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cobra-diamond · 5 years ago

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The East Asian Origins of the Fire Nation and Its Villains

Introduction

Over the years, many volumes of fandom blood have been spilled from discussions concerning the Fire Nation’s main villains, Ozai and Azula. Paralleling this have been arguments over their relationships with Zuko, Iroh, Ursa, Mai, Ty Lee, with each other, even with themselves. Since Ozai and Azula are the figureheads of the Fire Nation that Zuko must peacefully restore the honor of, it is worthwhile understanding why people “like them” are considered proper leaders of the current Fire Nation.

Most of these discussions have sought to create “theories” that explain these characters as exclusively combinations of mental illness, personality disorders and various emotional traumas.

A couple examples of these discussions are the essays “Azula, the Embodiment of Jealousy and Neglect,” and “Three Pillars Theory of Azula.” These two essays are just examples, but they capture the widespread strategy the fandom has employed in trying to understand the motivations and goals of Ozai and Azula and their various relationships with the other characters. In addition, the shouting matches between Azula “fans” and “haters” also illustrates these discussions. Since the franchise has yielded so few hard answers, these importance of these discussions has not waned.

What these discussions focus on, as represented by those essays, are the characters’ apparent emotional problems, theoretical moral compasses and perceived inadequacies in the eyes of their families. Typically, the “lens” these discussions view these villains through is one that tries to relate them to present day spousal and domestic abuse narratives, namely as being both “abuser” and “victim” in a cycle of abuse that can be related to the modern, real world.

What these conversations do not provide are adequate explanations for how the historical, political, military and cultural aspects of the Fire Nation molded these military leaders. You would think that people with “Lord” and “Princess” in their names, who train daily for warfare and hand-to-hand combat, would make their responsibilities take center stage in their lives.

While there is a place for “nitty gritty” psychological examinations for understanding certain behaviors, trying to depict the Fire Nation villains as purely allegories of modern day domestic abusers, empathy deficient bullies and people afflicted by personality disorders eliminates Avatar’s most unique and defining characteristic: its East Asian origins.

You don’t need beautiful animation, martial arts-styled bending and immersion in a fantasy world to explain how families in the modern era can hurt their children for petty reasons. We have that in our own lives. We have friends and families who have experienced that. It can be addressed in any other setting. It can be addressed in Avatar but it doesn’t need Avatar to address it.

What we don’t experience in our modern lives is ancient China 2000 years ago, or feudal Japan after the takeover of the Tokugawa Shogun, or religious monks living in their temples in the mountains untouched by the modern world, and so on.

The setting of Avatar is one of both beauty and relative detachment from the real (and modern) world, but it is one that is based on a period of history and human civilization that most of Avatar’s audience (North America and Europe) have little exposure to. If the characters’ motivations are too detached from the fictional world in which they live (i.e. by ignoring the historical, political, military and cultural context), then you begin to lose the world’s depth. At the same time, if their motivations are too connected to the present world, then all Avatar is is a visual motif of ancient East Asia.

By seeking to explain the Fire Nation villains as embodiments of modern psychology’s understanding of “bad” people, you erase the opportunity to apply East Asia’s very real history of warfare, monarchical domination and oppressive cultures to a fictional world that is trying to say something about that warfare, monarchical domination and oppressive cultures. Note that the show did in fact achieve this with the Dai Lee’s corruption and manipulation of the Earth King; it depicted loosely the very real occurrence of Chinese Emperors being “kept in the dark” by their advisors so as not to interfere with the “real” governing of the states.

If your goal is to view Avatar purely as an allegory for modern dysfunctional relationships and domestic abuse, you lose Avatar’s uniqueness as a fictional dive into an East Asian-inspired world, especially one that is ravaged by warfare and feudalism.

In this article, I describe an alternative model for understanding the Fire Nation’s culture and history, and how its politics and military molded its heroes and villains.

What We Know and Might Know

In order to fill the gaps in our knowledge of the Fire Nation, we first have to understand what is both known about the Fire Nation and what can be reasonably presumed about it.

First, what do we know about the Fire Nation?

1. The Fire Nation is an archipelago with a history spanning thousands of years.

2. The Fire Nation was originally the “Fire Islands” and was not initially governed by a central power.

3. The Fire Islands had a unified cultural and religious authority in the form of the “Fire Sages”.

4. Eventually, the Fire Islands were unified by a single power—the “Imperial Government”—and afterward became known as the “Fire Nation”.

5. The Imperial Government is headed by a supreme ruler: the “Fire Lord”.

6. The Fire Lord is a hereditary monarch whose family is considered the “Royal Family”, both of which are separate entities from the Fire Sages.

7. The Fire Sages remain a distinct entity from the Imperial Government.

8. Both the Fire Lord and Royal Family are military and administrative rulers.

9. The Fire Lord and their Royal Family are not sacred and everlasting; their power can be “challenged” by rival leaders.

10. Fire Lords are expected to “show their worth” and be competent fighters in their own right; prowess in military arts and control of subordinates are valued traits.

11. Agni Kais are a longstanding component of Fire Nation culture.

12. The Fire Nation experienced an “unprecedented time of peace and wealth” during the era of the Fire Nation, not during the era Fire Islands.

Next, what can be reasonably presumed given what we know?

Something necessitated the Fire Islands becoming unified, but this unification did not result in the Fire Sages taking power, nor did it yield a peaceful, democratic government.

The Imperial Government that resulted from this unification is rooted in military control and maintaining the fealty of its subjects; in Avatar and the Fire Lord, Sozin put on his “ruler persona” to Roku initially before acting friendly, only later to demand loyalty from him as if Roku was any other subject.

The culture of the Fire Nation values strength and bravery from its firebenders, as explained in an official description of Agni Kais. Presumably, the Agni Kai predates the era of the Fire Lord and has been used to settle disputes of various kinds. This could be interpreted as a “non-destructive” means of avoiding war and greater loss of life given how easily firebenders could wreak havoc to wooden buildings and crops (among other flammable components of society). Since nobody recognized Zuko on Ember Island in The Beach, despite his obvious scar, severe scars from burns must be common enough in the Fire Nation that a teen boy having one on his face is not horrifying nor particularly unattractive.

Presumably, the Fire Nation/Fire Islands used to hold its religion and spiritual ties in higher regard, but Sozin’s start of the war required this aspect of the Fire Nation to be suppressed, as implied by dragon hunting and the divided loyalties of the Fire Sages at Roku’s temple, and the fact that various generals and admirals have defected. At the same time, vast enough swaths of the country and its leadership did follow Sozin’s path, considering that he and his family remained in power for over a hundred years. If Fire Lords can have their power challenged, then either nobody tried to stop Sozin, or they were defeated. Azula’s comment about “rumors of plans to overthrow him (Ozai)” in The Avatar State implies betrayal of the Royal Family is not a dormant threat. Though she was technically lying, it must have been a credible lie since neither Iroh and Zuko thought it was preposterous; his brother being “regretful” is what puzzled Iroh, not that there would be plots against the Fire Lord.

Notably, the Fire Lord’s throne room changed between the start of the war and the present day. Prior to Sozin, it did not have the imposing wall of flame as it does now. Certainly it had to be rebuilt after Roku destroyed it, but the wall of flame is much more imposing than the old.

The Fire Sages still pay a role in the Fire Nation, but this role is not known. Presumably, they play some part in the succession of the Fire Lord since they preside over coronation. Perhaps the relationship between the Fire Lord and Fire Sages is similar to the relationship between the Japanese Emperor and the Shoguns, where the Shoguns held the true power in the country (military and administrative) whereas the Emperor maintained a facade of power as a cultural and religious symbol. What is known about the Fire Sages is that they have a temple in the capital and are divided between their loyalties to the Avatar and the Fire Lord.

Finally, the Imperial Government’s capital is located in an isolated, fortified city inside a volcano’s caldera, where coming-and-going is strictly controlled. The city is large, full of nobility, physically disconnected from the external port city (versus directly being the hub of economic activity) and contains numerous underground bunkers.

Why would the Capital require such extensive bunkers and fortifications? Presumably because the Fire Lord and Royal Family can be “challenged” and the bunkers are a defense mechanism against both external and internal threats. The Fire Nation did have a “darkest day” tied to solar eclipses, which suggests that the loss of firebending had profound military consequences. Whatever the reasons, the Imperial Government is so concerned about its survival that it has constructed massive fortifications around its capital, implying that warfare is a major concern.

Areas of Confusion

But what does all of this mean?

Was the Fire Nation previously peace-loving and compassionate while Sozin is responsible for all of its “evils”?

Have Agni Kais been performed for centuries and so Zuko being challenged to one was neither unusual nor particularly grotesque for the Fire Nation’s culture?

Did Sozin face massive opposition to starting the war or was everyone humbly obedient to the Fire Lord?

How is a Fire Lord’s rule challenged?

Why wasn’t Sozin overthrown if he had to “impose” the war upon the country?

Why did the Fire Lord come to existence in the first place?

Why has the Imperial Government not been replaced by the Fire Sages?

Why does the Fire Nation need a national government?

What is a more compelling explanation for the Fire Nation’s villains other than mental illness and personality disorders?

As it turns out, there is a way to understand the Fire Nation that adequately fills in the gaps, explains its heroes and villains and provides a lesson on East Asian history.

A Brief History of Ancient Japan’s Unification

The islands of Japan have been populated for tens of thousands of years, but the “modern” era of warlords and emperors did not begun until the past 1500 years or so. While the Japanese people were not united under a single state, there was an “Emperor” who was believed to have been descended from a goddess. Despite this first emperor having control over a certain portion of Japan, it did not take long until the country split into separate feudal states.

While the Emperor never went away, their power over the country waned. The real power in Japan laid in the hands of the various feudal lords (daimyo), who used their armies to defend their territories and capture new ones from other lords.

Since the Emperor represented a shared cultural connection among the people, their power was not completely absent. In the earlier parts of history, before the Emperor became completely subordinated, the Emperor would appoint a Seii Taishōgun, or supreme commander, of the Emperor’s armies. Eventually, this “supreme commander” became the actual ruler of the Japan since they controlled the military. By appointing them “shogun” they more or less had the public approval of the Emperor despite the Emperor not actually being able to control them.

Various shoguns came and went, but through it all were the daimyo using their samurai to battle for control of the country. Ruthlessness and murder were common. Building alliances only to later betray them were often wise tactics. For a thousand years, the rulers of Japan lived by the sword, died by the sword and used it to maintain their power. Things got particularly bad during the Sengoku Period, which is considered the “Warring States” period of Japan. That tells you all you need to know.

It was during this time that one of these feudal lords rose to power, a man named Tokugawa Ieyasu (first name Ieyasu, last name Tokugawa). Using a combination of political tact, military genius and European steel breast armor, he defeated all other daimyo during the Azuchi–Momoyama period and installed himself as the shogun of the Tokugawa Shogunate. This marked the end of over a thousand years of continuous violence and social turmoil in Japan.

The Tokugawa Shogunate represented Japan’s first unified national government. The country’s existing daimyo were placed under strict control to ensure they did not rebel. The military was nationalized and the existing feudal governments rearranged to ensure centralized control by the Shogun in his capital at Edo. Notably, Edo became modern day Tokyo.

National laws were written, along with cultural and religious standards to ensure social cohesiveness, stability and control. The economies of Japan also flourished, especially in the cities. A consequence of the Tokugawa Shogunate, however, was closing off Japan to the outside world. The Shogun wanted to ensure their rule and control of the populace. Allowing other countries to influence them and provide assistance to competing powers within the country was viewed as destabilizing.

A particularly unique aspect of the Tokugawa’s politic strategy was requiring the daimyos’ families to live in the capital while the daimyo themselves had to go back and forth between their homes in their territory (called a domain) and their homes in the capital every other year. The Shogun essentially held the daimyos’ families hostage to ensure they would not rebel or work against him, although they lived in the comfort and relative freedom of a modern city, not as actual prisoners.

Another tactic the Shogun utilized to quell rebellion was to keep careful control of who entered the city of Edo and its surroundings. Guards were at all entrances and major roads and registries were kept of all people. Essentially, if you weren’t suppose to be somewhere, you weren’t allowed to be there.

Bushdio also developed during this period as way of controlling the warrior class, and was much more complicated than most Western depictions. With war and feudal fighting no longer a constant threat, the samurai class became enforces for the new government. Naturally, the Shogun was particularly interested in controlling them.

Control is a common theme of the Tokugawa Shogun’s government.

The Tokugawa Period was one of peace and stability, prosperity and enjoyment of the arts, but Ieyasu Tokugawa was not a nice person. He hunted down and executed the families of rival clans, including kids, during the takeover. He held families hostage and made sure his subordinates feared him and never stepped out of line. He enacted strict laws to control the populace and made sure no one could challenge him and his government’s reign. And it worked. Japan did not experience another war until the end of the Tokugawa Shogunate 278 years later, when the Emperor regained control and ended the era of isolationism. There’s a reason why modern day Japan doesn’t view this period with derision and loathing; given the context of the time, it was a proud moment for a region racked by warfare and division.

A pattern is beginning to emerge: an island nation ruled by feuding lords with no central power to direct them; a religious and cultural figure with no real power; a period of intense warfare and turmoil followed by a lasting period of unification and prosperity; a powerful central government headed by a hereditary monarch who took power using ruthlessness and military might; a hereditary monarch who rules through fear and demands fealty; a capital city with strict control of who comes and goes.

Themes of control and subordination from a central power.

This is sounds very familiar.

The Military and Political History of the Fire Nation

The history of ancient Japan provides a real-world model for understanding the origins of the Fire Nation’s Imperial Government, the Fire Lord and why they rule through fear and military domination. Keep in mind that the Fire Nation is not Japan, but warfare, centralized control and a desire for peace and stability are universal. Ancient Japan’s experience with feudalism, warfare and the eventual peace that came from having a competent central authority can go a long way in applying Avatar’s “East Asian origins” to the Fire Nation and its villains and heroes.

Using the rise of the Tokugawa Shogunate as a template, the history of the Fire Nation looks like this:

The Fire Islands were ruled by various feudal lords. These feudal lords engaged in warfare with each other as they vied for ever increasing control. Firebending was the primary source of these lords’ military might. The Fire Sages were recognized as spiritual and religious leaders by the Fire Islands people, but they did not have the practical power necessary to enforce peace upon the lands.

At the same time, firebending was recognized as being fundamental to the influence of the Fire Sages and the power of the feudal lords. Since fire can destroy houses, burn fields, melt iron and lay waste to non-bending armies, whoever can control and weaponize firebending for their own purposes will attain the most power. On the other hand, this also makes warfare particularly destructive as even small rebellions could lay waste to cities given how much fire a single firebender can unleash.

At some point, in order to put a stop to the fighting, a central authority came to power, either as one of those warlords or a Fire Sage acquiring enough military and political power. Maybe an avatar helped them. Without a doubt, military might had to have played a role in ending the “Warring States” period of the Fire Islands.

In order to make sure the Fire Islands did not fall back into fighting and remained peaceful and stable, this new central authority created a sweeping national government to control them. Thus are the beginnings of the Fire Lord and Imperial Government.

Because the Fire Nation is full of people with ”desire and will, and the energy and drive to achieve what they want” (in the words of Uncle Iroh), the destructive capacity inherent to a nation full of firebenders must be kept under strict control; if the goal is to create a prosperous, flourishing society, you cannot allow it to be destroyed periodically by walking flamethrowers.

As a result, the Imperial Government is not a “friendly” entity. It controls the nobility and lords who act as the local “vassals” in their home territories; it amasses a large, overwhelming military to quash any attempts at rebellion, and to send a clear message to its people to not even try; it uses fear and threats of violence to control the people who might feel the “drive and willpower” to try their hand at acquiring wealth and power through force.

The Agni Kai exists as a means of settling conflict without the destructive consequences of firebending. Perhaps a Fire Lord enacted this to further tamp down on firebenders’ destructive tendencies. It may also be an example of how the Fire Nation’s “warrior class” handles internal disputes in a similar manner as bushido.

Bravery, ferocity and a willingness to fight are valued in the leadership of the country because the Imperial Government is supposed to be a military entity first; how can the Fire Lord, their family and government inspire fear in the people if the people don’t believe they will be crushed if they step out of line?

At the same time, since the Fire Nation is much smaller than the Earth Kingdom, the Fire Lord must ensure they can defend the Fire Nation from invasion; you need a large, devoted, competent military to go up against an enemy multiple times your size.

In order to further control the country, the Fire Lord requires the families of the lords and nobility to live in the closed-off, guarded capital inside the caldera in a similar manner as the Tokugawa Shogunate required. This is why the capital is so guarded and closed-off, yet beautiful and comfortable; it is both a defensive measure for the administrative officials and a means of holding the nobility “hostage”.

The Fire Lord and Royal Family views themselves as presiding over, and maintaining the peace and stability of the Fire Nation. Their responsibility is to ensure that the peaceful Fire Nation does not fall back into the chaotic Fire Islands. Being nice and democratic is not their means of achieving this; making sure everybody subordinates themselves to the Imperial Government is.

After hundreds of years of peace and an unprecedented era of prosperity, the Fire Nation began to lose its internal enemies. The lords and nobility were under full control. The Imperial Government was vast and efficient. Nobody was trying to invade the Fire Nation. Everyone was happy and proud of their culture and government.

This allowed Sozin to begin looking outward. Using the all-powerful Imperial Government apparatus developed over the centuries, plus the sweeping loyalty to it ingrained into the public, he was able to get the country to go to war against the world. The militarism inherent to the Fire Nation’s leadership was not crafted out of whole cloth but simply cranked up and sent down a dark path.

The military being so willing to go along with it was because of their inherent loyalty to the Imperial Government and their culture of aggression and lust for battle necessary for warriors. This is actually where the 20th century Imperial Japan connections come in, but that’s a separate topic.

In summary, the Fire Lord and Royal Family view themselves as stewards of the peace and order of the Fire Nation. They see their responsibility as doing whatever it takes to prevent the “bad old days” from returning and that the Fire Nation is never weakened by foreign invaders. They rule through coercion and fear in order to ensure a country full of people who can shoot fire out of their hands remain subservient to the Imperial Government’s will. They embrace a culture of fighting because their primary goal is to prevent fighting by deterring those who might want to try.

An Alternate View of the Fire Nation’s Villains

Viewing the Fire Nation’s culture, government and leadership through the lens of Japanese history paints a more coherent picture of the Fire Nation’s villains, versus the M.C. Escher-like theories that result from focusing entirely on mental illness and personality disorders.

Look at it like this: the Fire Lord demands fealty and obedience from the people yet Azula’s emphasis on controlling people through fear is a result of Freudian Excuses and personality disorders?

No way.

Ruling through fear and coercion is necessary from the viewpoint of a soldier-princess who is supposed to command obedience from subjects, or else.

Agni Kais are expected events in Fire Nation culture, so common that child-Zuko is perfectly happy to face the general over mere “disrespect”, but the Fire Lord challenging his son to one is uniquely out of line? It’s awful, I mean, really awful, but it’s not out of line and it says a lot about the ingrained culture of the Fire Nation; Ozai didn’t think it would be viewed as shameful by everyone watching. Keep in mind that the tale of the 47 Ronin started with one member of the nobility insulting the other (essentially) and being asked to commit suicide simply for drawing a weapon inside Edo Castle (strictly forbidden). If Ozai can have his power challenged as any other Fire Lord can, then nobody was willing to oppose him because everyone else supported him.

Iroh spends a lifetime invading the Earth Kingdom, no doubt killing tens of thousands, and he can joke about burning Ba Sing Se to the ground? Of course he can, because it’s what Fire Nation generals do and part of the terrible culture that must be changed, as horrible as it was. The prince-general is supposed to be a military leader and enjoy what he does. He better not be squeamish.

Zuko is expected to be “loved and adored” for having firebending talent, courtly manners (to quote official descriptions of Azula) and intelligence in a similar fashion as his prodigal, early-blooming sister? Yes, because she bloomed early as the type of princess the nobility and leadership want and expect. It’s unfortunate they were so hard on Zuko, but now we know why he wasn’t “adored” like his sister; she was what others wanted Zuko to be.

Ty Lee is strong-armed by Azula into leaving the life she loves, even having her life threatened, when Ty Lee is a family member of the nobility that the Imperial Government seeks to control? Of course she is strong-armed. Can you really imagine this scenario playing out:

Those lines are taken from the show. Sounds a lot different, doesn’t it? Ignore the smirking and smugness for a moment and think about what is actually happening: a supreme military leader and heir to the throne is bullying a subordinate in order to get what they are entitled to; unwavering loyalty from a subject. Doesn’t make it good. Doesn’t make Ty Lee’s fear and loathing of Azula any less justified, but it puts it in a much more relevant context than vague theories of sadism and personality disorders. It also tells us something about the real ancient world: this how military rulers in East Asia’s history behaved and now you’re getting to see it in a fictional setting.

Fire Lord Azulon orders one of his sons to execute their son? That’s bad. Really bad. Did you also know that Ieyasu Tokugawa ordered his own son to commit suicide over suspicion he was conspiring against him? He didn’t want to but those were the wishes of the lord he was working with to win the war. That’s really bad too, and not shocking for the era, unfortunately. The leaders of the ancient world valued human life a lot less than people do now. It’s sad they didn’t value it more.

Manipulating subordinates (i.e. playing them off each other) and being ruthless were not frowned upon, but legitimate tactics. Murder and backstabbing were useful means of getting rid of an opposing leader. What mattered was winning, and the blood on your hands could simply be washed off, and if people didn’t like you for it? Well, were they in charge?

None of this is “good”. None of this is moral, or righteous, or anything close to how people should act in the modern era. However, these were not kleptocratic dictators like we see around the world today. These were legitimate administrative rulers by their day’s standards, and we (you and me) will never truly know what they were feeling when they woke up in the morning with the responsibilities of warfare and politicking.

We will never be able to completely relate to what these ancient leaders did. Do you know what it’s like to be the law in the land who can order people to commit suicide, and who will do it? Do you know what it’s like to prosecute a political and military war against multiple opponents across a vast country? Do you know what it’s like to manage an ancient authoritarian government after hundreds of years of warfare and chaos? None of us will, but that’s the kind of situation that a fictional country like the Fire Nation can take inspiration from, and should take inspiration from.

These were all very real problems of the ancient world and problems which Avatar, as a fictional work, can allow us to explore in the safety and comfort of not actually having to be there (and without having to open up huge history books).

Summary

The Fire Nation’s political and military history can be modeled on ancient Japan’s, in particular the rise of the Tokugawa Shogunate, where the Fire Lord represents the shogun and the Fire Sages the emperor.

The Fire Nation capital is both the head of the administration and home to the nobility’s families, who are held as hostages (in comfort) to prevent the various lords from rebelling.

The Royal Family and Imperial Government rules through fear and threats of force because they have to keep a country full of walking flamethrowers in line.

As military leaders who can have their power challenged, firebending talent and military prowess are highly valued and necessary for Fire Lords. At the same time, the rest of the country’s leadership wants leaders who appear worthy of that power and authority, hence those who have all the right qualities (Azula) are viewed in higher regard than those who have less (Zuko).

Azula’s emphasis on using “fear to control people” is not a psychological hang-up but a natural tactic of the Fire Lord, military, and Imperial Government to maintain obedience; as a teenager with limited life experience, she has internalized her role as a princess and warrior to the detriment of her personal relationships and emotional maturity (this is where the “child soldier” narrative has relevance).

Ozai represents the pinnacle of self-interest, authoritarianism and militarism that the combination of Sozin’s War and the longstanding nature of the Imperial Government have combined to create. In the ancient world, lords waged warfare for two reasons: to acquire power or pre-emptively wipe out rivals. Ozai wants power.

Ozai challenging Zuko to an Agni Kai is awful but not unusual, hence why he felt he could do it at all. Agni Kais are a fundamental aspect of conflict resolution in the Fire Nation, most likely because the Fire Nation’s leadership values bravery and a willingness to fight very highly. As Zuko was a prince and future leader of the warrior class, those values applied to him as well, but they got applied to him far too young (again, this is where the “child soldier” narrative has relevance).

And finally, by modeling the motivations of the Fire Nation’s villains and heroes on the military leaders of ancient Japan, you have the opportunity to learn about and critique that ancient society while also giving it a fictional flare.

As a final remark on applying the history of ancient Japan to the Fire Nation, the Tokugawa Shogunate ended when the Emperor forcibly took control of the Tokugawa government in order to end the forced isolationism. If ancient Japan hadn’t been pressured to adapt to more advanced European civilizations (say, if it existed in a vacuum) then the Tokugawa Shogunate might have continued to be the longest and most stable period in Japanese history; post-World War 2 Japan is only 70 years old while the Tokugawa Shogunate lasted for 278. When the Emperor wrested control of the country from the Shogunate, there was already enough peace, stability and government bureaucracy in place to lead a rapid transition of the country into modernity. That was the ultimate value of the Tokugawa Shogunate.

If the Fire Islands had not unified under a central authority, then they might have never industrialized so rapidly during that “unprecedented time of peace and prosperity” and may have eventually been conquered by the Earth Kingdom (should an EK conqueror have found a way of killing the Avatar, or taking advantage of their absence).

Conclusion

Think about ancient Japan for a moment. All of the warring lords. The conquest and ruthless political maneuvering. The ruling through fear and totalitarian control. What is a more reasonable explanation for the behavior of that society: mental illness and personality disorders, or universal concepts of ancient nation-building?

What makes more sense for furthering Avatar’s East Asian themes in terms of the Fire Nation: sociopathy, personality disorders, lack of fundamental human qualities, petty bullies and insecure abusers? Or universal concepts of ancient nation-building in the context of people who can shoot fire out of their hands?

Was Ieyasu Tokugawa suffering from a personality disorder? Was ancient Japan swimming with people who lacked fundamental human traits? That would be and absolutely extraordinary anomaly of human genetic variation.

When discussing the evils of the Fire Nation, you have to start with the in-world context that created them, and in order to understand that context, you have to apply some East Asian history. Why “decent” or “normal” people end up doing terrible things is a question as old as humanity itself and should not be erased from Avatar.

In order to understand why Ozai and Azula seem like “bad” people to us, it’s because the rulers of ancient Japan acted like bad people. Zuko can’t be soft and fumbling. Azula can’t let people say no to her. Iroh can’t abandon the siege with no consequences. Ozai can’t let Zuko refuse to fight. As bad as many of these things are, they are driven by the fact these people are the most powerful entities in their country and must show their fire-wielding subordinates that they deserve their power and should not be challenged. There is no room for weakness, only strength and competence.

When you resort to psychological theories or genetic anomalies to explain the Fire Nation’s villains, you erase the opportunities to tie the Fire Nation to critical elements of East Asian history, namely the rise and success of the Tokugawa Shogunate. By relating the main villains of Avatar to the very real “villains” of the ancient world, you preserve the East Asian themes that make Avatar unique and informative to a Western audience and help shed light on what drove them to be what they were.

#Avatar The Last Airbender #atla meta #fire nation #Azula #ozai #Zuko #iroh

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ansu-gurleht · 5 years ago

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okay so i went through the datamined books from eso, taking notes as i went. @boethiah sent me a message this morning about it, asking what i thought. so i figured i might as well get real comprehensive about taking down notes to answer decently, or at least do it to organize my thoughts.

before she sent me that i hadn’t heard about this, so i went into it bright-faced and intrigued. i didn’t think my notes would end up too long, so i just figured i’d send them to her when i was done, even “talking” to her in the notes (you’ll see what i mean by that).

but uh. as all things lore-related, i got a bit carried away. stopped almost halfway thru to go to class, and by then i’d started to notice some really weird, kinda silly shit in it. and then i noticed everybody in tesblr talking about it, and finally realized, “oh. so it’s like that.” so i figure i’ll post it here publicly instead.

despite the uh. obvious nonsense in a lot of this, i think there’s a lot of interesting things hidden away. so what i’m going to do is just post my notes under the read-more. i’m too lazy to organize them into something more coherent lol. they’re basically just me commenting on certain lines and stuff.

i won’t like, really go into why most of this is stupid, bc other people have already done so, and better than i probably could’ve. but you’ll know. somethings i quote things and just. have no idea how to even address them other than, at best, “??????” either bc it doesn’t make much sense, eludes useful analysis, or is just stupid.

anyways, here goes:

book 1:

azura: - "the Path"? am i wrong or has a "Path" never been referenced in khajiiti lore?

khenarthi: - alkosh comforts khenarthi after lorkhaj died? yeah right. - khenarthi's role as psychopomp for azurah mirrors kyne's role for shor. but azura doesn't factor into nord/atmoran mythology at all.

jone and jode: - azurah cares for jone and jode? interesting. (also, "Bright Moons"? full moons?)

lorkhaj: - lorkhaj as "White Lion?" - namiira (the Great Darkness) followed lorkhaj as his burden? - mention of a "path" again, made by lorkhaj with purpose. sounds yokudan. - "in conflict with himself" & "represents the duality of the Khajiiti soul" ... desert and jungle ... strife, hardship, and life, love ... both tainted deadly by nirni, according to ahnissi - "We honor his sacrifice by walking the Path with purpose and resisting the call of the Dark." ... the Path again ... the Dark? namiira? - (the khajiit seem to conflate namira and nocturnal. this isn't a new concept, as they both genuinely do overlap in many ways, but an interesting one.) - "the true spirit of Lorkhaj will sometimes appear" ... "by Azurah" - nerevar/ine, "or Khenarthi" - hjalti, "or by his oldest name" - ...ysmir?

magrus: - all of this magrus stuff is new, to my knowledge. - the importance of him fleeing from "Boethra and Lorkhaj" probably excites you :P - "fell into the Moonshadow" ... "too full of fear to rule a sphere" ... "tore out his other eye" (odin parallel? a "failed" odin, maybe? unless seeing "out of one eye" is metaphorical) - "Varliance Gate"???? "Aether Prism"???? they're the sun, but those names are brand new afaik. overall a strange alternative to the story of magnus and the sun - "Some sorcerers hold that Magrus left the eye willingly" - more odin stuff

book 2:

- azurah knows all the names of all the spirits, their protonyms? that's interesting. a lot of that "protonymic" lore is derived from the whole "true names have power" stuff, popular in magical circles from sources like kabbalah thru the lens of crowley. - "And Fadomai told stories of her children and her favorite aspects of each of them. When she reached Azurah, she smiled and told her favored daughter she could not decide. And Fadomai died." ;----; - "sat in the Great Darkness for timeless ages" ... sat with namiira? - seems to have carved moonshadow from the great darkness. (the great darkness seems to have dual meaning as both oblivion and namiira. then again, i think only clan mother ahnissi said the great darkness was namiira, so that (morrowind) lore might be outdated.) - this scene with lorkhaj and his empty dark heart is......interesting. - "UR DRA NA MII RA UR DRA NA MII RA UR DRA AZU RA" - you can pick out "namiira" and "azura" in this, but the meaning of "UR" and "DRA" elude me. - lorkhaj gets his heart torn out YET AGAIN. very rude azurah - the "Moon Beast" and its hunger remind me of the yokudan sep. - i think once upon the time "dro-m'Athra" referred to daedra in general, but i think eso has made them a specific type of daedra resembling khajiit. even more specifically, some kind of "dark khajiit" born from dead evil khajiit. - "lighting the fire with lanterns of love and mercy" - your vivec is showing, azurah. or i guess, the other way around. - this "ashes of Lorkhaj" bit gets me thinking about ysmir, again. but i'm not sure what to do with that.

book 3

sheggorath: - now THIS is a not shitty interpretation of sheggorath! he's not a "god of madness," but a god of mental fortitude, a god who tests convinction. - more stuff about "the Path" - "must be ... overcome before a Khajiit can visit Hermorah's library"? - "Sheggorath is dead and has been replaced by something Other" - the hero of kvatch? but if this is from eso, that hasn't happened yet? unless the mantling of sheogorath is a pretty common occurrence; i remember someone on tumblr suggested that this might happen every era.

orkha: - "Orkha ... followed Boethra back through the Many Paths" ... what does that mean? - "Lorkhaj, Khenarthi, and Boethra battled the demon in the ancient songs" - ... as trinimac? - "but Orkha could only be banished and would not die" ;) - "serve as tests along the Path" - so far these princes are being painted similarly to their house of troubles counterparts

dagon (also called merrunz.) - no reference to merrunz being the kitty cat. :( next - ...okay not really. "explore the Great Darkness rather than the Many Paths"? - molagh "tortured him until the creation of the World?" but "the wife of Molagh freed Merrunz"? who is "the wife of Molagh"?

molagh (balls) - "twelve Demon Kings"? should probably look into how they got that number - "Boethra and Molagh fought to a standstill before the lattice, but it was Azurah who shackled the Demon King with secrets only she knows." - i dont have anything to say about this really, just an interesting line i think. - "you will overcome him with the might of Boethra, the Will Against Rule." - interesting...afaik, aside from HAVING a khajiit name, boethiah never really factored into their faith that much, and wasn't ever mentioned in clan mother ahnissi. i wonder if azurah at some point attempted to unify her plans for the dunmer and the khajiit.

merid-nunda - interestingly, the khajiit seem to call her by her magna-ge name. - "False Spirit of Greed"? - magrus "loved only himself and his own creations"? idk if this seems all that congruent with the magrus from his own description - "cold spirit, born of light without love" - interesting - "blame her for orchestrating the death of might Lorkhaj"??!?!?!? what?????????? - "When Merid-Nunda dared assault the Lattice, Azurah struck her down before the Varliance Gate and dragged her away from it. She then cast Merid-Nunda into the Void and bound her there with mirrors. The nomads say she has since escaped." this whole thing is interesting

book 4

nirni: - nothing interesting on nirni.

y'ffer: - y'ffer "corrupted by the Great Darkness," (namira), who apparently killed nirni???!??! what??????? - worth noting that ahnissi doesn’t paint y’ffer as “corrupted” or evil or anything. in her words he’s kinda just a moron who doesn’t *get it* and does his own thing instead. - don’t get the obsession with making namiira some like. crazy super evil being. feels like eso took a look at the list of princes and was like “who hasn’t tried to destroy/take over the world yet. that’s what daedric princes do right”

hircine - hircine doesn't get a funny ta'agra name, i guess. - graht-elk?

hermorah - hermorah helps azurah maintain the ja-kha'jay?

sangiin - according to what this says about sangiin, khajiit are actually NOT one of the most hedonistic races on tamriel. suuuuuuuuure, buddy.

book 5

- a look at the khajiit afterlife w/ azurah in moonshadow. - first you walk the sands, then you walk the glass, then you walk the thorns, then you have a good time, then azurah sends you back to nirn do something else (reincarnated)? but it might just be this one guy who goes off to do something ("Bring my children back"), he seems kinda special. no idea who he's supposed to be.

book 6

- all this shit about akha and alkosh and alkhan is bullshit. the fuck is akha even supposed to be? according to his name you'd assume an association with akatosh, but alkosh is akatosh, right?

akha: - this book says akha is the first cat. ahnissi says alkosh is the first cat. - "Pathfinder and the One Unmourned" - are we talking about akatosh or dagoth ur here. - "Many Paths"??? again?? what are they. knockoff walking ways? - "mated with the Winged Serpent of the East [akavir], the Dune Queen of the West [yokuda], and the Mother Mammoth of the North [atmora]. He then went to the South [pyandonea] and never returned." then alkosh shows up and says "yikes that akha guy was a little fucked huh?"

alkosh: - alkosh is "The Dragon King" and "Highmane." association with the Mane of the khajiit - "In time, the children of Akha overthrew [Alkosh] and scattered his body on the West Wind." ...??? is this a reference to the middle dawn? seems unlikely - apparently khenarthi put him back together. also seems unlikely

alkhan: - oh so the khajiit recognize alduin now too. cool.

boethra: - and boethiah i guess, why not????

mafala: - mafala has always been part of khajiit religion, tho, afaik. she is the og clan mother. - "She watches over Eight of the Many Paths, each of which a Khajiit must walk in time." ?????????? wtf are the many paths!!!!! why are there eight of them!!!!!! is this a reference to the spiral skein, or satellite realms (the spokes) of it? - forreal i think they gave up on pretense here when they started listing allies and shit. - "Her numbers are Eight and Sixteen, and these are two of her keys." this just sounds like something from the 36 lessons tbh. this doesn't sound like khajiit lore at all

book 7

lorkhaj (moon beast): - confusingly, lorkhaj as fadomai's favored son and lorkhaj as the moon beast are called by the same name, and despite this have separate entries in these books. - wonder if there's some equivalent in other myths to the moon beast. he seems pretty interesting, being "born of the dark heart of Lorkhaj" - there's UR DRA again, attached to namiira, again, who is apparently an enemy of the khajiit.

namiira: - apparently eso has rebranded namiira as like, an absolute enemy of the khajiit, with the dro-m'athra as her corrupted-khajiit minions or something? except i thought dro-m'athra originated from the moon beast? anyways, ahnissi only said that the great darkness became namiira. didn't say that was a bad thing necessarily. - also, her khajiiti ta'agra name, namiira, just so happens to be her protonym, NA MII RA.

noctra: - oh, so they do have nocturnal, as "noctra". - wait, so she's the "daughter of twilight"??? isn't twilight, idk, azura's thing???? (i feel like i've heard nocturnal be associated with twilight before, but it still makes little sense. it was probably from eso, too.) - boethra separated noctra from namiira. one could say she *stole* noctra from namiira ;) - noctra is ok by the khajiit, whereas her progenitor namiira is not. ok?

varmiina: - ok we have vaermina now too i guess. why the fuck not. - "The Lost Daughter. This spirit was not of any litter, but was born from Fadomai's fear of losing her children." - "Azurah killed this dark spirit in the Underworld" what the fuck is "the Underworld". they just be making shit up now

[?????] (no, really. that's what it says. dunno if that's a placeholder or intentional): - "[?????] A spirit of vengeance. It has no will of its own, as it was born from Azurah's grief after the death of Fadomai and Lorkhaj." ????? - "It sometimes appears in songs as a black panther, a warrior in ebony armor, or as a hidden sword." idk about "a black panther," but the "warrior in ebony armor" evokes ebonarm, who's technically still canon, and "a hidden sword" could be umbra. not sure what the connection here is.

#tes #tesblr #teslore #khajiit #elsweyr

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crapfutures · 6 years ago

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Scratch an itch: A taxonomy of automation

We promised this post getting on for two years ago. In the meantime James has decamped to Paris and Julian has just completed a book on manifestos. Last week happened to find us both in Madeira, so we had a crack at devising a taxonomy of automation over our usual coffee and toast. The itch motif likely springs from the fact that it’s mosquito season.

As long ago as 1958, the philosopher Gilbert Simondon warned of the implications of automation, using developments in the motorcar to illustrate his argument. Simondon criticised the starter motor for overcomplicating the mechanical purity of the internal combustion engine. He preferred the simplicity of the manual turning handle: less to go wrong, easier to fix. Of course Simondon’s warnings, and many others in between (see challenge #3 of our manifesto), have been mostly ignored as we continue down the road of increasingly over-engineered standards of luxury, captured here in an observation from the environmentalist Bill McKibben:

At a certain point, says the philosopher Albert Borgmann, “Technology … mimics the great breakthroughs of the past, assuring us that it’s an imposition to have to open the garage door, walk behind a lawn mower, or wait twenty minutes for a frozen dinner to be ready.” Borgmann wrote that twenty years ago. Now the salesmen insist that it’s an imposition to have to press the button that opens the garage door when the smart ID chip embedded in your bicep can do it for you.

Simondon’s critique of the starter motor may now appear somewhat dated, as it is perhaps a bit of an imposition to crank a car into life each time you want to drive somewhere. However, such warnings, made when the automation of everyday life was in its infancy, become extremely poignant when you consider the ‘advances’ made in recent years - in particular the increasing complexity and non-fixability of contemporary technical systems.

Our taxonomy of automation, sketched hastily on the back of a coffee-stained napkin, charts the shift from Fordist-style production lines to more complex near-future scenarios in everyday life. We’ll start with our (adapted) definition of a robot to help clarify what we mean by automation:

For a thing to be considered ‘automated’ it should be able to sense and interpret in some fashion its environment, compute decisions based on that sensory information, and then act on those decisions in a physical way.

The basic assumption is that the combined automated operation satisfies some human need or desire: the sensing aspect realises the existence of the desire, computation figures out exactly what this is and how to address it, and the act is the physical intervention that satisfies the desire.

We’ll attempt to explore the taxonomy by describing various technologically progressive ways of satisfying the desire to scratch an itch ... please bear with us (starting with that terrible pun).

The Simondon scratch. You have an itch and the instantaneous desire to get rid of it - so you do it the old-fashioned way, using what is in your local environment (say, a tree trunk) without enlisting the aid of any automated system. This is clearly not part of the ‘official’ taxonomy, since there is no automation in the process. Like the cranking of the engine, the desire is fulfilled by direct human action. The downside is that it takes more effort and a certain amount of skill. The upside is that the human has almost full control over the system.

The Fordist scratch. Or to use the industry term, semi-automation. You feel the itch and guide your scratching machine to the correct place, where it satisfies the desire in a collaborative manner. In this case the sensing aspect is non-existent. Desire is experienced by the human, who then sets the automated process into motion with the physical button. This taxonomic category largely has its origins in the push-button future kitchens of the 1950s, where everything the family desired was available though the simple push of a button.

Modern, and slightly disappointing, versions of this stage include the Amazon Dash - a person, realising the lack of a particular (desired) product, presses the appropriate Dash button. This engages an already-in-place physical infrastructure that follows a predictable path to satisfy the original desire.

For the purposes of this discussion we’re focusing on domestic notions of automation. There has been much debate over the pros and cons of Fordism in manufacturing, for example: reduction of hard or repetitive labour, cheaper products vs. fewer jobs, deskilling of the workforce, and the standardisation of products in both a positive and negative sense. The advantages and disadvantages in the context of everyday life are in some ways related: domestic automation does reduce human labour (going to the shop), but the reduction of choice that arises as a consequence of production lines (any colour so long as it’s black) is also felt by those using a service such as Amazon Dash. Consumers are locked into: (1) product lines that Amazon have negotiated a contract with, and (2) products for which they have bought a Dash button.

Simondon, again in the critique of technical systems, described automatism as ‘a rather low degree of technical perfection’ due to the number of possibilities of operation and usage that need to be sacrificed. The more open nature of semi-automation can provide a counter to this argument, but not in the form described by Dash - the key element that needs to be considered (from the experiential perspective) is in the balance and malleability of the collaboration.

Here is one of our favourite examples, in which the system replaces the human act of throwing a ball. This very basic automated system benefits equally all elements: the robot would be pointless without the dog; the dogness of the dog is enhanced by the function of the robot; and the dog’s owner, the one being replaced by the machine, enjoys both relief from the effort of throwing the ball and pleasure from the continuing spectacle. (For some reason this video never gets boring.)

youtube

The smart scratch. In this scenario, always-on sensors are scanning for an itch. For example a thermal imaging camera could detect a hot-spot from a mosquito bite (extremely common in Madeira) and guide the scratching machine to the appropriate place.

This stage represents an important shift in the process, as the recognition and interpretation of human desire becomes integrated into the automated system through the action of sensors. These sensors operate in real time and make fairly basic assumptions, like a basic if/then statement - for example, [if] a presence sensor in a smart fridge detects a low level of eggs [then] it computes the decision to order another box. The rest of the process happens as in the previous stage. The effort, on the part of those implementing the automation, is to minimise the timeframe between the occurrence of the desire and its satisfaction.

The category was explored in detail in one of our very first posts, smart futures = crap futures. One contemporary example is the Amazon Dash Replenishment Service (DRS), which orders products automatically, without the push of a button. The [then] command reduces possibility in exactly the way Simondon discussed, as the system is essentially closed. It enforces repetition, standardisation and efficiency - which, in an era that increasingly appreciates and even fetishises ‘slow food’, is exactly not what a person with fluency and flair in the kitchen desires.

This category suffers the same problems as the utopian promises made in the last century, and why so many future visions fail. They are driven by either technological dreams or engineered notions of progress, such as efficiency. They ignore the complex and messy reality of human activity and desire. Smart systems also raise the key question: What desires can realistically be sensed, and how open is the reading of that sensing for misinterpretation (a point we explored in our careless whispers post).

The scratch before the itch. The system predicts the itch. Perhaps you’ve experienced it before, at predictable intervals in predictable places, or the prediction is based on data relating to the behaviour of individuals with similar profiles, as well as the fact that it happens to be mosquito season where you live.

Or, to continue the parallel example of the fridge, the system might anticipate that you’ll need avocados on Saturday - because you normally make a lot of avocado toast, or whatever. Or it might check your calendar and see that you’re having friends over and you’ll need a box of cheap wine and Doritos for entertaining, or conversely that you’re going to be out of town and therefore won’t need anything. It might order the ingredients of your favourite dinner party menu and hangover breakfast, or ‘propose’ fun activities like baking a cake. (The elaborate possibilities of a truly smart fridge paired with a busy social life are intricate enough to require a separate post - in fact we’ve been working on such an idea called Elvis’s Fridge.) This stage brings to mind Amazon Go, the cashierless stores first introduced in 2016. Amazon removes human interaction - the type of recommendations that you might get from a local grocer or butcher, the foundation of local communities - and delegates instead to the algorithm.

The tickle that makes the itch. The system over-automates, presuming to know you better than you know yourself. Or the system becomes manipulative - perhaps even creating the itch in the first place. There is an obvious loss of control at this stage, with complex decisions being made on your behalf. Desires are being triggered through direct appeals to your reptile brain. Services like Amazon Go are venturing into this territory, raising issues of privacy and the extent to which consumers are being forcibly assimilated (or very strongly nudged) into systems using biometric data and other new technologies. The tipping point is retaining human agency versus being governed by the system. Some people recoil at this loss of control, while others embrace it. Why not let a machine make all the decisions for you?

It seems to us that the optimum point of automation is where a machine does the drudgery and human agency and control are still given priority. Simondon compares this preferable state to an orchestra, where machines are the musicians and the human being is the conductor. They work together in harmony: the machines play a crucial role, but the human ultimately serves in the role of interpreter and decision maker - ‘inventor and coordinator’. As the stages of automation progress, this starts to shift: the automated system increasingly influences and intrudes on the terrain of desire.

Freud wrote about the pleasure principle (id) versus the reality principle (ego), the latter involving the delayed gratification that comes with adulthood. Higher level automation combined with late capitalism invites us to override our adult selves, exchanging self-control for the childish expectation of instant gratification in all aspects of daily life. (Think of Amazon Prime Now’s guaranteed one-hour delivery, and the extreme time pressure that means employees can’t even stop to perform essential bodily functions.) The fear of complacency and passivity has long been associated with technology, from Brave New World to WALL-E. Of course it depends where you live: in Madeira, for example, an Amazon delivery still takes weeks to arrive.

Resistance to algorithmic control is popping up everywhere, including some unexpected places. The Rage Against the Algorithm colloquium, held this month in Prague on the anniversary of the Velvet Revolution, is one example. The event, hosted at Charles University, featured speakers such as Nick Srnicek (Accelerationism), Helen Hester (Xenofeminism), and Louis Armand (Alienism), all in some sense responding to the challenges, threats, and opportunities presented by automation and other ‘advances’. Over in America, meanwhile, there is the long brewing backlash in Silicon Valley against algorithmic control, with a rise in no-tech homes and schools. Things have flipped in the past decade, so that poorer schools increasingly rely on devices like iPads while more economically advantaged schools are going tech-free, back to basics, Waldorf curriculum, and so on. In his essay ‘Why I am Not Going to Buy a Computer (1987), Wendell Berry anticipates this shift with the simple observation: ‘If the use of a computer is a new idea, then a newer idea is not to use one.’

Increased automation touches on a number of important themes, some of which we’ve discussed before: narrowing pathways, loss of agency, deskilling, automation of habits and desires, loss of identity and self, alienation from natural processes. In Mythologies (1957), Barthes laments the way that mechanical toys (unlike wooden ones) encourage a passive role:

faced with this world of faithful and complicated objects, the child can only identify himself as owner, as user, never as creator; he does not invent the world, he uses it: there are, prepared for him, actions without adventure, without wonder, without joy.

People want more pleasure with less work - that is the promise of automation. But how much pleasure can we take? And how much do we enjoy endless pleasure, which is often not even pleasure, but mere convenience? What is pleasure without resistance, or a bit of pain? To return to the example of the itch, if we could anticipate and remove the itch forever - never have to scratch again - would we? Or would we miss that strange animal pleasure? Scratching an itch releases the hormone serotonin, which we could obtain artificially, without causing any negative effects But would it be as sweet?

In his great novel of tyrannical automation and technological control, Player Piano (1952), Kurt Vonnegut paints a vision of America as ‘one stupendous Rube Goldberg machine’. Assuming at this point we cannot stop it completely - or wouldn’t want to - how can we escape the worst effects of this vast and hidden, pervasive and all knowing machine?

Images:

Coffee and toast (photo: Julian Hanna); Baloo in Disney’s The Jungle Book (1967); Amazon Dash buttons (2015-); a wood shop in Santo da Serra, Madeira, Portugal (photo: Julian Hanna); a tin mechanical toy (CC0).

#automation #prediction #algorithms #design

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kvlt-ov-romance-blog · 8 years ago

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Twin Peaks & Hauntology

A large deal of David Lynch’s content is surreal not just because of how odd it is, but also because of how familiar it is: For many entering the Twin Peaks universe in contemporary times, they have already been exposed to some imagery from the show or from David Lynch’s other work, which often makes many parallels to the show itself. For instance, prior to starting the original run of the series, I had indeed seen the classic portrait of Laura Palmer a myriad of times and knew the famous lines, “who killed Laura Palmer?” I had seen some of Lynch’s work too, and I also had in fact seen plenty of references to Twin Peaks in pop culture, but it was only when I began to immerse myself in Twin Peaks that I could say to myself, “this feels like deja vu.” The cinematography, the color palette, the dated film quality, the eerie music, everything about the show is setup so that it feels haunted, both from within its own universe and for those observing as though external spectators. Essentially, one of the main reasons why Twin Peaks is such a successful show in terms of endearment and also producing chilling reactions, is because it plays to humanity’s fragmented memories of time, rejecting a linear framework in favor of something that is more distinctly postmodern (i.e. time is not treated as a straight arrow as is the case for most shows). David Lynch innately flirts with these concepts throughout his career in philosophical and psychological manners that make many uneasy from various standpoints, including the metaphysical and ontological. One tiny yet distinctive and slowly emerging school of thought to grow out of the postmodern field of study is hauntology, coined by the French philosopher esteemed for his take on deconstructionism, Jacques Derrida, in his 1993 book, “Specters of Marx.” All things considered, Twin Peaks is an excellent example of hauntology expressed through an artistic medium, and here is some elaboration as to how and why.

So what is hauntology? Derrida originally developed the idea as a portmanteau of haunting and ontology, ontology being the study of life, hence “hauntology.” Specifically, his aforementioned book from 1993 extensively developed Karl Marx’s idea that “A specter is haunting Europe – the specter of Communism.” These were the opening lines to “The Communist Manifesto,” published in 1848 and yet managing to have widespread appeal on a major political levels, well over a hundred years after it had been written and even to this day, proving that Marx was right – Communism is haunting Europe and the rest of the world, chiefly due to the fact that it exists in opposition to the dominant mode of production around the globe, capitalism, but also because according to many scholars, we are perhaps living in a late stage of capitalism that is in fact quite similar to what Marx and his contemporaries envisioned, a stage of decay and corruption that gives way to a fork in the road of fascism, corporatism, and the like, but could also bring forth major developments in class consciousness with regards to revolution and unification. By treating Communism as a specter, it is essentially a faceless character, looming and lurking in the shadows, a ghostly apparition that either instills terror or hope into the hearts of those who find it depending on what side of the political spectrum they are on. Derrida also ties this idea into the Shakespearean play, “Hamlet,” which also began its first lines (“Who’s there?”) in a haunted sort of manner, involving an actual ghost. With regards to Hamlet, Derrida specifically makes note of how “the time is out of joint,” a similar occurrence to real world matters such as Communism and fictional matters such as Twin Peaks.

As Andrew Gallix of The Guardian describes hauntology, it is: The situation of temporal, historical, and ontological disjunction in which the apparent presence of being is replaced by an absent or deferred non-origin, represented by “the figure of the ghost as that which is neither present, nor absent, neither dead nor alive.” Peter Bruse and Andrew Scott further elaborate that: “Ghosts arrive from the past and appear in the present. However, the ghost cannot be properly said to belong to the past. Does then the ‘historical’ person who is identified with the ghost properly belong to the present? Surely not, as the idea of a return from death fractures all traditional conceptions of temporality. The temporality to which the ghost is subject is therefore paradoxical, at once they ‘return’ and make their apparitional debut.” From here, we note how Derrida’s own writing focuses on the presumed “death” of Communism in the post-Soviet world, the question of “the end of history” and most significantly, “if Communism was always spectral, what does it mean to say it is now dead?” All of these concepts tie into the lost futures of modernity, and as Wikipedia writes in depth: “Hauntology has been described as a ‘pining for a future that never arrived;’ […] hauntological art and culture is typified by a critical foregrounding of the historical and metaphysical disjunctions of contemporary capitalist culture as well as a ‘refusal to give up on the desire for the future.’ [Mark] Fisher and others have drawn attention to the shift into post-Fordist economies in the late 1970s, which Fisher argues has ‘gradually and systematically deprived artists of the resources necessary to produce the new.’ Hauntology has been used as a critical lens in various forms of media and theory, including music, political theory, architecture, Afrofuturism, and psychoanalysis.”

Now, regarding hauntology more as an artistic statement and genre than as something philosophical is the first way we can approach Twin Peaks. The style is unique yet also not: It is, as expressed by one of the most prominent artists of the style, Boards of Canada, “the past inside the present.” Most notably, hauntological art is expressed in music, paying homage to library music, vintage documentary-film scores, public information films, etc. This means a heavy dosage of old-school synthesizers, blips and bloops, samples of dialogue from long forgotten movies, and so forth. What we have on our hands here, is “21st-century musicians exploring similar ideas related to temporal disjunction, retrofuturism, memory, the malleability of recording media, and esoteric cultural sources from the past. Artists associated with hauntology include members of the UK label Ghost Box (such as Belbury Poly, The Focus Group, and the Advisory Circle), London dubstep producer Burial, electronic musicians such as the Caretaker, William Basinski, Philip Jeck, Aseptic Void, Moon Wiring Club, and Mordant Music, American lo-fi artist Ariel Pink, and the artists of the Italian Occult Psychedelia scene. Common reference points include library music, the soundtracks of old science-fiction and pulp horror films, found sounds, analog electronic music, musique concrète, dub, decaying cassette tapes, English psychedelia, and 1970s public television programs. A common element is the foregrounding of the recording surface noise, including the crackle and hiss of vinyl and tape, calling attention to the medium itself.”

Furthermore, “’hauntological music has been particularly tied to British culture, and has been described as an attempt to evoke ‘a nostalgia for a future that never came to pass, with a vision of a strange, alternate Britain, constituted from the reorder refuse of the postwar period.’ Reynolds described it as an attempt to construct a ‘lost utopianism’ rooted in visions of a benevolent post-welfare state. According to Fisher, 21st-century electronic music is the anachronistic product of an ‘after the future’ age in which ‘electronic music had succumbed to its own inertia and retrospection … What defined this 'hauntological' confluence more than anything else was its confrontation with a cultural impasse: the failure of the future….’ He explains that this is partly the result of stagnated technical advances since the 20th-century. The style has been described as the British cousin of America's hypnagogic pop music scene, which has also been discussed as engaging with notions of nostalgia and memory. The two styles have been likened to ‘sonic fictions or intentional forgeries, creating half-baked memories of things that never were—approximating the imprecise nature of memory itself.’ Early progenitors of the style include Boards of Canada and Position Normal.”

Lengthy quotes aside, the basic message is that hauntological art – particularly music – is dreamlike, vaguely nostalgic, and ghostly. Basically, musical deja vu. One could make a case that popular genres like chillwave and synthwave, which rely heavily on ‘80s aesthetics are also hauntological, but they lack the same sense of “dread” and “fragmentation” that established artists like Boards of Canada have (e.g. Boards of Canada’s last album, “Tomorrow’s Harvest” is directly linked to the themes of war, apocalypse, the end of history, civilization’s collapse, death and rebirth). The Caretaker, too, is another fantastic example of hauntology: Leyland Kirby publishes records dealing with themes of dementia (the absolution of memory loss) and much of his work is lo-fi, darkly reverberated jazz from no later than WWII; essentially, it is as though history did end with the second war, and when listening to The Caretaker, we are hearing ghostly apparitions committed to tape. “An Empty Bliss Beyond This World,” “Everywhere at the End of Time,” the titles of Kirby’s work alone is enough to suggest something hauntological is occurring. Kirby’s music becomes directly relevant to Twin Peaks: The Return when the viewer notes how similar the music and pre-1940s style are to The Caretaker in The Giant’s realm (some have even dubbed The Giant as a cosmic caretaker of sorts ironically enough). But in the meantime, it is important to discuss how this all relates to the original run of Twin Peaks. One may pose the question: “How is hauntology related to Twin Peaks?”

Remember when I said that we should regard hauntology as an artistic statement rather than a philosophical concept? This is the main and most easy way to comprehend the correlation of hauntology and Twin Peaks. In its original time period, airing in the early ‘90s, it appeared as an anomaly of sorts. The artistic style of the show was deeply rooted in something haunting, something to do with deja vu. Angelo Badalamenti, the composer of the show’s soundtrack, is known for his enigmatic and hypnagogic take on jazz and subtle ambient music, which connects quite well to the mysterious nature of everything going on throughout the show. What specifically helps mark a tonality of hauntology is the fact that the music constantly repeats itself, as if a record left on a repeat. And again, the music plays in direct relation to what is happening on the show: As soon as we hear the swelling, swirling synths or the melancholic piano of “Laura Palmer’s Theme,” we know something important is happening, often having to do with memories, or more menacingly, with doppelgangers and shadow realms. When we hear “Audrey’s Dance,” we know something surreal is going to happen, perhaps some backwards talking or a dancing dwarf. The music serves as a sort of specter, haunting the show and allowing us external observers to peer into the Twin Peaks universe and predict what may happen. However, because David Lynch and Mark Frost are masters of surrealist trickery, skepticism sets in: No matter how many times we hear the songs, few will ever know for certain what is going to happen, you just have to make educated guesses, which usually have the right framework (e.g. “something mysterious is about to happen”) but wind up lacking the correct response (e.g. “something mysterious did happen, but it was not at all what I had predicted”). We then become lost in a series of puzzles, clues, a labyrinthine of both artistry and metaphysics; we start to become haunted by our own theories and conjectures. Laura Palmer’s portrait, shots of diners and bars, foggy mountainous forests, elements from the show start to connect to each other but only in fragments, never in wholeness. In a sense, it may reflect upon the age old dilemma’s of duality versus totality, and even idealism versus materialism, but even theories pertaining to those ideas are never fully addressed and in fact there are arguments made that metaphysics and ontology are only meant to serve as emotional and aesthetic tools rather than as literal interpretations. This lack of knowing only deepens the mystery as well as the haunting effects of the show. It leads Twin Peaks to become a sort of solipsistic realm of sorts, and to the viewer, this is both utopian and dystopian; it leads us to become specters in its own twisted way.

There is also the cinematography as previously mentioned. For those watching the original series now, over 25 years after it originally aired, one thing you will notice is the dated quality of the visual imagery. Not in the sense that it has not aged well, but in the sense that everything is shrouded in ‘90s video-haze; subtle, muted colors, VHS-like quality. It adds to the mystique, and further expounds upon the notion of retro-futurism; now in 2017, there is a slew of television shows and movies that visually strive to recreate this retro feeling in the cinematography. Even musicians are becoming increasingly obsessed with this aesthetic, whether displayed in their music videos or in the music itself (beyond hauntology, as mentioned, there has been an increasing rebirth of ‘80s and ‘90s cultural obsession, for instance, vaporwave – which is especially visual and definitively postmodern – and even less abstractly, many major musicians are still drawing heavily from the ‘60s-’70s to the point where Boards of Canada’s unofficial mantra “the past inside the present” rings true). Watching the original series as well as Fire Walks With Me as they aired, untampered and unrestored, the surreal and dreamlike qualities of the show are enhanced, as is the hauntological pathos and logos: Time is thought to repeat itself, as one might say when they observe a new and younger generation of fans watching Twin Peaks. The older fans may note the quality and visual style of the series and feel haunted by it, but even for today’s modern fans, many of them grew up watching things out of the ‘80s and ‘90s and many have been exposed, even if unwittingly, to Lynch and Frost’s work, whether directly or through a more indirect means (e.g. modern shows which draw heavily upon their style, such as Mr. Robot). When the element of familiarity is added to the viewing experience of Twin Peaks, this is where the haunting effect of the show comes into place; viewers may go as far as the ontological route of questioning existential matters, as they find themselves placed in what seems to be a Lynchian role of their own – they are part of the puzzle and by extension, part of the same universe they are watching. While many would argue that time repeats itself, the other argument is more curious than that; time is an illusion, as are many things. The veil of Maya (the illusory nature of existence in Eastern philosophy which Lynch hints at throughout the series) runs deep, and on humanity’s quest to attain Moksha (enlightenment, freedom from the cycle of birth, death, rebirth) we become trapped in our own web of ego, self, identity, thought, emotion, and so forth. We are just as haunted as the characters in Twin Peaks, and when we watch the show, perhaps it is not meant to reflect separate human thoughts but to reflect upon the idea that we are one consciousness collectively and subjectively viewing itself; Twin Peaks is merely a mirror for our own enigma, and even Lynch himself is not free from this matrix as he plays the role of Gordon, because there are quite a few moments, most notably in Fire Walks With Me (e.g. the scene where David Bowie’s character Philip Jeffries vanishes) and in The Return, where even he is just as lost as other characters or viewers, even in spite of the fact that he most likely does possess some deeper knowledge of what is happening.

This brings us, logically, to the next interpretation of hauntology: The philosophical one, keeping in mind the fact that it is meant to represent an ontology, a means of understanding life and death. Twin Peaks does not shy away from the supernatural, and much of the time it would appear at first glance to be purely for showmanship. But the deeper you dive into the lore of the show, whether canonically or through your own interpretations, fandom, etc. the more these supernatural and science-fiction elements may relate to the history, the politics, the ontological, the metaphysical, and the spiritual. In the original show, plenty of nods were made towards Native American spiritualism, Eastern metaphysics, and even on historical levels, oddities like Project MK Ultra come to mind. Even on a sociological level, the show serves as commentary on the nature of small towns, federal versus local justice, human psychology, and so forth. What is problematic for viewers is that everything could be interpreted through very distinct lenses; perhaps the struggle between Leland and Bob represents the Kabbalah’s interpretation of the Sefirot and the Qliphoth (the tree of life and it’s shadowy counterpart respectively – which is especially possible when one watches The Return and notices the arm has now evolved into a tree of sorts). I have seen interpretations of the show that range from Buddhism to Rosicrucian to Masonic, some of which even go as far as casting doubt on the integrity of Lynch and portraying him as an occult figure with some sort of hidden agenda (conspiracy theorists fit right into the realm of Twin Peaks, though I believe most of their cause for panic is just misunderstanding Lynch’s eccentricity and morbid curiosity into hidden realms). The Return has featured the I Ching, Diane wearing colors that reflect upon alchemy, even a sort of genesis myth of Bob and Laura and perhaps everything else that occurs in this universe. The nuclear bomb dropping in the latest episode even brings forth to mind connotations of Shiva, of creation through destruction. Basically, since Lynch and Frost like to keep things secretive and keep us on our toes, we may never know for certain if there is a specific ideological current that fuels the show, if it is just a hodgepodge of different ideas, or if they are trying to say that all interpretations are egalitarian, that “your guess is as good as mine.” The last one would be quite an ontological statement to make, as it reflects upon the ideas of relativity, subjectivity, skepticism, perhaps even nihilism and absurdism; “can we ever find truth? Can we ever know it for certain?” That theme is addressed heavily on the show in various realms of existence, whether pertaining the surface level of reality (Laura’s death) or what may lie beyond (altered states, astral projection, time travel, you name it).

The Return is especially interesting in these regards. First time viewers of the original series were left haunted by their own theories and suspicions for 25 years before Twin Peaks would be visited again in a lengthy format beyond the movie; Twin Peaks faded into cult status, still familiar to many people but often looked upon with an air of uncertainty and wonder. When the show ended, numerous fanzines popped up trying to keep the legacy alive, delivering new theories with each new edition, but this was before the days of major Internet blogging and media distribution, so it was limited and obscure. But even when newer generations started to discuss Twin Peaks online, nothing was ever fully addressed; the haunting still lingered, both by the very facts of how the original show and movie concluded and by the nature of the series as being elusive, hard to pin down, and notorious for not lending viewers much explanation or help. Seeing the series return after being dormant for so long, it is akin to a spectral awakening of sorts. But that is not to say it is no longer haunted, in fact, far from it – Laura’s portrait, her diary entries, her soul, they still float about like ghosts, her theme song still occasionally popping up to haunt, and now the riddles are perhaps even more haunted because we are gaining more glimpses into the supernatural realms of the Lodges and even beyond, into what could be considered a sort of cosmic viewing lens of reincarnation or creationism and then-some. For much of the series so far, viewers have been particularly haunted by wondering when the “real” Cooper would come back, to the point this mystery seems to extend to ourselves: We identify with Cooper, we sympathize with him as being lost and we want him to find his way home because this is the happy ending we all wish for ourselves in life, we all wish to find ourselves and be whole. But as The Return progresses, it becomes increasingly difficult to gauge whether or not this is attainable and feasible, whether because we are looking at things from the wrong angle, because we do not yet have all the puzzle pieces, or perhaps most sinister of all, because of the possibility that we may in fact be a doomed species (something now hinted upon more than ever upon the contextual framework of the atomic bomb, the Dark Mother, the woodsmen, military secrets, etc.). In my opinion, The Return almost serves as a call to arms, that we should invest in more spiritual and metaphysical affairs because there may in fact be some validity to them. Whether or not that means deeply obscure occult references or just casually studying a philosophy is up to you, but I do believe that Lynch has always used his surrealist techniques to promote some form of critical thinking and higher consciousness, to the point where my own takeaway is that he is in fact going the egalitarian route, understanding that each ideology has its own merits and that instead of dogmatically following one, we should find balance. This is the foundation of perennial philosophy, and even in areas such as Thelema can one potentially reach this idea.

Twin Peaks in general reminds me a lot of the story of Lucifer; thought to once be God’s favorite angel, his rebellious nature meant that God cast him out of Heaven and he became a fallen angel. Lucifer’s name translates to “light bringer,” but from there, Lucifer is treated quite differently depending on who you are speaking to. There are many who believe he is Satan, that he is an evil figure commanding demons. There are those who believe him and Satan are one being, with Lucifer representing spiritual enlightenment and Satan representing earthly pleasure. There are those who believe Lucifer, the light bringer, represents our own internal means of achieving enlightenment (he is associated with phosphorus, the light energy essential to DNA) whether through ourselves our through Lucifer as an external deity. In Gematria, a method of interpreting Hebrew scriptures built on computing numerical values of words based on their constituent letters, Lucifer and Jesus both share the same value even. This is all to say: “How do we know the real Lucifer?” and from there, one may even ask the same of Christ, or of all religious figures. Religion is in and of itself a rather hauntological sort of philosophy, precisely because it requires faith in external narratives and storytelling, and much like with Twin Peaks, when the authors of such works are shrouded in enigma, it becomes hard to discern the facts from fiction and conjecture. Luckily, Lynch and Frost are alive for us right now, so their lore may one day be answered directly or we may one day have access to their private writings, but if nothing else, in the meantime, we are to be haunted by their mysteries. Ultimately, my personal belief is starting to become that the show is meant to function as a retelling of spiritual epics such as the creation myth, and their teachings such as Maya versus Moksha. In fact, this might be why some of us find ourselves experiencing such deja vu and familiarity, because in one way or another, we are familiar with what is happening, but the way Lynch and Frost portray the events is done in a new and innovative way that involves a sort of waiting game and a purgatory state of sorts: Twin Peaks was once the most bizarre and surreal show on television, and now from our vantage point in time – even among the postmodern background of a turbulent political, sociological, and metaphysical society – it once again is. Lynch and Frost serve as guiding figures, reminding us that even in the contexts of our most beloved displays of art and spirituality, we should not limit our understanding by just focusing on one source: In order to understand Twin Peaks, we have to look deeper and exercise critical thought, and utilizing a hauntological outlook will surely help viewers discern what is happening with regards to the woodsmen and fragemented, non-linear time narrative that is now occuring on the show.

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fuffuster · 8 years ago

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It is principally among women that I have found the priority of introverted feeling. The proverb 'Still waters run deep' is very true of such women. They are mostly silent, inaccessible, and hard to understand; often they hide behind a childish or banal mask, and not infrequently their temperament is melancholic. They neither shine nor reveal themselves. Since they submit the control of their lives to their subjectively orientated feeling, their true motives generally remain concealed. Their outward demeanour is harmonious and inconspicuous; they reveal a delightful repose, a sympathetic parallelism, which has no desire to affect others, either to impress, influence, or change them in any way. Should this outer side be somewhat emphasized, a suspicion of neglectfulness and coldness may easily obtrude itself, which not seldom increases to a real indifference for the comfort and well-being of others. One distinctly feels the movement of feeling away from the object. With the normal type, however, such an event only occurs when the object has in some way too strong an effect. The harmonious feeling atmosphere rules only so long as the object moves upon its own way with a moderate feeling intensity, and makes no attempt to cross the other's path. There is little effort to accompany the real emotions of the object, which tend to be damped and rebuffed, or to put it more aptly, are 'cooled off' by a negative feeling-judgment. Although one may find a constant readiness for a peaceful and harmonious companionship, the unfamiliar object is shown no touch of amiability, no gleam of responding warmth, but is met by a manner of apparent indifference or repelling coldness. [p. 493] One may even be made to feel the superfluousness of one's own existence. In the presence of something that might carry one away or arouse enthusiasm, this type observes a benevolent neutrality, tempered with an occasional trace of superiority and criticism that soon takes the wind out of the sails of a sensitive object. But a stormy emotion will be brusquely rejected with murderous coldness, unless it happens to catch the subject from the side of the unconscious, i.e. unless, through the animation of some primordial image, feeling is, as it were, taken captive. In which event such a woman simply feels a momentary laming, invariably producing, in due course, a still more violent resistance, which reaches the object in his most vulnerable spot. The relation to the object is, as far as possible, kept in a secure and tranquil middle state of feeling, where passion and its intemperateness are resolutely proscribed. Expression of feeling, therefore, remains niggardly and, when once aware of it at all, the object has a permanent sense of his undervaluation. Such, however, is not always the case, since very often the deficit remains unconscious; whereupon the unconscious feeling-claims gradually produce symptoms which compel a more serious attention. A superficial judgment might well be betrayed, by a rather cold and reserved demeanour, into denying all feeling to this type. Such a view, however, would be quite false; the truth is, her feelings are intensive rather than extensive. They develop into the depth. Whereas, for instance, an extensive feeling of sympathy can express itself in both word and deed at the right place, thus quickly ridding itself of its impression, an intensive sympathy, because shut off from every means of expression, gains a passionate depth that embraces the misery of a world and is simply benumbed. It may possibly make an extravagant irruption, leading to some staggering act of an almost heroic character, to which, however, neither the object nor [p. 494] the subject can find a right relation. To the outer world, or to the blind eyes of the extravert, this sympathy looks like coldness, for it does nothing visibly, and an extraverted consciousness is unable to believe in invisible forces. Such misunderstanding is a characteristic occurrence in the life of this type, and is commonly registered as a most weighty argument against any deeper feeling relation with the object. But the underlying, real object of this feeling is only dimly divined by the normal type. It may possibly express its aim and content in a concealed religiosity anxiously shielded, from profane eyes, or in intimate poetic forms equally safeguarded from surprise; not without a secret ambition to bring about some superiority over the object by such means. Women often express much of it in their children, letting their passionateness flow secretly into them. Although in the normal type, the tendency, above alluded to, to overpower or coerce the object once openly and visibly with the thing secretly felt, rarely plays a disturbing role, and never leads to a serious attempt in this direction, some trace of it, none the less, leaks through into the personal effect upon the object, in the form of a domineering influence often difficult to define. It is sensed as a sort of stifling or oppressive feeling which holds the immediate circle under a spell. It gives a woman of this type a certain mysterious power that may prove terribly fascinating to the extraverted man, for it touches his unconscious. This power is derived from the deeply felt, unconscious images; consciousness, however, readily refers it to the ego, whereupon the influence becomes debased into personal tyranny. But, wherever the unconscious subject is identified with the ego, the mysterious power of the intensive feeling is also transformed into banal and arrogant ambition, vanity, and [p. 495] petty tyranny. This produces a type of woman most regrettably distinguished by her unscrupulous ambition and mischievous cruelty. But this change in the picture leads also to neurosis. So long as the ego feels itself housed, as it were, beneath the heights of the unconscious subject, and feeling reveals something higher and mightier than the ego, the type is normal. The unconscious thinking is certainly archaic, yet its reductions may prove extremely helpful in compensating the occasional inclinations to exalt the ego into the subject. But, whenever this does take place by dint of complete suppression of the unconscious reductive thinking-products, the unconscious thinking goes over into opposition and becomes projected into objects. Whereupon the now egocentric subject comes to feel the power and importance of the depreciated object. Consciousness begins to feel 'what others think'. Naturally, others are thinking, all sorts of baseness, scheming evil, and contriving all sorts of plots, secret intrigues, etc. To prevent this, the subject must also begin to carry out preventive intrigues, to suspect and sound others, to make subtle combinations. Assailed by rumours, he must make convulsive efforts to convert, if possible, a threatened inferiority into a superiority. Innumerable secret rivalries develop, and in these embittered struggles not only will no base or evil means be disdained, but even virtues will be misused and tampered with in order to play the trump card. Such a development must lead to exhaustion. The form of neurosis is neurasthenic rather than hysterical; in the case of women we often find severe collateral physical states, as for instance anæmia and its sequelæ.

Jung on Introverted Feeling (Fi)

#infp #isfp #fi #introverted feeling #jung #mbti #myers briggs #myers-briggs

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third-year-documentation · 6 years ago

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Carl Jung

Swiss psychologist (1875-1961)

“Man has developed consciousness slowly and laboriously, in a process that took untold ages to reach the civilised state. And this evolution is far from complete, for large areas of the human mind are still shrouded in darkness.”

Jung developed the idea of the psyche, consisting of soul, spirit and mind. It is the total personality of a person.

The psyche is divided into three main realms that interract with each other: conscious, personal unconscious, and selective unconscious.

Conscious: ones field of awareness. At the centre of the consciousness is the ego which is described as ones personality as they are aware of it first hand, the subject of all personal acts of consciousness. It acts as a gatekeeper deciding which acts of experience are reflected in the conscious and which will be eliminated, ignored or repressed. It helps to maintain the personal unconscious.

Personal unconscious: events that have been absorbed subliminally. “There are certain events of which we have not consciously taken note; they have remained, so to speak, below the threshold of consciousness. They have happened but they have been absorbed subliminally.” The ego may repress events that have happened due to them being too distressing, or it may forget them due to them appearing to be insignificant, and sends them into the personal unconscious. These events may still influence someone’s personality.

A concept known as complexes populate the personal unconscious. They are sub-personalities that have the potential to exert a powerful control over ones thoughts, emotions, and behaviours. “When we say a person has a complex we mean he is strongly preoccupied by something that he can hardly think about anything else... A strong complex is easily noticed by others, although the person himself may not be aware of it.” Jung was mentored by Freud, who believed that complexes derive from childhood traumas, though Jung disagreed. Jung decided that the roots of complexes reside in a deep level of the psyche, even deeper than the personal unconscious, and this was called the collective unconscious.

Collective unconscious: composed of elements which are inherited and which all humans share. “From the unconscious there emanate determining influences... which, independently, of tradition, guarantee in every single individual a similarity and even a sameness of experience, and also of the way it is represented imaginatively. One of the main proofs of this is the almost universal parallelism between mythological motifs (religions).” Some qualities between people aren’t individually acquired but are inherited (ie instinct without conscious motivation). It is known as the collective unconscious as opposed to the personal unconscious because it’s unique contents are seemingly universal.

Archetypes: the archaic heritage of humanity, predispositions that humans are born with to think, feel and act in specific ways. Jung believed that one cannot perceive architypes directly, but they can be recognised throughout images and symbols arised from them. “There are as many archetypes as there are typical situations in life.” Archetypes have a deep evolutionary basis. Jung believed that, as the human body has evolved over time, so has the psyche and predispositions. “Just as the human body represents a whole museum of organs, each with a long evolutionary history behind it, so we should expect to find that the mind is organised in a similar way.”

Uniqueness of the individual: although archetypes are common in all humans, they express themselves in an individual manner. Archetypes and individuality interact to form a unique personality. Jung believed that it is important that the conscious and unconscious are integrally connected and move on parallel lines. If they become split apart, or “dissociated”, then psychological disturbance will follow.

Individuation: self realisation. Jung believed that most people suffer from having either under or over expression of the consciousness. Imbalances often lead to development in neurosis (mental illness not caused by disease ie depression, anxiety, ocd, and hypochondria to name a few) and a lack of vitality in life. Individuation occurs spontaneously. “Everything in the unconscious seeks outward manifestation.”

How can one confront the unconscious? Dreams provide access to the unconscious realm. Dream analysis is a theraputic way to integrate the unconsciousness with the conscious, however the complexity makes dream interpretation difficult.

The persona: the social mask that each of us wear in our interaction with others in society. “Fundamentally the persona is nothing real: it is a compromise between the individual and society as to what man should appear to be... in relation to the essential individuality of the person concerned [the persona] is only a secondary reality, a product of compromise, in making which others often have a greater share than he. The persona is a semblance, a two-dimensional reality.” Most people over identify with their persona. In the process of individuation, one must come to the realisation that the persona is only a small component of a much larger personality. The first stage of doing this is looking into the shadow archetype.

The shadow: certain personality traits that elicit negative feedback and punishment from others. These negative feedbacks create anxiety, which causes them to be pushed away from the awareness into the unconscious where they form the shadow. Failure to integrate these consciously leads to the shadow unconsciously projecting itself into others. “If [the shadow] is conscious, one always has a chance to correct it... but if it is repressed and isolated from consciousness, it never gets corrected.” Sometimes people hide the shadow personality traits not just because they are harmful, but just because they don’t necessarily fit within the social norms, therefore when bringing it into the conscious it may also bring about new energies and a new vitality of life. The new product cannot come from established values of the ego.

Anima (m)/ animus (f): a gateway between the ego and the unconscious. The anima/animus is manifested as someone of the opposite sex who appears during dreams and visions often arises during severe psychic disorientation and offers guidance as to how to remove any psychological barricades that are hindering the natural progression of individuation. This encounter symoblises a deep, meaningful occurrence within someone’s life. It is the deepest and highest reaches with the ego that one can possibly attain.

Archetypes of wholeness (the self): “the self is our life’s goal, for it is the completest expression of that fateful combination we call individuality.” It is the central archetype of the entire psyche, similar to how the sun is the centre of our solar system, and it is the union between our conscious and unconscious realms. It is important to integrate the unconscious with the ego because the closer they are the closer the ego is to the self, even though it must be a never ending process. A connection with the self leads to a greater sense of harmony both within oneself and with the world as a whole. Jung describes it as “a treasure that would make one independent,” and “a link to the infinite”.

Jung came upon the existence of self by exploring the universality of symbols such as quaternary and the mandala which “occur not only in the dreams of modern people who have never heard of them, but are widely disseminated in the historical records of many people and many epochs.”

“A mandala is the psychological expression of the totality of the self.” Mandalas have an incredibly long history and significant placement within many religions, they also spontaneously appear during times of psychic disorientation or reorientation. Jung believed them to be compensatory symbols of wholeness manifested by the self in times of crisis.

The individuation process is crucial for healthy personality and the expression of the unique potential within each of us. It is also essential for the wellbeing of society. Conformist societies consist mainly of people who identify too much with their persona which thus make it easy for the rise of oppressive governments. It is essential that everyone realises that there is more to life than the social role dictated by their persona. “It is just this banding together [as an individualised group] and the resultant extinction of the individual personality that makes it succumb so readily to a dictator. A million zeros joined together do not, unfortunately, add up to one.”

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