Politics, religion, and human nature

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Jung on politics, from Wikipedia:

Giving laws, wanting improvements, making things easier, has all become wrong and evil. May each one seek out his own way, the way leads to mutual love in community. Men will come to see and feel the similarity and communality of their ways.

-Carl Jung in The Red Book

Jung stressed the importance of individual rights in a person's relation to the state and society. He saw that the state was treated as "a quasi-animate personality from whom everything is expected" but that this personality was "only camouflage for those individuals who know how to manipulate it", and referred to the state as a form of slavery. He also thought that the state "swallowed up [people's] religious forces", and therefore that the state had "taken the place of God"—making it comparable to a religion in which "state slavery is a form of worship". Jung observed that "stage acts of [the] state" are comparable to religious displays: "Brass bands, flags, banners, parades and monster demonstrations are no different in principle from ecclesiastical processions, cannonades and fire to scare off demons". From Jung's perspective, this replacement of God with the state in a mass society led to the dislocation of the religious drive and resulted in the same fanaticism of the church-states of the Dark Ages—wherein the more the state is 'worshiped', the more freedom and morality are suppressed; this ultimately leaves the individual psychically undeveloped with extreme feelings of marginalization.

This is an excellent summary of what's going on behind the scenes in our heads, not only when we engage in political partisanship but other forms of partisanship as well such as with sport spectating.

Humans are by nature religious. We strive for a meaning that transcends our mere animal desires. Whatever we hold in highest regard is our religion. Some even make the fulfillment of animal desire itself their religion (but those of us who have been there and back know where that leads).

But we all know what is right. Even the staunch atheist gets defensive when it is suggested that his atheism is an excuse for immoral behavior, insisting that "God is not necessary for ethics". It is written that "the requirements of the law are written on their hearts" (Romans 2:15), and I think Paul's is a great metaphor for this.

But what does this prove? It proves that some part of us cares about things that, in a truly "meaningless" existence, we have no business caring about.

This is why we are so filled with glee when we find that somebody who is well knows as an ethical and moral teacher is in fact a hypocrite. It's because that part of our hearts was comparing ourselves to him and coming up short. If his (supposed) virtue did not bother us, the discovery of his hypocrisy would not fill us with glee.

What do you suppose would happen if somebody walked around with perfect virtue, always speaking the truth without fear, and was never shown to be a hypocrite?

He would be intolerable. We wouldn't be able to stand it.

And so we would come up with logical-sounding reasons to crucify him.

reply to post by NewlyAwakened


The importance of politics, educational institutions, and sporting events isn't so much related to religious worship as it is a commonality that the great mass of people can agree to worship, thus fulfilling the desire to be connected to other people. Because if it came down to a individual's freedom to follow the truth at all times no matter what the situation and adapting to the ever-changing demands of this sort of liberation from normal existence, one would find themselves very alone. So there is something that can be said for an orientation towards life that demands the conformity of others based off of things like fear and one that can attract the truth and give to life.

We can either live the truth or set something else up to be that higher sense of life for us.

hn, politics shouldn't be placed above the laws of men. It better be a dying sub-level of humanity.