For more than 40 years, conservative white men have vociferously denounced the 1960s. Their denunciations show their resistance to adapting themselves beyond the conventional white male identities of the 1950s. What's their problem? The revelation that C. G. Jung received from the anima archetype in his psyche suggests that they need to work out a new relationship with the anima archetype in their psyches.

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Duluth, Minnesota (OpEdNews) August 28, 2014: Over the last half century or so in American culture, American white men have been challenged on a number of social fronts to work out their identities in new ways -- challenged, for example, by the black civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s and by the women's movement in the 1960s and 1970s. On the whole, progressive and liberal white men have emerged from these and other recent social challenges to their identities in socially acceptable and constructive ways.

However, conservative white men have had a much harder time of adapting their identities in constructive ways to these and other recent social challenges to their identities. As a result, I want to suggest that conservative white men are having difficulties in working out a new working relationship with the anima archetype in their psyches. Let me explain.

Arguably all men at all times have had difficulty working out a healthy and vibrant relationship with the anima archetype in their psyches. Working out such a relationship with the anima archetype is the major challenge in men's lives, especially during the proverbial mid-life crisis and subsequently in their lives.

In the story of Adam and Eve in Genesis, Eve is an anima figure. As the story unfolds in Genesis, Eve is portrayed as the one who listens to the talking snake. Today talking animals are a regular feature in stories for children. But the story of Adam and Eve and the talking snake and the talking monotheistic deity was undoubtedly designed not only for ancient Hebrew children to hear but also for ancient Hebrew adults to hear and ponder. I will discuss this famous story a bit further below.

In the Divine Comedy, Dante the poet vividly commemorates his proverbial mid-life crisis. He creates a character named Dante who visits the underworld (also known as the unconscious). Dante the character is not exactly impressive, to put it mildly. Evidently, Dante the poet had a self-effacing sense of humor about himself. As Dante the poet portrays the character known as Beatrice, she is another anima figure. To be sure, Dante named her after a young woman he had known; but the character Beatrice that he portrays is a composite figure based on Dante's experience of a number of women.

In the Roman Catholic tradition, the Blessed Virgin Mary is an anima figure, albeit one based on the historical mother of the historical Jesus. Of course the veneration of Mary in the Roman Catholic tradition includes not only men but also women. Nevertheless, the figure of Mary that is venerated is best understood as an anima figure -- that is, as a figure based on projections of the anima archetype in men's psyches. (Disclosure: I come from a Roman Catholic background. However, for many years now, I have not been a practicing Catholic. Today I would describe myself as a theistic humanist, as distinct from a secular humanist.)

As these three divergent examples show, there is great variety in portraying anima figures -- including of course a wide range of pagan goddesses. However, in the present essay it is not my purpose to discuss anima figures in great detail.

THE REVELATION OF JUNG'S ANIMA ARCHETYPE

Carl Gustav Jung, M.D. (1875-1961), the Swiss psychiatrist and psychological theorist, went through the proverbial mid-life crisis. During his experience of the mid-life crisis, he engaged in self-experimentation using a technique of imagistic meditation that he came to refer to as active imagination. He found his active imagination exercises so helpful that he subsequently encouraged other people to use this form of meditation. His various statements about this technique of imagistic meditation have been collected together in the book Jung on Active Imagination, edited and introduced by Joan Chodorow (Princeton University Press, 1997).

Evidently, Dr. Jung engaged in this kind of imagistic meditation by himself. But by doing this, he set a bad example. I would urge people not to engage in this kind of self-experimentation by themselves because archetypes in the human psyche are powerful enough to overpower ego-consciousness, resulting in a psychotic episode. So it is advisable to talk with a psychotherapist or spiritual director once a day when you use this kind of imagistic meditation.

Now, in his book Preface to Plato (Belknap Press/ Harvard University Press, 1963), the classicist Eric A. Havelock describes the thinking of people in primary oral cultures as imagistic thinking. Also see Mary J. Carruthers' book The Craft of Thought: Meditation, Rhetoric, and the Making of Images, 400-1200 (Cambridge University Press, 1998).

So the kind of imagistic meditation that Jung refers to as active imagination is designed to tap into the deeper places in the unconscious. In addition, the guided imagistic meditations one practices when one follows the instructions in the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola are also designed to tap into the deeper places in the unconscious. However, Buddhist meditation and mindfulness practices do not involve the use of imagistic meditations.

Figuratively speaking, in using this form of imagistic meditation, Dr. Jung in effect visited the underworld -- just as Odysseus visits the underworld in the Homeric epic the Odyssey and just as Aeneas visits the underworlds in Virgil's epic the Aeneid and just as Dante the character visits the underworld in the Divine Comedy. In other words, Dr. Jung visited his unconscious.

Dr. Jung's verbal and artistic record of his visits to the unconscious through the use of active imagination can now be seen in the over-sized book titled The Red Book: Liber Novus, edited and introduced by Sonu Shamdasani (Norton, 2009). A more compact and portable version of this work has been published as The Red Book: Liber Novus: A Reader's Edition (Norton, 2009).

On page 370 of the over-sized edition, Shamdasani has included Dr. Jung's record of the following message he received from the anima archetype in his psyche on January 16, 1916:

"If I am not conjoined through the uniting of the Below [i.e., the unconscious] and the Above [i.e., ego-consciousness], I break down into three parts: [1] The serpent [e.g., the talking snake who talks to Eve], and in that or some other animal form I roam, living nature daimonically, arousing fear and longing. [2] The human soul, living forever within you. [3] The celestial soul, as such dwelling with the Gods, far from you and unknown to you, appearing in the form of a bird [e.g., the dove is the traditional Christian symbol of the Holy Spirit]. Each of these three parts then is independent [of the other parts in the male psyche]."

(This passage appears on page 577 of the reader's edition.)

I refer to this passage as the revelation given to Dr. Jung by the anima archetype in his psyche. It is a revelation for all men about the anima archetype in their psyches.

You see, men such as the fictional Adam and the fictional character named Dante need to be guided in their lives by the anima archetype in their psyches. When men do not have a constructive working relationship with the anima archetype in their psyches, then they will be subjected to having the anima archetype in their psyches arouse fear and longing in them (i.e., in their psyches).

Therefore, I attribute the fear that conservative white men in the United States feel and express in our political arena to the workings of the anima archetype in their psyches.

Oftentimes, conservative white men express their fear in their vociferous rhetoric about the 1960s. See Philip Jenkins' book Decade of Nightmares: The End of the Sixties and the Making of Eighties America (Oxford University Press, 2006).

Now, self-described Christians appear to be over-represented among today's conservative white men who are having significant problems working out a healthy relationship with the anima archetype in their psyches.

THE PSYCHOLOGICAL EXPERIENCE OF DEIFICATION

In patristic and medieval times, certain Christian writers had no problem with discussing the possibility that the mythic figure known as Christ could deify them.

See Norman Russell's book The Doctrine of Deification in the Greek Patristic Tradition (Oxford University Press, 2004) and A. N. Williams' book The Ground of Union: Deification in Aquinas and Palamas (Oxford University Press, 1999).

After all, if we are made in the image and likeness of God, as the Bible says we are, then it would seem to follow that we are made for deification -- this is our common human destiny -- to be like God in some sense.

But in the natural course of our lives, men need to work out a healthy relationship with the anima archetype in their psyches before they are ready for the psychological experience of deification.

So today's conservative white men, many of whom are self-described Christians, need to work out a healthy relationship with the anima archetype in their psyches -- to prepare themselves for the possible subsequent experience of psychological deification.

Finally, I want to say that these psychological developments are not quick and easy for men to work through from the onset of their proverbial mid-life crises onward in the second half of their lives. Figuratively speaking, for today's conservative white men to work out a healthy and viable relationship with the anima archetype in their psyches could be likened to undergoing something like the suffering and crucifixion of Jesus as portrayed in the four canonical gospels.

Of course in the Christ myth, the resurrection supposedly follows his death, followed then by his ascension to heaven and then by his second coming. These mythic images clearly suggest that new forms of life followed his suffering and crucifixion. In a similar way, new forms of life will follow for men who work out a healthy and viable relationship with the anima archetype in their psyches.

To take a more mundane example, we could liken the inner work that men need to undertake to work out a healthy and viable relationship with the anima archetype in their psyches, to undergoing something like the character Dante's extended visit to the Inferno and Purgatory -- with the character Virgil as his guide. That involves a long time in the underworld. Those two fellows took in all the sights in the Inferno and Purgatory. Beatrice, the anima figure, appears only when Dante is ready to enter Paradise in his grand tour.

Penelope in the Homeric epic the Odyssey is another anima figure similar to Beatrice. After the Trojan War has ended, Odysseus sets sail with his men for Ithaca -- and Penelope and his son there. But it takes Odysseus a proverbial ten years to return to Ithaca. Of course during his journey he encounters a good number of feminine figures, including goddesses (Calypso, Circe, Athena) and a flirtatious young woman named Nausicaa. The time interval mentioned is undoubtedly a round number. But it suggests that it takes men a number of years to work out a healthy relationship with the anima archetype in their psyches. See Jean Houston's book The Hero and the Goddess: The Odyssey as Mystery and Initiation (Ballantine Books, 1992).

Regardless of how long it takes, all men face the challenge in the second half of their lives to work out a healthy relationship with the anima archetype in their psyches.

Authors Website: http://www.d.umn.edu/~tfarrell

Authors Bio:

Thomas James Farrell is professor emeritus of writing studies at the University of Minnesota Duluth (UMD). He started teaching at UMD in Fall 1987, and he retired from UMD at the end of May 2009. He was born in 1944. He holds three degrees from Saint Louis University (SLU): B.A. in English, 1966; M.A.(T) in English 1968; Ph.D.in higher education, 1974. On May 16, 1969, the editors of the SLU student newspaper named him Man of the Year, an honor customarily conferred on an administrator or a faculty member, not on a graduate student -- nor on a woman up to that time. He is the proud author of the book WALTER ONG'S CONTRIBUTIONS TO CULTURAL STUDIES: THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF THE WORD AND I-THOU COMMUNICATION (Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, 2000; 2nd ed. 2009, forthcoming). The first edition won the 2001 Marshall McLuhan Award for Outstanding Book in the Field of Media Ecology conferred by the Media Ecology Association. For further information about his education and his publications, see his UMD homepage: Click here to visit Dr. Farrell's homepage.

On September 10 and 22, 2009, he discussed Walter Ong's work on the blog radio talk show "Ethics Talk" that is hosted by Hope May in philosophy at Central Michigan University. Each hour-long show has been archived and is available for people who missed the live broadcast to listen to. Here are the website addresses for the two archived shows:

Click here to listen the Technologizing of the Word Interview

Click here to listen the Ramus, Method & The Decay of Dialogue Interview