The News Real: Queen, a Mummy, and the Church tips hat to Darwin

The News Real, initiating today, is a different look at the stories of the past week, with one eye cast toward the archetypes of the collective unconscious in an effort to glean some psychological insight from the stories unfolding around us.  As Jung noted, “When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate.”  The poet Charles Olson taught a class while at Black Mountain College in the early 1950’s in which he would dissect the newspaper headlines for the archetypal forces that were at play.  In that spirit, The News Real will be presented here weekly.

Clearly it was a week with many notable stories.

#1 The fiasco of the stimulus package : exposing business as usual in Washington. (I wonder if the Republican Governors will send back the state aid their compatriots voted against? That would reduce the size of the bill.)  The archetypal reality what we see playing out, if we were to take the scenario as a dream for instance, is the radical separation of the opposites.  Fire and ice do not mingle at all in the scenario which reminds us of so many of the readings that populate the I Ching.  What’s of interest is how the gesture at a bi-partisan approach was spurned.  Psychologically, the integration of the opposites demands the emergence of a newly created third thing.  In someways, though politically it’s difficult to watch, the Republican grandstanding makes sense when considered archetypally.  The two parties just want the top position, not a different reality.  What would it take to change the current system?  Historically we can note revolution driven by dissatisfaction.

#2 Peanut factory distributes disease. The horror here, that contaminated shipments might have been made after the discovery was made.  Let’s proceed “as if” that were clearly established already.  What does that say?  What would it portend if this were a dream and you were the person allowing the tainted product to go out?  Here we get the image of how fear can operate and cloud judgment, even at times lead to knowingly conspiring to do harm. Collectively there’s the interesting challenge to the American psyche, that has watched similar scenarios play out in China over the last two years.  There’s been an implied sense of superiority, as though assenting to the belief that it wouldn’t happen here.

#3 Auto-pilot contributes to Buffalo plane crash.  The horror of the first commercial air fatalities in America in years comes only one month after the heroic emergency landing in the Hudson River.  The striking difference, it appears in the Buffalo crash, the auto pilot was on till just moments before the plane lost control, and this against airline regulations for flying in the icing conditions.  All I’d like to highlight here is what a poignant image this for the dangerous tendency to turn over responsibility.  In the psychological relationship that develops between the ego and the unconscious, a similar disaster can unfold if the ego does not remain in relationship to the unconscious processes.  They too can take on a life of their own and spin out of control.

In closing three lesser stories that speak directly from the archetypes level.

• There is a new reigning Queen in the world and she emerges into the limelight.

• There’s a new step toward the reconciliation of the Church and Science with Rome tipping a hat toward Darwin.

• And from the flashback files, a newly discovered intact mummey in Egypt.