Tonight I attended a lecture by Joe Wakefield, a local Austin analyst (he’s a California transplant). Amongst many different things that came up during the discussion, one of them was Jung’s reconnection with his childhood through play. Famously, the story goes, he was walking along a beach of some kind and was struck with the sudden urge to build stuff with blocks and sticks, just like he did when he was a child. Initially he swept the urge aside as childish, but finally he gave into it. He built a little square in his backyard with stones, and in the center he built a church. As soon as he built the church, the unconscious awoke and a major outpouring came out. SO, it is encouraged for adults to reconnect to their psyches by engaging in childlike play.
The thought that comes up from this is: what about those children who grew up almost exclusively with television, computers and video games? Their connection to “childlike play” doesn’t include motor function and an awakening of the unconscious. Rather, it involves a suppression of the unconscious through mass media and produced images.
Thinking about my childhood, yes I have legos and I have a VERY acute desire to drive a Big Wheel (remember those tricycle things like the one in The Shining?) But beyond that, my childhood can be defined solely through television shows and toy tie-ins. There’s only one solution to a Transformer, so that doesn’t really do much for creativity. The Smurf or My Little Pony? Unless you had a whole set, you never really had enough for a good proper “episode” and I don’t remember show mixing being allowed amongst my friends. Barbie? Ugh, let’s not get started. I live the Barbie life everyday – or maybe the anti-Barbie life, which is tied into my several complexes about the fashion industry. But now: Rockband? First Person Shooters? Tetris?
Are the psyches of the future doomed?
I saw this Best Picture nominee last night. It’s a fairly timely film, given the recent inauguration. The film, by Ron Howard, shows the lead-up and taping of a pivotal interview between David Frost (Michael Sheen) and Richard Nixon (Frank Langella), which culiminates with Nixon’s “confession” and apology for letting the American people down. One of those really exciting quotes, and it appears in the trailer, is Nixon, in a bit of a Dionysian frenzy shouting that when a president does something criminal, then it is not illegal. This movie is not for the politico.
But I left the movie not thinking, “wow this is a totally good film!” I left thinking, “when do we get the Cheney interview?”
Had I written this last night right after I’d gotten out of the movie, I’d have a lot more to say about it. Having had a chance to sleep on it: Frank Langella’s Nixon captures a sense of emotion that I’m not sure other actors can capture. Of course, Frank is much to pretty to be a truly convincing Nixon. His oscar moment comes near the end of the interviews, when Nixon realizes that he not only let the American people down, but that his political career, something he was eager to return to have this departure from Washington, was over. One of the other characters comments on his look of defeat.
I noticed awhile ago, when I saw The US vs John Lennon, a documentary about Lennon’s years in New York, post-Beatles, struggling to gain his citizenship while also acting the mythic figure of the counter-culture, that there are a lot of similarities between the Nixon Administration and the GWBush Administration, except for the fact that the Bush Administration got away with it. Had Nixon not gotten wound up on Watergate, he could have gotten away with it too.
I almost felt sorry for Nixon after this movie. Almost.
No pressure, Barack. Everyone seems to think you’re going to fix the last 8 years of national and international wounding. I don’t, for a single minute, think the last 8 years can get fixed up in one term. Imagine those car problems that have gone ignored for months and months. When the car finally goes kaput, the resulting repair bill is often multiple times higher than it could have been had the repairs been attended to immediately. Similarly with the human body. The last 8 years have been such a wounding, however, that it’s not simply a matter of finding the correct parts. Barack, you will have to fix the inside AND the outside: We can see the effects of unemployment and the war, and we can throw stimulus packages and bailouts into the market and bring the troops home, but the pain is still there.
Barack, we need you to be more than a band-aid. We need you to be the Neosporin too.
I’m part of the generation whose entire adult life has been defined by the Dubbya Administration. My first votable election was the 2000 election. I had just turned 20 and felt like I was on the top of the world. Maybe I was. Aren’t all people between the ages of 14 and 23 immortal? At least, we like to think that way. I remember where I was when 9/11 occurred. I was on campus for the University of Houston, sitting in my Physical Anthropology class, waiting for the professor to show up. I was ignoring all the buzz and chatter in the classroom, as I tend to do. My professor – a really spunky black lady – walked in, somber, and asked us if we wanted to talk about it. I wasn’t alone in wondering what there was to talk about. I don’t always listen to the morning news during my commute to the campus, and it’s not like there’s news all over the place once you get there. She clued us into the attacks on the Twin Towers, we chatted as a class a bit and she let us go early. I ran to the library to meet friends, trying to get in touch with my brother in New York. Luckily, he was in San Francisco, so no harm there.
I remember clearly thinking, “Oh shit. This is going to be used as an opportunity for a pointless war.” But I’m not sure why I thought that. The idea of going after a particular person and his terrorist organization didn’t seem like a reason to roll out the troops.
I quickly became desensitized to the propaganda of 9/11. I had family members called into active duty, some were even shipped over to the Middle East. But another event was soon to follow: Enron.
My father used to work with Enron on some sort of contact basis. In 2000, they somehow got him fired from his job of 20-something years because they didn’t like the way he did something on a particular job. My father is very hardworking, but he was part of the “older generation” of computer programmer people, and this was during a time when those computer corporations were trading trained, expensive, reliable workers with a younger breed. A viewing of Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room will elucidate more on the situation. But if a primary financeer of the presidential campaign can’t stay afloat in the face of lies, it seems somewhat fitting that neither can the country as a whole.
Last night, I watched Gonzo: The Life and Times of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson. One of my recent obsessions over the last year (other than the presidential campaign) has been comparing the Bush Administration with the Nixon Administration. I have found some relief in the fact that this is history repeating itself. It’s a little sick, I know. But had we been alone in the events of the last 8 years, I don’t think awareness of what has been going on in Washington would have been so acute. The Internet (Slate.com!) has helped spread this awareness.
On the flip side, if this has all happened before, then why the hell did we let it happen again?! I want to believe that my generation has learned and that it won’t happen a third time. But power is easily corruptable.
A few months ago, long before the election, I saw a little lecture by James Hillman. He was talking about Aphrodite and archetypal psychology. We wanted to talk about Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. This was before Clinton pulled out of the running. He said that if Barack Obama didn’t win the election, there would be anarchy among the youth. We should all be thankful, then, that he did.
I teach Humanities at the local community college. Last semester gave us a fantastic opportunity to explore modern political issues through the collapse of major civilizations and governments. Bill Moyers had a guest on his show once who compared the behaviors of the current American culture and government with those at the collapse of the Roman Empire. We see similar thing occur at any point of transition. The powerful get more powerful, the weak get more marginalized, until something *SNAPS* and everything has to right itself. In history’s case, this includes the “fall” of a power. No longer are they the dominant force in the world, but, rather, they have to pass the laurel wreath to someone else. Sort of how leaders eventually have to step down and let someone else press the red button for awhile. Maybe this is why we fear dictatorships so much. They represent a leader who hasn’t stepped down. But then, neither has the US as a world force since the World Wars.
It’s sort of like Philip Pullman’s Dust. Because of all the openings made with the Subtle Knife, the flow of Dust, essential to the workings of the universe, was disrupted. The openings had to be closed in order for things to flow correctly again. They were easy to make, but not easy to close. Not an easy remedy.
I know I’ve been a little negligent of this site recently. This is mostly due to having too much on my plate at once. Life may be a buffet, but at some point one has to know when enough is enough. I’m going to try to do better this year. So to start with this resolution, I am announcing the February RoundTable! Check out the
RoundTable page for details.