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), nearly 2,000 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.(32) 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."(33) 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."(34)
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."(35)
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."(36) 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."(37)
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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.
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1. Robert Bly, A Little Book on the Human Shadow (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1988),
2. Christians torturing Christians who were different and plundering their villages was quite common during the crusades. Battles over different interpretations of religious texts exemplify what Freud referred to as the "narcissism of small differences." See: A History of the Crusades: The First Hundred Years, ed. Marshall W. Baldwin (Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press, 1955).
3. Paul D. Wolfowitz, qtd. in The New York Times, 22 July 2003.
4. In 1986, an article about Don Rumsfeld in the Chicago Tribune listed helping "re-open U.S. relations with Iraq" when he served as Reagan's special envoy to the Middle East as one of his career achievements. The State Department reported that while Rumsfeld was opening relations with Iraq, Saddam Hussein was murdering thousands of Kurds using chemical weapons.
5. For more information on group shadow dynamics in political and religious organizations, see:
Under the Influence: the Destructive Effects of Group Dynamics, by John D. Goldhammer.
(New York: Prometheus Books, 1996).
6. When Moslems and Christians fought during the crusades (1096 - 1204), both sides believed the other was the enemy of their one, true, God.
7. Basil Davidson, Africa in History (New York: Touchstone, 1991), p. 219.
8. Khomeini, Sayings of the Ayatollah Khomeini, 4.
9. Jose' Chapiro, Erasmus and Our Struggle for Peace (Boston: Beacon, 1950), pp. 158, 171.
10. James Hillman, A Terrible Love of War (New York: The Penguin Press, 2004), p. 182.
11. Pat Robertson, The New World Order (Word Publishing, 1991), p. 227.
12. I use the term "evangelical" as "relating to, or being a Christian church believing in the sole authority and inerrancy of the Bible."
13. Andrew Bacevich, American Empire, pp. 215ff. His emphasis.
14. Theodore Roosevelt, cited in: Carl Sagan, Billions and Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium (New York: Ballantine Books, 1997), p. 185.
15. George W. Bush, quoted in: "London Bombings: Good police work,"
The Seattle Post Intelligencer, July 14, 2005.
16. Modris Eksteins, Rites of Spring: The Great War and the Birth of the Modern Age
(New York: Doubleday, 1990), p. 236.
17. Lieutenant General Boykin, cited in: Arianna Huffington, Fanatics & Fools: The Game Plan for Winning Back America (New York: Hyperion, 2004), p. 47.
18. George W. Bush, "Commencement Address at the United States Military Academy in West Point," Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents (June 1, 2002), 944-48.
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