“And my answer is, there's evil in the world. But we can overcome evil. We're good. We're good-hearted people, and the boys and girls of America are showing the world just that.”-George W. Bush
How we organize our information involves matching the perceived data against our conceptual patterns, which are often unconscious. One of the archetypal patterns often involved in this process is known as the shadow.
As defined by Carl Jung, the shadow is the receptacle for all of that which we have for one reason or another disowned. It is the repository for all that is unpleasant in us that we wish to avoid. It is also the place where those things which are inconvenient and do not fit into our world view are placed. Also, in many cases, attempts by children to develop certain capabilities or talents are discouraged as not being “practical”. So these talents would be repressed falling into the shadow. All that constitutes the shadow is not evil or harmful; there is a mixture of the unpleasant with things that are extremely valuable.
… 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.- Carl Jung, Aion
The reason integrating the shadow into the conscious mind is so difficult is due to the mechanism of projection. The process of pattern matching external data against an unconscious archetypal pattern is known as the mechanism of projection.
Projection is defined as “the situation in which one unconsciously invests another person (or object) with notions or characteristics of one’s own: e.g. a man, fascinated by a woman because she corresponds to his anima, falls in love with her. Feelings, images, and thoughts can be projected onto others. One also projects negative feelings: e.g. a woman has a grudge against a friend, so she imagines that her friend is angry with her.”- Graeme Wilson
Although, with insight and good will, the shadow can to some extent be assimilated into the conscious personality, experience shows that there are certain features which offer the most obstinate resistance to moral control and prove almost impossible to influence. These resistances are usually bound up with projections, which are not recognized as such, and their recognition is a moral achievement beyond the ordinary. While some traits peculiar to the shadow can be recognized without too much difficulty as one’s own personal qualities, in this case both insight and good will are unavailing because the cause of the emotion appears to lie, beyond all possibility of a doubt, in the other person. No matter how obvious it may be to the neutral observer that it is a matter of projections, there is little hope that the subject will perceive this himself. He must be convinced that he throws a very long shadow before he is willing to withdraw his emotionally-toned projections from their object.- Carl Jung, Aion
This is an evil man that we're dealing with. And I wouldn't put it past him to develop evil weapons to try to harm civilization as we know it.- George W. Bush
As we know, no such weapons of mass destruction were ultimately found in Iraq. Clearly, the need to project the darker part of George Bush’s shadow and the shadow of the US is represented here. Is it not ironic that a president and a government that decides to abrogate the signed nuclear test ban treaties and to continue development of weapons of mass destruction see those very weapons in the hands of the leaders and governments that we choose to project our shadow upon?
In 1997 President Clinton’s administration agreed to declassify documents detailing the US government’s involvement in the genocide in Guatemala. In 1999 President Clinton issued a formal and unequivocal apology for the US involvement in Guatemala. During that involvement the US overthrew the democratically elected government of Guatemala, trained and equipped the army and trained an army of clandestine terrorists who were responsible for the assassination and genocide that resulted in the deaths and disappearances of over 200,000 people. I could detail numerous other involvements of the CIA and the US government in the overthrow of democratically elected governments. The shadow we cast as a nation is long and dark with many untold secrets. In fact secrecy is the hallmark of our government. The pervasive need for secrecy hides things that a vast majority of civilized people would find unacceptable. But the secrets are our secrets and we cannot expunge them from our collective unconscious by projecting them on “terrorists”. Until the secrets are unearthed and presented in the light of day and “owned” by the American people, we will continue to battle the hidden forces of darkness that are nothing more than a mirror of our own fears.
The first to benefit from a free Iraq would be the Iraqi people, themselves. Today they live in scarcity and fear, under a dictator who has brought them nothing but war, and misery, and torture. Their lives and their freedom matter little to Saddam Hussein -- but Iraqi lives and freedom matter greatly to us.-- George W. Bush February 26, 2003
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