Thoughts On a Repressed Shadow

Throught the ages -perhaps it is more prevalent in the modern world- people have been way too worried about sustaining an image of pureness, of appearing a decent human being, casting auras of compassion and moral rectitude. The other dynamic being people wanting their role models and inspirations to be egoless, untainted saints who can do no wrong.

People have been denying their dionysiac impulses -all that which covers our irrational behaviour- especially those concerned with our most base impulses, Sex being the most prominent example anyone could mention.

In a sense, humans have been too concerned with maintining Apollonian schemas . As the ancient Greeks warned: Deny Dionysus and risk his wrath… or as Carl Jung put it:

“Too much of the animal disfigures the civilized human being, too much culture makes a sick animal.”

That is one of the most powerful statements I’ve ever read.

Even many of the so called alternative teachers have “sinned”, that is to say, they have -consciously or unconsciously- denied one of the most fundamental aspects of a human being: His Shadow.

Many like to bury their heads in the sand and pretend that a concept like Shadow is merely concerned with their traumas, about just embracing their mistakes. In a fucked up way, many people rationalize this Shadow reality and manage to create a monster…
By becoming obsessed with the nourishing ” the light side” they blind themselves to their so called inner ugliness:

From religious rightousness and political correctness to positive thinking and oneness, people do everything to commit self-sabotage so they can pretend there is nothing there… you can see this effect trickling down to day-to-day dynamics:

A couple gets together, they crave sex… but they’ve been self-sabotaging from day one so they will pretend they are an examplary couple by denying their crave to themselves, each other and the world that they like sweaty and dirty sex, if anyone talks about sex then tension arises and they have to difuse it by joking about it or guilt tripping so that they don’t have to look at their Dionysiac Shadow, when they finally succumb to their natural animal impulse then sex becomes ackward, a 5 minute affair, a chore… (shit I think I found the cure to premature ejaculation lol).

In a more recent context: A “moderate muslim” who from day one has been over-feeding his most base impulses with tales of extreme violence, but at the same time represses all those dark thoughts, refuses to acknowledge their existence. The result? San Bernardino and ISIS.

This is one of the most fascinating and horrifying dynamics I’ve ever come across .

People have to acknowledge there is a Dark Factor within the human equation, we have to acknowledge our animal side, we must accept that just as we are capable of amazing things, we are also capable of unspeakable actions… of course these are just extreme polar opposites, an invididual mileage may vary from everything in between.

Speaking of Shadows and modern contexts, we should do well to remember that in order for the West to survive the Islamic onslaught we have to look at our Shadow, our Dark side and direct it in an efficient manner to repel the invader. No amount of moral rectitude, compassion, empathy or egolessness is gonna do fuck all against the bearded savages… at this point in time, our discrimination, bigotry and hatred are needed to avoid a potential genocide.