Introduction
In this essay the much contested
terms
A backside
of the ongoing mingling of cultures is the lowering of the general level of
consciousness, and how it more and more tends toward the matriarchal end of the
spectrum. By this is implied a psychology which, for better or worse, is
rooted in a collective mother complex. This will lead to a split psychology,
such as decadent aspects of modern American culture, which still honours
patriarchal principles of emancipation and freedom, yet allows free rein to
opulence, status, power and prestige.
In order to meet the
challenges of the future it is necessary to prevent a regress of modern
consciousness and to remain at a patriarchal level. It follows that the
painful question of race can no longer be circumvented. The notion of a
constitutive "gradient" (or inclination) of consciousness might help
to explain the difficulties that varying ethnicities encounter in trying to
adapt to societies foreign to their own mentality. However, the fact that
patriarchal Western culture has ruled the roost in the latest millennium does
not bespeak the superiority of the "Caucasian race". Matriarchal
cultures, in historical India and Egypt, for instance, were once in the
forefront. In history, the tables are always turning.
Human
evolution and epigenetics
Right now a revolutionary paradigm
shift is undergoing in the science of genetics. It is called epigenetics.
The term "epigenetic" refers to heritable traits that do not involve
changes to the DNA sequence. The DNA sequence is only part of the genome. The
rest, which was earlier viewed as redundant rubbish, is now termed epigenome.
Some epigenetic features are inherited from one generation to the next.
Multigenerational epigenetics is today regarded as another aspect to evolution
and adaptation. An example of this is the paramutation observed in maize. In
humans, epigenetic changes have been observed to occur in response to
environmental exposure, that is, a sort of Lamarckian inheritance (vid.
Pembrey et al. 2006).
This is a most remarkable turnover in favour of
depth-psychology,
The young science of epigenetics would be able
to corroborate such notions. Not only climatological, epidemic, and nutritive
experiences can be transferred to coming generations. Culture is the most
fundamental force that has shaped man's life through the aeons. Its effect is,
in all likelihood, established in the genome in a few generations.
| ...The even greater surprise is the recent discovery that epigenetic signals from the environment can be passed on from one generation to the next, sometimes for several generations, without changing a single gene sequence. It's well established, of course, that environmental effects like radiation, which alter the genetic sequences in a sex cell's DNA, can leave a mark on subsequent generations. Likewise, it's known that the environment in a mother's womb can alter the development of a fetus. What's eye-opening is a growing body of evidence suggesting that the epigenetic changes wrought by one's diet, behavior, or surroundings can work their way into the germ line and echo far into the future. Put simply, and as bizarre as it may sound, what you eat or smoke today could affect the health and behavior of your great-grandchildren (Discover magazine, here). |
The concept implies that genes have a 'memory'; what you do in your
lifetime, and what you are exposed to, could in turn affect your
grandchildren. Epigenetics proposes a control system of 'switches' that turn
genes on or off. The things that people experience, like nutrition and stress,
can control these switches and cause heritable effects in humans. The switches
themselves can also be inherited. This means that a 'memory' of an event could
be passed through generations. A simple environmental effect could switch
genes on or off, and this change could be inherited.
According to the
above article in Discover magazine (here)
"...the epigenome can change in response to the environment
throughout an individual's lifetime." Hence, I propose that culture is
very likely to play a role. The notion that factors of epigenetics could
determine a person toward the animation of certain archetypes is consonant with
this. I hypothesize that the individual could become more warlike in cultures
which have historically been involved in conflict.
The article
continues:
| ...Remarkably, the mother's licking activity had the effect of removing dimmer switches on a gene that shapes stress receptors in the pup's growing brain. The well-licked rats had better-developed hippocampi and released less of the stress hormone cortisol, making them calmer when startled. In contrast, the neglected pups released much more cortisol, had less-developed hippocampi, and reacted nervously when startled or in new surroundings. Through a simple maternal behavior, these mother rats were literally shaping the brains of their offspring (ibid). |
Apparently, the psyche of the rat is altered by an epigenetic switch,
which can be turned on at will by the mother. In light of this, it's not
far-fetched to propose that certain ethnicities, partly due to epigenetic
factors, can become more heroic and ambitious, while others will tend toward the
matriarchal spectrum.
In the field of traditional genetics, too, new
facts have surfaced that question old preconceptions. According to recent
findings (Dunham 2007,
here),
human evolution has been moving at breakneck speed in the past several thousand
years. Today, we are quite different from people living a few thousand years
ago. The new findings also show that the human genome in the different
continents have diverged and continue to do so. Although this research is still
in its infancy, it seems to corroborate notions of constitutive racial
differences, and the breakneck speed in which they develop.
Furthermore, in a process called 'biased gene conversion', there is an
increase in the rate at which certain mutations spread through a population,
regardless of whether they are beneficial or harmful (ScienceDaily,
here).
Factors of accelerated genetic evolution, factors of epigenetics, rapid cultural
and dietary changes, and local ethnic interbreeding, all contribute to the rapid
establishment of new racial characteristics. Yet, it seems today that we are
bound by an unfounded homologous view of humanity, and that our present view of
cultural and genetical evolution implies a resignation to fate. In the light of
the recent findings, it's becoming more and more obvious that humanity must
start cultivating its character and put greater emphasis on aspects of heredity.
The Issue of Race
The recent progress in genetics has
ramifications in the area of racial and ethnic diversity. Intellectual people
have an extraordinary distaste for notions of racial characteristics, because it
brings with it a bad historical odour, and it reminds Americans of the race
laws. But those laws will not return just because we discuss the issue of race.
In point of fact, the greater plasticity of hereditary traits, and the
acceleration of human evolution, implies that the biological divergence of races
must be regarded an ongoing reality, but it also means that elitist
notions are passé. Race is not such a fixed category as
C.G.
Jung, discussing the race issue, says:
| The resistances of the white man in Africa to "go black",
or "native" as he put it, produced so powerful an undertow in his
spirit that it caused tensions which were almost unendurable. These either
caused him to succumb, or to reject and hate the dark man who had served to
evoke these tensions...[t]he farther man grew from his instinctive self the more
intense was the rejection in the European that we call prejudice and
hatred...The Protestant rule was the product of a more exclusively rationalist
development which cut man off more from his natural self. But either way, it was
an evasion because the task of modern man was not to "go primitive" in
the African way |
What is causing this fear of "going black?" What is
implied by the relative inability of black men, and other ethnicities, to
adapt to Western culture? Let's view it in terms of a psychic gradient.
Broadly speaking, there is in the "white" culture a strife toward
higher accomplishment, an advancement of consciousness, a movement of
emancipation. But among certain ethnic groups one can detect a general
movement toward the other end, namely to belong in an unconscious community,
to swim with the tide. The psychic gradients, I would argue, go in different
directions.
In traditional psychological terms we can, among certain
ethnic groups, speak of a collective mother complex, i.e., a constitutive
psychological dependency that gear them toward collective adjustment, whether
it's the small group or the overarching society. This overall tendency is
weaker among other ethnic groups, where the individual has an incentive for
independency.
A case in point are the ancient Egyptians who would
want to remain in the warm embrace of the unconscious, where life was
regulated according to Maat, the eternal universal law, and everything
was cyclically created anew. In later civilisations where emancipation of
consciousness is the underlying motif, we have abandoned cyclical time and
adopted finite linear time.
A Swedish journalist related how she gave an expensive watch to a
helpful Egyptian young man, but he got angry and threw the clock out of sight.
He wanted to remain unknowing of time, and, as far as possible, live in the
embrace of the unconscious. Rural people in India are often the same, they do
not want to advance their consciousness. They entertain their polytheistic
cult which serves the purpose of remaining in a blissful state of
unconsciousness. They have no wish to kill their gods by integrating the
archetypes which they stand for. Instead they elevate them in worship.
Comparatively, our white culture will always tend to disrupt the gradient
toward unconsciousness. I, as a white man, would tend to challenge, to
question, to disrupt any attempts toward accomplishing a "steady state"
of consciousness, i.e., a mind at comfortable rest, as it were. The notion of
"democracy", in itself, demands of its practitioners that they
develop their consciousness in continual conflict. But people at the other end
of the spectrum prefer a universe which is delineated from the beginning, like
the ancient Egyptian concept of Maat, the primordial divine law.
In
this context, emancipation would be understood foremostly as a psychological
process. A psychologically emancipated person can think what he likes, and can
direct his energy in any way he wants, independently of the surrounding
collective. So I'm not foremostly discussing economical emancipation and
education, etc., although there is certainly a connection.
The
gradient of consciousness, its direction, might be a powerful factor in causing
segregation, and might explain why some ethnicities have difficulties blending
in with society. A matriarchal consciousness, i.e., a characteristic gradient
of consciousness, is not appropriate for a Western European patriarchal
culture. Hence a particular individual, an immigrant possibly, will tend not
to individuate, but remain in a psychological backwater. Had he lived in a
traditional environment, suitable for his psychological makeup, then he could
individuate according to the premises of that culture. It's a different form of
individuation, but he will come to maturity.
An important difference
between patriarchal and matriarchal cultures is the level of differentiation in
the principles of eros and logos.
Man in our civilization is ahead of woman in the civilizing process. In South India, the humanizing of woman, and of eros, seems to be ahead of the West. There women are proud of their femininity, and there is a more differentiated attitude to eros. In the West, there is toughness, vulgarity, and lack of differentiation of the eros level, and far greater logos differentiation than in the East (1993, p.26).
Ethnic unconscious
The previous account would
rhyme with notions of a racial or ethnic unconscious. It's true that
Jungians have always subscribed to a notion of a "group
unconscious" and even speak of it at the family level. When a child has
problems, it might really derive from the family unconscious. The child cannot
be cured if the family isn't cured.
Likewise, an ethnic group can be
possessed by an ethnic complex. The typical individual is to a great part a
collective being. While he is an individual in his conscious domain (and must
be respected for that), in his unconscious he is in great measure a collective
being. Therefore, an individual cannot only be analysed as an isolated entity,
but we must also look for a sickness in the collective, possibly a cultural
complex.
A certain cultural complex, which is helpful for adaptation
in an individual's indigenous culture, might become an impediment if that
person migrates to another culture (or that culture migrates to him). His
cultural complex could then become a factor of neurosis. It is becoming more
and more obvious that cultural complexes are more "hardwired" than we
earlier thought.
Joseph Henderson, a colleague of Jung, discussed
the notion of a "cultural unconscious", which he introduced in an
address at the 2nd International Jungian Congress in Zürich in 1962 (vid.
Singer 2002). This idea has received much attention lately in the Jungian world
(vid. Singer 2004).
Henderson situates the cultural unconscious
topographically between the collective unconscious and the personal
unconscious.
An heroic consciousness
The way in which white African
farmers describe the black workers serves to illustrate a certain "gradient
of consciousness". Farmers typically portray them as good men and women,
who work during the day, and then sit down by the fire at nights, telling
stories and having a good time. But they just don't seem to have any aspirations
in life, they are somehow lacking in ambition.
Compare with the
typical Westerner, who tends not to be lacking in ambition, even if he has
little schooling. At least he intends to start some business in car repair, or
whatever. It seems like they have an "upward gradient" of
consciousness, whereas many an African has a supremely gifted talent at "feeling
good in his neighbourhood", even if nothing essential happens during his
entire life. It is wholly logical. The social consequences are painful enough
for the ambitious individual who attempts to break lose from collective
identification.
I have also noted that, among Africans, Arabs,
Syrians, and other ethnic groups, there is a strong tendency to keep to
themselves, to socialize with people who look like themselves. Certain ethnic
groups tend to put much emphasis on the microsocial perspective, and the
individual is to a great extent carried by the collective.
This
social principle could be explained psychologically by a "leveled gradient",
which implies that there is no impetus toward individual emancipation. The
foremost principle is instead to be carried by the collective, as opposed to
having ambitions and to journey somewhere in life.
In my country,
when white kids are put into a major school, they seem to adjust to ethnic
variety, while the black kids, and other foreign ethnicities, tend to bunch up
and surround themselves with familiar faces. They have a higher level of
anxiety, and they more often react with fear and aggression. The situation in
the U.S. seems to be very similar.
It seems like the "tribal
consciousness" is more pronounced. The individual and the tribe are one.
Comparatively, Western culture is more "heroic". It reflects on the
achievement and the emancipation of the individual, which, in a Hollywood film,
also proves to be a great boon to the collective. Compare the centrality of
the hero myth in historical Western society versus African cultures.
What, then, will happen if the "heroic" European consciousness is
allayed in a melting pot where racial amalgamation, including social and
cultural assimilation, is taking place? The level of consciousness of a people
is the foundation of its cultural region. Beethoven, Matisse, Edison and
Einstein have all managed to evolve their inner talent because Western culture
is, at its core, supportive of individual emancipation and growth.
Comparatively,
Islamic cultures tend to be paternalistic, not patriarchal, while behind the
facade the mother principle rules. Everything tends to revolve around the ideal
of the mother, including the motherly boons of safety, nourishment, and comfort.
There is no marked heroism in such cultures.
How does our occidental
humanism compare with the non-reflective and more encompassing culture of Islam?
Would the named individuals have been able to flourish in the Islamic circle?
Instead of resorting to crude concepts of racial superiority, I have proposed
the idea that the accomplishments of successful individuals must partly depend
on our way of individual emancipation, our "hero cult", a cultural
factor which also has taken root in the genome of the general Westerner.
The creative Western individual is heroic in the sense that he strives to
become a true individual able to choose his own path, something which releases
the creative force inside. But, while the emancipated person embraces a true
individuality, he also becomes problematic, not given to an African outlook of "feeling
good among one's neighbours". This is borne out by the biographical record.
Ethnic differences dispose people toward different societal systems.
Some ethnicities can never comply with, or feel at home in, our Western
patriarchal and heroic culture. The homologous view of humanity adopted by
politicians and columnists flies in the face of empirical facts. The average
member of a certain ethnic group can only do himself justice in a culture that
recognizes his constitutive capabilities. If the culture encourages it, one can
grow to maturity according to constitutive premises.
Matriarchal consciousness
A gradient toward individual
accomplishment, perhaps triggered by epigenetic or evolutionary factors, could
play a role in socialization. Certain ethnic groups would fare better in a
collective project when his intelligence and zest awakens. The people who today
live in Cairo are the descendants of the pyramid builders, something which many
Westerners find it hard to perceive.
In the historical perspective, I
have no illusions of "racial superiority". Comparatively, where were
we Europeans at 1500 BC, when the Olmecs started building impressive cities in
Central America? The Olmecs had a written language, and the oldest written
artefact yet found, a stone tablet, is from about 900 BC. Over the centuries
tables are turning. In a millennium or two Western culture could again be in
demise.
I propose that those ethnicities that are deficient in an
emancipative gradient would do themselves much better justice in a matriarchal
culture, a modern equivalent of pre-Columbian Central America, where people
were enveloped by society on all sides. Those societies were constituted like a
great Mother goddess, an advanced collective thought-process, as it were. The
intelligence of the Toltec, Maya, Aztec, etc., comes to expression in their vast
knowledge about mathematics (they knew about the zero), astronomical
exactitude, and their architectural achievements.
By comparison, our modern patriarchal societies do not envelop the
individual, but instead expect initiative and commitment from him. Advancement
depends to a higher degree on the individual. An emancipative type of
consciousness in the general population will give rise to a patriarchal culture.
If this is correct, then culture is, to a higher degree than expected,
determined from within, and not only from environmental factors.
The
conclusion is that certain ethnicities, due to a different unconscious
structure, would fare much better in a society that honours matriarchal
principles. If this is true, then the building of an African civilisation
according to Western patriarchal principles could be counterproductive. The
result is only discouraging. Both the individual and collective society are
rendered impotent and deprived of vitality.
By way of illustration, a matriarchal consciousness could be likened
to a moonlit night, when things appear blurred. A patriarchal consciousness,
on the other hand, functions like a bright cone of light. It sees all the
details, but outside the cone everything is black, due to a contrast effect.
This makes it smaller in scope, but more precise, something which finely
illustrates the scientific mind.
An ongoing regress
In ancient cultures,
such as the Maya and the Egyptian, the leading principle was the material and
the tangible, such as worldliness, prosperity, beauty, social status, etc. This
is ameliorated by the matriarchal consciousness itself, while it naïvely
experiences that matter is spirit, too, or at least nearly so. In ancient
Egypt the corpse, after having been turned into a mummy, was also the god
Osiris. What we moderns view as the most revolting material object was actually
the highest spirit.
Luxuriousness and well-being were the ideals,
because this life was simultaneously a life in the spirit. There is a
crux. In order to maintain a matriarchal frame of mind, it necessitates a low
level of consciousness, a constitutive naïveté which allows the
subject to actually find meaning in his worldly endeavours, collecting riches
and objects of status, such as a beautiful house, etc. The worldly thing is
spirit to him. The modern patriarchal consciousness, on the other hand, has
lost that naïveté. At this level, it makes no sense to waste your
life chasing after glistening "glass pearls", in whatever form.
I have argued that the tendency toward an archaic level of consciousness
not only derives from a divided genetic makeup, but also from the purely
psychological tendency of "going black". Americans, as a case in
point, make a curious impression while they seem much engulfed in matters of
success and material wealth that they more and more make the appearance of an
ancient matriarchal culture. Today, in the
Most revealingly, it is becoming more common among Americans to
believe that a rich person is morally better than a poor person, and that the
latter deserves no better. This is an unmistakable sign of an encroaching
matriarchal consciousness, while it employs essentialistic social hierarchies,
as exemplified by the ancient Minoans. The Cretans, for instance, thought that
if a person was prosperous and handsome, then he had greater value than other
people, because the gods smiled at him. So the prosperous man is being taken
care of by a good Mother, which is his matriarchal universe. Thus he remains a
privileged child, maintaining an undeveloped personal morale. In this way the
regress to relative unconsciousness brings with it the ambivalent and amoral
qualities of the unconscious.
The ongoing backslide to a matriarchal level of consciousness is an
ominous sign. A collective consciousness on the downgrade combined with a
highly technological civilisation is not a reassuring combination, especially
not in the face of today's religio-political and climatological crisis. The
individual in this context cannot easily gear down and make less demands on
opulence and well-being, something that will have destructive environmental
consequences. Due to his constitutive naïveté he might be
practically unable, like a child, to see factual problems beyond the horizon. In
fact, only the visible is regarded as real. The weak consciousness of the ego
creates the danger of being overhauled by a collective unconscious
phantasmagoria.
The patriarchal conception
The patriarchal conception
originated with the formulation of monotheism, and reached a peak with Plato,
Jesus, and
St Paul reasons in a similar fashion. While it's invisible nature that counts,
"[t]here is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free,
there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus"
(Gal
As a result the poor man has equal status
before God as the rich man, and this is what underlies today's egalitarian
principles in Western society. According to the patriarchal conception, the
poor man has even better chances of passing through the "needle's eye"
while he is not being exposed to corruption by money and societal status. This
is emphasised by Jesus when he says,
"...many that are first shall be last; and the last shall be first"
(Mat
This is this advanced thoughtway that Western civilisation is
now receding from. The principle of the equality of all men (that we are
spiritually of equal value) comes to expression in equality in legal
proceedings, medical treatment, etc. Americans, especially, have more and more
come to sidestep the patriarchal principle, which represents a tremendous
achievement by medieval man. It gradually took root in the souls of people, and
not only in institutions, and in roman law. Today, the matriarchal regress
undergoing in modern man generates compensations from the unconscious, as in the
following dream of a forty-five year old woman:
|
I entered my house toward evening. The entry hall was empty, without
furniture; there was only the bare floor. On it, lying on a pile of straw, was a
shabbily clothed man who looked like a tramp. I knew it was Christ. He shone
with the whitest dazzling light, for his body was made out of glowing-hot metal!
Smiling, he said to me, "You could do me a favor. Take a bowl full of water
and poor it over me to damp down my radiance." I carried out his wish, and
the water steamed from him with a hiss. Now his body was made of dark metal, but
very limber and alive. He said with a smile, "Thank you."
|
Europe goes through a radical change of culture. Traditional patriarchal culture elevates personal capacity and independence as ideals. A transition to matriarchy is now underway, when people turn to the symbiotic ideal. In order to achieve symbiosis it is necessary to drive away those people that stand out from the group. This will achieve homogeneity, when all people are constituent parts of one and the same collective psyche. Hence there are only two alternatives: (1) symbiosis or (2) expulsion. This means that mobbing at workplaces and schools will continue to increase, and there exist no therapeutic methods to prevent it. Comparatively, an ideal patriarchal society fosters psychologically independent individuals, and mobbing is therefore a minor problem. Indeed, each and every one is a deviant on account of his/her individual nature.
A true individual keeps other people at arm's length. This is essential to be able to relate, in the true sense of the word. However, the symbiotic ideal (which can be likened to the mother's symbiosis with the child) destroys all possibilities of a relatedness proper, as it leads to the merger of psyches. Note that certain immigrant etnicities, especially Africans, often experience Europeans as cold and rejecting. Unlike the Western Europeans they are symbiotic by nature, having their roots in the matriarchal cultural circle. It's not possible to repair this split other than through a regressive turn in the European population, who will become symbiotic, too. A matriarchal regress must lead to catastrophic consequences for our civilization. It will not only lead to the demise of many individuals through mobbing, but our psychological independence and enterprising spirit will wither away. Already today, employers complain at the lack of moral competence among the youth. This is a consequence of the Mother-society—the Likeness-society.
Conclusion
In the present time, we are falling away from the
conquests of original Western consciousness and acculturation. This is a process
that must be stemmed, otherwise future will strike back with a vengeance.
Diplomacy and politics, alone, cannot solve the problems of the world. A high
level of consciousness must be revitalized and maintained in the general
population.
Today's upsurge of matriarchal reasoning ought to be resisted and
criticised. After all, responsibility for the world cannot be entrusted to a
people at an archaic level of consciousness. It is necessary to relieve the
general Westerner of his empty materialistic aspirations. He needs to gear down,
and begin to "think small", not the least for environmental reasons.
If our beautiful earth is going to survive, as is often argued, we are dependent
on an advanced technology and the hard sciences. However, a conscious regress
would be detrimental to science and engineering. Therefore a more urgent
question is the collective level of consciousness. A better understanding of
the constitutive nature of mankind, including the wisdom of the unconscious,
are very important to maintain a high level of consciousness.
Much
of this boils down to morality. How is a people who is stuck in an adolescent
stage going to take responsibility for the world, as in the urgent matter of
global warming, for instance? So where does the general Westerner stand today,
in terms of level of general consciousness and grade of maturity? This is a
cause for concern.
The difficulties created by the mingling of
cultures give rise to overcompensations in the form of a naïve belief in
the boons of a multicultural society. Among the politically correct, there is
a puritanical unwillingness to confront the issue. Due to an unconscious
dissonance in society, an indigenous evil risks growing stronger and stronger,
while the assurances that we are on the right path become more and more zealous
and one-eyed. But it's only the well-known tactics of the ostrich, namely to
bury one's head in the sand.
Mats Winther, Jan 2008.
Notes
(1) There exists no agreement as to the meaning of
patriarchal and matriarchal. Wikipedia says:
"Though some modern anthropologists and sociologists assert that there
are no known examples of human matriarchies from any point in history, there is
no consensus about this question [and due] to a lack of any clear and consistent
definition of the word 'matriarchy' the term 'matrifocality' has begun to be
preferred by several anthropologists to refer to societies with focus on women
and especially mothers though not necessarily dominated by women or mothers."
I, however, make use of the term "matriarchal" from a
psychological point of view. Even if society is seemingly ruled by warlike men
it could be ruled by a woman anyway, namely the mother goddess. The mother
complex could be in ascendancy. Anthropologists and feminists tend to look at
the
outer relations, that is, whether it's matrilineal, factually ruled by
women, etc. What they don't seem to appreciate is that the society can be ruled
by the "woman in the unconscious", namely Magna Mater.
| AFTERWORD Phallocentrism as veiled matriarchy. "...There are clear differences between people of different continental ancestries," said I have argued that immigration, together with degenerative factors in Western culture, forces society toward the matriarchal end of the spectrum. By this is implied a collective psychology which is rooted in a collective mother complex, where the male is often unconsciously identified with the "Mother's phallus" (a notion deriving from world mythology and from Freud). The "phallic personality" is a well-researched theme in psychoanalytic literature. Among certain ethnic groups, phallocentrism has emerged as a step on the ladder in the evolution of consciousness. The phallic personality tends to be reckless, prideful, and narcissistic, prone to violence and intimidation. The phallic individual compensates his mother tie with an aggressive persona, trying to appear like the powerful man which he is not - he is merely the erect phallus on the body of the Mother. This creates the well-known machismo personality. He could also be called the male chauvinist type. This personality structure appears in all ethnicities, but he is more common among certain ethnic groups. These cultures, due to their phallocentrism, are often branded as "patriarchal". But underneath the phallic personality structure hides the mother complex. This is the reason why I brand them as a veiled form of matriarchy. As ethnicities at this cultural level is now migrating to Western Europe and North America, an understanding of the psychological determinants is becoming more acute. Today, we often see headlines about criminality or domestic violence among immigrants, honour killings, etc. I contend that this phenomenon is strongly predicated on the "phallic" bias of immigrant ethnicities. Although it is regularly understood as frustration deriving from being an outsider in society, these antagonistic feelings are amplified in the phallic individual. European Psychology and its Rooting in the Interiority of the Middle Ages (added Oct 18, 2011) Some people appreciate the freshness of the "naive realism" of the Africans, and other Third World ethnicities. It contrasts starkly with the restrained persona of the ethnic Swede or Englishman, whose attitude of reservedness derives from a constant occupation with the inner world. We are still looking inwards, an attitude which the medievals instilled in us. However, as I will point out in the following lines, a psychology of "naive realism" will cause great social damage, and in the end pose a threat to the democratic order. Therefore it is imperative that the Western world remains true to the perspective of interiority. The notorious propaganda against the "Dark Ages" must cease. We must begin to appreciate the enormous impact of European Middle Ages in our lives today. In fact, in a sense, we need to go back to the source, to reawaken the Middle Ages, to replenish interiority. As Westerners have slowly begun to understand, Muslims moving to the West have a curiously anti-Western way of looking at things. Sharia is very much about regulating reality. For instance, this curious idea that women must always hide themselves behind large sheets of fabric—what's all that about? The focus on ego-protection is very central to the phallic-narcissistic level of culture. If women are allowed to show how attractive they are, the male is gripped by desire—he wants to own that woman who happens to pass him. But as he cannot have her, he experiences this as a violation of his ego. His ego must needs suffer constant narcissistic injury in a society which has not been adjusted according to very strict norms of control. This deep feeling of offence is difficult to comprehend for Westerners who do not suffer from a narcissistic syndrome themselves. Such a psychology has much in common with the chronic neurotic type. These people experience it as a violation of their ego if there exists another person in a discussion group who surpasses them intellectually, but who refrains from mutual narcissistic reinforcement (vulg. "butt-licking"). The latter ritual is very common among neurotics, and they seem to enjoy it as it is very gratifying to their ego. It is interesting to discuss the neurotic type as an atavistic phenomenon, a throwback to the phallic-narcissistic stage, perhaps influenced by genetic factors. The phallic-narcissistic psychic economy is inferior, while a modern psychic economy is more advanced and adaptable to the modern society. I posit the idea that neurotics tend to fall back on the primitive phallic-narcissistic way of functioning as a form of atavism. It's the same notion as an advanced machine, e.g., an airplane that is governed by computers and electric signalling. Should the advanced system malfunction, then it can be steered with mechanical wires. Likewise, a malfunctioning human psyche can fall back on a more primitive mode of functioning. Psychoanalysts have always observed that neurotics appear infantile in diverse ways. So they have always thought that the neurotic is stuck in a childhood way of functioning. This is another way of putting it, of course. But what if this "infantile" psychic economy represents an atavism, and what really happens is that the neurotic makes use of the "backup system"? In a sense his illness is rooted in childhood, but it is really a throwback to an earlier epoch in our history. Arguably, had the neurotic existed in that earlier epoch, he would not be neurotic, but his psychic economy would harmonize with the surrounding. There would be no disruptive modern people around who insist on thinking freely and questioning things. Society is wholly regulated and all people always keep to the olden ways. Now and then, every 100 years or so, the priest or medicine man presents a new idea. Otherwise society is like a big Kindergarten, where people are fitted into their respective roles, and there is really no such thing as true individuality. Arguably, this is the reason why neurotics are so keen on creating a regulated Kindergarten society. They want society to follow the olden ways, that harmonize with their own inferior psychic economy. In the Muslim world and elsewhere, women who reject their suitor sometimes gets acid thrown in their face. This is another way of destroying their attractive power and thus healing the ego of the offender. Those who, for instance, have power of intellect or beauty, and who won't lower themselves to mutual narcissistic reinforcement, are experienced as deadly threats to the weak ego. This could help to explain the unthinking nature of the phallic-narcissistic societies, and their cultural inferiority in everything that concerns the intellect. Arguably, the idea is to remove everything from society that risks harming the ego, thereby creating a harmonious society. As people at the phallic-narcissistic level are extremely prone to suffer narcissistic injury, society must be built on very strict control; rules, rules, rules, control, control, control. Beautiful women must be imprisoned behind four walls or their faces scorched, intelligent people must be removed, one way or the other. This will create an orderly society without incessant injury to the ego and adherent narcissistic explosions of rage. Arguably, the Islamic ban on iconic representation, especially of the human form, is predicated on the very same ego defensive tactic, to remove that which stirs the acquisitiveness of the ego. At this cultural level, the personality lacks the powers of control present at the Western level. Therefore, control must remain external, in the form of 'sharia' law, for instance. The "locus of control" is different. To Western man, with the exception of the neurotic type, "desire", "beauty", "fear", etc., are experiences that derive from the inside. To dwellers of the Third World, it's the other way round. Most notably, Africans typically experience that fear comes from without. If a black man passes a stranger he might experience a sudden fright. This means that he has been hit by something from outside, namely a form of evil emitted by that stranger. From this moment, he knows that the stranger is evil, some way or the other, and he has to take measures to defend himself. In Europe today, black people think they can return the evil spirit, and make it bounce back, by staring at the person who evoked their fright. They return the effects of the "evil eye" by reflecting it back as a mirror, they believe. In this way disease can be avoided, etc. The president of the Association of African-Swedes stated publicly that "-I see evil in the eyes of Swedes". For the same reason it is common to spit after Swedes, similar to the practice of spitting at black cats. To the Westerner the locus of control is different as we are endowed with the capacity of "projection". A characteristic of projection is that it can be withdrawn. If something evokes a feeling of fear, we are capable of withdrawing it immediately. So, yet again it is decided that a projection has emerged from the inside. As control has thus been internalized, there is less need for control on the outside. There is no need for the primitive ritual defenses that are so damaging to the social situation. I contend that the capacity of interiority is a necessary condition for the establishment of democratic society. There is an underlying expectation that the individual can take charge of himself. A Westerner who sees an attractive woman wearing a short skirt knows, in the general case, that the sexual attraction he experiences comes from the inside. It is his own sexuality which is stirred and he can therefore control it. In fact, his feeling of attraction has nothing to do with her. That woman likes to be beautiful and attractive because it strengthens her well-being. To a man lacking in interiority, however, that woman has emitted her sexual power which has hit him from the outside, and that's what causes his sexual arousal. It is tantamount to a sexual invitation. This psychological discrepancy creates immense social problems in Europe, today. It is also the reason why many immigrants experience European women as "whores". The capacity of interiority was cultivated during the European Middle Ages, when it decidedly took root in the human soul. The interior psychological perspective has its roots in Antiquity. It began to take shape around 600 BC(?) with the introverted ascetic traditions. Via pre-Christian Gnosticism, Stoicism, and Platonism, it blossomed out as Christianity, as formulated by Jesus, St Paul, St Augustine, etc. In history books, it is again and again pointed out how "inferior" Europe was during the "Golden Age" of Islam. The "ignorant" Europeans took recourse in faith, while the Muslims successfully cured many ills thanks to the teachings of Avicenna. It is a correct observation that Europe was lagging behind in the area of external knowledge. But this is a necessary consequence of the strong focus on interiority. This capacity, largely an effect of the strong devotion of the medievals, is what underlies European psychology today; our internal control locus, our democratic mentality, our capacity of not rushing to conclusion, but methodically to extract the truth. The Third World has never undergone such an era of interiority, which partly explains their backwardness today. Although medieval Europe is portrayed as inferior, in reality it was superior in terms of interiority, undergoing great suffering from the plague, etc., learning to withdraw projections from the world. Thus, faith became firmly rooted in the soul, as well as all other passions. When there exists no inner faith, there is a call to establish it on the outside, i.e., to institutionalize and regulate faith according to religious law. When passions grip the ego from outside, there is a call to create a perfectly regulated and undemocratic society, to take control of the demons. In this context it is relevant to discuss European-American cultural clashes. Ethnic Europeans can have projections and swiftly withdraw them, without even noticing that they occurred. They expect this capacity of the Americans, too. But it seems like the Americans (in very general terms, of course) have started to move away from the perspective of interiority. They expect other people to make them feel good, i.e. not to brusquely tell them the truth, but rather to make a false pretense, smiling when you ought to say what's on your heart, etc. Europeans, for their part, like to "tell it to your face" without much ado. Should the other party experience it as "evil", we expect him to withdraw the projection within a second. As a consequence, Americans can experience Europeans as overly frank and lacking in esteem. European businessmen experience the American attitude of pretense as extremely frustrating. They travel back to Europe and wonder why the order never arrives. In fact, the Americans only wanted him to feel good, they never intended to place an order. In fact, this very attitude is very outspoken among primitives. To the frustration of the anthropologists primitives tend to say the things they believe that the researcher wants to hear, in order to make him happy. This movement away from interiority is a worrying development. We begin to see a similar pattern in Europe, today. I have observed that some people have taken to smiling at every black person they meet, to convince him that he is not an evil demon, i.e. a racist. Traditionally, this is known as a false smile as it is just a mask of pretense. However, to the average African immigrant there is no such thing as false pretense since reality is what the outside impresses on you. If a person smiles at you it will make you happy, and this means that something good has come from the outside. It is a wholly uncritical and unthinking attitude, completely foreign to the European consciousness. If we are going to handle the looming social problems of society it is high time to abandon the homologous view of humanity. A good understanding of human variety will aid us in confronting future social problems. Psychological understanding, in itself, will have a good therapeutic effect on the very many people who are made to suffer due to the changing psychosocial patterns in society. |
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© Mats Winther, 2008
