The political and social “isms” of today preach every conceivable idea…
…restricting or altogether inhibiting the possibility of individual development.
It remains to be seen whether this experience of degradation and slavery will once more raise a cry for greater spiritual freedom.
— Carl Jung, The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious
We are living in a world of tyrannies, which we are finding increasingly hard to fight back against. In symbolic terms, I’ll name a few: the tyranny of the algorithm; the tyranny of the 280-character tweet; the tyranny of dopamine; and, above all, the supreme tyranny of black-and-white thinking. The supreme tyrant is constantly watching, bellowing at those who dare to deviate: “You MUST take one side, for otherwise you will be deemed useless and expendable.”
It is hardly surprising that the popularity of politicians today is directly proportionate to their simple-mindedness and immaturity. What a bore it has become for everyone to have their own ideas, to develop their own individual thinking through the slow, attentive, and sometimes painful work of reading books. Even worse, imagine having to read about ideas we disagree with -much less having to engage in debate with anyone who dissents from what we think. What a waste of time!
It is far more fun -and certainly easier- to be guided through the Candy Crush world of algorithms, where I am only ever offered the candy I already like and never asked to taste the flavours I don’t. How comforting to have the history of wars and political ideologies reduced to 280-character tweets. Everything becomes simple, almost magical, especially when life can be navigated in a permanent dopamine high, generously supplied by the black-and-white tyrant.
There is nothing more comforting to me than the certainty of possessing a free mind. I never imagined, when I was an 11-year-old girl who fell in love with reading through gothic romantic novels, that books would later bring me such a sense of freedom, when the world came to be ruled by black-and-white thinking. I am glad I have learned to retreat into the calmness of my own thoughts -thoughts I carefully tend to and nourish with literature.
The tyranny of black and white -with all its algorithms, dopamine shots, and highly consumable information nuggets- is a mirage, as it gives the impression of being economical, comforting, and highly communal.
But the entire tyranny of black and white collapses the moment one realises that every single member of each side claims to occupy a higher moral ground than those on the other side. We have a problem the very second anyone claims to be morally superior to anyone else. In the Gospel of John, even Jesus makes the point of remaining humble and forgiving when he says to the people around him, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her,” referring to the woman accused of adultery.
Forgiveness and humility are two little words that, simply by reading or saying them, provide me with a great deal of comfort -real comfort. Forgiveness and humility lie outside the tyranny of black and white. They don’t care about visibility or about sacrificing comfort. Forgiveness and humility are free. Forgiveness and humility are nuanced.
I remember, a million years ago, when I took a course in Creative Writing in Caracas, my most amazing tutor, Jesús Nieves Montero, said something that really stuck with me. “A good writer,” he said, “never judges her characters, not even the antihero.” Having read so many works of fiction throughout my life, it is clear to me that he was right. Good art is never judgemental. Its opposite is plain preaching and preaching tends to live comfortably within the tyranny of black and white.
I have spent the last few months consuming a significant amount of writing by Carl Jung and, as mentioned in a previous post, I have really come to love him. As one of the brightest minds in the study of psychology and psychoanalysis, Jung spoke extensively about the importance of acknowledging our imperfections. We are not pure consciousness; on the contrary, we are to a great extent ruled by our unconscious. There is a dark side to all humans, and as much as we may attempt to rule our minds -our conscious selves- there remains that wild part of us we will never fully dominate, just as we cannot, for example, control our dreams.
It has been deeply liberating to engage with Jung’s psychoanalytic work, not only because it has given me permission to embrace my whole self as I am -the good, the bad, and the ugly- but because it has reaffirmed something essential: every single human being -free from the tyranny of black and white- with all their perfections and imperfections, is a thing of beauty, just like good art. Let’s all be good art!
The whole point was to talk about Venezuela today -Maduro, Trump, greed, corruption, and tyranny- but actually, I won’t. There is already too much noise about this out there. I have my own thoughts, shaped by my own past experiences, the ideas I have gained through reading, and my yearnings for the future. They are surely imperfect but mine nonetheless -free and nuanced- and I would rather tend to them on my own.
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