26 May 2019
The philosophy (and ubiquity) of positive psychologies, self-esteem movements and other trends that encourage you to seek the pleasurable and to see only the good in yourself and the world never struck a chord with me. I conceive of the world in terms of dialectical pairs and patterns. This dissatisfaction prompted me to seek an in-depth explanation of the dialectical opposite of the alleged ‘good’ in the world, namely the darker side of human nature. Then I was recommended the book Why Good People Do Bad Things: Understanding Our Darker Selves by James Hollis, which fulfilled all my criteria. The exclusively Jungian approach and the experience of the author provided the depth and breadth of analysis I was looking for.
The book opens with its central premise: to understand the hidden, often darker, side of humanity, and why people engage in self-defeating behaviours, we need to understand what Carl Jung called the Shadow. The Shadow is the combination of all the unconscious selves/drives/forces that are situated deep down within us. The psyche is not a single entity, as most people would assume – it is divided and multiplicitous. The Shadow has a few main characteristics: 1) the shadow forces within us are not inherently evil but if left on their own devices, they can motivate us to do things that we later consider to be evil; 2) the shadow has creative potential; 3) it cannot be willed away; 4) it is ever-present on both the personal and the collective levels.
The Shadow, Hollis argues, has 4 different expressions or forms. First, it can be unconscious. In this case, the shadow forces remain unconscious to us and we justify or rationalize their presence in our conscious life. The second form is the projected shadow. In this scenario, the unconscious shadow forces, instead of being justified, are now projected onto the world as a way to manage that which we dislike, or even hate, most about ourselves. A third expression of the Shadow is when the unconscious forces begin to possess us entirely. Here, the Shadow overtakes our consciousness, our entire being. This is when the Shadow is in the driver seat. For example, this often happens during a concert, a football game, a lynch mob or protests – for if you have been to such an event, the experience is almost surreal – you feel like you have little control over yourself and you go with the flow. The bad news is that sometimes you might do things you later regret. A fourth expression of the Shadow is one of integration. This is when we bring the Shadow to our consciousness in order to integrate it into our being; this process allows us to become wholesome human beings. This is, however, an extremely difficult and rarely undertaken process as we have to face the fact that the enemy is, and has been all along, ourselves (albeit a much deeper, unconscious self). This motive of facing up to your own darker self in order to transcend it is an archetypal one, found in many literary works (e.g. Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Shelley’s Frankestein), movies (Us, The Vampire Diaries, The Prestige, Yu-Gi-Oh), or even games (Swords and Sandals).
The next problem Hollis turns to is why it is the case that so many people know what good actions are, but yet they do not do those actions – or as St. Paul put it: “Though I know the good, I do not do the Good.” Hollis suggests that the reason for that is a discrepancy between intentions and actions, caused by the unconscious Shadow forces. On the one hand, intentions require consciousness and are products of our conscious will. When we form intentions, we push the Shadow forces away because if they were to resurface they would harm our otherwise fragile egos. The Shadow can be pushed away from consciousness through a range of defense mechanisms such as projection, repression, suppression, denial etc. Therefore, given that the Shadow is not brought to consciousness, it cannot be part of the intention. On the other hand, actions are the product of our entire being – conscious and unconscious. To resolve that discrepancy between intentions and actions, religions offer different solutions. Eastern religions, for example, call that intention-action gap a delusion of the ego, western religions blame Satan, while fundamentalists believe that the unconscious can simply be willed away. Hollis is not a fan of either of these solutions. Instead, he suggests that we should have a dialogue with the Shadow in order to integrate it.
James Hollis then examines different manifestations of the Shadow in life: in our personal life, the pathology of the Shadow, the Shadow in intimate relationships, in institutions and collective actions, in progress.
First, Hollis takes a look at the personal Shadow. The personal Shadow has no objective definition, it is entirely individual and is shaped by the culture we live in and the experiences we have. When our natural desires are in conflict with our culture or our vision for how we ought to behave, this creates Shadow issues and split selves. There are two noteworthy examples of fundamental drives that are in opposition with cultural messages we receive: 1) sex (eros) and 2) anger. Almost everyone encounters conflicting messages by our culture in relation to sex. We deny what our natural self wants for the sake of social order, but this requirement of denial can be pathologized. This is the case in religion, which completely forbids the eros and is especially dangerous in adolescence, as Hollis elaborates in the book.
Second, Hollis explains how our culture can affect us to produce pathological manifestations of the Shadow. Specifically, the more we need to adapt to our culture, the more we risk straying away from what is natural for us or from what we desire. Hence to cope with that suffering, we employ a number of ‘anxiety-management systems’: routines, addictions, magical thinking, paraphilias (desire to connect with others in culturally inappropriate ways), neuroses, personality distortions and what not.
Third, the Shadow affects our relationships. For instance, the gap between our intentions and our actions in a marriage determine its fulfilment and happiness. In relationships, Hollis argues, we reenact childhood themes and learned patterns of behaviour. These include rejecting the Other so as not to be dominated, anxiety when we are abandoned, compliance due to fear, a need for control and dominance over the Other, threatening or stalking the Other due to our fear of being abandoned etc. Appropriately, Hollis states, that “The Shadow issue haunts most relationships and constitutes the chief source of unhappiness, blaming, and stuckness”. But there is a glimmer of hope. The way out is for each party to face their own Shadow. Once we start examining our lives, once we take responsibility for the Shadow work we must do, then we can have a wholesome, fulfilling relationship with the Other.
Fourth, Hollis analyses what happens with the Shadow at the collective and the institutional levels. Imagine all the individual Shadows in one place – all of them desire different things. Inevitably there will be conflict; when all this creative, but chaotic and conflicting potential is brought together, then extremes become the new normal. For example, responses to natural disasters, where people engage in purely altruistic behaviour, demonstrate that the Shadow is not inherently evil, but it is mere potential – for altruism, too, is part of the Shadow – an unconscious, unlived life. Simply put, the Shadow seeks expression under the right circumstances. However, people are similarly brought to commit atrocities when they are together – wars, mass hysterias, mass murders etc. This hidden Shadow is the missing piece to answering the question why good people can commit evil things – “There are not that many individual madmen in any age, but great collective lunacy does indeed occur because charismatic madness touches and activates the ‘mad parts’ in otherwise sane people.” Institutions, with all their rules and restrictions, create additional Shadow material and all of it gets amplified when these individual Shadows are brought together – be it churches, universities, governments or corporations. In order to prevent regrettable outcomes, we first must engage in our own individual Shadow work which will then help us identify the Shadow of the institution. Once identified, together we need to undertake ‘healthy skepticism [which] can challenge the Shadow of Institutional life’.
Fifth, Hollis also considers the Shadow of progress. As we develop as a culture, we discover more things about the world around us, and as a consequence we gain greater freedom. But this freedom creates an even longer Shadow because now the Shadow has more opportunities to emerge and manifest itself in the world – the tools that we have created throughout our advancement are at the disposal of the Shadow. For example, social media has created many opportunities and freedoms to connect with the world, but this has come at the expense of ugly and dark expressions of the Shadow becoming more frequent. Hence, Hollis concludes, that “a sensitized reading of the prophetic voices of modernist culture … demands that we become psychological. It is no longer sufficient to view our time through political or economic lenses alone. We are obliged to look into the deeper designs of the soul…”
In the final parts of the books, Hollis first takes time to consider the positive side of the Shadow. Despite all its conflicts and complexes, the Shadow can also be positive if brought to consciousness. The Shadow, in the final analysis, has our best interests in mind but when denied or suppressed it becomes self-defeating. Therefore, attending to our Shadow can lead us to more authentic, fulfilling and wholesome lives. Shadow work can also bring us self-forgiveness and self-acceptance. Anger and sexuality, as mentioned above, are great examples – both can have positive manifestations if expressed appropriately. But to find out what we truly want, we need to attend to our dreams and fantasies, we need to listen to the feedback and criticism from others, we need to examine our projects. In a word, we need to enter the forbidden territory. But Hollis also adds a note in this chapter: he strongly argues that the contemporary ‘feel-good theologies’ and ideas – that we should seek to be happy; that we should feel good and be satisfied with ourselves – are self-destructive. “So much of our popular theology, and our consumer-pandering psychology, is fear-driven, for their greatest appeal is the implicit promise to dispel those fears…”
Hollis ends the book with suggestions on how we can start to do our Shadow work, how to engage in a productive and meaningful dialogue with our Shadow in order to integrate it. He offers several questions that we can ask ourselves:
- Since we all aspire to virtue, or aspire at least to consider ourselves virtuous, what do you consider to be your virtues? Can you imagine the opposite of your virtues? Can you imagine that they could lurk in your unconscious? Can you see some place in the present, or in your history, where those opposites may in fact be manifest in your life?
- What are the key patterns of your relationships? That is to say, where do Shadow issues manifest in patterns of avoidance, aggression, or repetition?
- What annoys you most about your partner, or others in general? [or as I would add: What do you hate most about yourself, your partner, or others in general?]
- Where do you repeatedly undermine yourself, create harmful replications, produce the same old, same old? Where do you flee from your best, riskiest self?
- Where are you stuck in your life, blocked in your development? What fears, what familiar issues block your growth?
- Where do Mom and Dad still govern your life – through repetition, overcompensation, or your special-treatment plan?
- Where do you refuse to grow up, wait for magical solutions to the raggedy edges of life, expect rescue, or someone to step forth and take care of it all for you? Where is the guru who will make these choices easy for you?
All in all, the book offers great psychological insights into our psyche. It encourages us to regularly take stock of our multiple selves and deeper, hidden, sometimes ugly, parts of ourselves. A dialogue with our Shadow can drive us to live an integrated, wholesome life. Adopted on a global scale, Shadow work will inevitably, in my opinion, lead to a better humanity, a better society, a better world.
