Yes I didn’t mean a hypothetical, its known you’re a veteran of that war.
Thanks for the elaborations, this is interesting stuff to me, as it is directly pertinent and you answer your own question;
The Vietnam war. I went over there a gung-ho, red-blooded American Christian, ready to kick the Communists ass. I returned a radical left-wing atheist who tossed away his Bronze Star medal and Army Commendation medal with a V-device for valor on April 19th 1972, the one year anniversary of Operation Dewey Canyon III protest in Washington D.C. Just tossed them into a dumpster outside my apartment complex. At the time a very powerful and very personal experience. Just me, myself and I.
This would be the beginning of that moral effort.
I’d think.
But far from the end of it, as you also clarify.
Ironically enough, not more than a couple of miles from where I live now. And I’ve lived all over the Baltimore metropolitan area.
What’s Baltimore like these days - you recognize it in The Wire?
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6EpfCzdMoY[/youtube]
But now, years later, I am considerably more ambivalent about all of the things I did back then. From the radical right to the radical left. Back in my own “objectivist days”.
As for Jung, how would those here who share in any of the points he raised above react to what I did back then? How would the Freudians?
I would say that you threw yourself on the Shadow immediately, as did a lot of Vietnam veterans.
Their confrontation of it became a whole corpus of literature, music and film and formed a basis of a new national conscience.
But, the shadow is elusive.
As it is in oneself.
Jordan Peterson says of the Shadow that it is the capacity for cruelty.
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6VRWX1Sz5s[/youtube]
Jung:
“The shadow is a moral problem that challenges the whole ego-personality, for no one can become conscious of the shadow without considerable moral effort. To become conscious of it involves recognizing the dark aspects of the personality as present and real. This act is the essential condition for any kind of self-knowledge.”
How does that fit into my reaction to the Vietnam war? Damned if I know. What the hell does this even mean in regard to any particular individual facing any particular situation in which moral and political narratives come into conflict?
Well yes, this is a distinction, a problem I also noticed;
We have the individual shadow and then he societal shadow which is far larger, and yet, the same.
The elusiveness of the shadow points to the mystery of separation and unity of the individual and his world. Thats a thought that comes to me now, writing this.
More to the point [mine] in terms of your own interactions with others involving “considerable moral effort”, what does it mean to you?
Cite a situation you have been in that allows you to describe it more substantively.
it means so very, very much.
My life, dude, I can not even tell you a single detail. Its unfortunate. Lurkers.
But in general, Ive always made a great effort to bring to light the darkness where I would rather not recognize it.
One thing I can tell you: People who consider themselves “light workers” are usually the very opposite. Demons, sick people.
I suppose this is in part why I was so drawn to Nietzsche, and in particular his darker side. I never had the slightest faith in anything that wasn’t addressing the very heart of darkness.