CG Jung and the Postpolitical Condition

A riposte to the hegemonic sway of 'third ways' whether old (fascism/ Nazism) or new (Blairite)!

There's a key political term conflation __originally from philosophy__ and which means to let two seperate things, which should properly be kept distinct from one another, instead blur into one another. It's related in etymology to 'inflation' and 'deflation' and also to FLATUS which is the Latin word for 'breath'; and the best way to think about is to imagine the silhouettes of two (seperate) leaves in the twilight whose shapes, due to their relative positions, blur into one another and can no longer be distinguished.

In political usage it is invoked all the time by spin doctors to blur important conceptual distinctions or distinctions on the level of key social or moral values; it is geared towards 'squaring the circle in speech' and thus trying to makes out for the purposes of political rhetoric that incompatibles on the level of values or political choice can be made compatible. American public affairs commentators refer to this tactic as triangulation and both Bill Clinton and Tony Blair are regarded as masters of this (black!) art.

The moral connotation is black (rather than a 'white art') because in the eyes of the artistic elites and the intelligentsia it is seen as being tantamount to perpetrating a deceit (ie telling a big lie or what is called 'a whopper'). Now, jumping into the middle of my piece of last week (rather than starting at the beginning), and recalling how I was saying that after an initial and strongly motivated rejection of Catholicism, I later began to think in terms of Carl Jung and his notion of the Catholic-Protestant, the first thing to make clear here is what this does not mean.

And the best way to do this is to quote what (to some pious people) is a problematic __but undeniably authentic__ verse from Jesus in the New Testament: "I come not to bring peace to the world, but to set brother against brother and cast fire across the face of the earth"!! Not very Christian sounding, is it?

The point is that on first reading my position (as it was stated last week) could be identified with an anodyne ecumenism of the sort that has been endemic to the Church since Vatican II (the 2nd Vatican Council, that is) when it is in fact nothing of the sort. As will become apparent, my focus and priority is on a firming-up of a muscular and reinvigorated Christianity.

Now switching over to Bruno Bettelheim (not too abruptly I hope!) I want to come to the role of the baroque dimension and of the creative and in this case narratively mediated imagination in this process of firming up the vision of the Christian. In Hegelian terms ('hegelsche' auf Deutsch) what we are talking about here is neither an acceptance nor any simple outright rejection of either Catholic or Protestant doctrine. Rather it is a case of the aufhebung, the famous (or is it infamous?) term in German transcendental philosophy. In short a Catholicism that wouldn't be recognised as such by most Catholics and ditto as a Protestantism for most Protestants.

Again in biblical terms (and to quote St Paul on the significance of the Cross) what we have here "remains a scandal and stumbling block to the Jews and mere foolishness to the Greeks ....but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, the power of God and the wisdom of God. For God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God's weakness is stronger than human strength."

In Christian polemics, one of the key sources of bitterness and argument will always revolve around who can claim to 'own' the authentic interpretation of key scriptural passages. And, in the case of disagreement who is there to be able to 'stand on the meta-level' and hence claim the right to adjudicate. The Catholic Church of course addresses (and 'solves') this issue illegitimately from the perspective of recognised discursive norms .... ie from the point of view of discursive freedom/ freedom of conscience or (what Jurgen Habermas calls) the 'open speech situation.'

In Nietzschean terms what is at stake here is that ineradicable tension that is destined by nature, so to speak, always to obtain between those who opt for the 'easy way' and those who challenge themselves __or feel driven by the imperative of authenticity__ to follow 'the higher path'. Master vs slave moralities as Nietzsche phrases it.

And (again) in its all-encompassing pursuit of ecumenism and harmony on the level of doctrine, the Church can be deemed from my point of view to have abolished as if by diktat the distinction between authentic spiritual searchers and (on other side) mere 'fellow travellers'! Hence, and to that extent, the CHURCH as an institution has forfeited its claim to doctrinal allegiance.

Where is the political dimension to all this if I am to redeem my claim to this having a bearing on the future of the EU? To answer you on this front we'll have to go back to St Augustine and his monumental 'City of God', written incidentally in an attempt to intellectually come to terms with (for him in his capacity as a Roman citizen) the trauma of the collapse of the Roman Empire. In our present age the empire in question that is about to collapse (and leave various types of devastation in its wake) is of course America: the USA.

Watch this space (if you can be bothered) for the next exciting instalment!!

FOOTNOTES: In the above context of ruminating on the future of Europe, this final thought for your consideration might (like Martin Heidegger's pensees) seem like 'a gnomic utterance' (joky slang for something that is 'deep and meaningless'): remember that Luther constantly harked back to both St Paul and Augustine in reiterating the unchangable Christian tenet that God's kingdom is NOT of this world. If as he insisted in his famous hymn, his faith in God was a mighty fortress, that fortress was nevertheless not to be identified with what was the German state of his time ..viz the Holy Roman Empire.

And finally, if you wish to pursue this line of rumination further with me, you will have to ponder over what I was doing in speaking of captivation when discussing Bettelheim's "Uses of Enchantment". You will also have to ask me to come much more into the open about where the Jungian approach (as in CG Jung) to dept psychology, as well as his understanding of 'psychological archetypes', fits into all of this. Meaning you'll have to get me to elaborate on these matters.

CLUE: think of the Knights Templar, of the Crusaders and of Catholic, and also Islamic (ie SUFI) religious orders. And think of (Russian) icons.