mlw
Active Member
What psychodynamic causes lie behind the recent Norwegian terror attack? I contend that the Western world suffers from a collective neurosis, and this attack represents a psychotic episode, as it were. All late manifestations of culture suffer from some form of pathology. When the Westerners arrived in Tahiti, the inhabitants were completely hedged in by taboo restrictions. The whole population suffered from a collective compulsive neurosis. The Christian faith came as a great relief for them. This is typical for primitive civilization. The Aztec, for instance, were all bloodthirsty madmen.
All civilizations end up neurotic. King Arthur suffers because the Kingdom is ailing. In the fairytale this is always the rule. The king is old, shrivelled-up, and ill, or he is married to a mad queen. The kingdom can only be made whole again if the king is replaced by a young king, representing a new guiding idea. It is the same rule today. The king is old and sick, and the "ideal citizens" who are happy with the situation, are really quite mad. They are all chockingly neurotic, and they are possessed by very weird conscious ideas, today characterized by relativism and welfarism.
The question remains why our civilization suffers from this particular "matriarchal" mental disease. Marie-Louise von Franz argues that the crux of Western consciousness is the total disregard of the dark side of the feminine principle, the darkness of the Earth-Mother, in fairytales portrayed as the witch Baba Yaga, for instance. The repression of dark nature creates an inability to accept suffering as an integral part of life, and it also makes us deny the inner darkness of our own nature. She says:
"This pronounced lack of a feminine personification of the unconscious has therefore been compensated by the radical materialism which has gradually taken hold of the Christian tradition. One could say that practically no religion began with such a highly one-sided spiritual accent and has landed - if you think of Communism as the end form of Christian theology - in such an absolutely one-sided materialistic aspect. The swing from one to the other is one of the most striking phenomena we know of in the history of religion; it is due to the fact that from the beginning there was an unawareness, an unbalanced attitude towards the problem of the feminine goddess and therefore of matter, because the feminine Godhead in all religions is always projected into and linked up with the concept of matter" (von Franz, Alchemy, 1980, p.212).
I contend that consciousness should not rule supreme, but we must remain in tune with our heart, and with our instincts. For instance, we mustn't take upon our shoulders the moral burden of God, assuming responsibility for all the brown-skinned people in the world. In fact, it is better to remain unconscious of their sufferings than to do everything to sustain them, following UN:s "Humanity Maximization Principle", which leads to nothing good. People today tend to program themselves with the abstract values of consciousness and forget to listen to their heart. They think they are empathic, but they are only slavishly following an ideological algorithm programmed into their head. It has nothing to do with empathy.
There is another form of consciousness, a "dark" consciousness, which leads us to withdraw into a smaller world. To care for our cat - that's empathic - because it is in tune with instinct. It is a lesson for psychoanalysis to learn, that not every problem can be solved by realization, realization, and yet more realization. Sometimes repression provides the solution, to become comfortably unconscious. The following is the mantra of our age: science, science, and yet more science - technology, technology, and yet more technology - welfare, welfare, and yet more welfare - medicine, medicine, and yet more medicine - economic expansion, economic expansion, and yet more economic expansion - globalization, globalization, and yet more globalization - multiculturalism, multiculturalism, and yet more multiculturalism. The collective identification with the conscious values has now reached such proportions that the Western civilization can be said to suffer from neurosis. This explains the sudden outbreak of psychotic destructivity, as in the recent Norwegian mass-murder (July 22, 2011, Oslo and Utöya). Norway is at the pinnacle of Western civilization, its richest and most beautiful country. It is symptomatic that the devil (as the revolting unconscious) should strike back and have his revenge at this very place. He made his deadly counterattack at a social democratic political camp where youths were busy programming themselves with the above mantra. Although I condemn this horrible crime, I am also saying that it is merely symptomatic.
This form of murderous destructivity is well-known in historical culture. Human sacrifice has been an institution in cultures all over the globe, and still occurs in some areas. In Scandinavia we discontinued this cultic practice only 1,000 years ago. In the theology of ancient religion, it is necessary to furnish the gods with lifeblood, so that they, in turn, can contribute to the well-being and continuance of society and culture. It's a giving and taking. So the murderer is affected by an archaic religious concept that has its roots in the unconscious. This tallies with the analysis that his actions can be likened to a psychotic episode. A neurotic culture gives rise to murderous eruptions from the unconscious, in groups or individuals.
Thoughtways that are affected by a revolting unconscious are archaic and have archetypal dimensions. They are always contaminated with unconscious vulgarity and instinctuality, such as aggression. The theme of blood sacrifice is notorious. Accordingly, the perpetrator is also a member of a freemason lodge and entertains notions of himself as a crusader, a Knights Templar.
The problem is that in all these archaic eruptions lies a kernel of truth, but collective consciousness refuses to give heed to the unconscious. The result is only that the unconscious complex becomes even more archaic and aggressive, the more repressed it is. For instance, our instincts tell us that we should promote our own genetic kind and our own culture. All species have such instincts, without which no progress could have occurred. But we program our heads with multicultural dogmas and allow massive immigration of quite alien ethnicities and cultures. If we repress our negative feelings and refuse to discuss the problem, and refrain from grappling with it in civilized terms, then the unconscious will erupt with its archaic "understanding" of the problem. This is what we see in this case.
Mats Winther
All civilizations end up neurotic. King Arthur suffers because the Kingdom is ailing. In the fairytale this is always the rule. The king is old, shrivelled-up, and ill, or he is married to a mad queen. The kingdom can only be made whole again if the king is replaced by a young king, representing a new guiding idea. It is the same rule today. The king is old and sick, and the "ideal citizens" who are happy with the situation, are really quite mad. They are all chockingly neurotic, and they are possessed by very weird conscious ideas, today characterized by relativism and welfarism.
The question remains why our civilization suffers from this particular "matriarchal" mental disease. Marie-Louise von Franz argues that the crux of Western consciousness is the total disregard of the dark side of the feminine principle, the darkness of the Earth-Mother, in fairytales portrayed as the witch Baba Yaga, for instance. The repression of dark nature creates an inability to accept suffering as an integral part of life, and it also makes us deny the inner darkness of our own nature. She says:
"This pronounced lack of a feminine personification of the unconscious has therefore been compensated by the radical materialism which has gradually taken hold of the Christian tradition. One could say that practically no religion began with such a highly one-sided spiritual accent and has landed - if you think of Communism as the end form of Christian theology - in such an absolutely one-sided materialistic aspect. The swing from one to the other is one of the most striking phenomena we know of in the history of religion; it is due to the fact that from the beginning there was an unawareness, an unbalanced attitude towards the problem of the feminine goddess and therefore of matter, because the feminine Godhead in all religions is always projected into and linked up with the concept of matter" (von Franz, Alchemy, 1980, p.212).
I contend that consciousness should not rule supreme, but we must remain in tune with our heart, and with our instincts. For instance, we mustn't take upon our shoulders the moral burden of God, assuming responsibility for all the brown-skinned people in the world. In fact, it is better to remain unconscious of their sufferings than to do everything to sustain them, following UN:s "Humanity Maximization Principle", which leads to nothing good. People today tend to program themselves with the abstract values of consciousness and forget to listen to their heart. They think they are empathic, but they are only slavishly following an ideological algorithm programmed into their head. It has nothing to do with empathy.
There is another form of consciousness, a "dark" consciousness, which leads us to withdraw into a smaller world. To care for our cat - that's empathic - because it is in tune with instinct. It is a lesson for psychoanalysis to learn, that not every problem can be solved by realization, realization, and yet more realization. Sometimes repression provides the solution, to become comfortably unconscious. The following is the mantra of our age: science, science, and yet more science - technology, technology, and yet more technology - welfare, welfare, and yet more welfare - medicine, medicine, and yet more medicine - economic expansion, economic expansion, and yet more economic expansion - globalization, globalization, and yet more globalization - multiculturalism, multiculturalism, and yet more multiculturalism. The collective identification with the conscious values has now reached such proportions that the Western civilization can be said to suffer from neurosis. This explains the sudden outbreak of psychotic destructivity, as in the recent Norwegian mass-murder (July 22, 2011, Oslo and Utöya). Norway is at the pinnacle of Western civilization, its richest and most beautiful country. It is symptomatic that the devil (as the revolting unconscious) should strike back and have his revenge at this very place. He made his deadly counterattack at a social democratic political camp where youths were busy programming themselves with the above mantra. Although I condemn this horrible crime, I am also saying that it is merely symptomatic.
This form of murderous destructivity is well-known in historical culture. Human sacrifice has been an institution in cultures all over the globe, and still occurs in some areas. In Scandinavia we discontinued this cultic practice only 1,000 years ago. In the theology of ancient religion, it is necessary to furnish the gods with lifeblood, so that they, in turn, can contribute to the well-being and continuance of society and culture. It's a giving and taking. So the murderer is affected by an archaic religious concept that has its roots in the unconscious. This tallies with the analysis that his actions can be likened to a psychotic episode. A neurotic culture gives rise to murderous eruptions from the unconscious, in groups or individuals.
Thoughtways that are affected by a revolting unconscious are archaic and have archetypal dimensions. They are always contaminated with unconscious vulgarity and instinctuality, such as aggression. The theme of blood sacrifice is notorious. Accordingly, the perpetrator is also a member of a freemason lodge and entertains notions of himself as a crusader, a Knights Templar.
The problem is that in all these archaic eruptions lies a kernel of truth, but collective consciousness refuses to give heed to the unconscious. The result is only that the unconscious complex becomes even more archaic and aggressive, the more repressed it is. For instance, our instincts tell us that we should promote our own genetic kind and our own culture. All species have such instincts, without which no progress could have occurred. But we program our heads with multicultural dogmas and allow massive immigration of quite alien ethnicities and cultures. If we repress our negative feelings and refuse to discuss the problem, and refrain from grappling with it in civilized terms, then the unconscious will erupt with its archaic "understanding" of the problem. This is what we see in this case.
Mats Winther
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