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America’s
Shadow
There
is a split between who America pretends to be and who she is. The ideal self-image of America is best
seen in President George Bush’s grand vision to make democracy-building a large
part of the War on Terror. America
under Bush saw herself as fighting for freedom. Bush talked about answering the “call of history” and
bringing “God’s gift of democracy” to the Middle East. We were the champions of freedom. We
were said to believe in the “rule of law, limits on the power of the state,
free speech, freedom of worship, equal justice, respect for women, religious
and ethnic tolerance, and respect for private property.” “Iran, Iraq, and North Korea” were the
“axis of evil.” We were the good
guys doing battle with the rogue nations.
We were the heroes bringing liberation to the oppressed, heeding a call
from God to rid the world of “evildoers.” We saw ourselves as morally superior
to other countries. This was the consciousness of America under George Bush.
But America had another side, a shadow side that would
be published by the American Civil Liberties Union on a web site at http://www.trackedinamerica.org It showed the dark side of
America. Tracked in America
details how federal agencies intimidated, harassed, alienated, deported and
silenced individuals in the United States from World War I to post 9/11. The story starts as far back as 1798
with the Alien and Sedition Acts which allowed “the president to detain aliens
during peacetime and allowed for wartime arrest, detention and deportation of
dissenters.” It describes the
Pre-World War I “surveillance of Unions, Radicals and immigrants.” It explains how during World War I
President “Wilson created the Committee on Public Information (CPI) which used
tactics that “amounted to outright harassment and persecution of dissenters,”
how the FBI in conjunction with the American Protective League (APL) monitored
“dissent throughout the United States,” how “Congress passed the Espionage Act
in 1917 and the Sedition Act in 1918 to stifle dissent and anti-war protests,”
how an anti-war speech delivered by Eugene V. Debs resulted in his receiving a
10 year prison sentence.
In World War II the FBI repeatedly used the “practice
of allying with citizen groups that could operate outside official
sanction.” It details the
interment of Japanese Americas and some German and Italian nationals living in
the United States. There was the
surveillance and infiltration of left wing and minority groups “including
African-Americans, Native Americans” and immigrant groups. There was the notorious House
Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), the FBI “conducting surveillance,
pressuring employers to hire or fire particular individuals” and propaganda
campaigns. There was the FBI’s notorious COINTELPRO program to neutralize
dissidents. There was unlawful
surveillance, intimidation and harassment of activists in the civil rights
movement, against protesters during the Vietnam War. There were secret programs “to link the civil rights
movement and anti-war protesters to international communism.”
These actions are examples of abuses committed
throughout the history of our country. The more we ignore the dark side of America, the
stronger it becomes. It comes to
the fore when America is under stress.
It is her emotion-based self, an over-reaction to fear. Jung said the shadow consists of all
those reprehensible characteristics we pretend not to have. The more we dissociate it from our
conscious life the more demonic it becomes as we project it outward on
individuals and groups. Thus law
enforcement sees Idealists as a threat to the social order rather than their
own behavior as endangering it.
And because we do not acknowledge it, our shadow
becomes even darker. We condemn
other nations when they use torture, but will not hold those in our government
who used it accountable. We condemn the Pakistani military for holding
suspected militants in indefinite detention while President Obama gives a
speech saying we ourselves might neither try or release some of our detainees
in the War on Terror. We retain
the authority to engage in extraordinary renditions. Our government spies on its own citizens, monitors
activists, maintains Watch Lists with the names of many innocent people.
Jung might attribute America’s poor judgments and
inappropriate perceptions to one sided development, favoring one function or
attitude to the exclusion of its opposite, whereas, psychological opposites are
essential in achieving wholeness.
Naomi Quenk who wrote a book on typology entitled “Beside Ourselves”
wrote about how projection is sometimes used as our way to help us achieve
wholeness. “Projection involves,”
she said, “attributing to others an unacknowledged, unconscious part of
ourselves – something that lies outside of our conscious awareness.” She continues, “ the ‘projector’
unconsciously identifies someone who possesses at least some of the unconscious
quality in question, but then exaggerates the degree to which that quality is
actually present. The ‘added
amount’ of the quality comes from the projector’s unconscious. The person being projected on is then
seen as more hostile, lazy, talented, or admirable, for instance, than is
really the case.” I see this as
what is happening in the Artisans – law enforcement – targeting the Idealists
repeatedly throughout history in their programs of surveillance and
harassment. Quenk tells us
projection often accounts for our rejection of others. Idealists represent the Artisans shadow
or the undeveloped aspects of their own personality, the missing part of
themselves, that if accepted can offer renewal.
The key to America’s self-renewal, I think, is to
reclaim these rejected parts of herself.
The only question is can America muster the strength to integrate her
undiscovered aspects of personality being projected on her enemies. The place to start is by asking
herself and honestly answering who
she is.
Is she
really the champion of liberty?
Does she really respect the rule of law? Does she really stand for limits on the power of the
state? Does she really allow free
speech? Does her practices in the
War on Terror honor the truth that “all Men are created equal, that they are
endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are
Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness – That to secure these Rights,
Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the
Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes
destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish
it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles,
and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to
effect their Safety and Happiness and Prudence, indeed, will dictate that
Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient
Causes; and accordingly all Experience hath shewn that Mankind are more
disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing
the Forms to which they are accustomed.”
How far has America – the country who now gives the President the power
to kill without due process, to hold people in indefinite detention, to torture
without bringing those who do it to justice, to harass and put people under
surveillance – strayed from the ideals enunciated in our Declaration of
Independence?
The undiscovered part of Artisans, of law enforcement,
those who are suppose to uphold the Rule of Law – is their idealism. It is her idealism that America has
lost touch with in the War on Terror.
Once we have seen that in examining our shadow, once we acknowledge what
we have become, acknowledged we have a shadow, we can integrate it. Another
book on typology, “Navigating Midlife” by Eleanor S. Corlett and Nancy B.
Millner tells us “Integration is about balance – the need to balance new
insights we gain about ourselves with our existing understanding of who we
are. This rarely is an easy
process. In fact, midlife can be a
time of excess in that we may cling too long to the old worn-out parts of
ourselves or embrace the new at the expense of the old. But neither extreme is successful. Midlife development demands an end to
either/or thinking. It leads to
both/and thinking. The expansion
of personality, this movement toward becoming all of who we are is movement
toward individuation and spiritual growth.”
The challenge America faces is to initiate that
spiritual growth or continue down the path she is going with her persona, her
social mask, loudly paying lip service to the ideals enunciated in the
Declaration of Independence, ideals of freedom, of adherence to the Rule of
Law, of limits on the power of the state, of free speech, of justice, while her
shadow part betrays those very ideals by surveilling and harassing the
Idealists among her citizens, by engaging in practices such as allowing the
President to order people killed with no due process, to put people in
indefinite detention – even reserve the right to torture when she feels she
must.
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