John D. GoldhammerDr. Bush
and Mr. Hyde: The Fundamentalist Shadow of George W. Bush
A mouth that prays, a hand that kills.
— Arabian proverb
"How do you find a lion that has swallowed you?" asked Swiss
psychologist, Carl Jung, commenting on the moral dilemma posed
by the "shadow," his insightful term for the dark, hidden side
of the human psyche. The answer to Jung’s questions is "you
can’t find or see that lion"—not as long as you are
inside the beast. And therein resides the essential dilemma
of a group’s dark side or shadow: it is nearly impossible
for those caught inside a group’s belief system to see their own
dark side with any clarity or objectivity. This hidden side
grows over time, regressing, becoming more and more aggressive.
It’s the "long bag we drag behind us," says poet Robert Bly—where,
as individuals, we dispose of all those things that are too
uncomfortable to look at. "The long-repressed shadow of Dr.
Jekyll rises up in the shape of Mr. Hyde, deformed, an ape-like
figure glimpsed against the alley wall." Now imagine millions of
Mr. Hydes and you have a sense of the group shadow of
fundamentalist, right wing extremists dressed up as
"compassionate conservatives," led by George W. Bush. It’s like
shifting from a hand gun to a nuclear bomb. And it began long
ago in both the Moslem and Christian worlds.
The invasion of American Democratic institutions by
fundamentalist, historically militant (as in crusades, witch
hunts, inquisitions, and support of slavery) Christianity has
significantly increased the stench coming from the already
disturbing dark side of U.S. politics. It’s like a nightmarish
replay of the Christian crusades—politics with a militant,
convert-the-heathens dark side. Potent, cult-like group
dynamics combine with unacknowledged and unseen shadow
qualities to easily overwhelm the individual’s sense of right
and wrong, often unleashing pure evil en masse.
As the political world and the media divided the U.S. into
red and blue states, I found myself feeling uncomfortable even
thinking about driving through one of those "red" states. I
would imagine that every red-state person must be a
card-carrying, right wing fundamentalist. From the other side of
the mountain, those "blue" states are full of liberal,
soft-on-terrorism, big government socialists. Both are examples
of projecting our group’s shadow onto the "enemy." And both
views prevent us from "seeing" individual human beings. We see
only that group, those people. With remarkable
ease, we slide into a "programmed," either-or, group-think:
we’re the good guys, they’re the bad guys. The group mind set
is pulling the levers, directing individual reasoning and logic.
It’s like seeing everything through red or blue-tinted glasses
that color all we see and think—we’ve been swallowed. The blind
lead the blinded with ludicrous comments like this: "I think all
foreigners should stop interfering in the internal affairs of
Iraq," Paul Wolfowitz declared, clearly not seeing his
missionary, neoconservative dark side—the U.S. invasion and
occupation of Iraq.
Fundamentalists use labels as weapons, dialogue-diverting
smokescreens that reveal a lot about their own shadow. For
example, they have demonized Liberal Democrats using phrases
like "the Liberal elite," repeated over and over, who they claim
are part of some "vast liberal media conspiracy." In fact, there
is an actual conspiracy underway and it is the
fundamentalist Christian cult’s shadowy, carefully
planned, two-decade-long infiltration and gradual takeover of
the Republican Party from the grassroots-up. "Elitism," in
reality, is at the core of the Bush administration’s dark side,
especially their pretentious, religious and political elitism.
George W’s elite base includes the wealthy and the
powerful. They are the hidden people he really
represents, those economically "elite," special interest bosses
he described so accurately in a speech at one of his private,
campaign fund raising dinners: "You’re my base: the haves and
the have mores." They must have been some of the people he was
referring to at a 2002 meeting with his economic squad about a
second round of tax cuts: "Haven’t we already given money to
rich people?"
The Bush administration’s obsession with "activist" judges is
a bona fide tar pit; it’s their own projected shadow
transforming judges (and "trial lawyers") into another "evil
enemy." Again, the dark side is so obvious: project our
own "activism" onto the justice system. Bush and his religious
cohorts are in-deed fundamentalist political
"activists" in the truest sense of the word. Consider the
Lawless, unjust treatment of U.S. citizens, suspected
terrorists and prisoners, justified by scary group jargon like
"national security" or "we’re in a war"—Bush’s "war" that is at
once everywhere and nowhere, making a mockery of the inscription
above the entrance to the United States Supreme Court: "Equal
Justice Under Law." In a remarkable statement, James Dobson, the
fundamentalist, right wing Christian chairman of Focus on the
Family, clarified this agenda (quoted in The Washington
Post): "The courts majority," Dobson said, "are unelected
and unaccountable and arrogant and imperious and determined to
redesign the culture according to their own biases and values,
and they’re out of control." Now that’s pure group shadow
speaking!
Activist (fundamentalist), right wing politicians are
promoting moral and economic agendas we are all too familiar
with: loading the courts with right wing religious extremists,
eliminating women’s right to freedom of choice, preventing equal
rights for gays, using the "Patriot Act" to destroy our
constitutional rights to privacy and freedom from unlawful
search and seizure, undermining our democracy’s essential
liberties including the "rule of law," the cornerstone of a
civil society.
Shadow dynamics can shift the focus of our beliefs with
stunning speed to another "evil" enemy. Petty dictators are
convenient "hooks" on which groups can hang their shadow, their
dirty laundry; a perfect example being Saddam Hussein who, in
1990-1991 magically transitioned from being a relatively obscure
U.S. ally (receiving military aid, weapons, satellite
intelligence, and high tech equipment) into an incarnation of
evil and a dire threat to humanity that we had to eliminate.
Such is the hypnotic power of group paranoia combined with
propaganda in stirring up a nationalistic, lynch mob mentality.
Once a belief system gains control, those beliefs are much
more likely to move us to action, propel us into roles and
conduct we would never contemplate on our own. Voltaire warned,
"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit
atrocities." Moreover, under the influence of any
fundamentalist ideology, beliefs (often paranoid and
delusional) tend to override facts—a very dangerous
mental environment for making life and death decisions, or
declaring war. Independent critical thinking and logic—qualities
that are most threatening to any destructive group—expose
absurdities. Consider this excerpt from a speech by the Nazi
Party leader Rudolph Hess on June 30, 1934: "The National
Socialism of all of us is anchored in uncritical
loyalty…" (my italics). "What good fortune for those in power
that people do not think," observed Hitler, knowing that
thinking citizens were a real danger to his political
ambitions.
Ignorance of the group shadow and its destructive
consequences locks us into a mutually destructive embrace with
our "enemies." In a perverse way each side needing the
other—an ironic, group co-dependency on the others "evil" in
order to perpetuate themselves. Thus the twisted rationale for a
never-ending "War on Terror" (recently recast by the Bush
administration as a "struggle against violent extremism") that
is the mirror image of the never-ending Islamic Jihad against
the West. The president made this unending mission clear when he
announced, "There’s no telling how many wars it will take to
secure freedom in the homeland." The notion of permanent war
against a designated "evil" or "tyranny" is a classic dark side
of Christian fundamentalism that mimics the Moslem worlds’
fundamentalist doctrine that declares non-Moslem countries as
"Dar-al-Harb," which means "The Home of War." It’s no surprise
to realize that George W’s fundamentalist dark side also echos
Islamic fundamentalism’s oft-stated goal of a global
Moslem theocracy, which, the words of one prominent Iranian
ayatollah make perfectly clear: "It will . . . be the duty of
every able-bodied adult male to volunteer for this war of
conquest, the final aim of which is to put Koranic law in power
from one end of the earth to the other."
Sounding a lot like a description of our current world
situation, Erasmus (d. 1536), a peaceful, educated,
psychologically savvy, Catholic humanist observed: "There is no
injury, however insignificant it may be which does not seem to
them [Christians] sufficient pretext to start a war. They
suppress and hide everything that might maintain peace; they
exaggerate excessively everything that would lead to an outbreak
of war." In his book, People of the Lie, author M. Scott
Peck explains the slippery nature of good and evil. He points
out that "evil people are often destructive because they are
trying to destroy evil. Instead of destroying others they should
be destroying the sickness within themselves." This paradox is
similar to Jung’s observation that "a so-called good to which we
succumb loses its ethical character," meaning that we
paradoxically facilitate evil when we become one-sided,
when we believe our group is on the side of goodness and
virtue. When one-sided, a so-called quest for peace inevitably
produces a group shadow filled with aggression and violence.
You know a group’s shadow is active when "…our belief is in
the republic and the republic is declared endangered," explains
author and psychologist James Hillman. "Whatsoever the object of
belief—the flag, the nation, the president, or the god—a martial
energy mobilizes. Decisions are quick, dissent more difficult.
Doubt which impedes action and questions certitude becomes
traitorous, an enemy to be silenced." "The greatest purveyor of
violence in the world today… is my own nation," observed
Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., who practiced nonviolent social
and political change. Shakespeare (in Julius Caesar)
eloquently described the bright facade of this fundamentalist,
political shadow in his play about another "super power": And
let us bathe our hands in . . . blood up to the elbows, and
besmear our swords. Then we walk forth, even to the market
place, and waving our red weapons o'er our heads, let's all cry
"peace, freedom and liberty!"
"There will never be world peace until God’s house and God’s
people are given their rightful place of leadership at the top
of the world," proclaimed Christian fundamentalist Pat
Robertson. The Treaty of Tripoli (1797), carried unanimously by
the Senate and signed into law by John Adams,
contained this statement:
"The United States is not a Christian nation any more
than it is a Jewish or a Mohammedan nation." What’s really scary
is the politicizing of religious intolerance in the form
of the Bush administration’s evangelical crusade to spread our
political and economic beliefs around the globe, to conquer the
lesser political gods, to save and convert democratically and
economically unenlightened countries.
Fundamentalism in politics has resurrected a nightmarish
apparition in the form of Wilsonian political monotheism. We
could summarize Wilson’s foreign policy as "the imperative of
America’s mission as the vanguard of history, transforming the
global order and, in doing so, perpetuating its own dominance,"
guided by "the imperative of military supremacy, maintained in
perpetuity and projected globally"—all thinly veiled religious
elitism and hubris, missionary theology masquerading as
"peace, freedom and liberty." Similarly, in a much applauded
speech in 1899, Theodore Roosevelt (just before becoming
President) proposed "righteous war" as the sole means of
achieving "national greatness." And, speaking through his
group’s fundamentalist "mouth that prays," Bush made his
paranoid mission quite clear: "We will rid the world of the
evildoers."
Like it or not we are stuck in a psychological dilemma
fueled by the collision of two toxic groups—groups with deadly
shadows created by literalized Christian monotheism and
literalized Islamic monotheism—both fundamentalist, both
virulent strains of group-think, both after mental
territory, economic and political power. When one
group’s god is the only god, all other gods must be
inferior. When one group’s political view is the only
view, all other political systems must be inferior.
Consequently, intolerance is one of the chief
characteristics of the fundamentalist political shadow. In this
manner monotheistic religions, like a contagious disease, spread
violence and immoral behaviors. The fact that
fundamentalist cults, whether Christian, Islamic, or any other
denomination are able to recruit and brainwash legions of
followers illustrates a confounding global illiteracy about
rudimentary group dynamics.
One of the symptoms of fanaticism is the belief that one’s
mission has been "blessed or even commanded by God," says Dr.
Norman Doidge, professor of psychiatry at the University of
Toronto. George W. Bush, according to the Israeli newspaper
Haaretz, told Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, "God
told me to strike at Al Qaeda and I struck them, and then he
instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did, and now I am
determined to solve the problem in the Middle East." For most
psychologists, Bush’s "God made me do it" sounds a lot like
schizophrenia, a malady defined as "a group of psychotic
disorders usually characterized by withdrawal from reality,
illogical patterns of thinking, delusions, and hallucinations."
In every sense of the word, destructive, group-based beliefs
are the real weapons of mass destruction that we all need
to be very worried about.
"God wanted me to be President," said George W. Bush. "God is
my co-pilot," went a World War II slogan. In World War I,
"Clergymen created posters showing Jesus dressed in khaki and
firing a machine gun." The bishop of London urged his fellow
Christians to "kill the good as well as the bad… kill the young
men as well as the old… kill those who have shown kindness to
our wounded as well as those friends…" —Christianity’s militant
shadow! Regarding Iraq, Lieutenant General Boykin declared that
our "spiritual enemy will only be defeated if we come against
them in the name of Jesus." "We are in a conflict between good
and evil, and America will call evil by its name," Bush declared
when announcing his "strategy" for his evangelical
crusade" Thus, warfare is applied theology. And from either
side of the bloody plain, "every war is a just war, a battle
between the forces of good and evil," a ghastly, incurable,
repetition—the darkness of utter evil created by what appear to
be the noblest of ideals.
Caught in the consequences of this shadow boxing, we find
ourselves compelled to live in a constant state of hypocrisy,
burying more and more of our own individual sense of real
compassion and charity in the graveyard of our collective dark
side, covering our self-deception and shame with the rags of
hollow slogans from "mouths that pray." Ironically,
"hypocrisy," as Hillman points out, "holds the nation together
so that it can preach, and practice what it does not preach. It
makes possible armories of mass destruction side by side with
the proliferation of churches, cults, and charities"—the bright
"good" side covering a very destructive dark side.
This fundamentalist, political shadow has become ever more
insidious as their ideological assault erodes the constitutional
separation of church and state—a separation that marked a
stunning acceleration of individual human freedom, establishing
a nation that respected the tension between two old enemies:
Enlightenment rationalism and organized religion. Americans
lived no longer under religious totalitarianism. Instead they
lived in an age of religious freedom and an age of
reason. America embodied the revolutionary notion that only a
clean separation of church and state can guarantee freedom from
religious tyranny and true religious freedom.
Religious fundamentalist incursions into American political
life as well as persistent attacks on individual freedom are not
new. In 1776 "conservatives" around the world— priests,
state-supported religion, Monarchy, aristocracy,—vigorously
denounced and attacked the Declaration of Independence.
In 1962 Supreme Court Justice Black described the intent of the
First Amendment’s Establishment Clause: History had demonstrated
time and again that "a union of government and religion tends to
destroy government and degrade religion." The American
historian, Clinton Rossiter wrote: "The twin doctrines of
separation of church and state and liberty of individual
conscience are the marrow of our democracy, if not indeed
America’s most magnificent contribution to the freeing of
Western man."
Psychological projection of a group shadow tends to make the
enemy appear to be far more dangerous and "evil" than actual
reality. The U.S. is "the Great Satan," and they
(terrorists) are going to "destroy civilization." For example,
consider our declaration of a "War" on Terror that has created a
shadow-inflation enormously elevating the status and
celebrity of Bin Laden and Al Qaeda to that of a nation state or
even a world power when in actuality we are dealing with
scattered cells of cult victims who have been brainwashed by
militant, fundamentalist Islamic cult leaders into
believing that mass murder is the way into Paradise. Terrorists
are what they are, no less, no more: extremely dangerous,
criminal psychopaths manufactured by a set of powerful,
destructive group dynamics.
One of the best ways to observe a group’s dark side is to
look at what is particularly upsetting to our group—what
"we" (or they) are accusing someone else or some other group of
doing. Take the political storm over Newsweek’s report
about the Koran being flushed down the toilet at Gitmo. The Bush
cadre was suddenly VERY "upset" that Newsweek
printed an allegedly inaccurate story as a result of
supposedly faulty information from one of their "trusted
sources"—a story that "seriously damaged" our image in the Arab
world. Of course it follows that Islamic fundamentalists’
reaction to our disrespect for the Koran also exposes
their group shadow, a dark side crawling with their own
savage disrespect for human life as in killing innocent
people and their violent intolerance for different beliefs and
views.
Now we can see more of the George W. Bush group’s dark
underbelly, fundamentalist politics’ long heavy bag. The
Bush administration—we were told—went to war in Iraq because of
allegedly "faulty intelligence" from trusted sources.
Eight months before the invasion of Iraq the Downing
Street Memo ("…But the intelligence and facts were being
fixed around the policy."), provided even more proof that the
U.S. and Britain "fixed" intelligence in order to support the
Bush administration’s war plans. The REAL damage to America’s
image, the REAL destruction of innocent lives began when George
W. Bush and a handful of hired mercenaries unnecessarily
invaded an already impoverished Arab nation that had nothing
whatsoever to do with the September 11th tragedy.
Fundamentalist politicians consistently blame and accuse
other individuals and other groups, projecting their own
disowned darkness: they are part of the "Axis of Evil,"
they are mass murderers; they are undemocratic;
those people don’t value life, they "hate freedom,"
it’s a "Liberal conspiracy." Saint Augustine’s directive comes
to mind: "All diseases of Christians are to be ascribed to
demons"—a perfect characterization of fundamentalism’s
group-think that insures infantile irresponsibility while
spreading mass paranoia. Faced with probing questions about the
Patriot Act, John Ashcroft (a devout member of a Pentacostal
sect) told a senate panel, "To those who scare peace-loving
people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: your
tactics only aid terrorists, for they erode our national unity
and diminish our resolve. They give ammunition to America’s
enemies, and pause to America’s friends." Mark Twain would have
seen right through all this shadow-speak, language
intended to "demonize" and kill any serious criticism. Twain
once wrote: "Next the statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting
the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will
be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will
diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutation of
them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war
is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after
this process of grotesque self-deception."
When someone shines a spotlight into a group’s dark side it
arouses, almost without fail, righteous indignation along with
virulent, "kill-the-messenger" attacks. That is also why it is
so utterly frustrating to have any meaningful, rational
discussion or collaboration with such people; you can never
quite reach the real person. Instead you are stonewalled;
you keep getting programmed, predictable, group-speak responses
and jargon designed to abort any real scrutiny of the group’s
always secretive dark side. Exposing torture and gross
violations of the Geneva Convention means we are guilty of "not
supporting our troops." In his famous book On Liberty,
John Stuart Mill maintained that silencing an opinion is a
"particular evil." If the opinion is right, we are "robbed of
the opportunity of exchanging error for truth"; and if it’s
wrong, we are deprived of a deeper understanding of the truth in
"its collision with error."
"The people can always be brought to the bidding of the
leaders," said Hermann Goring, at his trial in Nuremberg. He
added: "This is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they
are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of
patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same
in every country." George W. Bush brings up Bin Laden and 9/11
over and over: "The only way our enemies can succeed is
if we forget the lessons of September 11." Constant repetition
of certain ideas is a common method of indoctrination used in
destructive cults. "It is the absolute right of the state to
supervise the formation of public opinion," declared Josef
Goebbles, the Nazi propaganda minister, who knew that tyrannical
governments require brainwashed followers. And here’s George W’s
not quite so articulate fundamentalist equivalent: "See, in my
line of work, you got to keep repeating things over and over
again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the
propaganda," quipped our self-titled "War President" in a 24 May
2005 speech.
So the Bush administration "fixes" intelligence reports,
"fixes" scientific data on climate change and greenhouse gases,
"fixes" reality on the ground in Iraq for the unthinking,
uncritical, patriotic, loyal, citizens.
These so-called "fixes" are really "lies"—the Bush group’s
program to "supervise the formation of public opinion," as
Goebbles stated. Indeed, the purpose of all propaganda is to
program individuals to act according to group beliefs and
aims.
Turn these hypnotic phrases around and we can again see into
our own shadow: two fundamentalist cults locked in another
lethal embrace, an "adversarial symbiosis," a system that
guarantees that neither side will have to face their own shadow,
reminiscent of the "cold war"—Russia and the United States—the
latter having created nuclear weapons technology while the
former copies it and both proceed to manufacture and
infect the planet with over 60,000 nuclear weapons—enough
destructive power to end all life on the planet many
times over. Never mind the fact that the United States actually
dropped two atomic bombs on civilian populations in Japan
during the Second World War. Bush precisely articulated his own
treacherous dark side when he announced, "The United States of
America will not permit the world’s most dangerous regimes to
threaten us with the world’s most destructive weapons."
Presidential scholar, Michael Genovese suggests that 9/11
helped to create a mass illusion: "The public needed to believe
that [Bush] had grown," so "we chose to see him …as bigger,
better and different than he was." You could say that we
temporarily projected a "savior" image onto the president;
psychologists call this the "halo effect," the same sort of
illusion that can make quite ordinary people suddenly appear to
be superhuman, until the truth rattles our projections and
reality returns.
The most insidious face of the ever-darkening shadow of
evangelical, fundamentalist politics and its bright, shining
slogan, "compassionate conservatism," is the in-humane,
COMPASSIONLESS disregard for the suffering of others. Of course
war is not compassionate for either side. So-called
"compassionate" conservatives ignore preventable human tragedies
like the ongoing genocide in Darfur, mass starvation in Nigeria,
or the recent genocide in Rowanda, which was ignored by the
entire world but for a few U. N. peacekeeping remnants. George
W’s "Compassion" for the corporate world is a big part of
fundamentalism’s economic shadow. "Compassionate" conservatives
care more about the welfare of corporate America than for human
suffering. Hypocritical, shadow-laden "compassion" is not new.
Hitler and Stalin were two of the most vigorous "pro-lifers" of
all time, as were numerous other tyrants. They (Hitler and
Stalin) also criminalized previously legal abortions immediately
upon taking power.
Looking closely at the whitewashed rhetoric of the
fundamentalist shadow, we hear more black
magic—oft-repeated mantras like, "family values," the "right to
life," and a "culture of life." But what about a trickle of
compassion for the estimated 29,000 children under five who
die on our planet each day from preventable
neglect, starvation, disease, and abuse—a horrific "slaughter of
innocents." What about their "right to life?" Hey, it’s OK—we
have a "no child left behind" policy—just a global, bloody sea
of dead, ignored children in small coffins.
What we really have under the Bush puppet theocracy is a
horrific example of the fundamentalist shadow that has created a
heartless culture governed by what is really a
"pro-birth," anti-life doctrine—a consistent erosion of
basic human and civil rights—all utterly un-American! In
Iraq (at this writing), over 1,893 American soldiers have been
killed and another 13, 000 wounded, many horribly crippled and
disfigured for life. Incredibly brave young men and women—yet in
reality victims of a fundamentalist/political cult’s deadly
shadow. The independent public database,
www.iraqbodycount.net, reports over 24,000 innocent
civilian deaths in Iraq resulting directly from military
action by the United States and its allies—definitely not good
for our "image." But this barely-seen slaughter by a
"compassionate," hide-the-coffins Republican cult must be kept
in the shadows because, as our President recently explained: "Those
people (Iraqi insurgents) kill innocent civilians… women and
children."
Then we have the shadow travesty of religious
fundamentalists’ attempts to stop stem cell research. George W.
Bush, replying to questions about proposed stem cell
legislation, said "…the use of federal money, taxpayers' money,
to promote science which destroys life in order to save life --
I'm against that." Here’s the shadow: No life-saving stem
cell research but immense, treasury draining, scientific
research into anti-missile systems, nuclear bunker-busting
weapons and a whole new arsenal of mini-nuclear weapons—sounds a
lot like "using science which destroys life in order to save
life!" I hear that lion roaring!
Over time, dictators and other cult leaders tend to become
increasingly paranoid, unpredictable, and treacherously
impulsive. Throw nuclear weapons into this toxic mix of
fundamentalism, politics and explosive shadow dynamics and we
have a planet in serious jeopardy at best—a doomsday scenario at
worst. Robert J. Lifton, the author of Thought Reform and the
Psychology of Totalism, explains that fundamentalism exists
"always on the edge of violence because it ever mobilizes for an
absolute confrontation with a designated evil, thereby
justifying any actions taken to eliminate that evil."
So what can you and I do about this group shadow dilemma? We
can expose the fundamentalist, group-based lies that are
redefining and reshaping both political parties. We can insist
that our government and its leaders focus on solutions
instead of forcing everyone to swallow dogma saturated with one
religious group’s "truth," one group’s concept of "moral
values." And we can demand that zealots and ideologues keep
their self-righteous claws off our democracy. Real solutions
that promote free and open societies will never come from
fundamentalist groups dragging their long heavy bags of
intolerance and "tyranny over the minds of men."
Shadow work begins with brutally honest self-examination,
the courage to admit one’s errors and mistakes, and the moral
integrity to change policies, ideas, and opinions that have
proven to be fallacious or harmful to others. Corrupt leaders
and governments have always feared independent,
critical-thinking, informed, skeptical, free, educated citizens.
It’s time we withdrew our overly "educated," thinking, informed
psyches from Bush’s war—his great crusade "to end tyranny
in the world," that paranoid, militant, fundamentalist
misadventure that sees anyone who is not conforming to their
world view as the enemy. It’s time for civilized,
compassionate, courageous people everywhere to refuse
to participate in sanctifying a morally bankrupt administration
with patriotic doublespeak. James Madison warned, "If tyranny
and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of
fighting a foreign enemy."
Looking honestly at our own dark side as individuals, as
members of groups, and as a nation does something quite
remarkable; it gives us a healthy dose of humility and empathy
for others. It also exposes the ghastly consequences of power
abused, of corruption and secrecy in high places. In his book,
Faces of the Enemy, Sam keen explains the "first rule"
for understanding our own shadow: "Listen to what the enemy says
about you… Borrow the eyes of the alien, see yourself from afar.
…Look with suspicion on the rhetoric of your nation."
We need leaders who are skilled at encouraging constructive,
even harsh criticism and healthy skepticism, which
Jefferson believed was essential for responsible citizenship. We
need leaders who understand the value of different ideas and
opinions, who understand that it is often the opposite
point of view that enriches our perspective and inspires a
creative solution that transcends warfare between opposite
positions.
The shadow enables us to deny responsibility for our actions;
evil is always "out there." But at some point, so-called
moderate, non-violent Christians and Moslems must take
responsibility for the militant consequences of their beliefs
systems. Like the German peoples’ denial of Nazi death camps or
the world’s ongoing blindness toward genocide, every
peace-loving Christian and every peace-loving Moslem who
remains silent, has the blood of innocents on his or her hands,
as does each and every politician who has cowardly fallen to
their knees before the brutal gods of religious fundamentalism,
fanaticism and war.
Dwight D. Eisenhower, as a soldier and then as the
thirty-fourth President of the United States, knew the savage,
inhumane consequences of warfare. "Every gun that is made, every
warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final
sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who
are cold and are not clothed." We need to change our national
priorities from a culture of existence in the shadowy wastelands
of war and increasing military expenditures to a culture of
creating what scientist and philosopher, Buckminster Fuller
called "livingry," a culture of compassion that actually values
and protects all life, a culture that respects learning,
supports scientific research, invention, free inquiry, and
acknowledges our common humanity.
I would like to see the United States return to being an
inspiring role model, to helping others improve their quality of
life—a nation known for real compassion and benevolence
instead of an arrogant, threatening, military-industrial
leviathan that inspires increasing revulsion, contempt, and fear
from the world community. But people make a nation and real
change begins with each individual. As for religious groups, the
Dalai Lama has a straightforward strategy: "This is my simple
religion," he says. "There is no need for temples; no need for
complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our
temple; the philosophy is kindness."
Looking at our world and religious extremists on both sides,
I’m hopeful that all the killing and savaging of life will
finally wake people up to the awesome destructive power of
groups and belief systems that have become more important than
human life, simple compassion, and love for one another. But
realistically, unless we change, I also see a very dangerous
world, a dark side that poets describe best: "And we are here as
on a darkling plain…Where ignorant armies clash by night."
John Goldhammer,
Ph.D., is a Seattle, Washington (USA) psychologist and
author of three books including, "Under the Influence: The
Destructive Effects of Group Dynamics" (Prometheus Books).
He created and taught these university classes: The
Psychology of Hate and The Psychology of Groups. This
essay is adapted from a book in process as yet untitled. Email:
jgoldhammer@mindspring.com. |