In a recent interview, Noam Chomsky says Trump’s scandals are only a distraction to hide what’s going on behind the scenes:
While everything is focusing on that, the Paul Ryan republicans, who are, in my view, the most dangerous and savage group in the country, are busy implementing programs that they have been talking quietly about for years. Very savage programs, which have very simple principles. One, be sure to offer to the rich and powerful gifts beyond the dreams of avarice, and [two], kick everyone else in the face. And it’s going on step-by-step right behind the bluster. … Basically, letting the Bannon-Trump group control what’s presented to the public, crazy things about wiretapping, ‘Did Susan Rice commit a crime?’, whatever tomorrow’s will be, meanwhile the parts of the governmental structure that are beneficial to human beings and to future generations are being systematically destroyed, and with very little attention.
The consequences? Everything is being destroyed, while everyone’s looking the other way.
Chomsky’s conclusion that the Radical Right is executing a nefarious “stealth” program “behind the scenes” is quite in accord with a book recently released by Nancy MacLean: “Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America”?:
An explosive exposé of the man and the ideas behind the well-heeled right’s relentless campaign to eliminate unions, suppress voting, privatise public education, and curb democratic majority rule. Behind today’s headlines of billionaires taking over US government is a secretive political establishment with deep and troubling roots. …
For both these historical researchers, “behind the scenes” means a verifiable narrative that weaves the many, varied, and disconnected threads that we see daily through the media into a coherent whole—a story that convinces. The truth of the narrative lies in the veracity of the documentary evidence, available to all.
For those of us who are committed to the life of the psyche, there is another sense altogether of the phrase, “behind the scenes.” C. G. Jung gave voice to this sense when he said, “… behind the impressions of the daily life—behind the scenes—another picture looms up, covered by a thin veil of actual facts.” The truth of this “behind the scenes” is not to be found in documentation but, as Jung says, “there is in natural things a certain truth not seen by the outward eye but perceived by the mind alone. Of this the philosophers had experience …”
To get closer to this form of “perceiving the truth”, we can also turn to Charles Williams whose wonderful fictional books spring from his conviction that “the spiritual world is not simply a reality parallel with that of the material one, but is rather its source and its abiding infrastructure …” Williams’ books portray ordinary human beings tangled up in the usual vicissitudes of life with varying degree of virtues or vices, while, simultaneously, the forces of heaven are working out their spiritual drama “behind the scenes” of the earthly actions. The humans are usually completely unaware of their participation in these “invisible” powers (e.g. Love vs. Hate) that carry the fate of the world. The humans are unconsciously assisting this spiritual drama, one way or another, to its conclusion, depending on the humans’ relationship to their own desires.
While such fictional literary forms can grip us imaginatively, we usually do not grant them the same kind of truth-value that we do when historians write their narratives, which are, after all, based on publically verifiable facts (primary documentation, for example). Yet, where Williams writes fictionally, Jung makes a startling truth claim that we should attend to: there is a real “behind the scenes”, another picture looming up, covered by a thin veil of actual facts. The truth of this “behind the scenes” picture is not to be found in documentation, not to be seen by the outward eye but “perceived by the mind alone”.
Can this truth (of psychic reality) as understood by Jung and presented in fictional form by Williams, have any bearing on our situation today in which “everything is getting destroyed” (Chomsky)? Clearly the truths of historical research have a real bearing on the situation. Many people are now organizing politically and social activism is on the rise. Even the dramatic arts are invoked for political purposes. Michael Moore, for example, having perceived the weakness of his enemy, is now calling for an “Army of Satire” against Trump. So it seems that the truths of solid historical research can lead to a decision to act—and this action lies within the domains of politics and social activism. In fact, as Arthur Danto, art philosopher, says,
My own view incidentally is that there would be cases in which it would be wrong or inhuman to take an aesthetic attitude, to put at psychical distance certain realities—to see a riot, for instance, in which police are clubbing demonstrators, as a kind of ballet, or to see the bombs exploding like mystical chrysanthemums from the plane they have been dropped from. The question instead must arise as to what one should do.
We are surely in such a time now where it would be wrong to merely take up an aesthetic attitude (psychic distance) to the likely destruction of everything! Those of us who cleave to the reality of the living psyche, who live by its truths, are faced with this question: if we know what is looming up “behind the scenes” from a psychic perspective, what decision can follow, based on this truth, leading to real action in the real world, with equal force, equal efficacy, as those decisions rooted in valid historical research?
The decision must be rooted as firmly in the truth of what is looming up “behind the scenes”, from a psychic perspective, as political and social activism decisions are rooted in the truths of the historical perspective.
So, what is this picture looming up beneath the “thin veil of actual facts” (including historical facts) that Jung speaks of? And what relevant action in the real world could spring from knowledge of this truth?
Well, this is a big story! I have worked the last thirty years or so, first going, as it were “behind the scenes” and then working to interpret what I encountered there. Following my discoveries, I then had to “walk my talk”, i.e. make a decision how to act in the real world based on the truth of what I encountered. If you want to explore my answer to our dire situation today, then I will simply offer three hyperlinks to my work (since all my works are saying the same thought) that will show what one person can conclude and decide. These titles will also give a clue about my answer:
TO ALL LOVERS OF PSYCHE: a Call to Arms
OUR CRISIS and the MOMENT of DECISION
