Has America fallen into the trap of hubris-nemesis psychology at the level of the collective unconscious?
Hubris is a word that means excessive pride or arrogance, and it comes from Greek mythology, with an emphasis on excessive pride toward or defiance of the gods. Or in other words, the audacity to have pride in the face of the Gods, desecrating the sacred for gain. In Greek mythology, hubris was committed when a mortal claimed to be better than a god in a certain skill. But the origin story of hubris is when Zeus raped the goddess Nemesis (justice). Zeus committed the crime of hubris and Nemesis became the symbol for the resentment and punisher of hubris. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubris
Nemesis was the maiden goddess of proportion and the avenger of crime. Nemesis originally meant something like karma - distributor of fortune, neither good nor bad, simply in due proportion to each according to what was deserved. Nemesis evolved to mean something like the resentment caused by any disturbance of this right proportion, the sense of justice that could not allow it to pass unpunished. In Greek tragedies, Nemesis is the goddess who punishes hubris - or crimes against gods. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nemesis
In 1994, the CIA began studying the phenomena of hubris/nemesis psychology, particularly in how it manifests in leaders of nations around the world. They identified a hubris-nemesis complex that characterized certain leaders like Fidel Castro, Saddam Hussein, Adolf Hitler, Ayatollah Khomeini, and Slobodan Milosevic. Identification of this personality type is important since it can seriously affect diplomacy. Leaders like these are megalomaniacal, power-hungry, confrontational, vengeful, messianic, grandiose, crazy, narcissistic, and charismatic.
Hubris psychology attracts the nemesis psychology to punish its arrogance and return it to a more humble state. Hubris psychology can be said to have the following traits - 1) a state of mind in which man thinks more than human thoughts and later translates them into action. It is an offense against the order of the world 2) the arrogant violation of limits set by the gods or by human society 3) having energy or power and misusing it self-indulgently 4) behavior that was intended gratuitously to inflict dishonor and shame upon others or to the values that hold a society together 5) lead them to believe that they were above the law
Nemesis was then the resentment psychology that sought retributive justice in her self-righteous indignation. According to a 1986 study they identified four attributes that are contained within both the hubris and nemesis psychology - 1) a destructive-constructive messianism; 2) high, moralizing ideals that justify violence; 3) a demand for absolute power, loyalty, and attention; 4) and a fierce sense of struggle that may turn sacrificial.
Hubris characteristics: 1) grandiose aspirations (“dreams of glory”), in which monumental greatness is to be achieved by building up one’s regime and society, meanwhile defying, if not defeating, a powerful opponent that is in the way; 2) a grandiosity that has both spiritual and material components, and that involves realizing a special future destiny and overcoming past history; 3) expectations and demands for extreme if not absolute power, loyalty, and attentiveness to oneself as the leader, largely because of claims to personify the mission and destiny; 4) severe sensitivities about “pride,” “dignity,” “honor,” and “respect,” four words that are often raised by hubris-nemesis leaders when they voice their dreams of future glory and their memories of past insult and injury at the hands of others.
Nemesis characteristics: 1) a vengeful animosity toward a powerful enemy who is blamed for holding a society back historically, who now stands in the way of its potential for future greatness, and who thus deserves retribution; 2) a defiance of that enemy and all others who would put obstacles and challenges in the way; 3) an espousal of high, moralizing ideals that justify a readiness to use force and violence to fulfill one’s hopes and rectify wrongs blamed on the enemy.
Some criteria may be associated with either the hubris or the nemesis dimension: 1) a messianic quest to “save” a society and its people from evils wrought by a vainglorious, oppressive outside power; 2) a fierce sense of struggle that involves a propensity for high-profile, high-risk, high-opportunity endeavors; an avowed willingness to sacrifice oneself and others to achieve success in such endeavors; an avowed preference for a glorious death over inglorious submission.
Characteristics of a fusion of hubris-nemesis psychology: 1) logical justifications that weave both forces into most major thoughts and actions, whether they seem mainly constructive or destructive, about a leader’s positive hopes or terrible hatreds; 2) an abundant, restless, relentless energy; a consuming dedication to one’s cause; an exaltation in one’s physical, emotional, and spiritual energies when addressing that cause.
A hubris-nemesis complex often promotes a polarizing social phenomenon of confusion: 1) endless debates as to whether a leader is driven by good or evil, has just goals, has realistic goals, and is just bargaining or bluffing when he threatens actions that seem off the scale. 2) the existence of such debates may be a part of the dynamics of hubris-nemesis, particularly if the leader in question thrives on them.
"Hubris-nemesis leaders are likely to behave differently from other types of leaders in crises and negotiations. They may have high risk-taking tendencies in a crisis, and they may be unusually demanding, confrontational, unyielding, and posturing in negotiations. This mindset is not likely to respond to a benevolent “Dr. Spock” approach, or to normal tit-for-tat patterns of bargaining and cooperation. Analysts who investigate crisis behavior sometimes focus on two questions about an opposing leader: (1) how much risk he is willing to run in doing, or not doing, something dangerous yet opportune, and (2) how strong a force has to be demonstrated to compel him to back down."
It seems like America has fallen into the trap of hubris-nemesis psychology at the level of the collective unconscious. Trump seems like an almost perfect example of a leader with a hubris-nemesis complex. Trump violates the sacredness of political correct speech - arrogance in the face of sacredness. Trump violates the sacredness of women and their sexual consent ("grab them by the *****") - instigating the collective resentment of the feminine spirit. Trump violates the sacredness of the press, and media, by vilifying them, arrogance in the face of "gods". Trump believes he is larger than life, the greatest thing, and that he can make America great again with larger than life narratives of America's great destiny. He thrives on confusion, controversy, and vague language that causes endless debates over his motives.
Trump is guilty of hubris - which in both Greek and Christian mythology is portentous of destruction to come. In Greek mythology, the perpetrator of hubris is always met with karma that knocks them into the dust of humility. Christian teachings constantly warn that "pride cometh before the fall". What type of fall is coming to America because of our collective hubris?
We almost fell into a civil war. Had Trump felt the risk/rewards were on his side, perhaps he would have pushed for civil war. Perhaps Trump doesn't have enough of the hubris-nemesis complex to actually push for civil war. But the fact that Trump is so vague shows how risky a candidate he is. The fact that Americans were willing to vote for such a risky candidate shows how deep the hubris-nemesis complex goes inside the hearts of the average citizen.
Interestingly enough, Trumps candidacy seemed to invigorate the nemesis psychology of the left. Language on the left has grown closer to revenge-oriented language. They don't want to just defeat Trump and his supporters politically, they want to punish them. They don't just want social justice - they want social revenge. Resentment inspires their actions more than the mere desire for justice.
It seems obvious to me that Americans as a whole are buying into hubris-nemesis psychology. I view this as an unfortunate result of political polarization that grows deeper and deeper into the psyche of the collective.
One way to view conflict is through the lens of psychological depth. Political conflict, in the ideal scenario, should be a debate over which policies are more beneficial or harmful. This assumes everyone has the same value systems. We are merely debating which policies match our homogenous value systems, almost as a scientific endeavor. This type of conflict over policy is the most psychologically shallow, for it assumes that all of the deeper parts of psychology are in harmony throughout society. As we go deeper into psychological conflict, we might go from politics to ideology. Ideologies usually have a fundamental axiom that they use to determine right and wrong from. If we differ on right and wrong, that is a much deeper conflict than mere policy. Beyond right/wrong is good/bad, virtue/evil, and finally the deepest level is truth/falsehood. As we get more polarized, our disagreements dig deeper into our collective psychologies. The deeper the conflict, the more difficult the resolution.
- 1. Political conflict – beneficial vs deleterious - 2. Ideological conflict – right vs wrong - 3. Ethical conflict – good vs bad - 4. Religious conflict – virtue vs evil - 5. Ontological conflict – truth vs falsehood
Trump's presidency should serve as a huge wake-up call to Americans that what we are doing as a collective is dead wrong. Continuous polarization is not an option - only civil war can result from continuous exacerbation of the depth of our psychological conflict at the level of the collective unconscious. The cost of civil war is too high to ever think about justifying it.
What is the solution? One option is to promote conscious efforts to self-depolarize at the level of every individual. Every individual has to realize that their polarized ideas represent an ideological sickness that is not only making the world a worse place but is leading us towards hell on earth. Recognition of the problem within is perhaps the first step.
Perhaps an alteration of the 12 step program can help us individually overcome polarization -
1. We admit there is a problem - that we are somewhat powerless in the face of polarization within society and within our hearts, and our lives are becoming unmanageable because we don’t know how to deal with people of the other team anymore. 2. Come to believe that there exists a truth greater than that which we currently understand that could restore us to sanity. 3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to truth, whatever it may be, even if that goes against our biases. 4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves and our epistemology – do we seek out information that exaggerates the flaws in our opponents and ignore information that exposes the flaws in our own team? Do we exacerbate our own polarization by being biased in how we collect information? Do we give the other team the benefit of the doubt before coming to harsh judgements or do we assume the worst upon little information? Do we jump to conclusions about our opponent’s intentions (evil, hateful, racist, sexist, terrorist, etc.) without trying to fully understanding them first? Do we judge others as evil because we judge them against our own moral code, or do we try to understand that perhaps within their own moral code they are actually pursuing "the good" as they understand it? 5. Admitted to ourselves without reservation, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. 6. Were ready to accept help in letting go of all our defects of character. 7. With humility and openness seek to eliminate our shortcomings. 8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all. 9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. 10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it. 11. Sought through meditation to improve our spiritual awareness and our understanding of the depolarized way of life and to discover the power to carry out that way of life. 12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to others, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
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