The re-remergence of the shadow self in US Politics

The more we attempt to avoid the deepest fears within ourselves, the more we appear to get in our own way. What we are seeing in the 2016 United States presidential election is the collective emergence of the shadow self: the underlying fears within us that have been consciously repressed to the point of becoming unconscious. What we fail to address within ourselves is the way we view the external world all around us. What is repressed and avoided will remain within us until it is finally faced and exposed as False Evidence Appearing Real (FEAR). This is where we are at as a nation; as a planet. Collective society’s unconscious fears are once again rising to the surface to be faced, and it is once again a time where we can come together by discovering what lies beyond our deepest fears, or we can hold onto these fears and continue to destroy each other and our planet.

So wait, what does this have to with the US presidential election? I’ll get to that, but in order to address that we must first see what it is that got us to where we are right now. When I discuss the ‘shadow self,’ many are not aware that they even have a shadow self. That is because these are the deepest fears we avoid facing until they become unconscious. Once they become unconscious, they play a significant role within us that carries out our daily lives without any conscious awareness. Most of our society today is living unconsciously which means we are living our lives from a place of fear without the realization of doing so.

How do we do this? We mask our pain by redirecting our conscious awareness away from any fears that appear to be too difficult to face. We do this through developing roles and identities of who we are. These roles/identities provide a false sense of comfort. Some call this the ‘ego.’ Others call it ‘Satan.’ These identities we develop our self-concept around temporarily mask the underlying pain yet do not provide the everlasting peace we truly seek. As a society, we see no other solution to this dilemma and therefore continue repeating this cycle any time we are faced with our deepest fears and regrets. These fears continue to rise and we continue to push them away. Each time we push them away, we feed more energy to this unconscious fear until it gains so much strength that it can no longer be controlled. We continue to repeat many of these same unconscious themes generations before us have repeated, and we teach future generations that this is the appropriate way to go through life.

Our collective society today reacts to our environment in a fight or flight response. The phrase ‘fight or flight’ was originally coined from our reaction to an immediate danger, but we have developed this response as a defense mechanism for our everyday lives. When we encounter everyday stress, we either attempt to gain personal control over it (FIGHT) or we attempt to avoid it by sweeping it under the rug in hopes that it will go away (FLIGHT). We repress our fears by avoiding them or by projecting them onto our environment. In order to do this, the roles we carry out share the common themes of being a victim to life or an aggressor of life. The victim believes their external environment must change in order for them to be happy. They sweep things under the rug and convince themselves that once everything around them changes, they will be happy. Until then, they are simply a victim to unfortunate circumstances that they have no control over. They often spend their time trying to please others and make them happier. This is because once everyone and everything around them is happy, they believe they will finally be happy.

The aggressor attempts to manipulate people and situations in their environment to provide them the happiness they seek. The aggressor has no problem pointing out the flaws within others and has no problem blaming people and situations for their sense of unhappiness. The aggressor may even project fear and anger onto others as a means of controlling their environment. The aggressor unconsciously believes that if everyone simply acted the way they see fit, they will finally be happy.

Both the aggressor and victim themes operate at the unconscious level within our collective society, and they both depend on each other to exist. The common ground that links the victim and aggressor is the need to change their external environments in order to avoid changing themselves. To truly change for the better, one must face their fears. In order to face one’s fears, one must become aware of the roles and identities they have created to mask and avoid their fears. Until one becomes consciously aware of this process, one will continue to unconsciously engage in the roles that have been described.

When we are unconscious, we play one of the roles of the victim or aggressor and view the other as an opposition. Little do we know at the time that the role we are playing is masking our underlying fears of the shadow self. As much as we oppose the other side, we are actually unconsciously gravitating to them because we NEED them to continue playing the game of the victim vs the aggressor. One role cannot exist without the other opposing it; therefore both roles enable each other. These unconscious themes also switch back and forth within us. The victim represses fear and guilt until they can no longer handle it and then lash out at the aggressor. The aggressor may become frustrated with the inability to control their external environment and eventually develop feelings of hopelessness and, as a result, turn to a savior to relieve them of their pain. As crazy as this may sound, many of us would rather remain in a false sense of a comfort zone that at least temporarily relieves our suffering than to completely expose our deepest, darkest fears that lie deep within us. The fear of the unknown and a sense of being completely vulnerable keeps us repeating these unconscious cycles from generation to generation.

So, how does this relate to politics today in the United States? Well, many are frustrated that our country continues to suffer from an economic decline and a shrinking middle class. Many can point out the problems but offer little in terms of solutions. We have three very polarizing presidential candidates at this time. One represents the status quo while the other two represent unique choices that lie on the extreme opposite ends of what many call “the Liberals and the Conservatives.” The walls of the bipartisan Democratic and Republican parties appear to be crumbling due to the tension between party supporters and their political representatives.

Many appear to want real change and see that the system in place will no longer work, but there are few that agree on what it is that needs to change. To understand what we are dealing with, we must observe the two dominant parties in the United States:

One party tends to promote diversity and equality as major issues. In today’s economy, there is growing tension between members of this party and the problem of wealth inequality. The top one tenth of one percent of US households own the same amount of wealth (22%) as the bottom 90 percent of US households. (www.politifact.com...). They point to this as a problem, and indeed it is a problem (continued on next post).

(continued from last post) Many state that this country is controlled by the 1% who hoard money at the expense of the common man. Many feel the system is rigged against the common man. They stress the need for more government programs and increased taxation on higher incomes in order to provide equal opportunity for all citizens.

The other party tends to promote the American Dream of complete independence as the ideal way of life. They tend to believe that our past traditions that made the United States a free country have been abandoned. Many state that their tax dollars are being wasted on individuals who could do more for themselves but choose instead to take advantage of current state and federal programs that are currently in place. This indeed is a problem, and unlike the other party, they collectively believe in lowering taxes and reducing government programs. This will allow each individual the freedom to independently work without the burden of raised taxes and by doing so create more jobs for the economy.

As previously stated, both parties agree that the current system in place is broken. What they fail to collectively see is how they actually are enabling the system to continue as it is. On the extreme ends of each group, one group blames the 1% for controlling and manipulating the environment for their own self-gain. They believe they are powerless to change this process. The other blames the lower class by stating they are already free and simply aren’t working hard enough. If they are working two to three jobs and 60 hours a week yet are still barely able to put food on the table, it is no one’s fault but their own for choosing that lifestyle. Neither group is being entirely honest with themselves because that would mean they would have to personally change instead of expecting others to change for them. One group takes the victim role and states they are powerless slaves to a corrupt system while the other takes to aggressor role and manipulates the system in their personal favor without taking any responsibility for doing so. Meanwhile, these extreme polarities are reflected in our economy through a dwindling middle class at the expense of government funding and the top 1%.

Does any of this sound familiar? It is the theme of the unconscious victim and aggressor being played out in today's United States politics. Both major parties oppose each other yet depend on each other to exist. Both major parties are frustrated because they cannot find the answer to disappearing middle class, rising inflation, outrageous tuition and healthcare costs, immigration disputes, and conflicting ideas on foreign policy. All of the anger and frustration of our collective society is boiling over, and the underlying shadow self of collective society is rising back into the field of our conscious awareness.

But how can we truly change this current system? We must become aware of this unconscious process within ourselves and the identities we use to mask our fears. We see these unconscious roles in our relationships with significant others, parents, children, and peers. We see them in addicts who have unconscious feelings of loneliness and therefore depend on a fix to get that high. The addict then attempts to control these urges, often failing to do so because as soon as their unconscious fears begin to rise once again to the surface, they fall back into the dependent victim role and seek the fix to mask their pain. We see it playing out at work and at school. We see it in the newspapers and on our televisions. We see this process occurring all around us.

Once we become aware of this process within ourselves, we begin to understand that we fear the unknown due to its vulnerability. We fear our repressed pain because not only is it now unconscious and therefore unknown, but also because we cannot see what lies beyond it. When we feel our fears rising to the surface, we must not push them away in hopes they will simply go away, nor should we project blame onto others in order to avoid facing them within ourselves. We must simply be present and observe these feelings as they rise and fall. Nothing in the physical world is permanent to include our fears. One we allow our fears to rise without judgment, we will see that there is something within us beyond all fear. Call it love, God, Higher Self, or whatever you wish to call it. It is what happens when we allow ourselves to become vulnerable by surrendering our egos to a higher power. It takes forgiving ourselves and others. It takes becoming aware of what beliefs we have been clinging to and truly letting them go.

In today's politics, it doesn't do any good to blame the wealthy for being stingy, nor does it do any good to blame the lower class for cheating the system and not working hard enough.This just strengthens the real underlying problem. We must admit that collectively, we are all responsible for where we find ourselves today. It is not limited to one generation or one group of people. Collectively, we must let go of the two-party system as we have known it. Individually, we must let go of the need to be right at the expense of others being wrong. We must let go of the need to blame ourselves and others and accept where we find ourselves at this present moment in time. We must change ourselves in order to change the world. We must decide that the role playing game is over and we must surrender these roles. We must become honest, vulnerable, and forgiving. We must face our fears directly as they rise to the surface. Only then will we be free from living from a place of fear. Only then will we find the solution to rebuilding our country.

a reply to: Subconsciously Correct


Excellent OP! Interesting ideas and very well presented.

However, the very first thought that came to me is that the US isn't a "collective society"! In fact, what I've found is that for the most part US Americans vehemently resist being part of a collective society because for whatever reason, they despise whole segments of populations that would be members of this collective society. It is genuinely the case that many, if not most, would prefer to live in a country without the other many, if not most.

What we're seeing in this election cycle is the brightening and hardening of these fault lines. So much so that we now get reports of people verbally, and in some cases physically attacking supporters of one candidate or another. Vis-a-Vis Federalism and States rights, we see this where the Feds try to impose California values on North Carolina.

We may well be in the "Cold War" phase of another Civil War, or "Culture War".

originally posted by: TonyS
a reply to: Subconsciously Correct


Excellent OP! Interesting ideas and very well presented.

However, the very first thought that came to me is that the US isn't a "collective society"! In fact, what I've found is that for the most part US Americans vehemently resist being part of a collective society because for whatever reason, they despise whole segments of populations that would be members of this collective society. It is genuinely the case that many, if not most, would prefer to live in a country without the other many, if not most.

What we're seeing in this election cycle is the brightening and hardening of these fault lines. So much so that we now get reports of people verbally, and in some cases physically attacking supporters of one candidate or another. Vis-a-Vis Federalism and States rights, we see this where the Feds try to impose California values on North Carolina.

We may well be in the "Cold War" phase of another Civil War, or "Culture War".

Thanks for reading all that. I agree that many in the US don't want to be a part of a collective society, but we still are. We have families and coworkers and we still depend on consumers for business. Many would rather not be a part of collective society, but it's impossible not to be. That can create a lot of tension.