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iii
Vision, Reality and Complex
Vision, Reality and Complex brings together a rich selection of Thomas
Singer’s scholarship on the development of the cultural complex theory and
explores the relationship between vision, reality, and illusion in politics and
psyche.
The chapters in this book discuss the basic principles of the cultural
complex theory in various national and international contexts that span the
Clinton, Bush, Obama, and Trump eras. Each chapter grounds this theory
in practical examples, such as race and health care in the United States,
or in specific historical and international conflicts between groups, whether
they be ethnic, racial, gender, local, national, or global. With chapters on
topics including mythology, leadership, individuation, revolution, war, and
the soul, Singer’s work provides unique insights into contemporary culture,
activism, and politics.
This collection of essays demonstrates how the cultural complex theory
applies in specific contexts while simultaneously having cross-cultural rele-
vance through the reemergence of complexes throughout history. It is essen-
tial reading for academics and students of Jungian and post-Jungian ideas,
politics, sociology, and international studies, as well as for practicing and
trainee analysts alike.
Thomas Singer, MD, is a psychiatrist and Jungian psychoanalyst who
trained at Yale Medical School, Dartmouth Medical School, and the C. G.
Jung Institute of San Francisco. He is the author of many books and articles
that include a series of books on cultural complexes that have focused on
Australia, Latin America, Europe, the United States, and Far East Asian
countries, in addition to another series of books featuring Ancient Greece,
Modern Psyche. He serves on the board of ARAS (Archive for Research into
Archetypal Symbolism) and has served as coeditor of ARAS Connections
for many years.
iv
Routledge Focus on Jung, Politics and Culture
The Jung, Politics and Culture series showcases the “political turn” in
Jungian and Post-Jungian psychology. Established and emerging authors
offer unique perspectives and new insights as they explore the connections
between Jungian psychology and key topics—including national and inter-
national politics, gender, race and human rights.
For a full list of titles in this series, please visit www.routledge.com/
Focus-on-Jung-Politics-and-Culture/book-series/FJPC
Titles in the series:
From Vision to Folly in the American Soul
Jung, Politics and Culture
Thomas Singer
Vision, Reality and Complex
Jung, Politics and Culture
Thomas Singer
v
Vision, Reality and Complex
Jung, Politics and Culture
Thomas Singer
vi
First published 2021
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2021 Thomas Singer
The right of Thomas Singer to be identified as author of this work has been
asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised
in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or
hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks,
and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Singer, Thomas, 1942– author.
Title: Vision, reality and complex : Jung, politics and culture / Thomas Singer.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020033745 (print) | LCCN 2020033746 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780367538187 (hardback) | ISBN 9780367538132 (paperback) |
ISBN 9781003083399 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Jungian psychology. | Social psychology. | Myth. |
Political culture. | Psychoanalysis and culture.
Classification: LCC BF173.J85 S538 2020 (print) |
LCC BF173.J85 (ebook) | DDC 150.19/54–dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020033745
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020033746
ISBN: 978-0-367-53818-7 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-08339-9 (ebk)
Typeset in Times
by Newgen Publishing UK
vi
I dedicate this book to Andrew Samuels with respect,
admiration, and love. He has been an inspiration in
exploring the boundaries between a psychological attitude
and political activism. This book would simply not exist
without Andrew’s initiative in so many areas, not the least
of which is the creation of the Routledge series on Jung,
Politics and Culture.
vi
ix
Contents
List of figures x
Acknowledgments xii
Introduction 1
1 Introduction to The Vision Thing 3
2 The cultural complex and archetypal defenses of
the collective spirit: Baby Zeus, Elian Gonzales,
Constantine’s sword, and other holy wars 20
3 Unconscious forces shaping international conflicts:
Archetypal defenses of the group spirit from
revolutionary America to conflict in the Middle East 41
4 The cultural complex: A statement of the theory and
its application 61
5 Playing the race card: A cultural complex in action 81
6 Snapshots of the Obamacare cultural complex 91
7 Extinction anxiety: Where the spirit of the depths meets
the spirit of the times, or extinction anxiety and the
yearning for annihilation 101
Index 108
x
Figures
3.1 Bloods and Crips. Rival groups—whether it be the Bloods
and Crips or the Jungians and Freudians—can easily
fall into conflicts in which the predominant exchange
is between their archetypal defenses of the group spirit,
which can carry arms in many forms—from guns to laws
to propaganda to cartoons. (Jake Messing, by permission.
Mixed media painting, 14 × 22 in, from the Martyrs series,
which can be viewed at www.jakemessing.com) 43
3.2 The Gadson flag (www.gadsden.info) 47
3.3 An “axis of evil” is created when cultures and their
complexes collide. This can happen anywhere—between
the West and Islam on a global scale, between Israel and
Palestine (as shown in Munich, between the Bloods and
Crips in Los Angeles, or between two conflicting groups in
a Jung Institute. The collage demonstrates in image form
how a true “axis of evil” is created in a horrifying dance
of destruction symbolized by the paired serpents of the
archetypal defenses facing off against one another when
the sacred spirits of the group are attacked—symbolized in
this image by the crescent and the Mosque for Islam and by
the candles of Western Christian and Jewish cultures. When
core values are assaulted as in the 9/11 attack or aggression
by Western troops in Islamic lands, the archetypal defenses
of the conflicting groups, “headed” by the figures of bin
Laden and Bush, generate the most terrible experience of
mass and personal horror behind which lurks the ultimate
symbol of modern destruction—the atomic bomb. Personal
lives, cultural values, and archetypal forces collide
and compete in the collective psyche. (Collage: Dyane
Sherwood and Jacques Rutzky. All images but the last
xi
Figures xi
were taken from the internet. From top left: atomic bomb
exploding; American bomb exploding in Iraq, 2003; bin
Laden; Bush; 9/11 twin towers; Iraqi mosque; Gadsden
rattlesnake; candles and flags placed in spontaneous
memorial 9/11; Jihadists pose on internet video prior
to beheading; US soldier threatens prisoner with dog at
Abu Ghraib prison; medieval painting showing European
Christians attacking a Muslim walled city.) 58
4.1 Jung’s diagram of the psyche 64
4.2 Muslim vs. European expansion, 1000–1700 CE 73
4.3 The rise of Islam to 750 CE 74
5.1 Rene Cox’s Yo Mamas Last Supper: A rather tricksterish
playing of the race card, designed perhaps to trigger a
cultural complex of white Christians 82
6.1 A. Paul Weber, The Rumor92
6.2 Obama as the Fourth Stooge, an image that speaks to the
racism motivating groups 92
6.3 The relationship between income inequality and “ill health” 93
6.4 Chester Arnold, Thy Kingdom Come II, 72" × 94", 1999.
(Courtesy of the artist. In the collection of the DiRosa
Preserve, Napa.) 95
6.5 Diagram of the Obamacare cultural complex by Thomas
Singer, MD 96
6.6 A coelacanth closely resembles the ancestral fish that first
emerged from the water to walk on land some 400 million
years ago 100
7.1 The beast in Yeats’ “The Second Coming” 105
7.2 Trump with a lion’s body: The Rapture Is Imminent! 105
7.3 The Doomsday Clock pictured at its most recent setting of
“two and half minutes to midnight” 105
xi
Acknowledgments
LeeAnn Pickrell’s care in fitting all the pieces of this book together goes
way beyond professionalism. She is an artist in her way of knowing how
to bring a complicated project to fruition—from the smallest detail to the
broadest concept. And she is a joy to work with …
1
Introduction
It is a daunting task as well as a great honor to be given the opportunity
to make a selection from my papers over time in such a way as to create
a new entity—hopefully one that holds together and has its own rhythms
and resonances as if it were a single creation in itself. This moment for
gathering my reflections seems particularly ripe in terms of the great dis-
tress that has engulfed much of the globe (though many authors of other
eras have often said the same thing during calamitous times). In the pro-
cess of selecting the papers, I found that complementary tracks emerged
that have resulted in two separate but related books. This first book, Vision,
Reality and Complex: Jung, Politics and Culture, follows the development
of the cultural complex theory. The second, complementary book, From
Vision to Folly in the American Soul: Jung, Politics, and Culture, focuses
more specifically on the American experience, both in terms of personal and
collective identity and soul.
So many questions have accompanied the gathering together of these
papers. Does what I have written make any sense? Is it relevant? Is there a
discernable development of themes and depth? Will anyone be interested?
Of course, all of this is ultimately for the reader to decide. But undertaking
such a task leads to my own wondering: what is it that I have been laboring
to express over these several decades? If Jung was right about there being a
“spirit of the depths” and a “spirit of the times,” I hope that there is enough
of a balance between the two in my musings, that there is both a sense of
specificity in terms of historic context as well as a sense of depth that allows
the reader to see connections over and through time, even with glimpses
into the timeless.
A major theme of this book is an inquiry into the relationships between
politics, psyche, and mythology. This theme first emerges in the opening
chapter: “Introduction to the Vision Thing,” which I wrote in 2000. That
inquiry began to take more specific shape in the early years of the twenty-
first century as the cultural complex theory developed. Many of the chapterss
2
2 Introduction
in this book reflect my effort to work out the basic principles of this theory
in various national and international contexts. I have always tried to ground
the theory in practical examples such as race and healthcare in the United
States or in specific historical and international conflicts between groups,
whether they be ethnic, racial, gender, local, national, or global. In add-
ition to my own essays on the cultural complex theory, I have sought to test
the hypothesis in the past decades by editing six books on the topic with
some ninety different authors making contributions from Australia, Latin
America, Europe, North America, and Far East Asia. The goal of the series
has been to tease out how the cultural complex theory applies in specific
contexts while simultaneously having cross-cultural relevance.
This volume documents my exploration of the cultural complex theory
as I have wondered about how psyche, politics, and mythology get so mired
in our minds, hearts, and spirits. Perhaps the final chapter of this book is
fittingly placed as it takes this exploration to the edge of the precipice in
the emergence of extinction anxiety as a contemporary global phenomenon,
reflecting the age-old crucible of psyche, politics, and culture in the difficult
effort to tease out what is vision, what is reality, and what is complex.
Dear readers
Because there is a limitation on the number of images that can be included
in a print text, I have created a special arrangement with ARAS (the Archive
for Research in Archetypal Symbolism) that permits me to link the reader
to more images that add greatly to the written text. ARAS has graciously set
up a special place on their website for readers to access these images, which
can be reached simply by typing on a computer the URL link indicated at
the appropriate places in the text: https://aras.org/vision-reality-complex.
Once readers arrive at the ARAS file hosting this feature, they will be able
to view the specific image according to chapter location.
3
1 Introduction to The Vision Thing
From The Vision Thing: Myth, Politics and Psyche in the World, edited by
Thomas Singer, Routledge, 2000.1
This chapter served as the introduction to The Vision Thing: Myth,
Politics and Psyche in the World, a collection of essays that originated
during a small conference over a stormy weekend at the funky Bolinas
Rod & Boat Club in 1999. Featuring Jungian analysts and politicians,
the conference began with a conversation I had in 1989 with Senator
Bill Bradley who, along with many others as the turn of the millennium
approached, wondered “What Myth Now?” I did not know it at the
time, but it was the beginning of my decades-long circumambulation
around the interfaces of myth, politics, and psyche in the world.
There are times when politicians stumble into the need to link the polit-
ical and mythological. They are propelled by a peculiar mix of dire neces-
sity, conscious intention, and a deep unconscious sense of collective need.
The title of this book is taken from a phrase born out of just such a situ-
ation. Although George H. W. Bush had recently “won” the Gulf War and
conventional wisdom had it that he was unbeatable in 1992, the president
was having trouble communicating with the American people—especially
around domestic policy, as so poignantly revealed when he went shopping
at a supermarket and didn’t know what a bar code was at the check-out
counter. The president had lost touch with everyday life and people in his
own country. His reelection campaign began to implode. Bush himself
identified part of his problem connecting with a restless electorate as “The
Vision Thing.”
The Vision Thing—a phrase that Bush had inadvertently coined early in
his administration as a self-acknowledged problem of articulating a clear
vision—had been haunting him for four years. He often joked about it in his
speeches in an attempt to defuse the implicit criticism that, in fact, he had
little or no intuition as to where the country was or ought to be headed. In
4
4 Introduction to The Vision Thing
a futile attempt to resurrect his lame 1992 campaign, Bush tried to fill the
vision gap by referring to a past “vision” of the sunrise of American promise
he had when he was plucked from the Pacific as a downed fighter pilot in
World War II, just as in 1988, in his inaugural address, he had sentimentally
kindled a future vision “to make kinder the face of the nation and gentler the
face of the world” nursed by “a thousand points of light.”
Although Bush failed to fill the vision gap in the 1992 election, he did
leave us to ponder his legacy of “The Vision Thing.” This book’s title
was chosen from his aptly awkward attempt to link political reality with
archetypal vision—not to mock George Bush, but to acknowledge the
awesome difficulty of uniting vision with reality. In truth, “The Vision
Thing” experienced at a personal and collective level attempts to bring
together the political and mythological realms through psychological
experience. “Vision” is seen with the mind’s or spirit’s eye, and “thing”
designates the most basic, concrete stuff of reality. “Vision” and “thing”
do not fit comfortably together. It is the rare leader who can put “vision”
and “thing” together in a believable way; it is the rare leader who can
articulate a true vision that fits with real politics.
Origin of idea
The idea for this “vision thing” book grew out of a conversation I had with
Senator Bill Bradley in 1989. Over dinner one night Senator Bradley asked
about Joseph Campbell’s life-long study of mythology. Public interest in
Campbell was peaking at the time, and Senator Bradley was curious both
about Campbell’s work itself and the increasing public attention given to
mythological themes. He wanted to understand more about the importance
of myth in human affairs and, specifically, what was currently capturing the
public imagination about the study and insights of mythology. Our talk was
not about myth in its popular use as “inaccurate fiction” but about how in some
mysterious way a living myth establishes a meaningful link between humans,
nature, and spirit. In this use of the word myth is the central story a people
tells about itself to understand its beginnings, its purposes, and its place in a
broader historical and cosmic order. At the heart of Senator Bradley’s inquiry
were the pragmatic American political questions: “What myth, now? What
stories are people telling about themselves and our world now?”
Initial dream
The conversation with Senator Bradley stirred me deeply, and that night
I had what C. G. Jung called a “big dream.” It seemed to be a comment on
the relationship between collective consciousness, as expressed in political
reality, and collective unconsciousness, as expressed in myth, vision, and
