, and possessiveness. Also, the struggle between opposing forces: masculine and feminine, north and south, light and dark (symbolized by the white bull and the brown, or dark colored bull).

Another point made: When it comes to passion (the Celts emphasized passion, where the Romans emphasized reason) it is helpful to not dominate it, but the bridal and harness the energy.

I loved how McNair did not give an academic presentation. He brought to life his experience in Ireland studying the legend of Queen Maeve and distilling meaning from it using Jungian concepts. A theory is that some things about us and our being are best told through story and metaphor. The other side of this is academic style, which is a rigid linear structure with the clear logic of thesis, claims, warrants, and proofs, points A, B, C, and D, and their various sub-points. This is exactly not as his presentation went. He would begin with a story, follow a tangent, wind up somewhere off from where he left, and continue with the next thing that came to mind. A slide show, which his wife independently was perusing, provided something to reference in his loose, conversational style. It was an adjustment, but what rang for me is how appropriate this was.

The moral of the story seemed to be: “Let your imagination go, and watch it grow.”

Academic Writing, Psychology, sketches | 14.09.2009 12:44 | No Comments