My niece is spending a semester in Amman, Jordan, living with a Muslim family and studying at the school. She has been having a bit of difficulty adjusting to the ways of the culture regarding the roles of men and women. So I started thinking about it in Jungian terms and this is what I came up with.
What I believe my niece is dealing with in Muslim society is the playing out by day of a participation mystique with the cosmic sun and moon archetypes, where the moon is dependent on the sun for its existence. The sun must accompany the face of the moon wherever she goes or the moon will die. Observe that the moon’s face is surrounded by the night so that her body cannot be seen, hence cloth. Now, it’s also clear that this archetypal playground has been corrupted a bit by the shadow anima projection of the men worried about the purity of the women and the taint of sin on their psyches. But at its root, this cultural practice derives from the primitive participation mystique with the sun and the moon.
Here in the West, however, our consciousness has grown past cosmic participation due to the influence of the Judeo-Christian Senex archetype, which is the prevailing energy here. Women are not thought of as moon goddesses, but as subordinate to the fickle and morally ambiguous father who always knows best, so to speak, even if what he knows and proclaims as right is ridiculously and dangerously wrong. This is a collective meme, and individual women are free to express themselves as long as men actually hold the power and decide important matters for the group and the society. For women to be part of the power structure, they have to become like men and hold to the Senex archetype in their dealings with the world. This can be difficult when the Senex decides that might is right, and what I say goes even if it means the killing, harm, and destruction of millions, including the harm and exploitation of Musllims. But once the woman has become subsumed in the archetype, it is her master. That’s how it is for now. Of course there is always the possibility for a person to individuate and become conscious of the unconscious influences on her mind and life, but in the collective, the Senex is operative. I suppose it would take a collective metanoia to change that, though the individual transformation would have to take place first it seems to me.
It’s difficult to think in terms of archetypes when you don’t know what they are or how they work. It’s an energy that plays out in human behavior, both individually and collectively. The Senex is the quintessential collective American archetype. The way that decisions are made and followed, whether good or bad, is the way it works. If you look at it on the corporate-political level, it might make more sense for you. On this collective level, policies are carried out that sometimes don’t make sense and appear unjustified and unnecessary, which do untold harm and yet the people suffer them with great tolerance. It’s that Big Daddy complex working overtime all right.
True, you rarely see clearly feminine power in a powerful western woman.
In the Middle East, when you visit a family, there is no such thing as equality, the man and woman fulfill completely different roles. Which is not to say that the woman is necessarily oppressed - in the cases I’ve witnessed, where I was invited into family homes, the woman was actually a very confident presence, commanding the dealings in the household, with that kind of mysterious half hidden authority that a man can not exert. The power of suggestion through showing and withdrawing love/light, very lunar indeed. With that, she’s the center of the household, all antennae are tuned in to her.
Interesting point about the headscarves and the surrounding night. There’s this mystique in the Islamic world which here in Holland has permeated the city streets, and which I actually quite like. It’s sweet.
I can’t resist the some shameless plugging here, and repost a video I once made about headscarves in Holland.
Nice fillm. It’s a nice contradiction to that neo-nazi Geert Wilders shit and the reaction to hijabs in France as well. Remember, when countries turn to the right to deal with economic and social stresses, somebody will get scapegoated… in this case immigrants and people of Islamic faith and culture.
Also, even though there may have been a kind of sun-moon participation mystique in the way that Islamic men and women interact and dress themselves, that mystique has been mostly forgotten and overset with trauma shadows that are not good or useful. Men now try to protect themselves from the evil influence of a woman’s smile or naked skin; and women cannot go anywhere unaccompanied by a man and her actions are very restrictive, including her body language. This kind of repression has a very disturbing effect on the psyche of a person from the West who is used to the liberation of women; and I think that is what prompted Theo van Gogh to make his film Submission, which in turn caused a reactive Islamic male to murder him.
I have to say that personally I find the clothes and the hijab most difficult to look at. I would feel so suffocated and unable to express myself, which would result in extreme misery on my part. But I find myself more able to tolerate the less restrictive practice like some of the women in your film who wore the scarf differently and more artistically so their face was more open. Thus, you can imagine how I feel about the burqa, where the entire body, including the face, is covered. That seems so unnatural I can hardly bear it. I keep thinking that there is something psychically necessary about seeing faces, particularly for infants and children. We learn so much from faces, and there is a language there that is very important, in my view. In terms of the moon archetype, I suppose it would be the new moon where there is hardly any light.
And last, since my culture operates on the male Senex archetype – that of the authoritarian, fickle, and morally ambiguous god as exemplified in the OT – there is bound to be a serious culture and psychic clash between the Western and Muslim cultures. However, it would be a much less violent clash if my country and what it stands for were not invaders in the Middle East, seeking to use and exploit the countries for profit. My niece has a history professor who spoke honestly about the horrible influence of the British and American forces on Jordan and the ME. She wrote yesterday:
[i]Today myself and the rest of the eager and intelligent students in my program were privileged enough to receive a lecture from Dr. Ali Mahafzah, a brilliant and honest Professor of History at the University of Jordan. His lecture kicked off our thematic seminar titled “Jordan: Modernization and Social Change.” Man, what a way to start! His lecture was about the formation of modern Jordan from the fall of the Ottoman Empire through the British Mandate system and into “independence.” The question and answer section, however, was essentially about the Jordanian monarchy being an unchecked executive authority that does whatever the United States wants according to the interest of it’s corporations. The United States was illustrated as a crooked, greedy, and inhumane master, exploiting the Middle East for economic gain and causing the Arab peoples to suffer as a result. I was picking up what Mahafzah was putting down. He accused us point blank of paying for the forces that impose American economic tyranny and cause Arab displacement and suffering. Our offenses in the Middle East are many, but in particular we were all thinking about and referencing the occupation of Iraq and our support of Israel. “You are paying for this,” he said, in slow but wonderfully eloquent English. “Your forces are creating this. You are mercenaries!”
Such accusations were upsetting, but this kind of honesty is hard to come by, and I savored every moment of it. He went on to say “I have to be frank with you, as I am with my own students.” That was when I began fostering a dream of being fluent enough in Arabic to take one of his classes and experience his frankness regularly. His is the kind of frightening honesty that forces you to grow, as coming to grips with reality often does. He did not exactly argue that there is hope, but nevertheless I was wildly inspired to continue studying languages in order to work towards establishing a common truth that can be improved upon. When world conditions are as dire as they are, the only hope for positive change must be predicated on an honest recognition of current practices and conditions. Only if we share the truth about what the world is like can we work from this reality to create a better one. Hopefully one day I will be able to share the truth in Arabic as well as English. And hopefully I am not too off base with my truth.
Ali Mahafzah not only gave us the gift of honesty, he even considered our feelings. “I am sorry if I injure you, but I must be frank,” he said. This was too much for me. It may have been wrong of me to speak for everyone, but I inadvertently blurted out “We’re sorry,” and instinctually covered my face with my scarf in embarrassment. I do not know if everyone in that room shared this sentiment, but upon reflection I do not mind putting those words into my peer’s mouths. It seems right.[/i]
Interestingly enough, her college major is Gender Studies. She admits freely that she takes on masculine qualities when dealing with the world, but her life and ability to express herself are much freer and it’s been a very difficult adjustment coming to terms with the way she has to follow certain customs and rules as set down by her Jordanian “father” and “mother.” For instance, they gave her an early curfew that was really upsetting to her, and then extended it to 9:30 pm which was better; but she now realizes that her own real mother’s midnight curfew wasn’t so bad and she feels sorry for sometimes complaining about that. She said, “Sorry mama, I wasn’t thinking globally.”
The burka is disgusting. Not only does it make the world look obscenely demented, It literally makes a human into an object. But Hijabs I like if they’re not too heavy.
It is brave of your friend to attend that school, no doubt it will make her a deeper experiencer.
I’m not too impressed about muslims being honest about their total dejection of political America, virtually all of the billion of them participate in that belief, and are without any hypocricy about it. By clerical law, the sinner who of asks interest on a loan is ‘worse than a man raping his own mother’.
I like the dutch muslim girls, they’re sassy and unabashed, two of them passed by on a scooter today, being cut off by an old man, one was cursing his mother while the other was smiling sweetly-knowingly… if there are any free birds in our society it’s the muslima’s. No one ever blames them for anything. And I think that’s entirely justified. Which says a lot about their moon-nature - what do I know?
She is actually my niece Vanessa. She had to actually practice putting on a serious look which she is required to do when in the presence of a male.
I’ve been thinking that the males are more concerned about protecting themselves from their own base natures than protecting women. It’s not a healthy society.
That’s a bit extreme, but I do understand the evil of usury.
I think this says more about acting out bad behavior than anything. The moon nature is more one of the feminine mystique that shines a luminous face in the darkness.
bad behavior is good for young people.
Muslim girls get the space here to act out the baser desires, but get to uphold their mask of innocence. It’s beautiful. Wicked, as is all lustful culture.
“The Middle East is a fascinating and menacing place” - Geert Wilders
I was thinking about ME men and the libido today while walking. I think that some form of libido will have its expression one way or another. It can’t be suppressed, though I also think that some people sublimate beautifully.
Geert Wilders is basically an asshole. His head is firmly planted in the place where the sun don’t shine and he wouldn’t know how to get it out with a mirror and a shoehorn.
The basic problem is that there is no trustworthy representation of the people. The governing class is hermetically separated from what is basically a powerless population. In a healthy society, libindinal forces flow upward, like the kundalini, into the power-conducting channels of the political body. Now they are directed downward, unto the type which is below powerless men; powerless women.
Your faith in your own right is strong, but your view is not one of the politician I know.
I know Wilders as an intelligent observer and a brilliant speech writer, who has moved from a moderate liberal position to a radically conservative one for personal reasons. As long as he has to live in a bunker, his reasons to speak like he does are grounded in a certain reality, that I don’t have the power to call into question.
I look forward to coming saturday, it will be a day of political truth.
That’s an interesting take on libido. I hadn’t thought of it that way, but it makes some sort of sense if you think of the greater society as a body with a chakra system as well.
Your faith in your own right is strong, but your view is not one of the politician I know.
I know Wilders as an intelligent observer and a brilliant speech writer, who has moved from a moderate liberal position to a radically conservative one for personal reasons. As long as he has to live in a bunker, his reasons to speak like he does are grounded in a certain reality, that I don’t have the power to call into question.
I look forward to coming saturday, it will be a day of political truth.
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I had a feeling that you might be a Geert Wilders defender. It’s all that pseudo-neitzschean neo-nazi will to power shit that’s infected your mind. If your head is up Wilders ass too, then a mirror and a shoehorn won’t help you either.
One can only take your words as you speak them… and so far it looks as though you have been glammed by the rightwing shit… politically at least. It’s as though he’s a Hitler in Wilders shoes working that special brand of crazed zealotry on your mind. You are very weak if you can’t resist it.
The West has some other archetypes going for it next to the Old Dirty Bastard. There’s the Snake, the Maiden, the Evil Brother, the Renegade Bounty Hunter, the Merciful Bestower of Independence and so on and on. Many of these the Muslim culture lacks. But then they have the Desert Phantom, the Whirling Dervish and the Radical Totalitarian, but all they can ever do is infiltrate our dreams as aliens and face our wrath. There is no peaceful of Muslim and Western archetypes. Allah is not for those who believe in a divine Self.
One problem with talking about archetypes in Jungian terms is that people who don’t understand them just start making up their own. Every kind of person and costume there is does not make it an archetype. What you want to do is find the over-arching energy driving a culture and extrapolate from that.
America is a difficult culture to deal with, I can understand that. But once you know that it’s the Senex driving everything this country does, the actions start making sense in the context of a mighty paternal god who decides things with a selfish whim of iron. Call it the Whim to Power, or the Power to Whim, if you like.
To add: This article showing a study of political talk show guests highlights the way the Senex overwhelms the airwaves. There is a way the psyche is prepped for it and comes to expect it or even require it. There is even a kind of uniform of acceptance for both men and women these days in order to fulfill the requirements of the archetype.
It’s apparently a Texas trait to consider ones personal version of America the general America. I’ve seen that before in people from there. A proud state! Which you probably rarely leave.
How Jungian archetypes actually work is that your psyche groups around those types that fascinate you, which carry a power that is complementary to you, as a physical human. They’re counterparts to your personality. Your psyche, a Hekate type, is drawn to her ‘husband’, the Senex. Just like an old lady who has nothing else to do than complain to her senile life partner, and thinks their conflict is what consitutes the world, you assume your personal preoccupations are what America is about.
But they’re not. The American spirit cannot be contained like that.
Sometimes somebody’s little buttons get pushed, but the fact is that archetypes are not matters of personal whim or eccentric projection.
There is a great deal of confusion and ignorance on this board regarding Jung and the archetypes of the collective unconscious. My suggestion is to read your Jung and really think about this.
As for you – sexist and ageist reactionary and ignorant posts do not a discussion make, but they do say something about the level of consciousness of the person posting. In other words, you would probably find yourself very comfortable playing limbo under a snake.
Not that I care, being the provincial Texas Fool that I am. I will just continue tripping along my merry way and falling over cliffs with a happy smile on my face. Life is good.
I’m sure you’re a happy little smiley face forever.
You know what it is, though - one doesn’t actually learn about the subconscious by reading Jung, or any theory for that matter. It may help, if one would already be inclined to explore for oneself. You sound in everything like the reality of your own subconscious is the thing of your worst nightmares (which of course it literally is) so you seek out the findings of others to replace your own unknowns. In that, your tip-toe approach, creeping over the proverbial skin like a cockroach over the kitchen floor to get a taste of someone elses passions, is chilling.
So put on your blank smiley face once more and tell me how superiorly happy you are to be untouched by all of that.
I won’t be here to read it, you’ve pushed my buttons enough, creep.
genius.