Monday, June 16, 2008

Jung: Resisting the 'New World Order '

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

It is said of Swiss psychologist Carl Jung [1875 - 1961] that he was 'prophetic of today’s ongoing debate about religion and science' as well as a much older debate about the 'individual' and the 'state'. Today --the GOP has demagogued religion while Bush, the party's flag bearer, has thrown in with 'state absolutists' --Friedrich Hegel, Joseph Stalin, Adolph Hitler and Pol Pot.
The healthy man does not torture others - generally it is the tortured who turn into torturers.

--Carl Jung
Those words put Carl Jung in opposition to a cult of cruelty and torture that has apparently assumed political control in the United States. It is ironic that a nation said to have been founded upon the principles of the enlightenment should find itself, under Bush's rule, categorized with regimes historically associated with 'collectivism' and 'totalitarianism.

Growing up in West Texas, among both radical 'John Birchers' and fundamentalist Christians, it is less surprising to me that the GOP, a party that often says of itself that it opposes 'big government' should, during the regime of George W. Bush, align itself with the forces of state oppression and incipient totalitarianism and that it should do so while brandishing the flag.
In this broad belt of unconsciousness, which is immune to conscious criticism and control, we stand defenseless, open to all kinds of influences and psychic infections. As with all dangers, we can guard against the risk of psychic infection only when we know that is attacking, and how, where and when the attack will come.

Since self-knowledge is a matter of getting to know the individual, facts and theories are of very little help in this respect. For the more a theory lays claims to universal validity, the less capable it is of doing justice to the individual facts.

Any theory based on experience is necessarily statistical; that is to say, it formulates an ideal average which abolishes all exceptions at either end of the scale and replaces them by an abstract mean. This mean is quite valid, though it need not necessarily occur in reality.

--Carl Jung, The Undiscovered Self
In "The Undiscovered Self", Jung foresaw a great crisis arising from the forces of 'collectivism' on the one hand and those that celebrate the inherent value of the individual on the other. It is a dialectic that few could have imagined might reach a zenith in a Bush regime, from which nothing special was expected, a regime that held out only the promise of oppressive dullness --not oppresssion itself, a regime characterized by standard GOP conventionality and mediocrity.

Little was expected of Bush who delivered even less in every area but one. Bush marshaled the powerful forces of state propaganda, fear, and 'group think' to forge a totalitarian collective from among his aggressive, authoritarian, intolerant and elitist base! In the wake of 911, even strong 'individualists' found it easier to just go along with the 'mass think' that blamed Islam, Europe [France, in particular] for crimes that we now know were perpetrated by the Bush regime itself. Hitler had been similarly successful in the wake of the Reichstag Fire.

Jung argued the future of civilization was literally dependent upon the ability of the individual to resist the collective forces that are found in every society. Jung's prescription consisted of individuals 'gaining an awareness and understanding' of one's own sub-conscious, in other words, “the undiscovered self'.
Resistance to the organized mass can be affected only by the man who is well organized in his individuality as the mass itself.'

--Carl Jung, The Undiscovered Self, [p. 60]
One should not be surprised that Bush benefited most from the 'collectivist instinct' found in the 'religious right', a movement which typifies 'group think' and the suppression of individual reason, creativity, originality, or non-conformity of any type.
He [Jung] distinguishes between religion which expresses a subjective relationship to certain metaphysical factors and a creed which merely gives expression to a collective belief. Religion is understood in the broad sense, including the relationship of the individual to the metaphysical and the world of dreams, feelings and intuitions.

Science, on the other hand, is the rationalistic, statistical and theoretical part of understanding. Self-knowledge, according to Jung, cannot be achieved by abandoning either of these facets.

--Review, Carl Jung's The Undiscovered Self
In America, the 'religious' instinct is that of the 'group'. It has very little in common with the individual's quest for enlightenment or spirituality. Thus, the process by which individuals acquire knowledge of Jung's 'undiscovered self' is antithetical to 'ideological fanaticism' observed to be rampant and intolerant throughout Bush's America.

Only when individuals embrace the dual nature of the human psyche --the existence of good as well as its capacity for evil --that individuals may cope with the dangers and threats posed by those in power or by what Jung has called 'the sum total of individuals' i.e, the modern 'mass society'. It is not only totalitarian regimes but society itself, by way of the 'science' of 'demographics' that reduces the individual to the individual only as he/she is a part of the 'mass'.
Modern propaganda reaches individuals enclosed in the mass, yet it also aims at a crowd, but only as a body composed of individuals. What does this mean? First of all, that the individual is never considered as an individual, but always in terms of what he has in common with others, such as his motivations, his feelings, or his myths. He is reduced to an average; and except for a small percentage, action based on averages will be effectual.'

...

'In this broad belt of unconsciousness, which is immune to conscious criticism and control, we stand defenseless, open to all kinds of influences and psychic infections. As with al dangers, we can guard against the risk of psychic infection only when we know that is attacking, and how, where and when the attack will come. Since self-knowledge is a matter of getting to known the individual facts, theories help very little in this respect. For the more a theory lays claims to universal validity, the less capable it is of doing justice to the individual facts. Any theory based on experience is necessarily statistical; that is to say, it formulates an ideal average which abolishes all exceptions at either end of the scale and replaces them by an abstract mean. This mean is quite valid, though it need not necessarily occur in reality.

--Propaganda: On the Formation of Man’s Attitudes[p.6]
Jung defies summary. It is better that you read him for yourself. However, some general conclusions are possible. Jung writes that 'Separation from his instinctual nature' impels the 'conflict between conscious and unconscious', between 'knowledge and faith' [Jung, op cit., p. 81] It is easy enough to find this 'symptom' in Bush's America bombarded as it is by unprecedented 'mass media' and equally unprecedented pressures to conform.

These 'pressures' to conform have always been identifiable, opposed as they were by Henry David Thoreau who chose --at Walden pond --to "live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." Others known for their creative resistances to 'mass think' include Mark Twain and later Lenny Bruce, the 'beatniks', hippies, and Viet Nam war resisters. 'Howl' by Allen Ginsberg is a latter day movement's very anthem of 'resistance' as was the earlier 'Song of Myself' by Walt Whitman in which it is written:
'I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

--Walt Whitman
“Here we must ask: Have I any religious experience and immediate relation to God, and hence that certainty which will keep me, as an individual, from dissolving in the crowd?'

--Jung, op cit, p.88
Given the oppressive nature of Bush's evil regime, the 'mass think' inherent in 'mass media', the mind-numbing sameness of American suburbs, it is difficult to find the paths sought so heroically by Whitman, Ginsberg, et al.
We can recognize our prejudices and illusions only when, from a broader psychological knowledge of ourselves and others, we are prepared to doubt the absolute rightness of our assumptions and compare them carefully and conscientiously with the objective facts.

--Jung, op cit,p. 102

The same thing was said much earlier by Oliver Cromwell to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 1650
I beseech you in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken.
The GOP, tragically, will never admit of being wrong. Therefore, as long as the GOP is allowed power of any sort, the state is made dysfunctional and the 'debate' made meaningless.

The future of mankind is in doubt. As long as the state presumes to exercise 'absolute power', individuals are robbed of the freedom required to lead meaningful lives.

In this challenging and provocative work, Dr. Carl Jung—one of history’s greatest minds—argues that civilization’s future depends on our ability as individuals to resist the collective forces of society. Only by gaining an awareness and understanding of one’s unconscious mind and true, inner nature—“the undiscovered self”—can we as individuals acquire the self-knowledge that is antithetical to ideological fanaticism. But this requires that we face our fear of the duality of the human psyche—the existence of good and the capacity for evil in every individual. In this seminal book, Jung compellingly argues that only then can we begin to cope with the dangers posed by mass society—“the sum total of individuals”—and resist the potential threats posed by those in power.

--Penquin Review of Jung's 'The Undiscovered Self'

At last, in response to uninformed 'labelers', practitioners of stupid ad hominem fallacies: Jung was NOT a Nazi. Jung, in fact, wound up on the Nazi 'blacklist' probably because he denounced precisely whatever it is that defines a 'Nazi'.
As early as 1918, Jung knew something unfavorable was arising within Germany. His words of the "blond beast stirring in its subterranean prison...threatening us with an outbreak that will have devastating consequences" (Jung, 1947, as cited in Welsh, Hannah, & Briner, 1947) serve as an early warning of what was to come. Just ten years later, he wrote on how each person is unconsciously worse when acting within a crowd rather than individually. Jung warned the world that the larger an organization becomes, the more the people are prone to immorality and blind ignorance (Jung, 1947, as cited in Welsh, Hannah, & Briner, 1947).

In 1933, in a lecture given in Cologne, Germany (at the same period in history when others accused him of Nazi-sympathy), Jung leveled a full blown warning about people as a collective suffocating the individual, leaving those in the crowd anonymous, irresponsible, and dangerous. Jung implied that Hitler (and Nazism) was the inevitable cause of such collectivenes. Four years later, in 1937, Jung spoke at Yale University in the United States, relaying his belief that the movement seen in Germany was explained by a fear of neighboring countries supposedly possessed by devilish leaders. In stating that no one can recognize their own unconscious underpinnings, the possibility that Germany was projecting their own condition upon their International neighbors was evident (Jung, 1947, as cited in Welsh, Hannah, & Briner, 1947). This fear leads to the nationalistic duty to have the biggest guns and the strongest army.

In 1940, most of these words were published in German but were quickly suppressed. As a result of Jung's views about Germany and particularly Adolf Hitler, he ended up on the Nazi "blacklist" (Jung, 1947, as cited in Welsh, Hannah, & Briner, 1947). When France was later invaded, the Gestapo destroyed Jung's French translations as well. In no uncertain terms, Jung's writings and lectures served as a warning for the conflict to come. As well, Jung's own words opposed the accusations of Nazi sympathy and anti-Semitism. It would seem then, in light of the above, that the answer to the question of Nazi sympathy and anti-Semitism is fairly clear.

--Jung's Own Words
Additional resources

22 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great piece. Jung is so much more essential to the problems that face us and their solutions than we usually realize, which is probably why he's slowly and quietly been demonized.

Unknown said...

workshop said...

... which is probably why he's slowly and quietly been demonized.

Great point! If I paid any attention whatever to the right wing's official program of 'demonization', I might make it a point to especially patronize, publicize or, in other ways, call attention to the objects of their ire.

Good rules of thumb: if the RIGHT WING hates it, it is probably a GOOD IDEA. If the right wing boycotts it, BUY IT! If the right wing, DEMONIZES it, canonize it! If the right wing criticizes it, praise it! If the right wing shuns it, patronize it!

Anonymous said...

As you know, Jung studied Astrology, I Ching, the Tarot and
other oracles, all of which
contributed to a concept he called
Synchronicity. Of course, he was
re-naming for the current generation a timeless, spaceless
principal that permeates all of nature. A popular axiom today says,
" Coincidence is God's way of working in our lives and remaining
anonymous". Fundamentalists mindlessly spout such a truism
without a thought for it's greater
reality and eternal value.Obviously
this spiritual principal shows how,
as individuals, we each have a unique connection with the higher
World(s) that surround us at all times. I point this out because,
although I do not advocate people
jettison entirely their emotionally
driven religious belief system,
that system doesn't usually get them very far, not that they would
notice. Jung broke with Freud,among
other reasons, over the latters'
unwillingness to cross the line
where one must(finally) acknowledge
the spiritual composition of life.
This reflects the hive mentality
of the masses who give lip-service
to what they take for granted is
their "spirituality".Even for them,
I would imagine that their dreams,
and nightmares,must occasionally
give them pause for thought,forcing
them however briefly to consider deeper,hidden realms.
As your article points out, if enough Americans had the cojones
to do the painfull but essential
work required to truly discover
ones' self, this satanic regime
would not have been allowed to
gain a foothold,little on bear such monstrous fruit. With piercing insight and intuition,
America would have discerned, long
before now, what was rising up in their very midst. That this was not to be reflects directly on the
hundreds of millions who would
compulsively watch,and believe,what
they see and hear on TV,the best
brainwash money can buy, rather than "Venture Inward" (a book by
Hugh Lynn Cayce).
Eveyone is on their own personal
evolution spiral, and traditionally
we expand beyond materialism when
the time is right.But there does
seem to be some kind of "lag" or
foot-dragging in this country,
a national retiscence to do our
homework. The Internet today has
almost as much a variety of
spiritual information as it does political. Therefore, no lame
excuses will be accepted when we are asked to turn in our homework.
No excuses,certainly, in view of the horrors that have overtaken
this nation, of the wounds that
will take a century to heal, if there is an America LEFT to heal.

From: Jack D.

Marc McDonald said...

Torture comes naturally to George W. Bush. He's been doing it since he was a kid. And (like a lot of serial killers) he started out torturing small animals as a child and later graduated to humans.

As The New York Times reported, in a May 21, 2000 article, Bush enjoyed torturing small animals as a youngster. "We were terrible to animals," Bush childhood friend Terry Throckmorton was quoted as saying.

Throckmorton described how Bush and his friends treated frogs they found on the Bush family estate.

"Everybody would get BB guns and shoot them," Throckmorton said. "Or we'd put firecrackers in the frogs and throw them and blow them up."

Anonymous said...

Howdy Len,

In your article you stated: "Jung argued the future of civilization was literally dependent upon the ability of the individual to resist the collective forces that are found in every society. Jung's prescription consisted of individuals 'gaining an awareness and understanding' of one's own sub-conscious, in other words, “the undiscovered self'.
Resistance to the organized mass can be affected only by the man who is well organized in his individuality as the mass itself."
--Carl Jung, The Undiscovered Self, [p. 60]

I've never read Jung, but, correct me if I'm wrong, isn't that what has been happening since George Dubya took office?

The individual, like yourself, and myself and hundreds of thousands of other people like you and me have formed a resistance to the organized mass?

The organized mass being George Dubya and his minions.

Am I understanding you correctly here?

Troubled

Anonymous said...

outstanding post.


benmerc

Unknown said...

Anonymous said...

No excuses,certainly, in view of the horrors that have overtaken
this nation, of the wounds that will take a century to heal, if there is an America LEFT to heal.


Gore Vidal recently said that it will take a century to 'heal' America in the wake of Bush. In the meantime, I am looking for ways in which we might organize a world wide movement to TRACK DOWN war criminals wherever they may be hiding and bring them to justice before a criminal court. Bush should be prosecuted by a Texas court which will find him guilty of 'capital crimes' that he has committed in those jurisdictions. The obvious choice, however, is to try Bush in the ICC for the war crimes he perpetrated against the world.


Marc McDonald said...

Torture comes naturally to George W. Bush. He's been doing it since he was a kid. And (like a lot of serial killers) he started out torturing small animals as a child and later graduated to humans.

I've scanned stories about Bush's life as a young pervert-sadist. Perhaps, it's time to go a more comprehensive 'round-up' of the evidence of his psychosis, his psychopathy, his various pervisions, stupidities and evil inclinations.


Troubled Texan said...

The individual, like yourself, and myself and hundreds of thousands of other people like you and me have formed a resistance to the organized mass? The organized mass being George Dubya and his minions.

Am I understanding you correctly here?


Your take is right on target. But Bush is not the first venal idiot to have sold his soul to an 'organized mass' but he is certainly among those who currently pose the greater dangers to the entire world.

And ....thanks benmerc.

Anonymous said...

NOW WE'RE GETTING SOMEWHERE TO THE POINT!

We do not know enought about mankind, we hardly know anything about mankind! (Carl Jung)

He also said; What you resist persist!

With Carl Jung we are entering the field(s) of the human paradox with its seemingly unresolvable inner conflicts.

George W. Bush resisted his (dead)fears as a boy, by torturing and murdering animals, nowadays he persist in torturing and murdering human-beïngs. From the outset in life he let his fears persist and is now, as the most powerfull man on Earth(wich is a paradox in itself) projecting his fears(wich he thinks he once did overcome by torturing and killing animals) on the entire Planet.

His accumulated degenerate behaviour can be found throughout the histories of 'socalled' great men of power, and in the annals of psychopath research.

Thanks for this great post Len, and I realy hope you do not resist the urge to enlighten the blogósphere with more of this crucial kind of indept articles.

Jacob.

Indeterminacy said...

It's very refreshing to read these quotes from Jung. I think the piece he wrote "Nach der Katastrophe" (After the Catastrophe), which analyzes the mass hysteria of fascism in Germany (written after WWII) would also be a gold mine of understanding for the current situation.

I've translated one key piece written by the prescient German satirist Kurt Tucholsky, which has direct bearing on the torture issues, and is especially eerie, because it was written before the catastrophe.

tiago said...

I will not apologize for these remarks. That being said, I think GW Bush is a despicable piece of shit whose only claim to man kind and to man hood is what is between his legs. Nothing more!
GW admits to drug and alcoholism abuse, but he has been saved and is a ‘reborn’ Christian. So is the ignorant KKK, who come forward at each year’s tent revival and then goes back to doing what they have always done.
There are two things wrong with GW’s confession of ‘past’ drug and alcohol abuse. (I say past because I think he is still abusing. GW has spent more time in ‘retreats’, or vacation, than any other President in history.)
One, every abuser seems to be a natural liar. They lie to others and to themselves. There is only one reason to delve into drug and alcohol abuse and that is escape from themselves and from reality. The lies are no longer enough to allow for that escape. They will not examine themselves and see how they can change, (try Michael Jackson’s; “The Man in the Mirror”), they don’t have the courage to face themselves. This trait is not restricted to drug and alcohol abusers. We all exhibit this trait, but not to the extremes of an abuser.
Two, being a ‘Christian’ is a feel good that shows the world that they are others equal. Most Christians around here are ‘Christians’ in name only. They have never examined their religion, or, themselves to see if they adhere to their religion. But, they feel good because they are Christians. Joan Baez sang ‘One Tin Soldier’ from the ‘Legend of Billy Jack’. One line; ‘Do it in the name of Heaven, you can justify it in the end’. That allows them to justify NOT even trying to live up to Christianity.
We fear that we are not living up to our own lofty standards. It is much easier to examine the others faults than our own to make our failure less despicable.
‘It is easier to fight for principles than to live up to them’ seems to be the mentality of America today.
That being said, I will leave you with one paraphrase that I apply to myself.
Every man is wise in his own eyes.

Unknown said...

Indeterminacy said...

It's very refreshing to read these quotes from Jung. I think the piece he wrote "Nach der Katastrophe" (After the Catastrophe), which analyzes the mass hysteria of fascism in Germany (written after WWII) would also be a gold mine of understanding for the current situation.

Indeed, it would be. I have in mind a more in-depth piece and the work you cite is an essential source. Welcome to the 'Cowboy'.


tiago said...

Most Christians around here are ‘Christians’ in name only. They have never examined their religion, or, themselves to see if they adhere to their religion. But, they feel good because they are Christians. Joan Baez sang ‘One Tin Soldier’ from the ‘Legend of Billy Jack’. One line; ‘Do it in the name of Heaven, you can justify it in the end’.

I remember that song well. Songs like that and many others by Joan specifically helped get us through a difficult period. As you have described 'Christianity', it seems but the symptoms psychopathy.(the term 'sociopathy' is little used professionally these days) According to various sources, the 'psychopathological' personality is defined primarily by lack of emotional depth and an attendent lack of empathy --characteristics Dr. Gustav Gilbert documented in his studies of the Nazi war criminals he interviewed at Nuremberg.

Psychopaths are often narcissitic or charming but lack emotional depth. They are essentially anti-social, irresponsible and impulsive. They are not 'psychotic' in that they are not defined by 'delusional' states though I believe that even psychopaths AND psychotics, indeed, everyone acts upon what they believe to be true. 'Psychopaths' don't believe that they are they are Napoleon --in other words.

Mass media and film often portray serial killers as psychopaths but, certainly, not all psychopaths are serial killers. Though some, like Ted Bundy, are. George Bush is no Ted Bundy in that Bush found was to practice serial murder from a position of almost unassailable power. (time to bring him DOWN)

It is my belief that George Bush is psychopathic as were the Nazi war criminals at Nuremberg. And and I fear that about one third of the population is 'psychopathic'. As history proves, psychopaths in positions of power and authority have certainly ruined millions of lives. Bush and Hitler are excellent examples, both men leaving in their wakes death, destruction, chaos and calamity.

Anonymous said...

Fuzzflash sez...

Len, that's another line driven homer, wonderful comments also.

Hope you enjoy the cut and paste 'toon.

Wed June 18: (later viewers, please mouse over date box.)

http://news.yahoo.com/edcartoons/patoliphant;_ylt=Aqj0uoNR5M3G42oESXnYIt5R_b4F

The Imbecile and his Outfit, backed up (unbelievably) by SCOTUS's latest 5/4 upholding our old friend Habeas, are in their last months. We live in dizzying yet dangerous times.

Might be just rogue polls, but The Kid has just pulled ahead FL, PA and OH!

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2008/06/18/quinnipiac_obama_leads_in_florida_ohio_and_pennsylvania.html

Truth and Justice ain't quite done yet, podner. Flickers of hope shimmer as an end to the days of our long despair draws nearer.

P.S. just noticed on "PREVIEW" that the URLs don't transfer in toto, however there's enough there in the first part of the addresses to make the action.

Unknown said...

Always good to see your thoughts in 'print', Fuzz. Indeed, we live in dizzying times, but I dare not breathe a sigh of relief until Bush's cabal, the evil cult that sprang up around is SMASHED, imprisoned and neutered.

The 'toon speaks to the PSYCHOPATHS that take up four seats on the high court brought low by their idiocy, their inability to be honest with themselves but --most importantly --the lies they have dared tell us about what is, in fact, the 'law'.

I was writing about the danger to the high court when Nixon was President and no one paid attention.

The fact of the matter is the so-called 'liberal' court of Earl Warren was DESPISED in America because the Warren court DARED to integrate out schools and DARED to require law enforcement to inform citizens of their rights upon arrest. The Warren court DARED to address the issue of legal representation for those who found themselves accused of a crime but could not afford a lawyer. The Warren court dared to measure the 'world's great Democracy' against its record! The Warren court inspired a generation of bigots, idiots, extremists and hard cases to depths of vile rhetoric and 'Impeach Earl Warren' bumper stickers.

I grew up liberal and free in the midst of right wing reactionaries and 'slaves' to mediocrity and ideology.

Anonymous said...

Nice, like a piercing arrow.

tiago said...

Len,
I just came across this tonight. It may interest you or at least let you know that you are not alone.
Law School to Plan Bush War Primes Prosecution
Press Release: Massachusetts School Of Law

17 June 2008 "ICH" – A conference to plan the prosecution of President Bush and other high administration officials for war crimes will be held September 13-14 at the Massachusetts School of Law at Andover .
"This is not intended to be a mere discussion of violations of law that have occurred," said convener Lawrence Velvel, dean and cofounder of the school. "It is, rather, intended to be a planning conference at which plans will be laid and necessary organizational structures set up, to pursue the guilty as long as necessary and, if need be, to the ends of the Earth."
"We must try to hold Bush administration leaders accountable in courts of justice," Velvel said. "And we must insist on appropriate punishments, including, if guilt is found, the hangings visited upon top German and Japanese war-criminals in the 1940s."
Velvel said past practice has been to allow U.S. officials responsible for war crimes in Viet Nam and elsewhere to enjoy immunity from prosecution upon leaving office. "President Johnson retired to his Texas ranch and his Defense Secretary Robert McNamara was named to head the World Bank; Richard Nixon retired to San Clemente and his Secretary of State Henry Kissinger was allowed to grow richer and richer," Velvel said.
He noted in the years since the prosecution and punishment of German and Japanese leaders after World War Two those nation's leaders changed their countries' aggressor cultures. One cannot discount contributory cause and effect here, he said.
"For Bush, Richard Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and John Yoo to spend years in jail or go to the gallows for their crimes would be a powerful lesson to future American leaders," Velvel said.
The conference will take up such issues as the nature of domestic and international crimes committed; which high-level Bush officials, including Federal judges and Members of Congress, are chargeable with war crimes; which foreign and domestic tribunals can be used to prosecute them; and the setting up of an umbrella coordinating committee with representatives of legal groups concerned about the war crimes such as the Center for Constitutional Rights, ACLU, National Lawyers Guild, among others.
The Massachusetts School of Law at Andover was established in 1988 to provide an affordable, quality legal education to minorities, immigrants and students from low-income households that might otherwise be denied the opportunity to obtain a legal education and practice law. Its founder, Dean Velvel, has been honored by the National Law Journal and cited in various publications for his contributions to the reform of legal education.

Further information Jeff Demers at demers@msl.edu 978) 681-0800; or Sherwood Ross, media consultant to MSL, at sherwoodr1@yahoo.com

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20118.htm

Unknown said...

Welcome to the 'Cowboy', Bill Green. Please bookmark and come back. The 'front porch' is most agreeable.

tiago said...

"It is, rather, intended to be a planning conference at which plans will be laid and necessary organizational structures set up, to pursue the guilty as long as necessary and, if need be, to the ends of the Earth."

I remember advocating that 'long ago' --on NPRs "How's Bush Doing" forum and, in those days, even 'liberals' tended to shy away. It doesn't matter who thought of it, the point now is: we must all support the work of this conference and do what we can to make sure that it doesn't become just a another erstwhile, ephemeral exercise of no lasting import.

I support this conference and will follow it with great interest. The 'conference' should (if they have not already done so) set up a foundation --a method by which monies may be raised to track the war criminals now wherever they maybe and bring them to justice.

About Simon Wiesenthal, I can do no better than the following information from wiki: "Simon Wiesenthal dedicated most of his life to tracking down and gathering information on fugitive Nazis so that they could be brought to justice for war crimes and crimes against humanity. As soon as his health improved, Wiesenthal began working for the U.S. Army gathering documentation for the Nazi war crimes trials. In 1947, he and 30 other volunteers founded the Jewish Documentation Center in Linz, Austria, in order to gather information for future trials. Wiesenthal also wrote The Sunflower, which describes a life-changing event he experienced when he was in the camp."

Victor Frankl is also essential reading. His experience in a concentration camp inspired his "Man's Search for Meaning", a great work that should be included in any libary that also includes Sartre's "Existentialism and Human Emotions".

Anonymous said...

Fuzz sez...

Len, your most recent thoughts on Victor Frankl and JPS certainly hit the spot. Just this moment returned home after seeing the below-mentioned film, popped by the porch here and whammo!! You're discussing the Holocaust.

I remember the unbelievably moving footage you posted on E.C. a couple of years back of J. Brunowski wearing a plain suit, ankle deep in the muddy ashes of his forebears in Auschwitz.

"There are two parts to the human dilemma. One is the belief that the end justifies the means. That push-button philosophy, that deliberate deafness to suffering, has become the monster in the war machine. The other is the betrayal of the human spirit: the assertion of dogma that closes the mind, and turns a nation, a civilization, into a regiment of ghosts--obedient ghosts, or tortured ghosts.....
This is the concentration camp and crematorium at Auschwitz. This is where people were turned into numbers. Into this pond were flushed the ashes of four million people. And that was not done by gas. It was dome by arrogance. It was done by dogma....."
J.Brunowski, "The Ascent of Man".

Die Fälscher (The Counterfeiters) (Berlinale 2007)

In the film’s screenplay, adapted by the director from the Adolf Burger memoirs Des Teufels Werkstatt ("The Devil’s Workshop"), the direct question is not anymore one of survival of the body, but one of the soul: to which extent can a person be held responsible for actions committed under threat of severe sanctions or death? Can one allow oneself to live if it makes others, even unknowns, die? Would a sacrifice be worthwhile or would martyrdom be in vain?.......

……… its subject is presented in such an accessible manner that it rises above the Nazi-era setting completely, something which Der Untergang (Downfall) and Sophie Scholl – Die Letzten Tage (Sophie Scholl – The Final Days) did not.

http://european-films.net/content/view/611/118/

Brunowski continues: “We have to close the distance between push-button order and the human act. We have to touch people.”

(Brunowski bows his head, descends on his haunches, and in an act of overwhelming poignance, gathers in his right hand, fingers upward, a fistful of the remains of his ancestors.)

Unknown said...

Fuzz sez...

(Brunowski bows his head, descends on his haunches, and in an act of overwhelming poignance, gathers in his right hand, fingers upward, a fistful of the remains of his ancestors.)

As I recall that was the last episode of his 'Ascent of Man' series. I also recall reading somewhere that this scene was done on the 'first take' and that Bronowski ad libbed it, stepping spontaneously into the slew to --as he put it "...we have to touch people".

No script!

Just Bronowski speaking from his infinite wellspring of intelligence and humanity. That's a powerful combination.

I also recommend his "Science and Human Values".

Anonymous said...

Thanks for very good article.

We never read Jung, but might as we can see he was beginning to understand the truths that Delamer Duverus has been giving us regarding the alien mind and how it works through humanity.

You might read "The Seven Thunders" on http://delamerduverus2.blogspot.com.

Unknown said...

gadfly said...

Rather than being a grand resister of tyranny, Jung was a closet Nazi during World War II. Of course, since you're a 9/11 FALSER, that's far and away from being the only thing you get wrong on this blog.

And you are full of shit! If Jung was a Nazi so is EVERY American --and doubly so those who voted for Bush especially that dwindling few who still think Bush is 'God' or 'appointed by God'.

Secondly, you practice the ad hominem, ignoring the substance of Jung's denunciation of 'mass think' which the Nazi movement inevitably came to represent. Jung was interested in the Nazi movement. Who wasn't? Who isn't? That doesn't make him a Nazi nor does it characterize the nature of his interest. I cannot think of any psychologist NOT being interested in the movement. It remains a 'case' worthy of extensive study.

Hanah Arendt was likewise interested in the nature of 'evil'. That doesn't make HER 'evil'. American Psychologist, Dr. Gustav Gilbert found all but three or four of the Nazis on trial at Nuremberg to be considerably above average intelligence. That doesn't mean he was a Nazi or that he admired them. He didn't! Jung had hoped to explain "rumblings of war" in pre-war Germany. He saw the Nazi movement as an enormous eruption of the collective unconscious but that's not to say that it was 'good' or that Jung thought it good in any context. Jung believed the archetype "Wotan," best represented a 'German state of mind in the 1930', and, in deed, it probably was. To put forth the proposition that Germans were involved in 'reintegrating archaic elements into their psyche' is one thing. Clicking your heels and saluting with 'Heil Hitler' is something else entirely. Get over this 'labeling' mentality about which I may write a book myself. 'Labeling' is how most Americans have begun to think. It is a poor substitute for rational, logical or critical thought. And If you don't like my blog, get your own so that I can happily ignore your shit. See the revision to my articiel to include the truth about Jung as opposed to your half-truths, labels, and bullshit.

Anonymous said...

Nice job Len,
another neo-con bites the dust...

benmerc

Michael J. Petro said...

"...the more a theory lays claims to universal validity, the less capable it is of doing justice to the individual facts."

Hi Len - great post, and one of my favorite Jung quotes. I am generally critical of some of the sweeping generalizations of "Jungian" thought, but the above quote demonstrates the self-awareness that acquits him of most of it.

Sadly, the quote illustrates the one fact that is completely baffling to those who are dedicated precisely to finding that perfect, black-and-white explanation for everything so that their heads can stop hurting from thinking so hard.