Now seems as good a time as any to ponder the American psyche from a Jungian perspective.
America was founded under a paradox: equality depends upon inequality.
As historian Heather Cox Richardson says, “American began with a great paradox: the same men who came up with the radical idea of constructing a nation on the principle of equality also owned slaves, thought Indians were savages, and considered women inferior (Richardson, How the South Won the Civil War: Oligarchy, Democracy and the Continuing Fight for the Soul of America).
Per James Hillman, one cause for this paradox is America’s addiction to the myth of innocence. He describes this as “America’s most valued and tenacious antidepressant drug, without which it cannot fight a war, produce, or have a nice day” (Hillman, A Jungian Inquiry Into the American Psyche p. 3).
Jung described this addiction to innocence as America’s “endemic national disease.”
Inequality, racial prejudice, violence, epidemic levels of depression, and poverty are just a few of the symptoms.
The United States also suffers from “Superpower Syndrome,” per psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton.
Underneath this sense of entitlement and omnipotence lies feelings of powerlessness and emptiness:
[Lifton] infers that at the very heart of the superpower syndrome is in fact a fear of vulnerability and the need to eliminate that vulnerability” ( A Jungian Inquiry Into the American Psyche p. 51).
How do we overcome this addiction too innocence and superpower syndrome as a society? Here are 7 Jungian recommendations:
1.) Focus on self-knowledge – You must “relentlessly” know how much good you can do and what crimes you are capable of to avoid the black and white thinking that good and evil are entirely opposite.
2.) Address the empathy gap – This may be the only way to reduce the economic gap and will prevent the “relaxed state of indifference” towards those who have less wealth than you.
3.) Think of suffering as “a great teacher,” as Jung did. Per Hillman, “Suffering is not illness; it is apathy, being incapable of suffering at all, that constitutes the actual pathology” ( A Jungian Inquiry Into the American Psyche p. 103).
4.) Avoid “artificial happiness.” Overemphasis on positive thinking and intolerance for negative emotions leads to a resistance of life. “Articially happy people lose this impulse to change” (Ronald W. Dworkin, A Jungian Inquiry Into the American Psyche, p. 104).
5.) Build an awareness of the images and myths that thrive in the American psyche, which include the American Dream, the Melting Pot, the “city upon a hill,” the cowboy, and many others. Otherwise you will be unconsciously controlled by them and fail to understand their dangerous aspects.
6.) Awaken the heart by expressing anguish about what is wrong. “Hillman does not call for treatment plans, and cures, or solutions, but for aesthetic responses—simply noticing the wrongness and expressing outrage or anguish. For Hillman, this is a matter of heart-awakening, a matter of integrity” (Re-Visioning the American Psyche, p. 197).
7.) “See through” to a deeper level. Also called “psychologizing” by Hillman, or “night vision.” “It suspects an interior, not evident intention; it searches for a hidden clockwork, a ghost in the machine, an etymological root, something more than meets the eye; or it sees with another eye. It goes on whenever we move to a deeper level” (Burnett, Re-Visioning the American Psyche, p. 5). Best of all, this will also help us bear witness to the people who are rendered invisible in our waking lives.
All of the above and more will lead to “A new consciousness that is founded upon a politics of difference, rather than a politics of domination. A new consciousness that upholds inclusion rather than exclusion, hospitality rather than hostility. This alchemical opus may very well be the royal root to America’s psychic and social liberation” (Burnett, A Jungian Inquiry Into the American Psyche, p. 74).
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