Integration of the Shadows

The Conservative (masculine) Shadow

We once treated nature well. We've been terrible stewards since the industrial revolution        

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Jesus espoused mostly feminine values. He was also a SJW. Many recent civilizations torture, rape and kill the feminine, the wild, the untamed and those who resist.

Good christian compassion--taking care of savages

It's a bargain now, but it will cost your descendants much in guilt and therapy

The liberal (feminine) Shadow

Men use to have work that was engaging, challenging and useful to our families and communities.

Now, if we don't want to be racist or misogynist, we have boring, abstract, or not appreciated, or not always obviously useful work:

They think they're oppressed because they have less privilege than they used to (sarcasm)

It's no wonder we sometimes turn to violence:

Male privilege? 97% of those lynched were male

You're fired! For being inappropriate

Love, generosity, high ideals are not enough to create a thriving culture. Without boundaries, competition, proportional punishment and monitoring, the idealists are guillotined, sent to gulags, shot, parasitised or crucified.

Out of those arrested for homicides, men get executed 6 times more than women.

In the previous post I talked about two collective shadows, one from the Right (or more accurately the conservatives), and one from the Left (or more accurately the liberals). Right and Left are not just about policies but about value hierarchies and personality types (see Jonathan Haidt's work on the 6 values that differ between Right and Left), so it is not surprising that there should be two complexes of symbols and values (with some overlap) and collective memories that are distinctly obscure to these two different groups. It also seems to me that there is a correlation between the conservative personality type and masculinity, and the left and femininity, but it is very imprecise. There might also be a correlation with social class, but we won't discuss that here.  All these might be about left and right brain regions, or about the module in the brain that deals with opposites.

It is possible to do personal integration, but it is also possible to do collective integration. Both of these require facing the shadow, either in oneself, or in the other.

The following examples are supposed to illustrate how a personal shadow might form in the first place (and we can try generalizing about the genesis of collective traumas), through traumatic childhood experiences that are not fully processed. People not willing to look at information, or trying to suppress it is a shadow for me that was probably formed from some of those experiences I mention below. But it's also possible that it's a more general phenomenon that trauma is sometimes buried (perhaps during the process of dissociation) and turns into a shadow. My particular traumas make me especially sensitive to other people's shadows, since they are associated with other people trying to suppress information! 

I know when my shadow is being triggered when I get angry with someone for being a certain way and I start thinking of things that it reminds me of. For example, when someone refuses to look at certain data, whether from science or history, because they are convinced they know already, or because of their faith, I get angry. I think of Galileo trying to show the priests the rings of Saturn through the telescope, and their refusal because it can't possibly be true according to their church dogma (if I recall that story correctly), and their adding salt to injury by wanting to burn him. I especially get mad when people are smug and sure that they are right. Instead of getting mad and projecting my shadow unto them, I could try to delve deeper and face this shadow. First in myself, asking "when did something like this happen in my personal life, maybe during childhood"? I recall playing a board game when someone discounted something I did and would not want to listen to what I was saying and me feeling really hurt by it, like an injustice has been committed. Or the teenage boy who threatened to kill my father if I didn't tie his shoelaces (I was too young to know how to do it properly, but I tried) and then threatening to kill my father if I told anyone. Or my mother pretending (even to her own conscious mind) like the pot roast my grandmother left on the stove without a lid did not have flies in it, and mixing them all in to destroy the evidence so that she could feed it to her coworker for lunch. Or the judge who would not listen to how I was already paying child support in a much greater amount than was appropriate based on my and my ex-wife's income, and how I did not agree with my son being sent to private school, so of course I didn't want to pay extra for his schooling. Or not allowing as evidence that I was a better parent, the answering machine tape that had him begging for me to come get him after being kicked on the floor after refusing to do laundry just the way she wanted. Or not being able to listen to the girl playing guitar at the recital because I was in a laughing mood and causing her to leave the stage in tears because of my laughter. There is a cruelty in me in inflicting on others the same cruelty that has been inflicted on me by others. But instead of facing that cruelty in me, I denounce others when I see it in them. On the other hand, humor and laughter are attempts to integrate opposites, or maybe the two hemispheres. What has come to be known as internet memes also seem to engage both hemispheres and could be a tool for shadow integration.

Beyond the personal, there is collective trauma, such as the Holocaust, or black slavery, or Jim Crow, or the genocide of native people, or witch burnings that I can feel somehow, not just as an abstract intellectual thing. Maybe from a past life, or maybe because our brains are antennae that can pick up information stored in a morphic field (which could be yet unknown to science or a known field like spacetime that has memory storage properties yet unmeasured). There might be some memory in epigenetic changes to bio-molecules. Or maybe from reading history, reading literature and watching historical movies.

So the collective trauma can be addressed by me alone, or by engaging with others who seem to be repeating it, but instead of repeating it, I could try to do something different. But I must be able to engage with them rather than "agreeing to disagree".

Still, it seems that if someone refuses to look at something that they haven't seen before, it could be because they are afraid of unearthing a shadow. I have a similar experience when someone is trying to evangelize me and I refuse to look at their holy book, either because I've already read some of it, or because I've seen enough holy books in my life to know that a book is not going to make much of a difference to me, unless it has some radically new ideas.

I'd like to suggest that if you are feeling an emotional resistance to looking at a movie or reading a book or having a conversation with someone there might be a shadow involved, as opposed to simply not having time.

And who wants to confront his own death? That seems to be a big shadow for many people. What if our whole civilization is dying like all the ones before it? That might be a collective shadow shared by both right and left.

Humor and laughter seem to be integrative experiences, though sometimes they fall short and someone's shadow, instead of being integrated, is triggered.

To summarize, in order to integrate a shadow:
1. Confront it in yourself. Try to remember when it started. Dig deep and go for feelings in addition to insights. Realize that it is not just out there, but a part of you.
2. Confront it in others. Not in a belligerent way, but in a transparent, curious and empathetic way. The people who you are least likely to talk to are the ones that can teach you most about your shadow.
3. Make peace with it in whatever way works, whether through humor, boundary setting, punishment, reward, reading literature, poetry or looking at memes, but most of all understanding.
Most good comedy and poetry tries to integrate shadows. Here is a little poem that touches on some collective shadows:
Tell me again
When I’ve been to the river
And I’ve taken the edge off my thirst
Tell me again
We’re alone and I’m listening
I’m listening so hard that it hurts
Tell me again
When I’m clean and I’m sober
Tell me again
When I’ve seen through the horror
Tell me again
Tell me over and over
Tell me that you want me then

Amen
Amen
Amen
Amen

Tell me again
When the victims are singing
And the laws of remorse are restored
Tell me again
That you know what I’m thinking
But vengeance belongs to the Lord
Tell me again
When I’m clean and I’m sober
Tell me again
When I’ve seen through the horror
Tell me again
Tell me over and over
Tell me that you love me then

Amen
Amen
Amen
Amen

Tell me again
When the day has been ransomed
And the night has no right to begin
Try me again
When the angels are panting
And scratching at the door to come in
Tell me again
When I’m clean and I’m sober
Tell me again
When I’ve seen through the horror
Tell me again
Tell me over and over
Tell me that you need me then

Amen
Amen
Amen
Amen

Tell me again
When the filth of the butcher
Is washed in the blood of the lamb
Tell me again
When the rest of the culture
Has passed through the eye of the camp
Tell me again
When I’m clean and I’m sober
Tell me again
When I’ve seen through the horror
Tell me again
Tell me over and over
Tell me that you love me then