I am posting today my notes for the October 13, 2008 lecture of this class. I realize that some of you could not make it in today because of a time conflict and thank you in advance for your flexibility in getting through the interruption due to Hurricane Ike.
REVIEW: Last week we explored the concept of “Identity.” We said that a state of identity with a complex was a “lack of differentiation.” When there is a state of identity there is no “I-thou” relationship between ego-complex and what Whitmont described as “driving elements,” i.e. our complexes. The ego is our Archimedean point, the subject of consciousness, our I-complex with which we identify, and when we speak of identity with a complex, we are describing a situation when the ego is “identical with a drive” and unaware of what is driving it.
We looked at a passage from Jung’s autobiography where he says that the “essential thing (in working with your complexes) is to differentiate oneself from unconscious contents by personifying them, and at the same time bringing them into relationship with consciousness.” (MDR, page 187) We confront the complex as a “thou” as something “not I.” Only then can an inner dialogue begin.
TODAY we explore the mechanism of projection. The basic definition of projection: “An automatic process whereby contents of one’s own unconscious are perceived to be in others.” (Sharp, page 104) We meet our complexes through projection, as though they came from the other person.
Let me offer an example of this mechanism from a popular movie: AMERICAN BEAUTY.
American Beauty won five Academy awards in 1999 including best picture. One of the characters in that movie is a Colonel Fitz, a military man who has just moved into the neighborhood with his wife and son. There are several instances in the movie in which we witness the Colonel’s reaction to his gay neighbors. In one instance after he sees his neighbors out jogging in the street, he says sardonically, “What is this, the gay pride parade?”
He is expressing a strong feeling, disgust, revulsion perhaps, hatred. It is not a neutral dispassionate statement about the presence of gay neighbors in his neighborhood. This strong emotional response is telling. Something is up with Colonel Fitz and his relationship to homosexuality.
Later in the film, Colonel Fitz sees his son interacting with a neighbor he suspects of homosexual relationships. When his son returns home, his father, the Colonel is waiting for him in his room. The son has been dealing drugs and the father sees the boy come in with money. Instead of suspecting that his son has been dealing drugs as would have been a good assumption due to his past behavior, he accuses his son of selling his body for money. The father says, “I saw you with him. I won’t watch my son become a cocksucker. I’d rather you be dead than be a fucking faggot.” The son at first denies it but in an act of defiance tells his father that he is selling his body out for money. The Colonel strikes his son, knocking him to the ground. What is interesting here is that although the Colonel was keeping tabs on his son for drug use, instead of reaching the right conclusion that this son was selling drugs, he jumps to a different conclusion, that his son was engaged in homosexual relations with the neighbor. He was seeing through the lens of his complex and came to the wrong conclusion. His strong emotional reaction is another clue that his complex around homosexuality is constellated.
And then we have the about face…Towards the end of the movie, we see the Colonel coming out of the rain outside his neighbor’s garage where Lester Burham, his neighbor, is working out. He approaches Lester, and at one point kisses him. It is at this point that one understands the meaning of his hatred earlier in the movie. It was a reaction to his own inner desires, it was a hatred towards his own homosexual desires that he is now giving room to…and anticipating class comments, his earlier hatred was an expression of shadow material—repressed and hated aspects of oneself.
An important POINT: The “emotional coloring” in the Colonel, the strong emotional reaction to his gay neighbors is the essential piece in recognizing a complex. We cannot get away from our subjectivity and in one sense everything we experience in the world of objects has an element of our subjectivity. We speak of the mechanism of projection, however, when there is a strong emotional coloring. When we can’t just take it or leave it but find what we are experiencing somewhat compelling and sometimes when we are compulsively drawn to it. With the Colonel, we can see his strong emotional reaction, as well as his fascination with his neighbors including Lester Burham who he suspects, despite being married of engaging in sexual relations with other men.
PROJECTIONS CAN BE POSITIVE: Whitmont makes a point in your reading for this class that “complexes are not necessarily only negative; they cause attraction as well as repulsion. We are involved in a positive projection when what gets under our skin attracts us, fascinates us, arouses our admiration—when we ‘fall in love’ with a person or idea.” (page 61).
I have used scenes from American Beauty once again to demonstrate the concept of projection. I have provided two links to the scenes I am showing in class:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RilaxU045Nw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okaWTEnU4j0
In these scenes, Lester Burnham initially doesn’t want to go to his daughters cheerleading debut, he says “I’m missing the James Bond marathon on TNT, we can leave right after this right.” He isn’t showing much interest…but then he sees Angela, the cheerleader. His face changes, something has been constellated in him, he is taken into an inner experience, we can’t say that the things he is seeing are really happening in the exterior. He is projecting something into this young woman and he has fallen in love
The point here is that Lester doesn’t really know the young woman. She hasn’t done anything to him or for him at this point, they haven’t even met, yet he is obviously affected. Something is causing his attraction, what might that be?
A clue perhaps that his own psychological renewal begins with this experience in the movie. In the dream sequence in which the young woman is bathed in red rose petals, he says “I feel like I’ve been in a coma for 20 years, and I’m just waking up.” In keeping with our focus on the mechanism of projection, what aspect of himself is he projecting?
Saturday, October 11, 2008
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