Guggenbühl: America’s Political Fantasies

AMERICA’S POLITICAL FANTASIES

ADOLF GUGGENBÜHL-CRAIG

EDITOR’S NOTE: The following article, by a former President of the Curatorium of the C. G. Jung Institute in Zurich and one of the worlds most distinguished Jungian psychologists, was sent by the author as a personal letter to his friend, James Hillman. SPRING appreciates the opportunity to print this letter in the form in which it was originally written, but we share the author’s concern that the casualness of a personal letter not lead to misunderstandings on the part of the public, for whom, after all, it was not intended. In allowing us to publish it, Dr. Guggenbühl-Craig wishes to point out: “In the letter I write partially about the archetypal background of the United States and Switzerland. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean that in every detail my opinions would be shared by my countrymen and countrywomen. On the one hand what I say depends on the fact that ! am Swiss, on the other hand on the fact that I am myself. My individuality and my collective belonging hang together but are not quite the same … I write as a Swiss, but I write as an individual person too. The idea that most people are not very gifted politically is probably more connected to myself than to the Swiss collectivity … I have lived twice in the States, for three years, and I have always been an admirer and friend of the States. I realize full well—and I am extremely thankful—that the United States has saved the world, certainly Europe, over and over again from absolute disaster. It’s one of the wonders of history that such a great power like the United States is guided by the fantasies of decency, freedom, tolerance, human rights, etc, which, in my view, are all well-turned-out sons and daughters of the Judaeo-Christian tradition … fantasies which make it possible that the world is not complete misery … I would be very sad if my letter-article gave the impression that I am anti-American.”

The United States is not really a nation but a religion. From the beginning the United States has had a messianic-religious outlook. Despite all corruption, despite all cynicism, in the background of Americans is still the belief that ultimately one could achieve something in this world; people could become happy and content. And, perhaps, the very purpose of the United States may be to work toward fortunate times.

Americans believe that human beings are ultimately noble and good if only they had the opportunity to show it. When as many people as possible participate in politics and become active citizens, much will be better, nicer, happier. That is why today some people are indignant about the “idiotization,” or privatization, which is often the result of psychotherapy. But here in Switzerland we live in a different archetypal background and are guided by a different imagination. Though we are definitely for democratic forms of government, in my view they can only function if people also learn to see when they are politically untalented and naive. Democracy functions when nine out of ten citizens see that they do not really understand anything that is going on and that they must therefore depend upon the judgment of the tenth. They must do what he recommends.

In principle, all people are artists, all people are politicians; but a certain specialization has occurred, and talents are very unevenly distributed. Few people are politically gifted. In a functioning democracy people do not learn primarily to make political decisions but to develop the ability to recognize who is politically gifted. In practice it works like this: among a group of people, in a family, a group, and so on, one acts politically like that person who, one believes, could succeed in resolving the matter at hand. Thus, it is not only a question of all people becoming citizens but also that many people come to realize that they are completely untalented as citizens. It is better that those who are not politically gifted keep away from politics rather than believe that they have to understand political issues themselves and so bring about devastation. The imagination that the more citizens who participate in politics, the better the world will be is not our imagination in Switzerland.

But in America there is also the imagination of a certain conspiracy, an imagination that some devil dominates the situation at the present moment. In this view, President Bush, General Schwarzkopf, and the military-industrial complex are devils who mislead the poor and other “good” people. In the service of the former are the evil media, physicians, architects, and other professionals. The “good” people, who unfortunately do not participate in politics, are thus being dominated and misled by evil people. This imagination is correct insofar as the evil and destructive always exist beside the good and the noble. And if it is supposed that most people are inherently noble, it must also be supposed that the devil is somewhere and that he is found precisely in those who govern at the time.

In most countries, those who govern at a given time closely reflect the people at large. Many Americans are decent, honest people, some are gangsters, and a few are amoral psychopaths. And the government is also like this. But the imagination of basically good citizens (if only they would take part in politics) versus the evil upper strata who spoil everything is definitely an American-messianic imagination. It is the fantasy that people are inherently good and noble and are entitled to be happy and that this manifests itself in democracy and citizens’ participation. Into this also fits Americans’ love for radicality (right wing or left). Behind this radicality again hides an imagination of paradise: with radical thinking and doing one may still be able to realize the good.

We Swiss are guided by different fantasies. We like radicality, but it frightens us. We see—this is simply our perspective—that up to now everything radical has led to absolutely horrible catastrophes, such as the radical reform of the Mongolian tribal structure by Genghis Khan, the radicalism of the French Revolution which led to the slaughterer Napoleon, the radicalism of Mussolini, Hitler and Stalin, and the radical attempts at reform in Cambodia which depopulated the country. Bernard Shaw was a radical thinker in a certain respect, and he wrote that it was nonsense to punish by penal law only the individual; it accorded with a higher ethos if entire classes of a people were exterminated. Russia, he wrote at the time of Stalin’s purges and forced collectivization, was a highly ethical country.

Of course, both American and Swiss thinkers have the need and compulsion (justified in part) to see the diabolical and, perhaps, to combat it. Both have the need to deal radically with the devilish. I myself see it above all in religious or secular movements, such as Communism—now collapsed—and Fascism. In these movements the most amoral psychopaths commonly come into power and spread terror and horror. But no one has yet quite figured out how to deal with these satanic phenomena. At first, appeasement was tried on Hitler just as with Genghis Khan and Napoleon. Saddam was not appeased but, like Communism, “contained.” It is indeed astounding how much resemblance there is between Saddam, Hitler, and Mussolini in their fantasies and self-representations. In the case of Saddam, I saw in my own imagination Asia and Northern Africa already covered by a murderous, Fascist-religious regime which in the end will threaten the world with an atom bomb. The amoral, diabolical, psychopathic, and fascistic always exert a great pull on all of us, and it is only with effort that one succeeds in protecting the people from this curse.

The Swiss are certainly not guided by the American dream, by the messianic-religious imagination that inherently good humanity, if once liberated from the devils, would find happiness. Rather, we have the image of the dark valley of which psychologists frequently talked decades ago. When we endure human misery on our journey in the dark valley, maybe we will survive and maybe not. But the chances of survival are better—according to our imagination—if we recognize that we are traveling in the dark valley as people who have lost their way. Passivity does not have to result from this imagination. Wherever we are, we can simply do things that seem right to us in some measure—but always not knowing whether it is right or wrong. This imagination is similar to Pascal’s: “Man is neither angel nor beast, and evil insists that the one who wants to make him an angel makes him a beast.”

Finally, conventional wisdom has it that it is very important for Americans as “rugged individualists” not to share the opinion of the majority. This is only conditionally true. It is correct insofar as one considers opinion to be mere intellectual whisperings, but it is not true insofar as one sees in opinion the expression of archetypal undercurrents. We are always a part of a collective, a part of a group or a nation, which is guided by certain archetypal fantasies. These archetypal fundamentals express themselves in different ways, but they are related to each other and originate ultimately from the same root. American’s background fantasies (if only as many people as possible were politically active, things would turn out right) are rooted in the American-religious, secularized-messianic envisioning of paradise. In this sense rugged individualists are simply an expression of the general psyche.

The American and Swiss imaginations each show themselves in several variations, but these small variations are very important, indeed, decisive. The young historians here in Switzerland who concern themselves with the Second World War often do not quite realize this. It goes without saying that the patriotic-native attitude of the majority of the Swiss during the war had certain similarities with the blood-and-soil fantasy of National Socialism and Fascism. The archetypal roots were in the deepest depth, perhaps, even the same. But the point is, they were varied in very different ways. The young historians want to make us believe today that during the Second World War the Swiss were all Fascists even though they were prepared to defend themselves and even to die in a defensive war against Hitler. Their view has simply not comprehended that everything depends upon the variations which thrive on the same archetypal ground.

American and Swiss archetypal fundamentals are often so different that they are not variations of the same background. It makes my heart beat faster when I hear an American psychologist say that it is nonsense for a person to wait until he is no longer neurotic before becoming politically active, that many people were severely neurotic and dynamically active in politics. I personally am not really interested in whether someone is politically active but in whether he does harm in politics. When he is active in politics, does he know something about it? It would be nice if just once I could succeed in luring away from politics a person who is politically very active but does awful harm.

An American Reply to the Previous Article:

Americans have long been wary of the argument that society runs better when the people obey the "politically gifted" and avoid active involvement in the issues of the day. John Winthrop, the governor of Massachusetts Bay, maintained this view in “A Defense of an Order of Court” (1637). At the time the colony was divided between the so-called Antinomians and the Puritan establishment. Like archetypalists, the Antinomians thought that one could have a direct relationship to the divine while the establishment feared anarchy if people assumed such responsibility for themselves. To prevent the Antinomians from receiving reinforcements from England, the Massachusetts Bay government issued a decree making immigrants to the colony report to the magistrates for permission. In his defense of this decree Winthrop argued that people had to obey their magistrates unconditionally so that "order" could be preserved in the community. Winthrop’s self-serving rationale is the one that every “amoral, diabolical, psychopathic, and fascistic” tyrant uses to justify political repression. Perhaps, Guggenbühl-Craig’s sympathy to this view stems from his "archetypal background" in Switzerland, the birthplace of Puritanism.

Fortunately, America follows a tradition other than Puritanism for its political philosophy. The idea of political involvement by the many, which Winthrop and Guggenbühl-Craig fear, stems from Enlightenment political values whose main advocate in America is Thomas Jefferson. Far from having a “messianic-religious outlook,” Jefferson is the one who revised the gospels for the enlightened man by cutting out Jesus’ miracles. Jefferson stated his view of the average citizen’s participation in a democracy this way: “Every one, by his property, or by his satisfactory situation, is interested in the support of law and order. And such men may safely and advantageously reserve to themselves a wholesome control over their public affairs …” This is simply a practical view. In a modern democracy leaders know they cannot impose order on the "politically naive" any more than an analyst can impose order on a patient’s unconscious. Just as symbols arise spontaneously from the psyche, law arises from the people.

—Eric Purchase

The Author’s Reply to the Previous:

In the American reply to my article we read “Americans have long been wary of the argument that society runs better when people obey the politically gifted and avoid active involvement in issues of the day.” In this reply it looks as if I am of that opinion too, which is a misunderstanding. I am not at all of the opinion that people have to obey anybody.

—Adolf Guggenbühl-Craig