The Dark Side

 

Over the years, children have been referred to as our most precious resource and wanting them to have a better  life.  However, revenue for public school funding has  been inadequate ,especially in metropolitan cities ; political pressure dictating what can be taught in the schools; and a declining interest  and supply of teachers suggests something very different regarding valuing  children.  The Education Office for Civil Rights logged a record number of discrimination complaints in the past year.  The complaints alleged  discrimination based on disability, race or sex. Child obesity rates continue to be a problem  ; depression, anxiety and mental health issue rates have increased for children; 11  countries have higher average mathematics scores and seven  countries have higher  science  scores.  Two thirds of eighth graders are not proficient in math and reading  and most common countries of origin for a degree in engineering are India and China.  And over 400,000 are in foster care. These statistics along with an article  in the December 18, 2022 edition of The New York Times also supports  the idea that children are not the most precious resource with the title "Since 2020, gun violence has surpassed car accidents as a leading cause of death for American children.  This disquisition points to significant thinking and action tendencies as described by Freud’s Id and Jung’s Shadow. 

A few statistics from this article : 1.  In our history, disease was once the number one killer of children and later was followed by automobile death.  20 years ago, even with the seatbelt  laws ,American children were still three times more likely to be killed in a car accident than to be killed by a firearm.  2.  The gun death rate for children is  five in every 100,000  3.  In 2021, 3,597 children died by gunfire according to statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 4.  Nearly 2/3 of those gun deaths involving children, or 2239 were homicides.  5.  The number of children that have died by suicide with a gun has also risen . Over the last decade , suicides made up about 30% of child gun deaths or 1,078  6.  Black boys are eight times more likely to die by gunfire historically 

 Applying the id  to children's gun deaths, the following is associated with murder . The id, according to Freud,  was the mechanism in which psychic energy was distributed and/or  also used by the ego and superego.  One of these systems could gain control over the available energy at the expense of the other two systems and become stronger than the weaker other two . Originally the id was seen as possessing all the energy and using it for reflex action and wish  or need fulfillment ( sex and aggression) by means of primary process  while pursuing pleasure  . This means these activities are  in direct service of the pleasure principle . In this very fluid state, actions  easily move from one action or image to another action or image.  Unfortunately, if the id had retained control over a large share of the  psychic energy, the behavior of the person  tends to be impulsive , primitive and aggressive in character. Thinking and behavior   becomes impulsive, irrational ,with dominant  tendencies and not affected by reason , objectivity, truth  nor  about right and wrong as with hate, prejudice, destruction and  murder .

Keeping irrational thinking and behavior regarding gun ownership in the forefront, the following questions and/or rationalizations are raised: 1.  The Second Amendment pertained to having  state regulated militias, a musket and not an AR automatic killing device.  2.  The gun is going to keep me safe, especially when I wear it in open view  3.  How many guns are required to keep an individual safe?  4. Bad guys have guns so I have to have a gun too.  Note, these rationalizations pertain to  underlying fear and anxiety.  The world can be dangerous and unpredictable.  Having control over many of the external random happenings  is fiction and fantasy.  Fear is about danger, it's objective and it's internal.  Anxiety is about danger.  It's subjective and it's internal.  Having the largest  Military and Defense expenditure in our budget is supposed to keep us safe and reduce anxiety or fear?  Having a multitude of  gun weapons is supposed to keep us safe and reduce fear and anxiety ? These beliefs are fantasy , delusional and crazy . An irrational  sick person with a gun is  dangerous.

Freud stated that the id is obscure  and  is in the unassessable part of  personality.  Also , the id contains everything that is inherited, that is present at birth and fixed in the Constitution of the individual. Briefly: 1.  The id is a mental function of idealized images and plays an active role in behavior determination.  2.  The existence of the id is illustrated by behavior, an absurd dream, daydreaming ,intoxications, delusions, psychotic symptoms, and sensory deprivation.  3.  The iid is the core of mental organization that is impervious to external reality,  asocial and never socialized.  4.  It's governed by pleasurable, immediate satisfaction of drives and needs without regard for consequences 5.  It's pleasurable, comforting with contentment, as in daydreams and fantasy 6.  Many different id needs coexist at the same time, and some are in conflict with each other 7.  The id's mental function persists throughout life, governed by drives for immediate gratification, called the primary  process .  8.  It's derived from physiological energy 9.  It gives rise to many irrational contradictions and therefore aspects of behavior are varied, not always understandable ,asocial and expressed in many different ways without consciousness  of what's happening or why.  It has no regard for consequences or logical reflection.

While thinking about Freud's id, I then focused my attention on  Carl Jung’s Analytic Theory. Jung had his own terminology.  For example, a man's personality  includes a Collective Unconscious which contains Archetypes . An archetype was a universal thought or idea, an idealized image in which  emotions  importantly play an active role in behavior determination. He identified many archetypes, One of his archetypes was called Shadow. The shadow was depicted as the  dark side of man. It consisted of  animal instincts which man inherited in his evolution from lower forms of life .The shadow was responsible for man's conception of Original Sin and when it was projected outward , it became the devil or the enemy. In other words, the shadow and/or the behavior is unpleasant and socially reprehensible with its thoughts, feelings and actions.  And, thus,the dark side of man could either be hidden from the public view or repressed into the personal unconsciousness . The idea of the  shadow is significant, with  its primitive animal instincts . It gives a more complete picture of  man’s destructive and aggressive personality and influenced by inheritance, development and societal influences .

Freud and Jung, brilliant creative giants both incorporated, in personality development, a dark ,destructive, and aggressive side of man.  Although both placed emphasis on . biology and personal interactions, Jung delved deeper into  interpersonal and societal and  causes for behavior. In any event,man can be characterized as being like a sheep with tendencies of  dependency  compliant, subservient, docile and following the crowd. Man can also be intelligent as with the Greek philosophers,  Enlightenment philosophers, natural, social  science  and political thinkers and others. They  have provided the world with knowledge, objectivity, morality  and reasoned enlightenment .  Man can also express aggressive tendencies and can  be irrational, impulsive,  reckless, guilty, criminal ,sinful, culpable etc. Religious prophets and laws have had  limited success in containing the dark side.  With that being said, it is obvious and predictable with our current laws, political dysfunction,  gun availability and interpersonal dysfunction, that children gun deaths have arisen.  The  inclusion of the Second Amendment into our capitalistic system is also contributing greatly to the killing of our children.  Perhaps,it takes more white children in high socioeconomic areas to be killed by guns, would there be change?

The dark side tendencies  of  the history of Homo sapiens has been well documented with the preponderance of lies, hate, prejudice, irrationality, discrimination, political dysfunction and death.  The last 250 years or so, our country  has also substantiated the same with the Revolution,  decimation  of native Indians, Civil War, Lincoln  assassination, World War I and with discrimination against German citizens, World War II  with anti semitism against Jewish refugees, prejudice  against  Japanese Americans and the Nazi sympathizers in Congress,  McCarthy hearings,  Korean War,  Vietnam , Civil rights movement, the Kennedy and Dr. King assassinations , Watergate,  Iraq and Afghanistan wars and January 6 etc.  Historically, the dark age of Trump will become history too .

Reference

Freud, Sigmund.  The Ego and the Id.

Jung, C.G.  The Integration of Personality.