By Margaret Mark and Carol S. Pearson[i]

Many of us in our lives face a crucible or severe test at some point, but for the most part, it is thankfully not played out upon a public stage.

Not so for companies and brands. Often, due to circumstances they either invite by their own actions or are subject to for undeserved reasons, beloved brands and the leaders who guide them are put to the ultimate test, and how they react becomes their defining moment – for good or for ill. Something similar can be true for you or me as well. What we say we are frequently has an archetypal nature to it, whether or not we recognize that. If we are conscious of it, we can then recognize that such crises are tests of who we are. We can learn from those whose struggles are public even if we are blessedly able to deal with our challenges more privately.

Any company needs to be particularly aware of its archetypal identity, absorbing it organically into its culture and values. These, then, serve as a critical touchstone when the going gets rough and major decisions need to be made in days or even hours, often under incredible pressure.

Starbucks’ Howard Schultz immediately responded to an apparently racist incident in one Philadelphia shop by deciding to close all of the stores for a day’s training – a move some called “too little too late,” but that was entirely consistent with this Explorer brand’s tendency to take the plunge, act rather than overthink, experiment, and adjust until it got it right, as was its earlier focus on encouraging dialogue on issues of diversity and racism.

Disney CEO Bob Iger reacted decisively to Roseanne Barr’s racist tweet just hours after it was released to the universe, a testament to the strength of Disney’s protection of its Innocent archetype public brand image. Yet, it remains to be seen how effective the company will be in responding to labor union critiques of low pay for Disney park workers, who say that the supposed “happiest place on earth” is not happy for employees struggling to survive. Disney’s initial response to these claims was simply to challenge the labor union’s survey methodology. A danger for any brand with a positive and inspiring message is identifying with it so strongly—as yes, this is us—that it loses the capacity to perceive practices that fly in the face of what it says it is. Resulting crises force it to notice its shadow organizational reality.

One especially interesting set of entities to observe in this regard is today’s Everyperson brands. At a time when everything from populist politics to the sharing economy appeal to the public’s craving for people, practices, and entities that claim to champion and reflect the character of the common or ordinary person, how well are these commercialbrands delivering on their promise? And, how well are they dealing with the kinds of crises that challenge their very reason for being? Long term success, in any of these efforts, requires staying true to the promise consistently in all areas of company practice.

Uber is by far the most successful company in the new sharing economy. It launched its brand with an Everyperson call to riders and drivers alike, with an inspiring pitch, all about people helping people in a neighborly, personal way that also reinforces their feeling valued. Uber’s tagline announced, “Your personal driver. It lets customers travel in style.” Supporting communications described initial practices that bolstered the brand image with a connecting experience: before you even encounter the driver, you already know the driver’s name, what he or she looks like, the type of car, and the driver’s rating by other ordinary-person riders. When the Uber car shows up, you are addressed by name.

But soon Uber was hit by crisis after crisis, each of which undercut its brand: charges of systemic company sexual harassment, offering driverless cars (which alienated drivers), the fatal Uber driverless crash, criminal inquiries, one of which concerned using grey ball technology to evade authorities, and so on. First, the Uber board assumed a top-down approach and fired the CEO, while putting out statements about something to be done about each misstep. However, these glaring problems kept accumulating.

The new CEO took a stand, declaring, “I apologize,” and assumed responsibility for things both on and off his watch. He wisely communicated directly with riders to fix what was broken, and engaged staff in a culture change effort, moving froma top-down focus on ambition and speed to ethical, inclusive, collaborative teamwork.The approach used in this culture change process was designed to model what the new culture would be like.

Uber has done a good job in its messaging, but there is an increasing consensus that its long-term success depends upon the congruence of the reality of how Uber is run with what it is saying.

From Uber to Facebook to Airbnb, the Everyperson super-brands of the new sharing economy promised to leverage people-to-people power in a new, exciting, and uncorrupted way – ordinary folks in direct interaction without the intermediary. Unlike a Budweiser giant that offered a “Regular Guy” experience based only on an affordable price and a carefully-crafted image, these new digitally-born brands would be the real deal, optimizing the power of what happens when you trust the ability of ordinary people to do right by each other and to create something together that benefits the common good.

Well, have they?  Not surprisingly, many wonderful things have resulted from these new entities. Communities have formed on Facebook that have provided extraordinary support to people who previously felt alone and marginalized – from parents of babies in the NICU, to transgender teens, to individuals with bipolar disorder. People have had wonderful, memorable experiences with Uber and Airbnb that they never would have had with ordinary cab companies or hotels.

But the profit motive has also gotten in the way. Facebook consciously sold our personal data to untold sources and inadvertently facilitated messages designed to influence a U.S. election. Airbnb morphed from a focus on ordinary folks renting out a room in the intimacy of their own home or apartment to speculators buying space to rent, purely for profit. And Uber continues to struggle with a model for doing business that is consistent with its brand and that creates the expected win-win for both drivers and riders.

Where will it end? The Internet has created a world of commerce in which the consistency and truthfulness of your brand’s archetypal identity will be determined not by the next ad you run so much as the next consumer experience you offer. And that might be this evening, right before midnight, when your potential customer decides to buy some shoes, book a trip, or check out what others have said about your brand. The news media are quicker to pick up the missteps of shooting star brands, especially those that proclaim a benevolent Everyperson purpose, than traditional companies because their readers and viewers care. Reacting to a PR crisis without attention to brand congruence can undercut a company’s reputation and the loyalty of its customers rather quickly.

And users fully expect to be movers of these companies – an Uber passenger or driver, an Airbnb renter or guest. The rating system has created an expectation that the business is built upon their endorsements, that their voices will be heard, and that they will count. Smart crisis management, therefore, ideally involves those they serve in ways that reinforce the brand promise, so that customers feel like they are in it with the brand in question, as opposed to being its victims or its judges.

The crucible, or test, will be greatest for the plethora of Everyperson brands born in this climate, promising to celebrate and enable the power of everyday people. Let’s hope they do so.

Thought Questions

What archetype best describes your values and how you want to be seen?

When has your reputation been at risk, and how consistent were your behaviors with those of your best self?

If there are things you would do over, imagine what you might have done to be more, or even more, congruent in how you behaved?

[i]Margaret Mark and Carol S. Pearson collaborated in writing The Hero and the Outlaw: Building Extraordinary Brands Through the Power of Archetypes

When life feels like a drag and events are depressing, it is a good time to lighten up. For that, we can call on the Jester. You may know this archetype best in the comedian, the entertainer, the party planner, the cruise director, the satirist, the practical joker, or the friends or colleagues who always crack you up.

The Art of Lightening Up

I’m serious by nature, perhaps intensified by working in the field of depth psychology (where I feel as if I should show up like Freud or Jung, looking wise) and my interest in current events, which leads me to worry about the state of things even when my own life is just fine. I know I’m not alone in often feeling stressed by the pace and complexity of modern life, exacerbated by incessant breaking news, most of which is alarming, sad, and worrisome. 

I greatly appreciate comedians who make me laugh instead of cry about things our leaders do that I fear are taking the United States over a cliff, or how polarized my country has become. Anything that gets me out of my head, my list of things to do, and imagining future peril is a godsend. So, I love getting lost in a good mystery novel or an engaging film, or doing something recreational—dancing or time catching up with friends and family—that compels my full attention.

Any of us can be momentarily refreshed by taking time to do whatever pleasurable activity most diverts us. Sometimes a humorous remark can distract us from a serious matter we were worrying about, accomplishing a mood shift from fear to cheer. This shift is a bit like the surprising punchlines that elicit laughs in many jokes. (A guy shows up late for work. The boss yells, "You should have been here at 8:30!" He replies: "Why? What happened at 8:30?" Or, Will Rogers: “I don’t belong to an organized political party. I’m a Democrat.”) The brain seems to love that surprise where it needs to realign all the synapses that were going together down a very different path. In contexts where sexuality (or anything else) is not talked about openly, jokes on such topics often result in an explosion of laughter, caused by the shock of having a taboo shattered and it being OK. The related capacity to shift perspectives accounts for the advantage fun-loving people often have in brainstorming and out of the box thinking.

Doing research for my book Persephone Rising: Awakening the Heroine Within, I reviewed happiness studies in preparation for writing the chapter on Dionysus, the god of joy, dancing, theatre, and wine. I learned about simple actions any of us can take that brighten our day, and that release a hit of happiness chemicals in our bodies. The winners include: engaging in a task you love to do so much that you forget about time; doing something nice for someone else; experiencing closeness with people you care about or love; taking a stroll without a set destination; and practicing gratitude for all that is right in your life and the world.

Jesters All Around Us—But Can They Bring Us Together?

A former colleague and I were talking recently about how worry extrapolates from the present into the future to imagine dire outcomes. However, many sudden changes—the fall of the Berlin Wall or the end of apartheid in South Africa, for instance—were unanticipated, shifting our perspectives in surprising ways. From this, we started wondering where current events might be taking us that would be positive, even though not predicted. Shortly thereafter I was in another rich conversation with a colleague who helps leaders connect dots between events that are not usually seen as related to one another, but actually are.

Right now, Americans notice our differences because that is the dominant cultural narrative: we are told we are in a culture war. What if we started noticing how ubiquitous the Jester is, not only on both sides of the divide, but also in our country overall. The U.S. Declaration of Independence declared the “pursuit of happiness” as a universal human right. There may be another country that also affirms this, but, if so, I do not know about it. America may well have affected the world more through entertainment and the invention of jeans and other casual clothing than in any other way. Americans typically have liked their leaders to have a good sense of humor, even being able to laugh at themselves. Presidents Reagan and Obama were particularly appreciated for having that capacity, as were Presidents Kennedy and Lincoln. 

Many Americans today get their news from comedians, and in some states like to elect the wildest candidate out there. These are reminiscent of tall tale heroes like Davy Crockett. The theme song from the TV show about him claimed that he killed a bear when he was three years old and later went to Congress, where he “patched up the crack in the Liberty Bell.” Such exaggeration is experienced as fun rather than lies because they are so transparently not meant to trick anyone.

Laughing together bonds families, friendship groups, and work teams and could unite larger ones like organizations or even countries, including my own. Although our people differ on many political and cultural issues, what we share is a comic spirit, even if it is expressed in divergent ways.

The Emperor’s New Clothes and the Court Jester

Some Jester narratives are inherently about the public sphere, and they are rampant in our culture today. Think about the Hans Christian Andersen children’s story The Emperor’s New Clothes, in which the child reveals that the emperor is naked and the clothes are an illusion. In real public life, humorists point out discrepancies between what leaders say and the actual facts, and laughter results from the relief that comes from not having to pretend that what is happening is acceptable if it is not. This type of humor also can poke fun at people who believe fake facts, thus engendering resentment from those being implicitly, if not explicitly, portrayed as conned or ignorant.

Right now, many get a chuckle from saying anything that offends political correctness (i.e., civility), with laughter evoked from getting a rise out of people they regard as elites or as taking on the role of the moral police. While what they are asserting may not be objectively true, it accurately reflects what people they know are thinking and saying. If the content of what is being said would seem ignorant or even shameful to many, asserting it out loud is a rebellion that elicits the joy of refusing to be shamed and of reasserting moral and intellectual status. It also expresses the childlike glee of the practical joker within any of us who enjoys upsetting the uptight adults in the room.

The court jester’s job in ancient times was to puncture the inevitable pomposity of kings and queens, but to do so humorously, so that it brought them down to earth to face realities—about themselves and their situation—that they might not want to see. Ideally, the royals would get the joke and laugh with the court. Modern Jesters also can critique a serious situation in such a light-hearted way that it can be heard. The late humorist Molly Ivins, after listening to a particularly racist political rant, quipped, “It probably sounded better in the original German.”

Humor also can be used to defuse fear of taking action for what you believe in. Examples include the “pussy” hats worn in the women’s marches or reports of sightings of Bigfoot and space aliens submitted to a government website that had called on citizens to report the criminal activities of undocumented aliens, which quickly was taken down as the postings became more and more ludicrous.

Appreciating the Best and Guarding Against Its Slippery Slope

Joy is the fruit of spiritual attainment when it is tempered by love. The Dalai Lama is almost always smiling and making little teasing jokes. Psychologists tell us that not taking oneself too seriously is a sign of a healthy psyche and a confident person. The mature Jester also has a great capacity to care about others as well as the self, while at the same time not allowing an excess of empathy for the suffering of others to undercut happiness even in the most celebratory and potentially joyful moments.

While some comic events—like someone slipping on a banana peel—are funny only if we withdraw empathy from their victims, humor canpromote fellow feeling. This is especially true when we can laugh with someone because we have been there, too, or know we easily could be. Such humor helps us accept as simply normal parts of ourselves that we might be tempted to feel ashamed of. At the same time, withdrawing empathy even for ourselves is necessary to see the humor in some situations that otherwise could be felt as humiliating. Examples can range from something not that serious, like being inappropriately attired for a formal event, to falling down the winding stairs while making a grand entrance or even to breaking your leg in the fall. Most of us initially need to have empathy for ourselves to recover, but eventually, with distance, we can turn difficult events into funny stories to amuse our friends. 

Hearing about horrible things happening in the larger world in the form of satire is easier to take than feeling the full wham of how awful they are, but this also can suppress the impulse to do something to help. In addition, using humor to suppress your own pain or your compassion for others can lead one to act as the sad clown (think Charlie Chaplin), whose sorrow is always there under the surface. 

Like all archetypes, the Jester has a potential dark underside. For example, the teasing taunts or genial insults that often are part of family life or friendship ideally stay just this side of what could be deeply wounding. Going over this line can happen accidentally or, in the case of bullies of one kind or another, with a clear intent to demean and harm. Those who lack empathy also can be unconsciously cruel (like the modernized Sherlock in the TV series of that name), yet wonder why others do not like them. At an even further extreme, the villain in Batman movies—the Joker—illustrates how this archetype can enjoy wreaking havoc and torturing people. As the Joker explains: “We stopped checking for monsters under our bed when we realized they were inside us.”

Thought Questions:

• What do you do when you need to lighten up?
• Where do you see the Jester archetype in your friends, in the world around you, or in yourself?
• Which Jester qualities might you want more of, and which less?

When life feels like a drag and events are depressing, it is a good time to lighten up. For that, we can call on the Jester. You may know this archetype best in the comedian, the entertainer, the party planner, the cruise director, the satirist, the practical joker, or the friends or colleagues who always crack you up.

The Art of Lightening Up

I’m serious by nature, perhaps intensified by working in the field of depth psychology (where I feel as if I should show up like Freud or Jung, looking wise) and my interest in current events, which leads me to worry about the state of things even when my own life is just fine. I know I’m not alone in often feeling stressed by the pace and complexity of modern life, exacerbated by incessant breaking news, most of which is alarming, sad, and worrisome.

I greatly appreciate comedians who make me laugh instead of cry about things our leaders do that I fear are taking the United States over a cliff, or how polarized my country has become. Anything that gets me out of my head, my list of things to do, and imagining future peril is a godsend. So, I love getting lost in a good mystery novel or an engaging film, or doing something recreational—dancing or time catching up with friends and family—that compels my full attention.

Any of us can be momentarily refreshed by taking time to do whatever pleasurable activity most diverts us. Sometimes a humorous remark can distract us from a serious matter we were worrying about, accomplishing a mood shift from fear to cheer. This shift is a bit like the surprising punchlines that elicit laughs in many jokes. (A guy shows up late for work. The boss yells, "You should have been here at 8:30!" He replies: "Why? What happened at 8:30?" Or, Will Rogers: “I don’t belong to an organized political party. I’m a Democrat.”) The brain seems to love that surprise where it needs to realign all the synapses that were going together down a very different path. In contexts where sexuality (or anything else) is not talked about openly, jokes on such topics often result in an explosion of laughter, caused by the shock of having a taboo shattered and it being OK. The related capacity to shift perspectives accounts for the advantage fun-loving people often have in brainstorming and out of the box thinking.

Doing research for my book Persephone Rising: Awakening the Heroine Within, I reviewed happiness studies in preparation for writing the chapter on Dionysus, the god of joy, dancing, theatre, and wine. I learned about simple actions any of us can take that brighten our day, and that release a hit of happiness chemicals in our bodies. The winners include: engaging in a task you love to do so much that you forget about time; doing something nice for someone else; experiencing closeness with people you care about or love; taking a stroll without a set destination; and practicing gratitude for all that is right in your life and the world.

Jesters All Around Us—But Can They Bring Us Together?

A former colleague and I were talking recently about how worry extrapolates from the present into the future to imagine dire outcomes. However, many sudden changes—the fall of the Berlin Wall or the end of apartheid in South Africa, for instance—were unanticipated, shifting our perspectives in surprising ways. From this, we started wondering where current events might be taking us that would be positive, even though not predicted. Shortly thereafter I was in another rich conversation with a colleague who helps leaders connect dots between events that are not usually seen as related to one another, but actually are.

Right now, Americans notice our differences because that is the dominant cultural narrative: we are told we are in a culture war. What if we started noticing how ubiquitous the Jester is, not only on both sides of the divide, but also in our country overall. The U.S. Declaration of Independence declared the “pursuit of happiness” as a universal human right. There may be another country that also affirms this, but, if so, I do not know about it. America may well have affected the world more through entertainment and the invention of jeans and other casual clothing than in any other way. Americans typically have liked their leaders to have a good sense of humor, even being able to laugh at themselves. Presidents Reagan and Obama were particularly appreciated for having that capacity, as were Presidents Kennedy and Lincoln.

Many Americans today get their news from comedians, and in some states like to elect the wildest candidate out there. These are reminiscent of tall tale heroes like Davy Crockett. The theme song from the TV show about him claimed that he killed a bear when he was three years old and later went to Congress, where he “patched up the crack in the Liberty Bell.” Such exaggeration is experienced as fun rather than lies because they are so transparently not meant to trick anyone.

Laughing together bonds families, friendship groups, and work teams and could unite larger ones like organizations or even countries, including my own. Although our people differ on many political and cultural issues, what we share is a comic spirit, even if it is expressed in divergent ways.

The Emperor’s New Clothes and the Court Jester

Some Jester narratives are inherently about the public sphere, and they are rampant in our culture today. Think about the Hans Christian Andersen children’s story The Emperor’s New Clothes, in which the child reveals that the emperor is naked and the clothes are an illusion. In real public life, humorists point out discrepancies between what leaders say and the actual facts, and laughter results from the relief that comes from not having to pretend that what is happening is acceptable if it is not. This type of humor also can poke fun at people who believe fake facts, thus engendering resentment from those being implicitly, if not explicitly, portrayed as conned or ignorant.

Right now, many get a chuckle from saying anything that offends political correctness (i.e., civility), with laughter evoked from getting a rise out of people they regard as elites or as taking on the role of the moral police. While what they are asserting may not be objectively true, it accurately reflects what people they know are thinking and saying. If the content of what is being said would seem ignorant or even shameful to many, asserting it out loud is a rebellion that elicits the joy of refusing to be shamed and of reasserting moral and intellectual status. It also expresses the childlike glee of the practical joker within any of us who enjoys upsetting the uptight adults in the room.

The court jester’s job in ancient times was to puncture the inevitable pomposity of kings and queens, but to do so humorously, so that it brought them down to earth to face realities—about themselves and their situation—that they might not want to see. Ideally, the royals would get the joke and laugh with the court. Modern Jesters also can critique a serious situation in such a light-hearted way that it can be heard. The late humorist Molly Ivins, after listening to a particularly racist political rant, quipped, “It probably sounded better in the original German.”

Humor also can be used to defuse fear of taking action for what you believe in. Examples include the “pussy” hats worn in the women’s marches or reports of sightings of Bigfoot and space aliens submitted to a government website that had called on citizens to report the criminal activities of undocumented aliens, which quickly was taken down as the postings became more and more ludicrous.

Appreciating the Best and Guarding Against Its Slippery Slope

Joy is the fruit of spiritual attainment when it is tempered by love. The Dalai Lama is almost always smiling and making little teasing jokes. Psychologists tell us that not taking oneself too seriously is a sign of a healthy psyche and a confident person. The mature Jester also has a great capacity to care about others as well as the self, while at the same time not allowing an excess of empathy for the suffering of others to undercut happiness even in the most celebratory and potentially joyful moments.

While some comic events—like someone slipping on a banana peel—are funny only if we withdraw empathy from their victims, humor canpromote fellow feeling. This is especially true when we can laugh with someone because we have been there, too, or know we easily could be. Such humor helps us accept as simply normal parts of ourselves that we might be tempted to feel ashamed of. At the same time, withdrawing empathy even for ourselves is necessary to see the humor in some situations that otherwise could be felt as humiliating. Examples can range from something not that serious, like being inappropriately attired for a formal event, to falling down the winding stairs while making a grand entrance or even to breaking your leg in the fall. Most of us initially need to have empathy for ourselves to recover, but eventually, with distance, we can turn difficult events into funny stories to amuse our friends.

Hearing about horrible things happening in the larger world in the form of satire is easier to take than feeling the full wham of how awful they are, but this also can suppress the impulse to do something to help. In addition, using humor to suppress your own pain or your compassion for others can lead one to act as the sad clown (think Charlie Chaplin), whose sorrow is always there under the surface.

Like all archetypes, the Jester has a potential dark underside. For example, the teasing taunts or genial insults that often are part of family life or friendship ideally stay just this side of what could be deeply wounding. Going over this line can happen accidentally or, in the case of bullies of one kind or another, with a clear intent to demean and harm. Those who lack empathy also can be unconsciously cruel (like the modernized Sherlock in the TV series of that name), yet wonder why others do not like them. At an even further extreme, the villain in Batman movies—the Joker—illustrates how this archetype can enjoy wreaking havoc and torturing people. As the Joker explains: “We stopped checking for monsters under our bed when we realized they were inside us.”

Thought Questions:

• What do you do when you need to lighten up?
• Where do you see the Jester archetype in your friends, in the world around you, or in yourself?
• Which Jester qualities might you want more of, and which less?

Warriors generally are associated with two kinds of courage: (1) the ability to fight to protect themselves and (2) setting goals and developing the strength and skills to accomplish them. If we do not have enough access to the Warrior archetype, we may let other people push us around, lack direction, or fail to achieve our goals because we do not persist. Too much Warrior and every interaction becomes a contest—we want what we want and insist on getting it whatever the cost to others or to our relationships.

The Warrior archetype is very active in the world today, suggesting that getting it right is a challenge that is calling to many of us and to our social systems. The elemental Warrior plotline involves a hero and a villain to be vanquished. You can think of Warrior figures in stories that are literally about war or, in entertainment, conflicts between the good guy and bad guy, including Western shoot-em-ups, and battles against crime, often with lots of chase scenes. The major prop in these stories is a weapon of some kind, and the fight ends with one side being killed or captured.

The Warrior archetype has become so dominant today that in the U.S. we tend to use war story labels to define problems. For example, we’ve had a War on Drugs, a War on Poverty, a continual War on Crime, and now a Culture War—even though none of these are wars that can be won simply by going after the bad guys causing the problem. Considering our cultural differences as a war encourages citizens to identify with one side or the other (or check out), identify their group with the hero, and see the other side as the villain to be vanquished. Of course, this process makes reasoned debate difficult, as is generally true when the good/bad level of the Warrior is triggered. The Warrior archetype is not only active in all sides of this culture, but it is active in somewhat different forms within all of them—some more mature and developed than others.

Primal Warrior: From Hunter to Warrior

The Warrior as an archetype may have evolved from hunters turning their skills to new uses. For example, the abilities needed to hunt animals developed into those that helped hunter/Warriors conquer new lands for their people to inhabit and gain access to needed food supplies, water, or other necessities. It also helped those who fought back against these invaders, just as they would with fierce wild animals charging into a village. Modern imperialism is similar in its underlying pattern. Even today, some wars are imperialistic and some defensive, to protect against attack. At the same time, some Warriors are ruthless killers or mercenaries, while others fight for love of their country, go back for their comrades, treat those they capture with dignity, and prevent civilian casualties as best they can. Where any of us falls on our balance of self-interest and altruism affects this difference in degrees as well as in an absolute polarity.

At present, our war stories are evolving. The old idea of war as good country against bad country has eroded, and, even with comic book-style Superheroes, our good guys often are flawed and the bad guys have some good in them. The War on Terror is essentially a battle against networks of various kinds, not countries, and warfare has now begun to be carried out in cyberspace and in economic competition. It has been clear for some time that with the invention and proliferation of nuclear weapons, war must become an anachronism, if we do not want to end the world as we know it. In our personal lives, more and more of us—guys as well as gals—are growing up being told by our parents and teachers to use our words, not our fists, to resolve conflict.

Warrior Sports, Business, and Religion

The war story also exists as a metaphor in sports such as football, which mimics imperialist aggression, and in virtual wars (such as in video games of various sorts). Free market capitalism’s focus on competition can become warlike when people in business talk of making a killing, defeating the competition, hauling out the tanks, and so on. Corporate takeovers of other businesses sometimes have an imperialistic character to them, as one business conquers another and assimilates it into itself. As with soldiers, some Warriors in business are ruthless, seeking to make money and win at any cost, while others may be fiercely competitive yet concerned for the welfare of their workers, their communities, and the environment. If you or I get caught up and think we will die if we do not reach our goal or defeat the competition, we have been pulled into war story thinking.

Warrior Christianity teaches that there is a battle going on between God and Satan, and it is important to be on the winning side lest Hell await, and the Warrior side of all the Abrahamic religions engages in wars against evil on behalf of God. Whether we are religious or not, if we see ourselves as the moral winners engaged in a contest for the soul of our country against the forces of evil, we may find this a slippery slope into demonizing those we disagree with.

The Warrior Paradigm in Government and Public Policy

The Preamble to the United States Constitution declares that two purposes of our government are to “provide for the common defense” and “promote the general welfare.” The Warrior archetype specializes in the former. When a problem arises, Warriors identify the threats and then seek to eliminate them. In government, the Warrior generally is hawkish in international affairs, harsh on crime, and cares deeply about protecting national borders—in the extreme, viewing undocumented people essentially as invaders. Primal Warriors also emphasize the right of citizens to carry guns and argue that the way to maintain peace is through the deterrent of maximizing the nuclear stockpile and other weapons of mass destruction. In Warrior politics, the goal is to defeat the other party and, to that end, propaganda may replace truth, leading to the epidemic of fake news. However, the Warrior also can fight for values such as “truth, justice, and the American way.” The goal can be to preserve the best of the past or to move toward a vision of the future. In such cases, the enemy is not the other party; rather, it is ignorance, and the weapon is truth.

Beware the Wimp

The Warrior calls us to man or woman up, take stands, work hard, and have a stoic willingness to suffer, if necessary, to get what we want or to defend ourselves or others when we need to do so. The Warrior values strength and fears being, or seeming to be, a wimp. Collectively, Warriors often share a belief that competition, sports, and military service build such strength. Beyond that, Warriors believe in the way boot camp makes wimps strong enough to be soldiers and, similarly, that people need consequences, or else they will wimp out and not work hard. That is why some Warriors are even against helping the poor or providing health insurance: people die in war, and in civic life, they also die if they do not work hard enough to meet their basic needs. For such Warriors, winning the economic war with other nations is signaled by growth in the GDP or a bullish stock market—even if more and more people are poor and suffer or die. After all, in an actual war, casualties are to be expected in the service of victory.

Warrior Evolution Through Archetypal Partnership

Warriors who also have access to the Sagearchetype believe in taking action based on verifiable truth. They can view threats not so much as bad people doing bad things, but rather as systemic problems with multiple causation. The immediate threats they notice can then expand to include issues like climate change, pollution, or growing economic inequality. Similarly, they may view people who do harmful things in the context of their lives and of our society, looking to understand their motivations. For the prison population, they consider what a path forward might be for rehabilitation, just as they consider the issue of undocumented immigrants in the context of immigrants’ home countries, why they left them, their match with the needs of the economy, and what they can contribute or what harm they might do.

The Warrior with Caregivercares about threats to the survival, health, and happiness of individual people and groups. In this context, the Warrior/Caregiver develops strength in our citizenry through capacity development—education and job training, health care, and mandating safe living and working conditions—as well as caring for all those who cannot care for themselves. The Warrior/Caregiver, overall, balances self-interest and altruism, thus promoting the Constitution’s goal of “promoting the general welfare” and delivering on the promise of “liberty and justice for all.”

In partnership with the Magician—for example, in the Star Wars movies—the bad guys are the fascist, cruel Warriors and the rebels are energized by the power of The Force (Magician). Wonder Woman’s magic infuses Warrior superpowers with love; her lasso makes people tell the truth, and her bracelets deflect aggression. In the 2017 Wonder Woman movie the Amazonian hero is caught up in World War I and becomes determined to kill Ares, the god of war, and thus end forever all the pain and suffering he causes. Although she does not use archetypal language, she learns that killing Ares does not end war because warlike impulses are embedded within people. In the language of this blog, this means that you cannot kill an archetype, but archetypes can evolve along with human consciousness. In her identity as Diana Prince, Wonder Woman ends the movie with this statement of her new mission:

I used to want to save the world. To end war and bring peace to mankind. But then, I glimpsed the darkness that lives within their light. I learned that inside every one of them, there will always be both. . . . Now I know. Only love can save the world. So I stay. I fight, and I give. . . . This is my mission now. And forever.

The idea of ending war through the power of love isn’t new. Jesus was on to it, as were many other wise spiritual teachers in various traditions.  Most of us want peace on earth; the question is how to attain it. 

In the 2018 film A Wrinkle in Time, Meg, a rather timid young girl, is called to save her father, who is trapped in the far reaches of the universe. Meg is told she must be a warrior, but not the “kill-the-enemy” kind. The enemy is “It,” a murky, dark power source that is transforming people into robot-like creatures living in prescribed ways, motivated by a lust for power. Meg’s little brother has gone over to the dark side, and her father is trapped there as well. The magical weapon that Meg wields is love, a love powerful enough to defuse “It” and turn her brother back into his wonderful, fully human self, while also freeing her father.

Love has always been present in the Warriors who are willing to die to protect the people they love, or even the road warriors who will work so very hard to provide for their families. The Warrior already has evolved into many new forms that do not involve killing one another, and right now, many are fighting for love as caring for others, along with the right to love who you love, for love of the earth, for love of truth, for love of the Divine and of country, even if we do not always agree with one another about what any of these demand of us.

The point here is that the Warrior, like any archetype, is not good or bad. However, some forms of an archetype are no longer appropriate for the times or for the quality of consciousness of people within a culture or subgroup within it. Some also are wrong or right for you or me. The current time offers us the opportunity to participate in the archetype’s evolution by how we choose to live it. In doing so, we can see that we do not need to be at war with others in our country. We are all on the Warrior team to some degree, playing different positions. We just need to talk with one another about what we see as the most pressing threats and where we need to use force, where we need to provide support, where we need to use our words, and when the magic of love is required to win the day for everyone.

The Warrior archetype evolves as we do, so:

• Do you need less or more Warrior to deal with a current threat or challenge?
• Where do you see the Warrior in yourself and in what you think and do?
• What forms of the Warrior do you see in yourself and people around you, and how is their influence affecting you? 
• How might you like your inner Warrior to change and evolve in its attitudes and behaviors?
• How might this change affect outcomes for you and those around you?

Gender roles are in flux in a good way, so that we all have access to archetypes related to human attributes that have been divided up by traditional sex roles. Psychologists believed for much of the 20^th century that mental health required fidelity to traditional sex roles, which often, when viewed in archetypal terms, meant Warrior and Explorer archetypal behaviors were expected to predominate in men and Caregiver and Lover in women. But attitudes evolve with the times. C.G. Jung, early in the 20^th century, believed that by midlife a man needed to integrate his feminine side, which he called the anima, just as a woman needed to integrate her masculine side, which he called the animus.[i] In the 1970s, psychologist Sandra Bem demonstrated that successful people were more androgynous than ones locked into more traditional gender identities throughout adult life.[ii]

Psychologists now generally help both men and women be true to their authentic natures, regardless of their genders, as long as the way they behave does not make them dysfunctional in the world in which they live. Many individuals today, especially the young, see gender itself as on a continuum, thus loosening the categories and allowing more and more people to simply be true to themselves, rather than stuck in roles. To understand why there still needs to be a #MeToo movement this long after the feminist movement of the 1970s, it is important to recognize that we are in the midst of a major unfinished revolution, so that behaviors persist in both men and women that are remnants from a patriarchal legacy that defined people by roles within a hierarchy and believed that social good came from everyone staying in the roles to which they were assigned.

Archetypes and Gender Roles

Historically, the male role and what people saw as being masculine has had a Warrior and Explorer cast to it. Men were supposed to go out into a brutal dog-eat-dog world and compete to provide for their families, becoming then the head of the family as well as running the public world (which also assumed a masculine Ruler archetype power-over-women dynamic). The female role, and what was seen as being appropriately feminine, assumed Caregiver and Lover traits that were required to meet role expectations: Women were to take care of the home, the children, and the husband, providing the emotional safety, intimacy, and pleasure that the husband otherwise would not experience. When women worked outside the home, they were encouraged to do so in related caring, service, or decorative functions.

The Warrior, Caregiver, Explorer, and Lover are archetypes available to us all[iii], and we live in a time when we do not have to repress half of our human potential to get along in society. And even in the 20^th century, as long as someone showed enough of their gender’s scripted archetypes in their behaviors, they could, and did, branch out to become more fully whole. Many of us growing up even before the feminist movement of the late 1960s and 70s had real dads who, in practice, were not completely defined by this divide. Such dads contributed to caring for us. Many moms similarly took care of us while also braving what was seen as the tougher work world.

The Lover archetype also was frequently present for men, at least during courtship, and has always been evident in marriages based on genuine love and caring for one another enhanced by mutual desire. Happy marriages often were partnerships where love was stronger than the patriarchal power dynamic in the larger world, as they are now. For many in all classes in the past, marriages were primarily role based, and considered to be good if each partner simply contributed what their sex role required of them. However, in the upper classes, marriages were and often still are about status. Royalty married to unite powerful families, and today, many highly successful men acquire trophy wives as status symbols.

Since the 1970s, women’s roles have expanded greatly and men’s somewhat. Unfortunately, in some circles the macho ideal continues to define masculinity as not being a sissy, meaning not being like a girl. Male bonding can then be accompanied by cruel teasing of boys and men if they seem to be caring and/or in love (pronounced “luuuhv”). This hurts all of us, as male-ascribed archetypes without their feminine complements can be heartless and ruthless.

War Stories With or Without the Caregiver and Lover Archetypes

Given current ideas about men, most of us find it shocking when we read that Buddhists are raping and pillaging in Myanmar. Judeo-Christian and Buddhist teachings both emphasize the requirement to love, the former saying “Love they neighbor as thyself” and the latter, “Practice loving kindness.” So how can we explain rape and pillaging behavior, when, theoretically, male warriors should live by the ethics of their religions? The Warrior archetype’s expression requires a withdrawal of empathy (so that warriors can kill without feeling for their enemy). In its most ruthless mode, the Warrior assumes that all the spoils of war, including women, are for the taking. Raping and pillaging, of course, result in any enemy wanting revenge, creating a vicious cycle.

American soldiers in World War II were expected to show care and restraint, not just for one another, but for civilians and captured enemy combatants as well. The post-war Caregiver Marshall Plan helped to create long-term peace in Europe, including with countries that had been our enemies. But the potential for the expression of the negative Warrior underbelly is always there, sometimes even in soldiers whose religious traditions should be a check against such behaviors.

Business and Political War Story Mirrors

Business and politics often mirror a war story. In both, we see what happens when caring and empathy are not operating as a check on winning, so that success can come at the expense of other people or the earth. Warrior takeovers of other companies can be brutal and mirror patterns of imperialism, while mergers done with a Warrior/Caregiver spirit can bring out the best in both. Warrior political wins are often about gaining the policy and economic spoils, and then treating the other party as a conquered nation. However, in times when the Caregiver also is present, civil discourse with the Warrior, such as when Democrats and Republicans have found common cause, can lead to an ability to protect a country from genuine dangers and further the general welfare of its people and the larger, global common good.

What Does This Mean for the #MeToo Movement?

When the Warrior and the Explorer partner within men without the softening, empathic archetypes expected of women, romance becomes conquest. Getting the desired object in bed is a way of winning, which offers sensual pleasure without love or caring, often followed by a quick escape from responsibility for any consequences. In romance as in commerce, some men assume that if they have bought dinner, they are entitled to sex. If men are powerful enough, or if they pay a woman’s salary, some then assume that she will let them talk dirty, act dirty, grab her private parts, or otherwise engage in sexual activities with them. Sadly, all this can be reinforced through male bonding within some groups as something to brag about and be envied for. It also happens in peer relationships, with men showing dominance with pin-up pictures on the wall and sexually demeaning comments. All this would not be happening if the men involved could and would empathize with what this would feel like to a woman. Indeed, such empathy is possible: Men with awakened Lover and Caregiver archetypes have no trouble manifesting it.

At the same time, Caregiver and Lover dominance in women, without the strength and power of the Warrior and Explorer, can lead to victimization. We still have wives who put up with abuse, hoping to transform the beast by just being more loving. Some wonder why women in demeaning or abusive situations do not immediately speak up or leave. Yes, part of this results from a lack of economic opportunity or a protective Caregiver impulse to stay to protect co-workers from an oppressive boss or the children at home from an abusive husband. Without an awakened inner Warrior and Explorer, women may not know how to defend their boundaries or have the courage to walk away.

Without these archetypes, the first impulse of the Lover/Caregiver is to take care of, please, and make nice even when being treated as secondary (paid less, not listened to) or being harassed or abused. Sadly, just dealing as creatively as possible with abuse has been seen as a functional response for women in a world where men had all the power. And tragically, such situations persist. Still today, we see women fired for not being considered nice enough to fit the feminine role and or derided as sluts if they give in to sexual demands in order to keep their jobs. Even in cases where romantic involvement is reciprocal, most often it is the woman who loses her job when the relationship ends. But in all these cases, women find that even when they do speak up, they are not listened to.

Implementing #TimesUp Requires Societal and Inner Work

Given all this, we cannot just declare that the time is up for gender related harassment and abuse and think it will happen. We can, and should, withdraw society’s implicit acceptance of such conduct. That is, however, just the first step, along with clarifying legal gradations of minor and major oppressive behaviors, with clarity about the consequences. We then need to tease out the roots of this repressive pattern, not just in history or regressive social attitudes, but also in our psyches. Yes, power corrupts, but power expressed through the Warrior/Explorer duo often stamps out caring in both abusers and their traumatized victims, who can then become numb. While part of the solution is a more equitable society, we also must deal with archetypal forces that keep some men and women trapped in oppressor/victim situations, while also helping all of us become more healthy and whole. All those, and all of you, who combine strength and caring in how you behave already are part of the answer.

If that is you, keep it up. If not, you can use archetypal awareness to develop the qualities that will expand your range for your good and that of others.

[i] Jung, Carl. The Psychology of the Unconscious, Dvir Co., Ltd., Tel-Aviv, 1973 (originally 1917).

[ii] Bem, Sandra L. (1974). "The measurement of psychological androgyny," Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology. 42, 155–62.

[iii] If you are unfamiliar with these archetypes, check out my website (www.herowithin.com) or see my books Awakening the Heroes Within or What Story Are You Living?

The most profitable film genre in America today offers horror, as does television: These include narratives about the apocalypse, ghosts, zombies, and vampires.

Why do we like them, and what are they telling us?

Given nuclear proliferation, terrorism, and climate change, it is no surprise that people are drawn to movies about the apocalypse. Some of these movies are wakeup calls to heed the threats before us. And for many of us today, the 21^st century itself seems terrifying. The quick pace of life, the need to learn new things continually just to keep up, career paths that disappear in the wake of new innovations or trends, jobs offering less or no security: all are unnerving. On top of that, greater awareness of cultural differences around the world or in subcultures within one’s own country threaten deep-seated beliefs, and can upset the fundamental certainties that previously provided the security that comes from feeling confident about what is true. It is comforting to experience vicariously a fictional equivalent of our worst fears, where people grapple with horrible conditions much worse than what we are subjected to in the present, and respond to them in heroic ways.

Fearing the Apocalypse and the “Other”

Watching apocalyptic films and shows offers virtual catharsis that can help people handle contemporary fears. Blockbuster post-apocalyptic movies like The Hunger Games provide metaphors for horrors people are feeling right now, in this case the pressure and competition that many adolescents experience as almost life-threatening, and that sometimes lead to burnout or even suicide. Films such as the Star Wars series warn of fascist and other autocratic takeovers that could result in dystopian outcomes, and offer an antidote in rebellion. Fears are lessened when we know what we would have to do if the worst actually occurs.

Alien invasion plots mirror fears of the “other” that many have in an increasingly multicultural environment. Most present the classic warrior response to the “others”: to view them as invaders and kill them. In the best case, this response can siphon off our terror,” allowing us to recognize that people of a different race or religion, or emigrating from another culture, are just human and not nearly as scary as those horrific monsters on the screen. At the same time, a few alien movies, like Close Encounters of the Third Kind or Arrival, provide insights into differentiating between those “others” that could be friends and allies and the ones that present a true danger, while Avatar offers perspective by reversing the roles. In that film, most of the humans from planet Earth are the evil invaders and the audience roots for the native intelligence, which teaches the better earthlings a thing or two.

But why are there so many walking dead in horror films? Ghosts, zombies, and vampires seem to be telling us that the persistence of past realities is threatening our lives right now.

Ghosts Haunting Us?

Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too.

They live inside us, and sometimes, they win.

Stephen King, The Shining

Imagine yourself becoming aware that your home is haunted until suddenly a ghost emerges, coming after you and destroying everything in its wake. You run for your life, hoping desperately that you can get away.

Often ghosts in fiction fail to move on, remaining in a place where they experienced abuse or trauma, or were held prisoner, because they have not come to terms with what happened to them. Such ghosts also are disproportionately female, says Hephzibah Anderson, in “The Secret Meaning of Ghost Stories.”[i] She concludes that women writers frequently have expressed their anger about their own oppressive experiences through the voice of a ghost that creates the kind of havoc the author feels but cannot voice or act out in her own time. In the context of the current #MeToo movement, we hear women beginning to speak out about harassment and abuse—even rape—that they had been afraid to share, yet the memories of which still haunt them. Men also have such experiences, as we learned regarding priests who abused altar boys and now with adult males joining the #MeToo movement and similarly telling of how persistent the sense of traumatic violation is. Anyone can be haunted by past trauma, including those with war-related PTSD. In his story collection The Things They Carried, veteran and author Tim O’Brien writes, “I carry the memory of the ghosts of a place called Vietnam….”

Reentering the environment in which the trauma occurred can resurrect buried feelings related to such an event, and the fear, rage, and horror still haunting us can emerge with violent emotions. These persist until the event is integrated into our psyches (ideally with some help from a trained therapist). An individual or an entire culture also can be haunted by the memory of being the oppressor. Denying wrongdoing or working to repress an individual or collective memory of the harm done to another shuts down the heart and the mind. Restored health and wholeness are accomplished most powerfully through finding a way to atone or at least feeling and expressing remorse, learning from what you might wish you had done, and behaving differently in the future. In the meantime, ghost stories can provide vicarious experiences that help us identify the way that we are like the ghost or his or her tormentor. Either way, we can act to free the ghosts within.

Are the Walking Dead Eating Our Brains?

When winter sets and the land begins to shiver,

The Flayed Man will start to rot and wither.

Game of Thrones Theme Song, Lyrics by Forte vocal group

Imagine you are huddled with others as zombies surround your hiding place, seeking to eat your brains. They are terrifying creatures with rotted flesh that falls off as they lurch toward you. What makes this worse is that the hero of such a story, who you may identify with, never knows which human that seems to be an ally is on the way to becoming a zombie—and it could be you.

Comic book writer Alan Moore nailed why zombies are so popular right now: “Culture is just a shambling zombie that repeats what it did in life; bits of it drop off, and it does not appear to notice.” Any of us who has continued living an old pattern in new circumstances knows what it feels like to hulk around zombie-like, repeating old habits that make us feel less and less alive. We see this in society and politics today, where so many people want to turn back the clock and live in the past. After all, they believe, that was a time when people knew what to do and how to act, which they still regard as the norm.

But what about this eating brains business? Zombies started eating brains in the movie The Return of the Living Dead. Jack Flacco explains that the brains “provide zombies with the necessary endorphins to dull the pain of Rigor Mortis brought about by decomposition. The more brains, the less pain.”[ii] If we read zombie movies as metaphors, we can see them as warnings about how living old, dead ideas and patterns of behavior makes us dumb. We observe around us how people who yearn to live in an earlier time concoct fake news to invite others into this alternative world, and the temptation others feel to respond in kind. There is short-term comfort to be found in tribes of agreement, but zombie stories warn us that the result of all this will not be pretty. Zombies kill the living, just as trying to live in a world that is now dead can kill our aliveness. To remain energized and human, it is critical to have a learning mindset so that we can deal with real threats and say “Yes!” to new opportunities.

Are Vampires Really Drinking Our Blood?

To make you a vampire they have to suck your blood. And then you have to suck their blood. It’s like a whole big sucking thing.

Buffy, “Welcome to the Hellmouth,” Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Imagine a vampire emerging from the coffin desperately craving a blood fix. Its very need creates an aura of the erotic, taking the form of your ideal romantic partner. You lie in bed, vulnerable from sleep and entranced by the arousal you see in its eyes, and when it moves toward your neck, your head slides back in a blissful swoon, and as it gently sucks your blood, you feel you are merging with it, experiencing an erotic pleasure much like an orgasm. Only when it lets go do you recognize that you have become one of the living dead. Did you know it was a vampire when you let your head tilt back? Well, sort of. You knew and did not know, but retreating into the erotic trance it offered was just too appealing to resist.

The vampire’s appeal is erotic, but an eroticism connected not with life, but with death. Who among us has not wanted occasionally to retreat from life and just put the covers over their head? Failing that, a drink or binge eating or distracting oneself with work or shopping might suffice. But vampires want more. However, it has likely occurred to you already, reading this, that the vampire is a great metaphor for the appeal of addiction. No wonder vampires are all over popular media today. Vampire stories are mimicking the allure of the momentary high that eventually, if continued, results in death. We live in a culture that, in the midst of an opioid crisis, also offers all sorts of more socially acceptable addictions.

Meanwhile, the wealth of the world keeps trickling up to a few, a capitalist phenomenon that Voltaire described as “stock-jobbers, brokers, and men of business, who sucked the blood of the people in broad daylight.”[iii] In my view, the current capitalist vampire does not consist of individuals; it is the meritocracy story. In the context of growing inequality and limited access to upward mobility, it nevertheless tells us that some of us are winners and some losers—somebodies and nobodies. This creates an addiction in some of the wealthy, so that they always need more and more money, and more and more of the trappings of wealth, to feel OK. At the same time, this internalized story is sucking the self-esteem right out of many ordinary folks—that is, if they buy into that storyline. Similarly, the veneration of celebrities leaves many people dependent on their “likes” or on their ratings, fearful that without them they are nobodies and do not count.

So, What to Do?

All these horror stories are cautionary tales, asking us to heed their warnings so as not to fall into their traps:

• Do your best to learn how to succeed in the 21^st century rather than escape to a mythical past.
• Work to be able to discern who actually poses a danger to you and who just triggers the instinctive fear-of-the-“other” response.
• Deal with past issues—including harm done to you and harm you have done—that are still haunting you.
• Tell the truth, avoid fake news, and seek accurate information.
• Resist the impulse to expose your neck toward the person who would con you, the drug that would harm you, or a story that would demean you.

And, most of all, recognize that you are the best you that will ever be. You do not need to judge your self-worth by your net worth, how well known you are, or how you compare with others. The truer you are to your best self, the less likely it is that your life will become or remain a horror story.

[i] BBC, January 22, 2016.

[ii] jackflacco.com, 2013.

[iii] From his definition of Vampire, Philosophical Dictionary.

Fights over conflicting viewpoints, including those between young adults and their parents, are common in life. Now, in the U.S. and elsewhere, the political opinions of different groups have begun to ossify, so that it is difficult for citizens to hear one another or have civil discussions about areas of disagreement. If this continues, solutions to major problems will not be found, or a seesaw effect will take over, where one political party will just erase what the last one did, with the net result being chaos. If we hope to live in any kind of democracy or otherwise shape the future of our countries, we need to be able to talk with our fellow citizens and develop consensus about crucial issues in order to influence our leaders. The skills required to do this also can help us apply social intelligence in other parts of our lives, leading to better relationships in our families, friendship networks, and workplaces.

The Power of Stories Told to Us To Determine Our Beliefs

The challenge in talking with those with whom we disagree is that our most vehemently held attitudes often are based on what we are told by others, so we are less able to critique what we hear. Most of us are more complex thinkers in areas where we have direct experience. A farmer is likely to understand multiple causality in farming—success depends on the soil, proper planting and care, weather, control of pests, etc.—but may think in more simple and judgmental terms about someone they do not know who is in poverty, especially if he or she also is told that poverty is caused by people making bad choices. A poor inner city child might know many ways to use old newspapers, while a suburban kid would assume that you read them and recycle or just throw them away.

I know about applied psychology, and you know about whatever you focus on. We are all smarter about those spheres where we have our own experience and where our focus of attention has been. Most if not all of us are dependent upon the news media, our friendship networks, and people we trust and admire to give us the big picture of what is happening in the larger world. In the U.S., many of us think that health care is a mess, but we love our doctor; we believe that American education is failing, but we love our local schools; we fear that all politicians are corrupt, but we like our own representative, and so on. Thus, we end up disagreeing with one another about larger realities that we learn about second hand.

We also have been beset by fake news, as is the case in many other countries. This leads to a pressing need for us to learn to decode what is true and what is not, and how we can help others do the same. Some of our better media outlets are beginning to identify overt lies or mistakes about the facts. However, the larger issue is much more complex than that. Getting the facts and data correct is helpful but does not solve the entire problem: Perceived truth comes down to “facts + story.” Most of us focus on the facts we notice but assume that the story we have been told about them is true.

An Example: the Climate Change Debate

Many people in the U.S. challenge facts about climate change that are accepted in much of the rest of the world based on the story they are told about them. For example:

• Scientist Story: We have studied the facts and concluded that some part of climate change is caused by human activity and can be alleviated if we move quickly. We have come to this conclusion from seeking out the narrative that best fits all the facts.
• Pro- Story: If we have faith in science and in human agency, we, as citizens, believe the scientist story, so it is our perceived truth.
• Anti- Stories: If, as some of our citizens do, we challenge the idea that humans have a role in climate change, we may base this belief on one of the following stories: “weather is in God’s hands,” or “these changes are part of a natural cycle,” or “climate change is a conspiracy perpetrated by the Chinese.” Some even go so far as to disavow any concern for the environment more generally.
• Both pro- and anti-climate change positions also can simply be a result of which political party people belong to or what kind of religious group, if any, they affiliate with, and what other members of the group they identify with all seem to think.

So, let’s say you are on the pro side on this issue and want to convince those on the anti side to take needed action. Talking more about the data alone would not convince those skeptical about climate change. To know how to even start, it is a good idea to figure out what plotlines are running through the mind of the person you are talking with.

The religious argument might be countered through referencing scripture, the natural cycle story through risk analysis (what happens if you are wrong?), and the conspiracy theory through exploring who is actually benefitting from propagating this narrative. If the opinion results from trust in authorities or the desire to be one of the group, sharing information about authorities and rank and file members of the pro-climate change side in the group they identify with might work well. In talking with any climate skeptic, it also might work to ask what harm would come from cleaning up the atmosphere. Putting them down as “climate deniers” just gets their backs up.

Decoding Archetypal Stories

It would be helpful to all of us if journalists understood the distinction between facts and story. Decoding what story is being told implies an action plan for any given issue being discussed. They could address spin by asking follow-up questions about where that narrative takes us down the road. For example, in the U.S. we are being told that Americans are in a culture war with one another. But where does that lead? To demonizing and trying to defeat one another rather than learning from each other. Similarly, if you see yourself as in a war story when you talk with others who hold views different than your own, do you then just want to win, or are you willing to listen?

Getting curious about the story being told and the facts noticed can help us listen to one another and communicate our beliefs more civilly. This might include saying, “The facts that seem most important to me are these _____, and the story I tell myself about them is _____.” (Fill in the blanks.) Generally, most people will cast themselves, or those they admire, in the role of the central character of the story being told. The plotline will suggest what they might be faced with (what they notice) and what they then might do. Three examples of the types of stories important to the U.S.’s current national plight:

• The Warrior (often present in Republican policies) pays attention to facts that are threats, and its plotline says: protect yourself and defeat the opposition.
• The Caregiver (often present in Democratic policies) notices human needs, and its plotline says: meet them.
• The Explorer (the founding narrative of the U.S.) notices that life is getting boring, predictable, or oppressive, and its plotline says: take a journey—literal or metaphorical—to get to a better place.

Whatever country you live in, you likely can find some name for a pattern of thinking that allows you to identify the stories that predominate in your political debates or interpersonal conflicts.

If we want to communicate with someone who does not agree with us, we may need to tiptoe a bit. Most of us fall prey to confirmation bias, so that no matter how good the opposition’s arguments are, we mentally dispute them, thus reinforcing what we thought in the first place. This prevents us from adopting a learning mindset that provides the curiosity needed to expand our horizons. Even if you never change your mind about the issue you are talking about, such a stance will help you understand others much better than before. Keeping an open mind by recognizing what stories we are assuming (and perhaps naming them) can allow us to listen more carefully to the stories others are telling.[1]

Achieving a Happy Outcome

Archetypal (i.e., universal) narratives can help us predict outcomes. The same main character can follow a plotline toward a happy or tragic ending, depending on how well the story matches the situation. You don’t want to be acting as if you are in the Warrior story when you go out on a date or a Lover story when someone is coming at you with a knife. Staying with the example of climate change, a Warrior might be drawn into action by seeing it as a threat, while a Caregiver might be moved to do something out of empathy for the human and environmental cost of inaction, and imagining how preventive actions might become a great adventure could intrigue an Explorer.

Most of all, any of us can escape feeling continually frustrated by the stupid things we think others believe by enjoying the process of observing what facts they notice and the stories they tell about them. At the very least, we can learn to understand humankind better and sometimes feel more compassion for others who are different from ourselves. Doing this actually could come in handy. The stories we hear others tell can expand our situational flexibility, beginning with curiosity about what might happen if we tried living that plotline we learned from them in some situation where it just might help.

[1] To find some archetypal story names, check out my books Awakening the Heroes Within or What Story Are You Living?, or just make up your own names for the stories you tell and hear.

Most of us get little help in navigating sibling relationships or seeing how they affect us. Recently, I was asked to give a presentation on sisters and brothers and found there is very little written about this important topic. Even family system literature focuses more on parents and addressing children’s problems, which, of course, are very important concerns. I decided to explore how our sibling relationships affect the stories we live because those stories shape who we become. For example, fighting with a sibling can build your Warrior story abilities, while being silly can encourage your Jester humor and fun.

My hypothesis, based on what I did learn from the existing literature, was that parents have a big role in this, as they tell children what is expected of them and also are the primary models children initially have. Children make even very early decisions to comply or not, most of which come when we are so young that we tend to forget we made them. Once children enter a family, each child has the task of figuring out how to belong and also carve out a particular way of acting so that people have a sense of him or her as an individual. The first child has a more open field of choice in this, except for needing to please the parents. The second generally needs to do something a bit different.

Real life examples from a small, informal study I conducted: One man shared how he and his brother fought all the time when his younger brother was annoyingly copying everything he did (same clubs, teams, etc.). Happily, when they went into separate fields and attended different colleges, and thus differentiated, they started getting along. Several respondents reported that they were given the responsibility of caring for a younger child (or all the other children), which led to their having Caregiver values and skills throughout life, while one found that this prepared her for leadership, even though she resented the tasks at the time.

Some who loved and were close to their siblings found that these relationships built their ability to demonstrate the Lover’s skills of intimacy, closeness, and ease of communicating. Just as often, respondents reported that having siblings who carried on a negative pattern (for example, being combative and mean) led to their seeing them as little as possible in order to follow a very different and healthier path. Another, raised in a dysfunctional family (for example, with alcoholic or drug addicted parents), shared gratitude to a stepsister whose kindness and caring made all the difference in her life

One woman whose twin sister died at birth keeps her in her heart, thinking about what the sister would have decided to do and be as she maneuvers her own life, which expands her own horizons. An only child had a friend who was like a sister to her found that sibling relationships as discussed here were active in that relationship, just as if they had blood ties.

Siblings who go through hard times together often develop resilience that assists them with managing life’s ups and downs (Realist). Working through ways they may have hurt one another can build an important skill for working with other people (Lover), which someday may result in keeping a marriage together. Being the family mediator and healer similarly fosters skills that later can bring a demoralized workplace staff back to being excited about their work and their jobs (Magician). Much of who we are is forged in these relationships, however challenging they might have been.

Applying what I’m learning to myself: I have one brother nine years younger than me. Our parents modeled, and taught us to be, loving Caregivers, so Doug and I missed out on sibling rivalry, partly because of the age difference and also because it would have been frowned upon, a fact that I realize has been a liability for me in my career. I’m totally lousy at noticing, much less dealing with, sibling rivalry behaviors that often erupt in the workplace. Doug and I both have traveled a lot in our work (Seeker), but I fly here and there in comfortable surroundings to speak and consult, while he works outside, sometimes in -40 and sometimes in way over 100 degree weather, doing very complicated, technical, and sometimes dangerous work. I got the academic degrees (Sage), while he got courage (Warrior), technical competence (Realist), and a much more cheerful outlook on life (Jester). In our adult lives, we both have gravitated to leadership positions and we are quite close, mainly by phone, given our schedules. We interact in a playful, Jester way or with more Lover conversational intimacy. Our conversations reinforce these archetypes in me, for which I am grateful.

An opportunity to apply these ideas to your own journey: All these cases are different from one another, but there are some commonalities that are easy to apply to anyone’s personal experience. Check out the following list of activities that you may have done with your siblings. They are introduced with names of the archetypal characters and their plotlines you actually may have been experiencing through what you and your brothers or sisters did, or didn’t do, together. Choose as many as apply.[1]

• Innocent/Idealist—following rules, being good, wishing on a star, imagining what you would like to do or be
• Orphan/Realist—commiserating, consoling, coping
• Caregiver—caring for one another, dolls, pets, friends
• Warrior—arguing, competing and fighting, war games
• Seeker—having adventures, doing new things, seeing what is possible
• Lover—being close, emotionally supportive, intimate sharing, grooming, making beauty
• Creator—doing creative projects: art, inventions, fantasy play, building with blocks
• Revolutionary—breaking the rules, rebelling, or standing up for something you believe in, going to protests
• Ruler—bossing each other around, playing games where someone is in charge, starting a business, collecting and organizing things
• Jester—being playful, cutting up, being silly, telling jokes, playing tricks
• Sage—learning about things, studying, sharing ideas and theories
• Magician—doing magic tricks, reading fantasy literature, acting out magical stories, imagining wondrous other worlds or strange possibilities

In closing, most people never recognize how their brothers or sisters have influenced who they have become or considered the impact of being close to them or being distant, either of which could be sensible and helpful choices. I know that doing the research for the talk I recently gave and writing this blog have helped me appreciate my brother even more than before because I see his contribution to my life more clearly. I hope that these ideas help you become even clearer about your sibling relationships, whether or not they are positive

[1] If you want to match your answers with information about the archetypal characters you are most like now, go to www.capt.org and check out the Pearson-Marr Archetype Indicator™ instrument. This instrument is published by the Center for Applications of Psychological Type.

By Carol S. Pearson

Most of us get little help in navigating sibling relationships or seeing how they affect us. Recently, I was asked to give a presentation on sisters and brothers and found there is very little written about this important topic. Even family system literature focuses more on parents and addressing children’s problems, which, of course, are very important concerns. I decided to explore how our sibling relationships affect the stories we live because those stories shape who we become. For example, fighting with a sibling can build your Warrior story abilities, while being silly can encourage your Jester humor and fun.

My hypothesis, based on what I did learn from the existing literature, was that parents have a big role in this, as they tell children what is expected of them and also are the primary models children initially have. Children make even very early decisions to comply or not, most of which come when we are so young that we tend to forget we made them. Once children enter a family, each child has the task of figuring out how to belong and also carve out a particular way of acting so that people have a sense of him or her as an individual. The first child has a more open field of choice in this, except for needing to please the parents. The second generally needs to do something a bit different.

Real life examples from a small, informal study I conducted: One man shared how he and his brother fought all the time when his younger brother was annoyingly copying everything he did (same clubs, teams, etc.). Happily, when they went into separate fields and attended different colleges, and thus differentiated, they started getting along. Several respondents reported that they were given the responsibility of caring for a younger child (or all the other children), which led to their having Caregiver values and skills throughout life, while one found that this prepared her for leadership, even though she resented the tasks at the time.

Some who loved and were close to their siblings found that these relationships built their ability to demonstrate the Lover’s skills of intimacy, closeness, and ease of communicating. Just as often, respondents reported that having siblings who carried on a negative pattern (for example, being combative and mean) led to their seeing them as little as possible in order to follow a very different and healthier path. Another, raised in a dysfunctional family (for example, with alcoholic or drug addicted parents), shared gratitude to a stepsister whose kindness and caring made all the difference in her life

One woman whose twin sister died at birth keeps her in her heart, thinking about what the sister would have decided to do and be as she maneuvers her own life, which expands her own horizons. An only child had a friend who was like a sister to her found that sibling relationships as discussed here were active in that relationship, just as if they had blood ties.

Siblings who go through hard times together often develop resilience that assists them with managing life’s ups and downs (Realist). Working through ways they may have hurt one another can build an important skill for working with other people (Lover), which someday may result in keeping a marriage together. Being the family mediator and healer similarly fosters skills that later can bring a demoralized workplace staff back to being excited about their work and their jobs (Magician). Much of who we are is forged in these relationships, however challenging they might have been.

Applying what I’m learning to myself: I have one brother nine years younger than me. Our parents modeled, and taught us to be, loving Caregivers, so Doug and I missed out on sibling rivalry, partly because of the age difference and also because it would have been frowned upon, a fact that I realize has been a liability for me in my career. I’m totally lousy at noticing, much less dealing with, sibling rivalry behaviors that often erupt in the workplace. Doug and I both have traveled a lot in our work (Seeker), but I fly here and there in comfortable surroundings to speak and consult, while he works outside, sometimes in -40 and sometimes in way over 100 degree weather, doing very complicated, technical, and sometimes dangerous work. I got the academic degrees (Sage), while he got courage (Warrior), technical competence (Realist), and a much more cheerful outlook on life (Jester). In our adult lives, we both have gravitated to leadership positions and we are quite close, mainly by phone, given our schedules. We interact in a playful, Jester way or with more Lover conversational intimacy. Our conversations reinforce these archetypes in me, for which I am grateful.

An opportunity to apply these ideas to your own journey: All these cases are different from one another, but there are some commonalities that are easy to apply to anyone’s personal experience. Check out the following list of activities that you may have done with your siblings. They are introduced with names of the archetypal characters and their plotlines you actually may have been experiencing through what you and your brothers or sisters did, or didn’t do, together. Choose as many as apply.[1]

• Innocent/Idealist—following rules, being good, wishing on a star, imagining what you would like to do or be

• Orphan/Realist—commiserating, consoling, coping
• Caregiver—caring for one another, dolls, pets, friends
• Warrior—arguing, competing and fighting, war games
• Seeker—having adventures, doing new things, seeing what is possible
• Lover—being close, emotionally supportive, intimate sharing, grooming, making beauty
• Creator—doing creative projects: art, inventions, fantasy play, building with blocks
• Revolutionary—breaking the rules, rebelling, or standing up for something you believe in, going to protests
• Ruler—bossing each other around, playing games where someone is in charge, starting a business, collecting and organizing things
• Jester—being playful, cutting up, being silly, telling jokes, playing tricks
• Sage—learning about things, studying, sharing ideas and theories
• Magician—doing magic tricks, reading fantasy literature, acting out magical stories, imagining wondrous other worlds or strange possibilities

In closing, most people never recognize how their brothers or sisters have influenced who they have become or considered the impact of being close to them or being distant, either of which could be sensible and helpful choices. I know that doing the research for the talk I recently gave and writing this blog have helped me appreciate my brother even more than before because I see his contribution to my life more clearly.  I hope that these ideas help you become even clearer about your sibling relationships, whether or not they are positive

Life in the 21^st century is challenging for all of us. We are living in a globally interdependent world, where time has accelerated, learning challenges are constant, and it is difficult to keep up with the pace of change and not feel overwhelmed. On top of that, physicists tell us that time and space are relative, which is difficult for any of us to understand when they seem so absolute. At the same time, neuroscientists are finding that our brains filter out much of what we see, organizing what is taken in through pattern recognition, which includes archetypal narratives, but also alerting us that what we, individually, take to be reality might be only partially true or not true at all. How to function when we cannot count on reality being what we thought it was? Even though much knowledge is now available to us about brain plasticity, which provides hope that we can learn to see things differently in addressing new challenges, such changes do not happen overnight.

The movie Arrival is an example of the 21^st century thinking that potentially is available to many of us, at least in small ways. In it, a seemingly mild-mannered heroine, Louise Banks, who by day is a professor of linguistics, responds to a call that seems to require a superwoman: to help save the world. Mysterious spacecraft have landed at 12 sites around the planet. The extraterrestrials in them are heptapods, which look a bit like octopuses—that is, if the latter had one less tentacle and could stand upright. Louise is recruited by the American military to decipher the language of the aliens and enable communication with them. By ordinary standards, a linguist might be a bit player in such a situation, but instead, Louise is the one who facilitates a positive outcome to this encounter, and she does this by utilizing very feminine capacities that have morphed to meet the needs of this new time.

The movie has a very dreamlike ambiance. After news of the landings has spread, Louise is awakened by a helicopter in the middle of the night, and a U.S. Army colonel gives her ten minutes to decide whether to go with them and pack her things. As soon as they arrive at the Montana site where an elliptical spaceship hovers vertically above the ground, she is given some preventive injections, suited up to be protected against contamination, and taken to the ship, where she, her companion physicist, Ian, and an Army team ascend into a tunnel (like a birth canal or near death experience with light at the end) where there is no gravity, finally arriving in a setting with the heptapods, surrounded by mist, behind a clear, window-like wall.

Seen symbolically, the heptapods can represent a new archetype arising from the unconscious, ready to take form in the conscious world, as they also provide a stand-in for the contemporary challenge of dealing with others in this new—and confusing—contemporary reality. In such a time, any of us might have new impulses, images, desires, or ways of viewing the world arising from the unconscious. Just as Louise’s task is to translate the primal growls and moans of the aliens, and engage with them to be able to find out their purpose in coming, eventually we also need to be able to articulate what we are sensing.

Even as Louise has accepted the external challenge of communicating with these strange beings, she is visualizing scenes with a daughter that could be memories, future events, or her imagination, but they are undercutting her and the viewer’s sense of time. Similarly, we can learn from the waves of information coming to us from the outside and inside in our thoughts, sensations, feelings, and dream images. The gift of the heptapods for Louise is the ability to move out of linear time, and in doing so to understand the world through different lenses than before. So, too, in the world today, our task is to give voice to what is emerging in us, as we also face unexpected events and relate to people who may initially seem “other” to us.

Relating to the Other: It seems to be a human tendency to demonize the ”other,” and we see this now in our own time with the spread of attitudes toward immigrants that regard them as criminal types, as well as the Warrior archetype’s desire to find someone to blame for whatever has gone wrong and/or to divert attention from his own misdeads—and to punish them. In a diverse society and a global community, the ability to move past appearances to assess someone’s actual character and potential for positive collaboration is important to us all if we are not to miss out on how our own minds could be expanded and our lives enriched by learning from their strengths and gifts. Louise and Ian, the primary figures in the film, are able to put their fears aside and respond to the aliens with curiosity and empathy, just as later Louise helps the Chinese general—who had been leading the charge to vanquish the aliens he saw as invaders—to do.

The Warrior Archetype Complex as Obstacle: Developing interspecies communication takes time, and Louise constantly has to push back against pressure generated by a panicking population, media incendiaries, and the militaries in 12 countries, all of which assume that the thing to do is to use force against the aliens to drive them away or kill them. The combined impact of countless science fiction movies with Warrior archetype plot structures provides the default explanation for why the aliens would be here: They have come to invade our planet and destroy us, first causing us to fight amongst ourselves (as human invaders do); thus, we should annihilate them. So, in a twist on the stereotypical science fiction film, the potential threat to the success of Louise’s work is not so much the aliens as the clutch of the Warrior archetype on the attitudes and expectations of the time. It is not that the Warrior archetype is unimportant; the problem is that it has become the primary lens through which reality is perceived, creating a kind of Warrior trance that makes it difficult to see things differently—in this case, a more benign reason these strange extraterrestrial visitors have landed on earth.

The Lover Archetype at Work: The Lover archetype can break a Warrior trance, which is why it is utilized in peace-building, encouraging antagonists to shed their defenses, stop posturing, and show up authentically, sharing their experiences and feelings. It also assists in any human encounter with difference. In Louise’s second visit with the aliens, she is frustrated by not being able to get much response from them, and realizes that they need to see her to trust her. Her reaction is immediate and reveals how traditional elements of the Lover archetype are morphing to meet new challenges. Louise breaks the rules she has been given by taking off her protective gear, walking to the wall that stands between her and the heptapods, and pressing her hand against it. Her action is reminiscent of scenes in other films where disrobing moves characters to a new level of intimacy or where we see a woman visiting someone she loves in prison, whom she cannot touch directly, who then meets her hand through a glass wall.

The heptapods cannot meet Louise’s hand in quite this way since they do not have hands and are so much larger than her; but a tentacle stretches out to match her gesture and a sense of trust and connection is established. Louise, who seems to have slipped into a trance state for a moment, sighs with relief, saying, “Now, that is an introduction.”

Learning from Interconnectivity: There is so much in our society that separates the private realm from work and public life, but within our minds, thoughts and feelings about all of these, as well as memories of the past and imagined events in our future, are constantly going on. Most of us try to stay present to one or the other by shutting off everything else. Louise is dealing with so much internal turmoil that she cannot do this, even though she continues to work effectively: Her mind is being reprogrammed by learning the alien language, so she can see the future, or at least one of many potential futures. Her experiences demonstrate the power of the Jungian concept of synchronicity (meaningful coincidences). The clues that Louise gains from her visions of her daughter provide her with information she needs to decode what the heptapods are saying. At the same time, she also is feeling overcome with love for this child. All this requires her to take multi-tasking in mental processing to a new level.

Louise embodies the Magician archetype’s ability to transform situations through expanding consciousness, so that everything that is going on simultaneously, aligned through the catalyst of love, turns her into the person who can deal with it all. As also occurs in the recent film Interstellar, a parent’s powerful love for a child energizes the Lover archetype, which, in turn, helps make the unimaginable happen. You may have observed a similar transformation in someone (maybe you) who is fielding a demanding career with an intense learning curve along with some kind of intense personal crisis and is transformed by intense feelings of love, with the result that she or he becomes a more complex and mature human being.

Entering the Unknown and the Known with Courage and Openness: The complexities we face in the second decade of the 21^st century, when everything is influencing everything else, make it nearly impossible to predict the future with any degree of certainty. However, we can recognize some very definite patterns. For example, we know from scientists about the likely progression of climate change. Some people today are so scared by this that they simply have to deny that it could be true. Others of us can break through this denial by tapping into our love of nature and the planet that is our home. That can energize us to get active to do what we can to slow down and perhaps eventually prevent further environmental damage.

In our personal lives, we all know that eventually we will die, and that, when we love someone or something, we may lose them. So, the question is: Do we choose to say yes to love or not? One choice would be to hold back from commitment, while another is to live fully into the time available to us. Spoiler alert: In her personal life, Louise commits wholeheartedly to a “yes” even when she feels sure, based on her visions, that her daughter will die young and that Ian will leave her.

Near the end of the movie, Louise must answer an essential question facing all of us today, in so many areas of our lives: If we could know what is likely to happen in the future, would we take action to change it? And, however complex what confronts us today—known and unknown—might be, can we face it whole-heartedly with love and an openness to transforming and being transformed?

Applications:

Think of anything in your life right now that feels confusing or even scary. Then:

• Note that fear generates adrenaline and the “fight/flight” response, but love can channel this into “tend and befriend.” To trigger this effect, imagine with gratitude who and what you love.

• Use curiosity and empathy to understand the person or situation you are dealing with, and consider what you might do to check the accuracy of what you have imagined.

• Finally, when you have thoughts chaotically moving through your mind, don’t panic. Instead, think of this as a gift. Then breathe deeply and slowly for a bit to allow these thoughts to realign, and notice whether you suddenly have an insight that helps you know what to do next or simply to feel differently about things.

Neotribalism is a sociological term that describes the way many countries are splintering apart in response to a global society in which it is difficult to find our individual identities with so much coming at us to choose from in terms of lifestyle, values, and beliefs. Ancient ethnic and racial identities are re-emerging internationally, accompanied by actual violence or, closer to home, rhetorical violence. In such traditional systems, loyalty to family and the group typically is valued over discovering one’s personal identity. In addition, new kinds of tribes are forming around areas of shared self-interest and belief that would not inherently require such loyalty or animosity toward competing groups. Yet, intergroup anger is being hyped up to serve the interests of various media organizations and political movements, which can make people act more like members of tribes attached to one another by blood and history.

In a countertrend, people in developed countries are being encouraged to develop their individual identities by attaining a sense of calling and purpose, and to find and live an authentic life. So how can this be done in the context of this new tribalism? Depth and archetypal psychologies are particularly helpful here, as they assist with identity formation that goes deeper than tribal loyalties or the ego’s dependence on finding a basis for feeling more correct and valuable than others.

Archetypes That Help You to Find Yourself

In one’s teens and twenties, an important growth challenge is to find yourself—to develop a sense of identity and to learn to make choices that are right for you in areas like work, love, lifestyle, values, and beliefs. Some years later, many of us discover that we need to rediscover ourselves and make new choices. Two primary archetypes play a critical role in this process at any time of life: the Seeker and the Lover.

• When the Seeker archetype is active, we find ourselves by differentiating from others, exploring new possibilities, and seeing what fits for us and what does not. We constantly protect our freedom and individuality. When joining a group, we are likely to notice how we are different. Whether or not our family of origin was supportive, we perceive the ways we differ from them, and search to “find our tribe,” meaning those who are more like us. In our teens, it is the group we hang around with, especially if we see this group as representing something important about us. Usually by our twenties these choices become more conscious, but if our Seeker tends to predominate over our Lover, we may move from one group to another, always in search of the best fit, or even identify ourselves as loners, avoiding truly feeling part of any group. If we want a long-term partner, it is important that they support our independence and not tie us down overly much. In work, we gravitate to roles that reflect our unique talents and in which we can do our jobs in our own way, while allowing us to continue to always explore new things.

• When the Lover archetype is active, we find ourselves by discovering who and what we love. In adolescence, this may determine our choice of the crowd we hang out with, or thereafter, any group that provides us a sense of belonging and close friendship. The process of finding ourselves can begin with identifying friends we really love to be with, who may even become pals throughout life. In romance, it will be expressed in the desire to find a “keeper” and commit over time, valuing a strong, intimate relationship. It also can be recognized in a desire to do work we love and a preference to find a workplace where we can be part of a community in which people know and care about one another. Our commitment is such that, whether to a spouse/partner, family, close friends, field of work, or various chosen communities, losing any of these feels like losing part of ourselves.

Most of us lead more with one or the other of these archetypes. However, if that lead is too absolute, we can end up friendless and lonely or so enmeshed in a relationship or a group that we lose ourselves.

The more any of us knows about this balance, the better the choices we can make for ourselves and the more honest and authentic we can be with other people in our personal lives and careers. This is important so that we do not inadvertently string them along, trusting that they will get something from us that is unlikely to happen. Moreover, it can be helpful to notice when either of these two archetypes is so active that it suppresses the other. In such situations, the Seeker can ruin your relationships, and the Lover, your capacity to experience the wider world.

Seeker and Lover in the World Today

Are you perplexed about what is going on in the United States, Europe, and rest of the world? Understanding the dynamics of these complementary archetypes can help. People with high Seeker archetypes have an easier time with globalism than those with more Lover. The Seeker enjoys having new experiences, knowing people unlike themselves, changing jobs and beliefs, even growing to meet new situations. However, globalism may be more of a threat to those who lead with Lover, if encountering many different cultures with various values undercuts their faith in the primacy, or even the values, of their tribal identity groups. Those with very high Lover—even when finding identity in their personal and work relationships—may also need to feel as if they are part of a tribe: their religious group, their racial identity, increasingly in the U.S. their political party or a subgroup within that party, and potentially even through their identification with a sports team they support or the school they graduated from. (However, if such associations are shallower and related just to a desire to belong rather than to identity formation, group loyalty will become a poor substitute for actually finding oneself and one’s authenticity.)

A Country’s Seeker/Lover Founding Dream

The founding dream of the United States incorporated both archetypes, as expressed in the Declaration of Independence, which held that all people had unalienable rights to “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” Patriotism, in the context of this informing dream, is about fostering everyone’s access to these rights, a goal that requires both the Seeker and the Lover. Maintaining that this dream applied to all Americans furthered a sense of mutuality, since my having my rights depends on you having yours. And, since the majority of our ancestors were Christian, a commitment to “love one another as oneself” (a commandment that is central to most modern religions) offered a complementary goal of actually caring about one another.

At the same time, the focus on liberty and the pursuit of happiness is straight out of the Seeker playbook—taking a journey for fulfillment and success, where joy in the experience of adventure is also valued for its own sake. In this way, the Seeker archetype is of particular assistance in meeting the contemporary demands of living in a global context because confronting the unknown is viewed as exciting rather than scary. 

At present, the tribalism that characterizes our civic and political lives is undermining the sense of American national identity, creating enmity between and among us, similar to how national identity is splintering in countries throughout the world. Yet, our current global context challenges us to also care that this dream be available to those around the world who want it, for some through immigration to this country but even more so through promoting human rights and democracy internationally. The sad fact is that tribal-based splintering of larger coalitions will continue unless and until we, as individuals, find a source of identity and authenticity that can ground us in who we are. Without this grounding, we are fated to regress to accepting the faux identities offered by ancient and new tribal groups and the limited options they provide.

Only the balance of the Seeker’s adventurousness and the Lover’s ability to make authentic commitments can engage us to take advantage of the many choices a global world and free society afford us about what we can think, do, and be.

Finding your most authentic balance of Seeker and Lover is good not only for you; it is also good for the world. Each of us needs to start with finding ourselves and our own authenticity. Only then can we move to promote that opportunity for others and become cosmopolitan in our outlook. We do this in spirals expanding outward from within our tribal groups to our nation, and potentially to the world.

Thought Questions:

What makes you, you?

Where are you finding your identity through following desire leading to commitment?

Where are you finding who you are through differentiating from others?

Is there any situation in your life in which one of these archetypes is crowding out the other in a way that causes you problems?

What tribal groups—ancient or new—do you feel an identity with?

To what degree do you feel loyal and connected to your country, wherever that is?

Where are you on the continuum from placing yourself first to also protecting the good of others? The person closest to you? Your close friends and family? Various groups you are a part of? Your country? People around the world?

An Archetypal Plan for Recovering from the U.S. Presidential Election

(Read Part 2 of this blog series here)

The U.S. presidential election has left Americans more divided than perhaps at any time since the Civil War. This is the last in a series of three blogs in which I offer an archetypal approach to understanding the forces at work both in the U.S. and around the world that produced this outcome and that threaten catastrophe, and a possible means to achieve greater unity and renew our faith in our democratic system of government

Act V: Resolution: Community is Restored

In the comic tradition, the collective Archetype of Community is what creates a happy ending, in contrast to tragedy, where things break down. In Greek drama, tragedy ensues when the leader or a group fall prey to hubris, thinking that they are above everyone else. Comedy in its classic definition does not require humor; rather, it signifies that the plot moves from miscommunications and discord to harmony, where almost everyone, except perhaps for the most vile and evil, is included in the reconciliation.

The Myth: In the Eleusinian Mysteries, community is restored when harmony between Zeus, Demeter, and Persephone is reestablished. Here’s how this happens: As the famine induced by Demeter worsens, mortals fear that they will die of hunger, and the gods and goddesses do not want to lose the sacrifices that mortals give them. As a consequence, pressure builds for Zeus to do what Demeter wants—which is to allow her daughter to have the life she desires rather than what Zeus decides for her.

Zeus respects power, so when he realizes that the gods and mortals are supporting Demeter, he gives in to both mother and daughter. Persephone returns to the Upperworld for half the year and people gain the capacity to recognize seasons in life; the gods stop oppressing the mortals, and Demeter and Persephone found the Eleusinian Mysteries to teach people how to be happy, prosperous, and free of fear. Prosperity and fecundity return, so Zeus throws a big party to honor Demeter and Persephone, and to show that he now recognizes his reliance on them, since he cannot make the grain grow, and on the other gods and goddesses, and thus will be a more collaborative leader. Persephone gives birth to Dionysus, the god of joy, who helps people celebrate with dancing, thereby expressing their authentic selves while enjoying being in community.

U.S.: Achieving a satisfactory ending after a divisive presidential election is hardly guaranteed. Getting there would require a good balance between Zeus, Demeter, Persephone, and Dionysus energies. The challenge is that we live in a pluralistic society where:

• a majority of those who voted for Hillary Clinton were urban and well-educated, and chose her Demeter/Zeus values;
• Trump’s support among rural and less educated voters and the overrepresentation of smaller, less urbanized states in the Electoral College contributed significantly to his victory;
• Republicans will hold a majority in both houses of Congress and share many of Trump’s policy preferences; thus, the entire power structure is now rather wholly biased toward Zeus values;
• a substantial minority of citizens who could have voted did not, and so remain passive, unheard from; and
• public opinion polls and the support for Bernie Sanders indicate that a large cohort of young people appears to be emerging with fresh, new Persephone and Dionysian energies.

All this means that the Zeus single focus of the incoming government does not represent the views of most Americans, although it does represent those of a substantial minority. Plus, once a president is in office, there is a tendency for support for him to build, since we all need the person in that role to succeed. Given this larger situation, a positive ending will require a meta-narrative and policies that bring us together by meeting the needs and values of all these groups.

Within this context, the president-elect and congressional Republicans have declared that they have a mandate to do what they want.

• Trump already is destabilizing international relations (e.g., with China); reinforcing extremist “alt-right” attitudes; threatening to essentially unravel most of the progress made in the last eight years and social safety net programs that began in the 1960s; vowing to slash taxes on the rich and on business; and pledging to tear up trade agreements and opt out of the Paris Accords on climate change.
• It appears as though Republicans in Congress will support most of these efforts while also attempting to deregulate the private sector, turn over ever more government functions to for-profit corporations, utilize voucher systems in education and as a substitute for the Affordable Care Act, and overturn Roe v. Wade.

Restoring harmony in the U.S. will not be easy, given the raw feelings on all sides and a government that promises to dismantle policies and programs valued by a majority of Americans. Citizens in historically Red States may continue to support Trump and the Republican Congress; those in Blue States likely will want to preserve their ability to live by very different values and with different policies. Overall, the result could be a society that is even more divided than it is today.

In four years, much of what we have come to take for granted could no longer be true. Many citizens in Red States may find that they do not like actually getting what they believed they wanted. This is beginning to happen already, as people who voted for Trump worry that they will not have health insurance or Medicare or, for many farmers, anyone to harvest their crops. People in Blue States might utilize the upcoming period of relative chaos (which will be inevitable in a time when existing structures and policies are being dismantled) to promote new and different means to achieve 21^st century ends than those that are common now. We already are seeing updates of proposals Democrats have made, like plans to modernize our infrastructure and in the process provide jobs—proposals that could pass in the near future when Republicans can take credit for them. With everything in flux, it is impossible to predict exactly what may result.

If greater archetypal balance is restored, however, the outcome still will be different from what we have today. Ideally, it will be better, or at least not tragically worse. The two major political parties can contribute to this effort. Both are expert at Zeus’s way of power; many Republicans have advocated “compassionate conservatism,” so while their policies may differ, they could join Democrats in making sure that new strategies are not hurtful to people or the earth; and both parties include those who understand that new times require new structures.

All this also requires Persephone creativity. When policies are based on prioritizing power and dominance only, thinking tends to lack cognitive complexity as well as emotional and narrative intelligence. As a result, the nation could easily become a heartless dystopia, where decisions are made to benefit those in power without awareness of likely side effects on them or on others. Achieving positive outcomes will, thus, require a citizenry that is:

• educated about the dynamics of power and how things work, and is unwilling to be manipulated;
• ready to engage in efforts at all levels—political, governmental, for-profit, nonprofit, and individual—to find the best 21^st century means to carry out the Demeter task of caring for one another and the earth;
• assisted by Persephone’s ability to utilize the freedom and the openings created by the planned dismantling of the status quo to further transformational change in the interests of all people, not just the rich, the white, and the male—and not just Americans, since our good is interdependent with that of people in many other countries as well as in various regions of our own.

However, it also requires Dionysus. We see him expressed in humor, and in the unseating of people who seem uptight and controlling through poking fun at them, as well as in collective celebration, which traditionally includes music and dancing. It is Dionysus who can counter the mean-spiritedness of the international and national alt-right and the tendency to sink into self-questioning despair that often hampers progressives.

Dionysus energy already is present in how many people of all political stripes get their news from comedians, as well as the wonderful ability Americans have always shown to find humor in whatever crazy things our leaders are doing. A Trump presidency certainly can be entertaining for everyone if we lighten up; he is, after all, an entertainer. Moreover, satire is an important strategy for identifying attitudes and actions that are not just harmful, but absurd. President Obama has used it creatively to make jokes about his detractors instead of threatening or denouncing them.

Of all the archetypes, Dionysus is the easiest with change and the one that can help with the rebirth needed for a healthy 21^st century America that works for everyone. Just as joking around can aid in brainstorming, lightening up can help Americans stop demonizing one another and come together to address the real challenges facing us in a fast-changing, technological, global society.

Journalist and social activist Barbara Ehrenreich, in her book Dancing in the Streets, traces a true populist tradition down from Dionysian revels to the current day, arguing that real populist movements are joyous, involving music and dancing, unlike the more martial and hostile channels for populist energies generally fostered by those in power who desire to keep control of the people in order to retain their advantages. We will know we have achieved a healthy and inclusive populist movement when we convene with collective hope and joyous revelry. Only then will we have attained a societal rebirth, realizing the Eleusinian Mystery promise of individual and shared happiness, prosperity, and freedom from fear.

You and Me: As individuals, our happiness and success also come from discovering our own optimal balance of Zeus, Demeter, Persephone, and Dionysus energies. When you find yourself out of balance, you can, first, recognize which archetypal energies you have too much of, and which too little. When too little, you can awaken more of what you are missing by identifying people who evince the archetypal qualities you lack and emulating them. When you have too much of an archetype, you can use mindfulness to decrease its presence: Notice when you are overdoing it, name it, and say inwardly something like “too much,” or “not now” and then choose to respond from one of the other archetypes’ way of acting.

Second, remember that you are an important player in the drama unfolding before us. Each of us is a microcosm of the societal macrocosm. Its imbalance creates a corresponding imbalance in us as well, fostering a sense of anxiety. The result will be tragic if we respond to feeling off balance by blaming one another and fighting among ourselves. However, if we take the higher course, we can focus on regaining equilibrium in our own lives as we also encourage balance in society and the world.

Whoever you are and however you voted, you can say “Yes!” to the call of the heroic quest, finding and bringing your best self to the movie we are all in together. Doing so will create ripple effects that promote the outcomes promised by the Eleusinian Mysteries—individual and collective happiness, prosperity, and freedom from fear—so that we can get back to building “a more perfect union” as our founders so desired that we continue to do.

An Archetypal Plan for Recovering

from the U.S. Presidential Election

The U.S. presidential election has left Americans more divided than perhaps at any time since the Civil War. This is the second in a series of three blogs in which I offer an archetypal approach to understanding the forces at work both in the U.S. and around the world that produced this outcome and that threaten catastrophe, and a possible means to achieve greater unity and renew our faith in our democratic system of government

Part Two: Acts III & IV

(Read Part I of Making Lemonade HERE)

Act III: Awakening: The Turning Point

The Way of the Heart pushes back with a Caregiver, Seeker, Sage progression. This archetypal progression allows us, as individuals, to care for ourselves, others, and the earth, seek out ways to be helpful, and devise strategies to promote the common good based on facts interpreted with wisdom. However, when too little of this progression is present in the world, individuals and groups (often women) become overwhelmed and burned out trying to compensate by giving more than they are able to or in ways that are not congruent with their true callings. When Demeter values are lacking in a society, it becomes a hard, grasping, greedy place with everyone fighting for their own good, at whatever cost to others or the earth.

The Myth: Demeter, who finds her daughter missing, responds first with deep grief, followed by anger and outrage when she discovers that Zeus OK’d her abduction. She then leaves Olympus in indignation to search for a solution, eventually confronting and resolving her complicity in being treated disdainfully. She recognizes that by continuing to make the grain grow, she obscures the negative consequences of Zeus’s macho “conquer nature” worldview. So, she stops providing the life force energy for growth, conducting the first recorded sit-down strike.

U.S.: Many women and men with Demeter values have responded to the election results beginning with sorrow and outrage, then voting with their feet by leaving workplaces, groups, or political parties that do not share these values, and finally by exploring ways they can stop being complicit in the war on Demeter.

• Trump supporters also are beginning to worry that government supports they have taken for granted (e.g., Medicare) may be reduced or eliminated.
• Because caring still is culturally defined as women’s work and caring issues as women’s issues, and because progress on gaining equality for women has stalled and is now under attack, women likely will lead the pro-Demeter charge. A Women’s March on Washington has been scheduled for January 21, 2017, the day after the inauguration, with similar events planned for other major cities.
• The next challenge for women and the men who partner with them is to recognize our complicity in continuing to accept the pay gap, the glass ceiling, and other forms of inequality, as well as inaction on climate change.  More than 40 years ago, 90 percent of women in Iceland went on strike, and as a result gained many rights and attention to what had been considered “women’s issues.”
• Asserting Demeter values certainly is not for women only. For example, many college and university presidents have urged Trump to maintain the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, and some have declared their schools sanctuary campuses, although not all use that descriptor. And many individuals and organizations are hard at work to help groups that Trump promised to deport or otherwise disadvantage.

You and Me: When we have too much Demeter, we give and give to the point where we lose ourselves. If this is your case, you might concentrate on moving up the archetypal progression to Seeker, focusing on what is yours to give and recognizing how over-giving may make you complicit in keeping negative Zeus in place (at home, at work, or in the larger society). If your Demeter constellation of archetypes is not very present in your life, you may feel deprived because you are not caring for yourself, or your relationships may erode because you forget to care for them. In frustration, you might find yourself saying the wrong things to get your way, using your words as weapons rather than for honest communication. If that is the case, showing kindness to the more needy part of yourself and to others could fill you up and make you happier and more successful.

Act IV: The Climax: Transformation or Things Fall Apart

The Way of Transformation is revealed to move beyond reestablishing threatened values to genuine transformation. Its archetypal progression is from Innocent, to Creator, to Magician. In its most positive form, this constellation keeps us optimistic, innovative, flexible, and desirous of a transformation that leads to a world that works for all. When it is out of balance or in the service only of self or group interest, it can lead to chaotic outcomes, personal confusion and randomness, and trickster con artistry. If it is missing, we can feel stuck and imprisoned in a life not of our choosing.

The Myth: Persephone gets creative in the Underworld. She trusts that her mother eventually will rescue her, but what she really wants is to live part time in the Underworld and part time in the Upperworld. An ancient law says that anyone who eats something in the Underworld has to return there, so Persephone figures out how to turn this to her advantage, eating the number of pomegranate seeds necessary to return for half the year. She not only lives a bigger life than she had imagined, she becomes the magical initiator of the living through the Eleusinian Mysteries and of the dead in the Underworld, helping mortals be happy, prosperous, and free of fear. In this way, she not only gets what she wants, but in the process positively transforms life for gods and mortals alike.

U.S.: Trump’s behaviors have created cracks in the social fabric, which can occur when the civility, attention to truth, and traditions that support democracies break down. When told that they should support the new president, many are freed by his disregard for what he calls political correctness to be innovative and unconventional. Demands by Trump and his backers that everyone make nice and support him, because that is the custom, are motivating his detractors to get creative. When cracks appear in the sidewalk, it can be seen as a sign of breakdown, but flowers also can make their way up. Moreover, outcomes can look quite different when the shaking is from the bottom up, not just the top down. Following are some examples of energies of the youthful feminine in men and women rerouting the shakeup from its Trump-led form.

• Prioritizing American values over supporting a particular president. Example: The leaders of numerous cities, such as New York City’s Bill De Blasio, are declaring them sanctuaries and safe havens, stating up front how they will not comply with much of what the president-elect has promised to do.
• Establishing work-around solutions to accomplish what the federal government looks like it will fail to do. Examples: California Governor Jerry Brown has formed an Under2 coalition of 165 jurisdictions worldwide to fight climate change and has made California a national leader in doing so. In an open letter, 365 business leaders and major investors urged Trump not to abandon the Paris climate deal and committed to taking action to alleviate climate change with or without government support.
• Rethinking outmoded structures to protect their positive purpose. Example: Citizens are invoking the founding purpose of the Electoral College, which was intended to be a responsible body that would make certain that “the office of president will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications.” Electors are, in fact, able to vote their conscience, although that is not the current expectation. This prospect is slim, but we will know for sure if it happens on December 19^th.
• Reclaiming a sense of ease and agency by taking responsibility to do our parts. Examples: The news media are raising conflict of interest issues related to Trump’s presidency regarding his business empire and its foreign entanglements. Congress could require the president-elect to act ethically. Rather than remaining helpless, saying he may not be breaking current laws, they could wake up to realizing that it is their job to pass new ones in order to restore domestic and international faith in our government and its integrity. So many individuals are just now emerging from shock about election results and find they feel relief when they focus on what each has the power to do, large or small. 

You and Me: When we feel stuck, we can emulate Persephone by softening our gaze to view the possibilities on the periphery and going inward to recognize those trickling up from the unconscious in dreams, moments of inspiration, and embodied hunches. Moreover, when we move from desiring to shake things up only in the interest of “me and mine” to feeling connected to the whole and its good, our Magician archetype can emerge, so that we can heal ourselves and the world around us. The feeling of Persephone rising in and around us is one of relief, lightness, and a renewed sense of possibility.

Read Part 3 of this blog series here

 An Archetypal Plan for Recovering

from the U.S. Presidential Election

The U.S. presidential election has left Americans more divided than perhaps at any time since the Civil War. In this series of three blogs, I offer an archetypal approach to understanding the forces at work both in the U.S. and around the world that produced this outcome and that threaten catastrophe, and a possible means to achieve greater unity and renew our faith in our democratic system of government

Part One: Prologue and Acts I & II

The Greek myth of Demeter and Persephone provides a five-act narrative for achieving unity after the recent U.S. election made Donald Trump president-elect. Four things are important to know as background:

1. To understand this election in its fullness, it is essential to recognize that it is at least in part a symptom of the rise of the white supremacy movement and also of various totalitarian, nationalistic, patriarchal, and disruptive movements all over the world, including the Brexit vote and the rise of ISIS. We can learn a great deal from the 1930s, when similar movements were taking over, and extrapolate from that history to figure out how to avert similar destruction.
2. These events are symptomatic of growing imbalances in the archetypes in the global macrocosm, in the U.S. and other countries, and, likely, in ourselves.
3. Zeus and Demeter are associated with the classic patriarchal tough father and matriarchal caring mother. Persephone and Dionysus are associated with the youthful feminine and masculine.
4. These archetypes inform the major characters in the myth that was the basis of the major spiritual initiation rite (the Eleusinian Mysteries) in ancient Athens at the time of the invention of democracy, drama, empirical science, and much else. A greater balance of all four is more possible today than it was over 2,000 years ago when the myth, then as now, provided a path to individual and collective happiness, prosperity, and freedom from fear.

Act I: Setting the Stage & A Call to Action

Dissatisfaction with The Way of Holdfast the Dragon sets in. Joseph Campbell saw Holdfast as the archetype holding old structures in place. Its emergence is a call to the quest for heroes to come forward to transform the kingdom.

The Myth: Cronus, chief of the Titan Gods, so wants to govern forever that he swallows all his children to prevent them from rebelling against him. His wife Rhea, finally saves Zeus, her sixth child, and sends him into exile. He returns to end his father’s reign, rescue his siblings, and declare war on the Titans, keepers of the status quo.

U.S.: For years, the Republican Party has run against government. Reinforced by the Tea Party movement and threats by the Freedom Caucus, GOP leaders in Congress worked relentlessly to keep President Obama from succeeding. Then Trump ran, promising to shake up Washington, dismantle the “mommy state,” overturn “political correctness,” advantage white males, and substitute nationalism for global concerns, to “Make America Great Again.” Hillary Clinton, his opponent, ran on a “build on the progress of the last eight years” platform that balanced Zeus and Demeter qualities that she said made us “Stronger Together.” Were Trump’s victory somehow to be overturned, as a result of a recount or electors deserting him, many of his supporters are threatening armed revolution. The outcome is uncertain.

You and Me: Often when we feel dissatisfied, we may want to just dismantle our lives, do something—anything!—different, whether or not it is the right thing. We may vent our dissatisfaction, blaming others for our problems and accepting the simple solutions offered by those who claim they can save us. Alternatively, if others are threatening to shake things up in ways we do not like, Holdfast can capture us and lead us to fight all change. Still a third possibility is that we can be called to our own hero’s journey, to find our treasure (our gifts and purpose) and help identify adequately balanced and complex ways to transform the kingdom that consider the needs of friend and foe alike.

Act II: The Challenge: The Status Quo Disrupted

The Way of Power triumphs, creating psychological and political imbalance. The Orphan, Warrior, and Ruler archetypes help us individually and as groups move from feeling victimized, to fighting for ourselves and our interests, to taking charge of our lives. They also help us aspire and compete to become the best we can be. Ideally, these archetypes lead us to create social structures that work for everyone. Yet, when the Way of Power is out of balance with other archetypes that follow in this blog, people confuse their worth with their status and wealth and live driven, unhappy lives; groups compete for dominance; misogyny, racism, and xenophobia come to the fore, and social structures become totalitarian.

The Myth: Zeus led a revolution to take over as the chief Greek god, but he won narrowly. The Titans who had been in power continued to resist him at every turn. He got away with being a philanderer and objectifying women. However, he made himself vulnerable by dissing Demeter and Persephone and the values associated with them—for Demeter, maternal caring and caring more generally for others and the earth, and for Persephone, autonomy and freedom to make her own choices. One result was a famine that, like climate change, threatened to wipe out mortals and consequently threatened Zeus’s reign.

U.S.: Trump is now president-elect, and has declared that he has a mandate by having defeated Clinton in the Electoral College. However, as votes continue to be counted, it has become clear that Clinton won the popular vote by more than 2 million, and many people are worried about what a Trump presidency will bring.

• Even in his own party, many see Trump as unfit to be president and find alarming his disdain for normative presidential behaviors and apparent disinterest in addressing conflicts between his business interests and the business of governing.
• Because Republicans, who prioritize the Zeus archetype, will control Congress, the presidency, and soon most likely the Supreme Court, the country lacks the balance traditionally provided by Democrats, who typically hold Demeter caring values as well as Zeus ones. Happily, however, this is only Act II of a larger narrative, the outcome of which depends on what we do now.
• The country is more divided than ever before, with progressives threatening civil disobedience and alt-right conservatives potential violence.
• The article at this link also describes positive Zeus ways to begin taking action as citizens to avoid the tragic outcome of the events that led to the holocaust and WWII. It demonstrates the Orphan’s ability to recognize danger, the Warrior’s ability to fight back preventively, and the Ruler’s sense of taking seriously the responsibility of citizenship.

You and Me: By recognizing this pattern in our local macrocosm, we can be aware of its impact on us, and how it potentially can trigger a similar imbalance. However you voted, you may find yourself focusing on your own discontents (Orphan), waging mental war with others (Warrior), and perhaps even getting into arguments with people around you and wanting to get your own way and shape them up (Ruler). If this is happening, you can focus on the positive side of the Zeus triad by comforting your inner Orphan, calling up the Warrior’s focus and persistence to achieve your own goals, and partnering with others to create mutual support for everyone becoming successful. Zeus energy can trap us into defining our worth by our status, wealth, or power. We can escape by recognizing that we all matter, and our first priority is to become the best “us” we can be.

Read PART 2 of Making Lemonade here

In Texas, where I grew up, we had an expression—“all hat and no cattle”—that summed up a certain kind person. The expression came from seeing people wearing fancy western outfits who had no idea the hard work or long hours required to run, or work in, a cattle ranch. And, they would not have been able to rope a steer to save their lives. This expression could be said about anyone who was all image and no substance, not just a faux cowboy or cowgirl. Often it also would refer to someone who bragged a lot, but you soon learned you could not count on what they said actually being true.

Being “all hat and no cattle” is not always so bad in some circumstances. Little kids often dress up in costumes of what they might like to be, and many of us have been taught to dress for the job we want to have, though we’ve not yet settled down to master the actual work that needs to be done. Sitting around with friends, we may spout off about things we know little or nothing about, acting as if we were experts. However, as a lifestyle, “all hat” leads to unhappiness and causes others to be disillusioned with you.

True, focusing on image has its place. When we are growing up, a major goal is to develop a personality, or a persona, as the psychiatrist C. G. Jung called it, that helps us be popular and become successful. In this process, ideally we get socialized to what is expected in our family, school, community, etc., so that we can find love, friendship, and career success.

Gaining accurate information about the world around us and its expectations, and some feedback on what others see as special about us, helps us build a preliminary ego structure. Jung’s mentor, Sigmund Freud, said the ego helps us moderate our primal energies (the Id) so that we can go for what we want in a socially acceptable way, and children need to learn this.

But even so, we still can end up being shallow and selfish. Many adolescents and young adults feel empty inside. This can be even more the case if we received very inadequate mirroring from others, leaving us with very little sense of our worth or knowledge of our strengths. Moreover, to the extent that we actually have suppressed our real desires to please or get validation, it may take even longer to discover our genuine life path.

Eventually, being mainly “hat” does not wear well with others. You likely notice how annoying it is when we are on the other end, having to endure Mr. or Ms. “all hat.” Right out of college, I taught public high school for a time before going to graduate school, so I know what the job entails. Thus, I find that I have to exercise a great deal of restraint to treat civilly people who have no idea of the challenges teachers face but still pontificate with great authority, and often in a loud voice, about the lousy job teachers are doing. It also has taken me a while to stop believing the promises of people whose charisma covers for their lack of follow through. And I know that most savvy people eventually wake up and stop believing in “all hat” kinds of folks.

Finding Yourself in the First Half of Life

No worries. Jung said we individuate, that is, we find ourselves, by living, and different life stages help us with various life tasks. For example, by the time you are a young adult, you should have discovered, or be discovering, what you are good at and where you can make a contribution. Then comes the hard work of developing mastery in it. You also should be exploring the equally difficult challenge of learning to be an authentic and responsible friend, lover, life partner, and, eventually, a parent (or in another way caring for the needs of others). While engaged in these, you also ideally learn to empathize with others, including those unlike you, and then develop, a clear sense of ethics and values, so that you modify your desires, not just to look good to others but also to live in integrity with yourself.

The rewards you get from these life lessons begin with gaining some success and having good relationships, which also help you build self-esteem that is based on accomplishment, not derived from your gender, the color of your skin, the size of your bank account, how educated you are, or how successful you are in the world’s eyes. This allows you to feel good about yourself without needing to feel superior to others. And you can see, by observing others and yourself, how unhappy people are when they substitute some such superficial category for an achieved personal identity.

Deepening in Midlife and Beyond

At least by midlife, it is time to deepen beyond even these important attainments. Jung identified how a major source of suffering for many of his patients was not having connected the conscious ego with what he called the Self, also known as soul. Soul, in this usage, does not necessarily mean an eternal part of you, but rather something essentially you, related to your purpose and calling. It is what helps you feel connected to others and the world, and hence can heal alienation.

However, there is no free entry. The cost of finding this essential part of us requires that we confront our shadows, which means being willing to face our weaknesses and the times we have failed others or ourselves. From this, we gain humility, as well as greater empathy and compassion for others in their weakness and struggles. We can then know we matter without having to think we are more special than anyone else.

You may be assisted in getting to this place by paying attention to the images and narratives in your dreams and fantasies, which may reveal to you elements of your life that need attending or possibilities of which you have been unaware. Suffering also can be a teacher. Facing my image in the mirror when I have endured a particularly empty experience or felt emotional pain, I’ve become aware that I have to make some changes or lose my soul. Most often, my issue is that I’m doing something that I feel is not right, or not right for me, because it seems to be required by my job or because of social pressure. You, too, may have experienced something like this.

Most of us find ways to resist facing our shadows. I’ve realized that when I’m in this place, I start judging others harshly and obsessively. This can lead me to walk around feeling a kind of anger, or even devising a plan to fix that person (or group). This anger feels different than the kind I feel when someone actually is harming or threatening to harm me, someone I love, or people I care about. In this case, my task is to set boundaries to stop the behavior and then let the anger go. When my fear is about harm to the larger society, I may have to work for causes or candidates I believe in as well as to vote for them. If it is for my organization, I may need to speak out in ways that feel risky. When I recognize that my anger is a distraction from taking responsibility for facing my own failures, I can have compassion for my own lack of courage, and turn my attention back to what needs to change in me.

Facing our own shadows and fears pays off in the ability to find our deeper selves. We can know initially what that is like by observing people who have done so. I notice that individuated, mature people I admire often possess a quiet sort of happiness, a sense of gratitude for what they have, and a spontaneous instinct to be kind to others. They have a sense of calling and purpose that has a spiritual nature to it. Many do not feel separate from others, even when they’re alone. Some of a spiritual nature feel at home in the cosmos and connected to the divine, perhaps even experiencing the sense of oneness mystics talk about. Such are the fruits of being guided by their inner Self or soul. At times I experience much of this, as perhaps you do, too.

The Challenge of Being Real in a Shallow Culture

What I’ve been describing is simply a very natural growth pattern for human beings, and thus for you and me, that leads to psychological health and wholeness. However, we live in a culture that focuses more and more on image, and less and less on character, authenticity, and generosity of spirit. Major figures over the last decade or so have told us that “greed is good,” and many celebrities model entitled behaviors and exploitative relationships for us.  If you have been paying attention to the world around you, you certainly will have observed the problems such soullessness causes—to family and organizational life, as well as to the economy.

To the degree that we buy into living shallow lives, we will be at risk of becoming depressed or constantly angry and of believing that someone or something has caused us to feel this way. If there is no “you” within you, you inevitably will feel empty inside and alienated from a world that seems somehow to blame. Filling the emptiness with more consumer goods, food, or activities does not work. It is a sort of soul starvation that fosters a hunger for what so many today do not even have a word for, nor any experience of how it feels to be whole and themselves. Recognizing this can help you empathize with others caught in this syndrome while you also have compassion for yourself if and when you fall into it for a moment or a decade.

More and more today, I hear people being ecstatic talking about finding someone who is “the real thing,” or as some put it, “the real thang.” And, the more real you and I are, the happier we will be.  A connection to our souls gives us something no one else can take away, as I am the only true me, and you the only true you. So, if this natural path to growing up and thriving is interesting to you, here are some things to notice that can give you information on this rather fun journey. What feels good to your deeper, essential self generally will guide your right action. What feels bad is a sign to that you need to course correct.

Tasks that Help You Know Who You Are:

(1)     Notice when you feel authentically proud of yourself but have no urge to brag about it.

(2)     Notice how you feel when you authentically show both your strengths and your vulnerabilities to those close to you.

(3)     Notice how it feels when you work hard to gain mastery in areas that draw upon your strengths and abilities.

(4)     Notice how you feel when you are a good, loyal, and caring friend, lover, life partner, parent, or citizen.

(5)     Notice how you feel when you express genuine empathy and compassion for someone very unlike you.

Signs it is Time to Course Correct:

(6)     Notice what it costs you when you pretend to be something you are not or when you tell lies or half-truths.

(7)     Notice any actions that make you feel small or ashamed.

(8)     Notice how you feel if you compromise something essential in you, whether one of your values or something you feel called to do.

(9)     Notice how you feel if you put someone else down, or when you avoid facing your own issues by obsessing over the wrongdoing of others.

(10)  Notice when you feel chronically depressed or angry, or if addictive substances or patterns keep you from recognizing the subtle cues about what would be wise and authentic to do. (If this is the case, it would wise to seek professional assistance so that you can feel healthy, happy, and whole.)

Signs of Connection with Your Deeper Self

(11) Notice how you feel when you own up to a mistake and make amends for what you did (to yourself or whomever you may have hurt).

(12) Notice how you feel when you are spontaneously generous—with a smile, a helping hand, or a leg up.

(13) Notice how you feel when you set boundaries with others so they no longer can do you harm and then (perhaps) forgive them, not because you feel you should, but because you want to let go of resentment that might poison your spirit.

(14) Recognize when you feel grounded by a sense of purpose and calling in your work and private life.

(15) Notice times that you feel completely at home in your world and when this occurs.

(16)  Notice moments that seem magical, when you feel gratitude and wonder at the beauty of the world and those around you.

Have you ever wished you had the equivalent of a map, handbook, or GPS that would help you know what to do and where to go to be happy? Or, have you ever felt envious of those who always seemed to know what decision to make to enhance their personal fulfillment? And, have you ever fallen in love with a person, a place, a home, a field of study, a potential new job, a cause, a spiritual path, or even a product of some sort and then felt horribly disappointed when you faced its reality? I know I have.

The Call of Eros

The ancient Greeks and Romans imagined there was a god outfitted with bows and arrows. The Greeks called him Eros, and the Romans Cupid. If this god shot you with his arrow, you would then experience a fierce desire for a specific romantic partner. The power of this is captured in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, when Gatsby approaches Daisy, desiring to kiss her.

His heart beat faster and faster as Daisy’s white face came up to his own. He knew that when he kissed this girl, and forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath, his mind would never romp again like the mind of God. So he waited, listening for a moment longer to the tuning fork that had been struck upon a star. Then he kissed her.

The Greeks also used the term eros (obviously named for this god) more generally to refer to the impulse that calls people to experience elements of a life that will satisfy their souls. For Gatsby, this erotic call was connected not only to a particular woman, but also to the lifestyle of the very rich. Yet, in both he ended up disappointed, in part because he attached his erotic yearning to a shallow woman and a materialistic American dream that could not actually fulfill him.

Too often in our world today the term “erotic” is connected more with porn than with achieving the deeper fulfillment evoked in such poetic lines. Yet, the disconnect from our soul’s calling is a major cause of the epidemics of dissatisfaction, stress, addiction, and even suicide in our society, as well as a pervasive inner sense of lack. And, like Gatsby, too many of us hook our yearnings into available societal success “shoulds” that leave us feeling even more empty than before. As mythologist Joseph Campbell warned, many climb the ladder of success only to find it is leaning against the wrong wall.

Operating Your Erotic GPS

The antidote to modern ills begins with recognizing that eros is, potentially at least, our soul’s GPS system. However, psychological capacities, like technological gadgets, require a learning curve to utilize them well. The call of eros generally begins with a sense of feeling of emptiness and a desire for something as yet unknown. This results in dissatisfaction and impatience, which make it easy for us to latch the yearning onto an undeserving object, as Gatsby did, or one that is just not right for us. Or, if we hold out, we may come across some person or opportunity that provokes in us a powerful, visceral response, resonating as “Yes, this is right!”

It interests me how many young women today (and older ones, too) read fiction by Jane Austen. Even though they lack sex scenes, we find her love stories riveting, as they demonstrate how the heroine figures out which men are trustworthy and which are not. Modern love stories typically present case studies that reveal how to determine the difference between the kind of person you have been told you should date or marry and the one who truly makes you happy. The better romance novels trace this process, too; they’re like mystery stories that are not so much about solving crimes as about cracking the eros code.

Our love lives provide us with eros 101 training through the pain we experience when Mr.-or-Ms.-not-yet-right dumps us, disappoints us terribly, or even becomes abusive. From these lessons, we gain a sixth sense that allows us to see the clues early on of what could be coming. We also know from psychology that we can be attracted to partners who replicate other challenging relationships—perhaps with parents or siblings—giving us another chance to work things out more effectively than before. The same is true when we take what we think would be the perfect job and our boss is like our domineering father, or our coworker is like our envious sister. Eros frequently leads us into situations that do not immediately make us happy, but that can help us grow and mature into a person more and more capable of genuine fulfillment.

Living a Love Story

However, a well-honed erotic GPS system is precisely what helps us make soul-satisfying choices about what to study, what field to go into, what job to take, and how to achieve a balanced and happy life. As with our love lives, however, we hardly ever get our choices right the first time. Finding soul-satisfying happiness through utilizing the erotic GPS is simple, but demands attention. It requires thinking like a scientist about what attracts and what repels us. And, as we follow our bliss, we notice what happens. Sometimes, we know we have taken a wrong turn and that course correction is in order—and fast. Generally, some growth is required of us to experience what we have yearned for.

I remember some years ago being annoyed with my husband and asking myself, “What story am I in?” I immediately realized that I was, at that moment, living an entitled child story, assuming that he was here on earth to make me happy, rather than honoring that he had his own journey. It occurred to me in that moment that he and I—at least the adult part of me—were living a love story together. The love story plot is always fraught with miscommunications and seeming hurts, and the happy ending (or ongoing middle) comes when couples find their way back to one another. This insight has helped me take a similar approach to work and in other parts of my life that I love.

To the degree that we let eros lead, we are heroes and heroines of an archetypal love story. The more we notice when eros has gotten us in trouble, the easier it becomes to avoid heartache by recognizing what is simply a feeling to be noted and learned from rather than acted upon. And, the more we recognize when eros has led us to greater and greater joy, the more we can count on it as a trustworthy guide.[1]

• What have you found helps you choose wisely when you feel a strong desire for something?

• What do you do when an authentic “yes” would be frowned on by some people you are close to or who have power over you?

• Can you recommend a novel, film, or other source that provides a positive example of eros training?

I did not want to face the truth about the archetypal story of the Republican convention, as I was hoping for better. However, it is clear to me that, overall, the convention was embodying an Innocent trance. The Innocent as an archetype has the virtues of a spontaneous, happy child, and when in positive and conscious form is optimistic and idealistic. We could see a bit of this latter aspect in the evocation of the image of America as “a shining city on a hill” that beckons others to us. And, the more consistently we live out positive American values, the truer this is. Every archetype, however, has a downside, which rears its ugly head when people are stressed or when they are in resistance against positive growth. When an archetype possesses a person or a society, it is like they are in a trance and no longer see reality clearly, but instead see it only through that archetype’s lens.

The immature Innocent, then, is often wrapped in denial—in this case, about climate change, the complexity of living in a global, interdependent world, and one’s own culpability for the problems we face. In trance, adults remain children and do not demonstrate the ego structure necessary to learn from their mistakes. When Tommy blames his brother for snatching a cookie, while Tommy has crumbs on his lips, we may inwardly smile because it is a childish thing to do. However, for a party in a presidential campaign to do this is not cute. For example, there was no sign at the convention of Republicans recognizing which party’s policies were responsible for the 2008 recession or for invading Iraq and destabilizing the region, or, more recently, that congressional Republicans had publically declared that their primary goal was to keep the duly elected president from accomplishing anything, including adequately regulating Wall Street, stopping companies from sending jobs overseas, or funding programs to help people escape poverty.

The Innocent in trance also feels special and entitled, and has difficulty balancing self-interest with concern for others. This, combined with the desire for simple answers and scapegoats to blame problems on, can lead Innocents to yearn for a “great man” to restore the primacy of their group (in this case, Americans of European extraction), to wish to demonstrate our nation’s power by throwing our weight around, and to regard certain groups as the evil among us, or potentially among us, in which case they have to subdued, exiled, or excluded. Most notably, in the minds of Donald Trump and those cheering him on, these enemies include undocumented workers, Syrian refugees, Obama and Clinton—and peaceful Black Lives Matter protestors, implicitly holding them responsible for the murder of police officers.

With regard to all these factors, for Trump at least, there is a tendency to assume that “the truth is what I say it is.” The links below are to initial and incomplete fact checks of his acceptance speech; they reinforce the pattern he displayed in his primary campaign of fabricating statistics or taking them out of context, and reveal a disregard for reality and truth. No one can say for sure whether he can deliver on his many promises—to almost immediately stop crime, bring back manufacturing jobs, and give everyone in the country an equal education, just for starters. However, on the face of it, the lack of actual policy prescriptions, other than to “build a wall,” tear up our trade agreements, slash taxes, and get better prosecutors, do not inspire great optimism about his potential for success.

Of course, many in his party, some of whom refused to attend the convention, understand that such simple answers often have side effects that are not pretty and that carry forward shadow aspects of the GOP that are not new but now can be seen in the glaring light of the sun. Conservative columnist David Brooks characterized the content and style of Trump’s speech as characteristic of demagogues in all times and places, recognizing that we can anticipate the possible outcome of a Trump presidency by examining the results of rule by demagogues in other times in history and in the world today.

What can we do in response? One thing would be to send out a vision, a prayer, or just good energy for the Republican Party to move out of trance and grow into the potential for its expression of the strengths of the Innocent archetype. The beginning of this would be: recognizing their own complicity in the problems that face our great nation; removing their projections onto Democratic leaders and scapegoat groups; sharing a realistic vision of the future given what is currently known; and committing to working with Democrats to put together the pieces of the puzzle they each see and find solutions both can live with.

As we move into next week, with the Democratic National Convention coming up, let us equally hope that Democrats take the high road and do not respond in kind by demonizing Republicans. This may be difficult, since being vilified to the degree they were at the Republican convention is wounding and stress inducing. Let’s hope that the Democratic leadership is mature and conscious enough to stay out of trance and provide a more balanced and realistic sense of how our country can go forward than was evidenced this week.

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/2016-conventions/fact-check-how-did-trump-s-claims-hold-n614616

http://www.npr.org/2016/07/21/486883610/fact-check-donald-trumps-republican-convention-speech-annotated

By Carol S. Pearson

Hillary Clinton has major archetypal advantages and faces equally major challenges, similar to ones we all confront in figuring out how to link our strengths with the needs of a time and place. I’m sharing this analysis of her archetypes as a model for what any of us can do to be effective in the environments we must deal with.

Strengths: Hillary’s Ruler[1] archetype strengths are important to the role of a President: her knowledge of the issues, her public policy savvy, her presidential demeanor, and her unflappable poise and competence, demonstrated most memorably in the Benghazi hearings. She is well prepared for the position she aspires to hold.

Her gender also is important to the form of the Ruler she embodies. Womanly qualities soften the Ruler archetype. Hillary needs to campaign and govern in a facilitative way, listening before making decisions and promoting caring policies, all of which she has promised to do. Current research has found that many women in political positions get things done because they are better at reaching across the aisle than most of their male counterparts.[2] And, when I have asked college students to identify their own personal heroes, a surprising number—males and females alike—picked their moms, describing them as caring, tough, tell-it-like-it-is fountains of strength and wisdom. Hillary’s Ruler has these qualities at a time when our country needs to face 21^st century issues head on.

Challenges: As often is the case for women, Hillary’s strengths are being held against her. Many Americans today are anti-government, and hence scorn the typical strengths a President should have. Moreover, her belief in the primary value of democracy—that we all matter—is under fire by those who think that their own groups are more important than others. Furthermore, popular psychology has inadvertently encouraged people to blame mothers for whatever problems they have. And if that were not enough, the far right fears that enacting government programs that express our caring for one another would lead to a dreaded “mommy” state.

Solutions: As many of us have found, having the right archetype and experience to do a job is not enough. To succeed, we also need to tap the archetypes active in those we want to support and work with us. To gain more enthusiastic support, Hillary would do well to integrate a bit of the archetypes that have helped Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump get their backers charged up. This could lead her to:

• Campaign with a more Revolutionary archetypal style, which could be achieved in part by engaging Bernie in the campaign. Since she agrees with most of his policy goals, she can show more energetic enthusiasm for a shared larger vision, while also stressing her capacity to enact those policies.

• Reveal her Jester, which is the umbrella archetype for the Trickster (the subject of my June 6^th blog). Americans like to be entertained and clearly want to be cheered up, which is part of Trump’s appeal to a certain segment of the population that wants its views mirrored and promises of easy answers. Therefore,

• Balance the Ruler with the court Jester—telling the truth with a comic twist, making her rallies fun, with humor, music, and dancing in the progressive tradition[3], and meeting people’s desires for answers. As Disney’s Mary Poppins sang, “a spoonful of sugar” could make the medicine go down. The medicine is what we need to do to narrow the income gap, create good jobs, become safer at home and abroad, and address climate change. The sugar is the fact that answers to these problems do exist and these problems can be solved.

Beyond politics, each of us can increase our chances of success by noticing our archetypal strengths and then balancing these with archetypes that are needed in the cultures in which we live and work. These can include our families, neighborhoods, friendship networks, workplaces, or religious organizations.[4] The following can help you analyze an archetypal challenge in your own life and work.

Step One: Pick some situation in which you would like to be of help or otherwise make a difference.

Step Two: Identify a strength that you have that makes you a good person to contribute to achieving a positive outcome.

Step Three: Imagine a character (from literature, mythology, the media, or real life) that has the strength you would bring. Come up with a generic name for this kind of archetypal character (as I chose Ruler for Hillary). Don’t worry about whether the name is correct according to some archetypal system. As long as it feels right to you, it is right for you.

Step Four: Identify an adjective to modify this archetypal name that reflects something important you bring that might not be true of everyone else (as with Hillary’s “womanly Ruler”).

Step Five:  Consider the attitudes prevalent in the environment and situation in which you would like to achieve success toward the archetypal qualities you are offering them. If some are negative, how might you combat that problem by modifying the way your archetype is expressed?

Step Six: Identify the people in that environment who are getting most of the attention and why. (For Hillary, it would be Bernie and Trump.) Link them to characters you associate them with, and then with archetypal names. What positive qualities of these archetypes can you tap in yourself and use in your situation to achieve an ideal outcome with ease and grace.

Step Seven:  Overall, what does this tell you about what you would need to do to succeed?

When problems seem overwhelming, the Trickster archetype often is called for. I’ve long been fascinated by its potential for liberation or con artistry. In fact, my doctoral dissertation looked at Trickster figures in books like One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Catch-22, and Invisible Man. Dionysus, in my new book, Persephone Rising, is one also. This blog is triggered by Donald Trump’s candidacy, but it actually is about much more. All the attention on him suggests to me that the Trickster archetype is reemerging in our time, forcing us to make this archetype conscious so that we can gain its gifts and avoid its downsides. Besides its political manifestation, the Trickster in each of us also can be an agent for good or result in a whole lot of trouble for everyone concerned.

Tricksters abound in all cultures. Generally, they achieve their goals through trickery, and in the process undermine traditional rules about how things are done. Often, but not always, they truly enjoy the process.

Trump has spent much of his life as a playboy. Funded initially by his wealthy father, he has had the freedom to do just about whatever he enjoys, and what he loves most is “the deal” and playing to win it as a game. He has defied what he calls “political correctness” and how a presidential campaign generally is conducted. He also is good at manipulating events to get what he wants: from the beginning of his campaign, for example, the press has given him free 24/7 coverage, and he managed to hijack the Republican Party from its traditional leaders and many of its funders. In short, the Trickster appears to be a strong element in his behavior.

The round-the-clock attention Trump is getting invites us to more deeply examine the Trickster archetype, with both its gifts and its dangers.

The Trickster in America

The Trickster is a powerful archetype in American culture. Think, for example, of Coyote in Native American lore, the Bre’r Rabbit stories (their racism aside) where the Rabbit outfoxes the fox, Bugs Bunny tricking Elmer Fudd, The Road Runner getting away once again from Wile E. Coyote, Tom Sawyer tricking his friends into painting the fence for him, or Disney’s movie version of Mary Poppins, who tricks the Banks children into behaving and their parents into spending time with them, so that they become a real family. The term “Yankee ingenuity,” which seems to have fallen out of everyday usage, sometimes has been used to describe a trickster element in the way Americans have solved problems. The Trickster also can be transformational, like the shaman Don Juan, in the best-selling series of books by Carlos Castaneda, who tricks his followers into experiencing an evolved consciousness and, in so doing, realizing the higher purpose of the archetype.

The United States won its independence by breaking all the standard rules of war that the British took for granted. And even today, the informal way we dress and the freedom of expression enjoyed by our artists and entertainers shocks some people around world—while others adopt our styles, listen to our music, and watch our movies and TV shows.

Tricksters in Politics

Martin Luther King, Jr. performed the role of positive trickster in its serious form when he shifted American thinking from us vs. them/White vs. Black to the question of how we stay true to the founding values of our country—the belief that all people have the fundamental right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” President Lyndon B. Johnson demonstrated trickster abilities in using every leverage point he had with members of Congress in order to pass civil rights legislation, just as President Lincoln had done to end slavery.

Because the Trickster is a subtype of the Jester archetype, we also can see it expressed in the preference of many Americans today to get their news from those who can transmute difficult situations into laughter—for example, as Jon Stewart did on The Daily Show. Often, such humor positively tricks people out of taking everything so seriously that they get anxious and depressed. Participants in brainstorming sessions frequently are encouraged to think of outrageous solutions to difficult issues, which can lighten them up enough to escape the obvious answers and consider new possibilities.

The Trickster as Con Artist in Popular Media

However, when archetypes are emerging or reemerging in consciousness, it is not unusual for them to display their counterproductive sides first. The most negative embodiment of this archetype is the con man—though as a people, we love their entertainment value despite their potential destructiveness. An example would be Harold Hill, the lead character in the musical The Music Man, who, in a scheme to sell instruments, promises the townspeople that their children will be playing together in a wonderful marching band. In truth, he plans to abscond with their money. Only when he falls in love with a local woman does his conscience begin to object.

There can a downward slippery slope for the Trickster archetype when it is ego-driven and does not care for others. This is evident in the portrayal of Francis Underwood, in the Netflix series House of Cards, whose capacity for manipulation has no ethical boundaries. You also can see it in the depiction of Olivia Pope, in the ABC political thriller Scandal, who starts out as a self-proclaimed “fixer.” Because she initially is so lovable, it is difficult not to keep rooting for her, even as she begins to authorize torture, like her demonic father before her. 

Caroline Casey[1], an expert on this archetype, argues that the test of whether what we are viewing (or being) is a positive Trickster or a damaging con artist is based on the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. To avoid inadvertently going over the Trickster dark side, Casey recommends declining to do to someone else what you would not want to endure yourself.

Optimism, Desire, and Being Conned

To be successful, a Trickster con artist always needs someone willing to be duped. As Americans, our inherent optimism makes it easy for us not to recognize that what seems too good to be true almost always is. This applies even to very sophisticated people—for example, many of those who were taken in by Bernie Madoff. It can be even more the case for people who are scraping to make a living, hoping for their big break. Before the economic crisis of 2008, millions believed they were realizing their big dream of home ownership, often ignoring the reality of balloon payments or assuming that they would never lose their job or get ill. In the Academy Award-nominated film The Big Short, about the origin of worldwide recession in Wall Street practices, the viewer comes to identify with a few individuals who saw the crash coming before others did and conned the big banks, making a killing when it happened. Only one of these characters seems truly concerned about the millions who lost their homes. Lower-level Tricksters lack empathy for those they trick; higher-level ones use the trick for the healing and ultimate good of others.

Trump’s Candidacy and the Need to Cheer Up

Many of those who attend Trump rallies laugh when the candidate says outrageous things and chime in with ongoing refrains that propose simple solutions to complicated problems—like chanting "Build the Wall" and answering the question of who will pay for it by shouting “Mexico!” Trump’s popularity is not merely the product of prejudice, or a desire for something radically new, but also reflects a longing by his followers to lighten up and experience the relief that can come from believing in easy answers. Depression, anxiety, fear of the future, addiction, and suicide are rampant today. Many of his supporters believe that Trump would use cunning to make all our problems disappear—tricking others around the world to act in the interest of the United States. They hope he will use his abilities to con the world, as well as others within our own country, so that his constituents get what they want.

At the same time, Trump’s detractors look at his history and fear that the con ultimately would be at the expense of Americans or even the world at large. They cite his history of bankruptcies and shady business practices, where he repeatedly has left others holding the bag when his projects went south. In response to his suggestion that he would be fine with having the U.S. default on its debts, they argue that this could leave our creditors—many of whom are American institutions and individuals—in financial difficulty, perhaps even causing a global depression.

Beyond Trump, however, there is a more general desire among voters to shake things up, to move beyond established ways of doing things, to try something new—a desire manifested strongly in the unexpected success of Bernie Sanders.

What Level of the Trickster is Right for Us Now?

The level of attention the Trump campaign is getting from supporters and detractors alike suggests to me some urgency for a national conversation on where we are and where we want to be with the Trickster archetype. In the United States, change tends to trickle up, not down. I see the Trump phenomenon as an invitation for us to embody the answer we want to achieve. Doing so is important not just to create ripple effects in our nation and the world; it also is necessary for us to get out of stuck places in our own lives.

So, irrespective of whom we vote for, we need to consider the archetype itself—and which version of it is needed now in the U.S., in the larger world, and in our personal lives. My request is that you build on what I’ve said in this blog with your comments. Here are some questions to get your thinking going, though you shouldn’t feel hemmed in by them.

1. What images of positive and negative Tricksters do you see today around you—in real people, in characters in various entertainment media, or in popular ideas and behaviors?
2. What images of the Trickster resonate for you, capture your attention, and release positive energy in your own life?
3. Where do you see the Trickster expressed in your own behavior or that of others? How would you like to see it?
4. Tricksters often undercut some expected behaviors and standards as they also create new ones. If you could perform such a trick, what outcomes would you like to see and what strategies (no matter how seemingly outrageous) might achieve them?

I’m visiting with friends and one of them asks, “What is going on? Is this America? On one side, we have a candidate for president of the United States whose fans love him for saying racist and misogynistic things, for wanting to round up a minority religious group, and who says that torture and the use of nuclear weapons are on the table for use. On the other, we have a candidate who calls himself a socialist at a time when many Americans do not know the difference between Communism and Democratic Socialism, yet a hefty group, especially the young, have no trouble with that!” Another friend adds, “Yes, and at the same time we have possibly the first woman nominee for president who proposes major progressive policies that, according to polls, reflect the views of the majority of Americans, but who gets lukewarm support.”

What is going on, and what does it have to do with you and me, not just in our voting behavior, but in the ways we see ourselves? What do social scientists and psychologists tell us that can help us understand emerging trends that affect our ability to succeed?[1]

Trend #1: Dualistic Culture Wars Are Unraveling

The diffuse enemy of terrorism is undermining Cold War us/them thinking, since danger comes from a variety of terrorist groups. Efforts to defeat it by traditional means (like the war in Iraq) are destabilizing, causing additional groups to spring up. Communist countries (like Vietnam, where I just visited) are becoming as capitalistic as our own, lacking democracy but, in some cases, permitting religion, so the idea of godless Communism is dead or dying. Our political parties are splintering into subgroups that claim to be more right than those that have been on the same side in our dualistic culture wars. Yet today, our heroes in novels, films, and even cable television are more and more grey, with both good and bad sides.

Trend #2: The American Public Has, Overall, Become More Progressive

Peter Beinart, in “Why America is Moving Left,” summarizes news reports and political science that says that even though Congress has moved right (partly as a result of voter suppression and gerrymandering), the majority of the American people have become increasingly liberal. Over the past 60 years, we have seen the emergence of a series of liberation movements, starting with the Civil Rights movement, and then the women’s movement, the Gay Rights movement (progressing quickly to include transgender rights), and the Latino Liberation movement, which encompasses immigration issues. All these have captured public opinion to the point that opponents’ efforts to undermine them often inspire boycotts, even on relatively new issues like transgender rights. Political holdouts are left complaining about “political correctness,” since the majority of people find sexist and racist statements distasteful. And this shows no sign of abating. Beinart writes, “On issue after issue, it is the young who are most pleased with the liberal policy shifts of the Obama era, and most eager for more.”[2]

Trend #3: Real Life Undermines Linear Forecasts

Modern science tells us that in complex systems with multiple causalities, linear projections are not necessarily what is likely to happen. Most of us take for granted the dualistic competition in our two-party system, but the parties could be splintering. The Republican alliance of corporate interests, right-leaning evangelicals, and disaffiliated white working class males may be coming apart once and for all, with moderates increasingly out in the cold. The alliance of moderate and progressive Democrats seems similarly vulnerable as the animosity between the Clinton and Sanders camps intensifies, with some traditional working class Democratic support co-opted by Donald Trump.

Older women, who fought for the changes young women now enjoy, have been somewhat blindsided when these same young women have declined to support the first woman candidate for president that has a chance of winning. It appears that many young women identify more with their progressive views than with their gender, and, not having been socialized by Cold War rhetoric, do not see “socialist” as a dirty word. Many comfortably lean toward Bernie Sanders. With a growing sense that gender is on a continuum, young women also do not want anyone to think that their roles, sense of identity, or opinions could be predicted by their sex. Indeed, it is just that which they fear.

Both young women and men who are college educated tend to think of countries like Sweden and Denmark when they hear the words “democratic socialism,” so they have no trouble supporting a socialist if they agree with his views. Here again we see an example of the young defying dualistic formulations like capitalism vs. communism to allow for multiple forms of governance.

Some Caucasians, seeing linear projections that they soon may be a minority of the population, fear that other races will turn the tables on them by becoming the norm group and depriving them of the status they’ve enjoyed. In truth, however, current population changes actually will make the U.S. a nation of subgroups, with no single majority. Moreover, we actually have a growing number of mixed-race citizens, and many people who identify as African-American or White actually are of a mixed-race background. In the most recent Census, a substantial number of Americans either said they were of mixed race or refused to answer that question; colleges are finding the same thing in admissions applications, making it difficult for them to report on progress in diversifying the student body. The new normal could realize Martin Luther King, Jr.’s dream of a day when people would be judged by the quality of their character rather than the color of their skin.

The emerging pluralistic view that we can see all around us can be disquieting if the story we tell ourselves is that society is unraveling. However, if we shift the metaphor to an agricultural one, we can imagine a plow breaking up the clods of entrenched old thinking, so that new ideas can sprout and thrive. From a psychological perspective, such disruption can be felt at the microcosmic individual level, as well as at the macro national and planetary levels, so many people may well be experiencing disorientation. However, we can welcome this as shaking up our tired old ways of being so that renewal can occur.

Trend #4: An Unexpected Rise in the Authoritarian Personality

All this change, however, clearly is terrifying to some people, who then respond with anger. As Amanda Taub notes in “The Rise of American Authoritarianism,”[3] social scientists are studying the growth of the authoritarian personality in the U.S., linking it to fear-based thinking that wants to stop change and considers any kind of outsiders to be threatening. This can mean, for working class people, anyone who they believe is taking their jobs, such as undocumented immigrants and foreign workers in plants outsourced by U.S. firms. For Whites, it can mean minorities of any kind, and for men, women. For some religious conservatives, fear is related to the social acceptance of sex outside of the marriage between a man and a woman, or people making nontraditional choices about parenting or what gender they believe they are, which they perceive as sinful and thus potentially undermining their religious beliefs, and with these, a social consensus about morality.

Some social scientists argue that racist, sexist, anti-Moslem, and anti-foreigner messages, such as those that have been propagated by the current leading GOP presidential candidate, promote the development of rigid, authoritarian personalities, while Taub and others stress how those with such a personality gravitate to these messages. Experts also warn that anyone can begin thinking in autocratic ways if they get frightened enough, and that this can occur within many political ideologies. Such authoritarian mindsets lead to a withdrawal of empathy, so that some people are regarded as Other, and thus less valuable, whether because of their gender, race, sexual orientation, level of ability, nationality, or religion. In this way of thinking, it becomes acceptable to make jokes at the expense of these groups or attack them verbally. When someone does not share an empathic concern, they also do not understand it, so they can easily dismiss it or experience it as social repression.

Many media outlets and politicians seek ratings or other advantages by stoking the fires of these fears, with some promising to eliminate these “outsider” threats by turning back the clock on affirmative action and building walls to keep out the rest of the world. Because the problems of stagnant wages and lost jobs in some sectors are real, what we need are answers to how to offer employment with decent wages for all Americans, including the white working class males who are feeling left behind as well as historically underrepresented groups that have not yet caught up with more advantaged ones. Similarly, the ultimate answer to stemming the tide of the many who flock to our shores fleeing hunger or terrorism is to find better ways to cooperate with other countries to promote better living conditions throughout the world. However, accomplishing this requires more of us to achieve a growth mindset.

Trend #5: Personal Success Linked to a Growth Mindset

Educational psychologists (for example, Carol Dweck, in her book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success) have revealed that a fixed mindset, which shares much with an authoritarian one, faced with a learning challenge or information that undercuts one’s views, causes people to dig in their heels and be less successful in today’s world. Success, they have found, comes from a growth mindset, where difference, change, and a learning challenge trigger curiosity and a desire to learn and develop.

The good news is that people with a fixed mindset can gain a growth mindset. This psychological change, along with education and economic opportunity, sets them up for success. How is this done? Students shift their fundamental mindset when they get support for persevering in order to learn, and through this process gain trust in curiosity and how it allows them to grow and change to meet new challenges.

People with a fixed mindset also are more likely to identify who they are with their externals—their sex, race, country, region, class, and so on—rather than with their ideas, strengths, and values and what is unique about them. The good thing about beliefs, however, is that they are susceptible to change, unlike where we were born, the color of our skin, or our sexual orientation. While we can now change our sex, it requires major medical interventions to do so, and changing our class requires luck and really hard work. However, it is possible to stop confusing even our ideas with our identities, so that we feel that we would not be us if our ideas changed. There has been a rather recent trend for some people to become so attached to their political affiliation that as parents, they would not want their child to marry someone of the other party. In such ways, our ideas easily can become a substitute for who we are as individuals. A growth mindset can help each of us become smarter, more curious, and better at problem solving, both individually and collectively, when decoupled from limiting ideas about what makes us us, me me, and you you.

Implications For You and Me

So, how does this help you in your life? Politically, you can advocate for the issues that help groups you are a part of and for your ideas without being so attached to them that you cannot hear and learn from the perspectives of others. You also can disengage from sources of news that feed your fears and practice curiosity, so that you can be part of a positive effort to find win/win answers. In your personal l life, you can recognize that when unexpected change you did not choose happens, it is not necessarily something to be feared, if it is handled well.

Rather than viewing a setback, loss, or failure as catastrophic, you can begin tracking what new options are emerging and work to reinforce them. If others involved are moving into fixed authoritarian thinking and digging in their heels, you can explore what their real issue is, and, if you can, help them see options that make them less scared and thus open to the growth that would contribute to finding viable solutions. Or, if you catch yourself becoming rigid, you can take time to breathe and gain perspective through focusing on the specifics of the situation. Then, you can consider what part of the answer to the problem is in your control to fix and work on that manageable bit. Finally, remind yourself that people with a growth mindset have a head start on success and fulfillment. Explore how you can trigger curiosity about what is happening and enjoy the resulting learning process.

Questions:

1. What have you learned to do to break free of fear and move into curiosity and a growth mindset where learning occurs?
2. When you are torn between two things, how able are you to move out of this tension to explore a third, fourth, or fifth way to understand the situation?
3. What practice helps you withdraw judgment from others you dislike or who scare you to find the part in yourself that can feel empathy for them? What also helps you have compassion for that part of you?
4. What does recognizing who you like and admire show you about who you aspire to be more like? How might you reinforce this natural growth process in yourself?
5. What do you see as emerging from the social breakdown that appears to be happening in our society? What is sprouting out of the resulting plowed fields that gives you hope? What kind of water and sunlight do those new sprouts need to flourish?[4] Is there anything in your power to do to assist in nourishing and protecting those sprouts? If so, what?