Armchair Wars: Jung and the Unconscious Shadow

Initially Jung's notion of the unconscious shadow can be though of as simply the "inferior personality" (Jung, 1964:199), But what does this psychoanalytic construction actually refer to? How does it affect us as human beings? And in regard to media and communication, how does it affect the way in which we consume and understand the mass media, "a system for communicating messages and symbols to the general populace" (Downing cites Herman and Chomsky, 2004: 12)? That is the purpose of this thesis, through an exposition of a recent commercial news story focusing on 'Islamic Terrorism', to explore the concept of archetypal psychology, the different elements of the human consciousness and ego, and the way these constructions influence how we understand the reality of the world in which we live. In particular, I will be focusing on Jung's notion of archetypal psychology as a basis for an exploration of the unconscious shadow. This will be followed by an analysis of the way in which the unconscious shadow affects our understanding of media messages. I will consider the way the assigned text, functioning as discourse; "a construction of a particular telling from a vastly larger potential story" (Bertrand, Hughes 213:1005), calls on our repressed knowledge of social misconduct, xenophobia, and racial and religious prejudice, to influence our understanding of the discourse surrounding 'Islamic Terrorism,' and the global 'War on Terror'. I will also consider how the shadow is actively considered in the creation of media propaganda, and the subsequent responsibility that rests with the media given its power and influence within society.

Inherent in Jung's notion of archetypal psychology is the idea that "all levels of experience and existence are intrinsically linked" (Salmon, 1997:53). In other words, all the elements of our real, spiritual, conscious and sub-conscious constructions of identity and ego are interrelated and fundamentally inseparable. Our psyches are dynamic and in a constant state of change, and ultimately provide for the definition of the individual via "the creative matrix of the entire personality" (Salmon, 1997:68). The shadow is one such element of the human psyche; it is the unconscious, and contains and represents the information that the conscious personality represses, rejects, un-identifies with, or simply doesn't recognise (Jung, 1999: 8). In any focus on the modern media discourse surrounding 'Islamic Terrorism', the unconscious shadow is constantly called into play in regard to our predisposed tendency for xenophobia and racial prejudice; "the question becomes not 'whether' but 'how much.' Everyone has a shadow, which includes racial prejudice to one degree or another" (Conger cites Stein, 2005: xxxi). Stein is alluding to the idea that the shadow represents the bipolarised nature of human kind, which at its core contains an inseparable mix of good and evil, light and darkness, chaos and rationality (Conger, 2005: 16). Even as morally sound human beings, aware of the shortcomings of our governments and the media, we cannot escape the influence of the shadow (Michalski, 2007). The shadow actively contributes to, and influences our understanding of concepts like 'Islamic Terrorism'.

Terrorism is a hard term to define, broadly it can be seen as acts involving "the use or threat of serious violence to advance some kind of cause" (Burke, 2003: 23). This definition is problematic and opaque, yet seems to be the meaning most often employed by the media. Couple the term Terrorism with Islam and you have an indefinable generalisation, "It is impossible to offer any comprehensive survey of Islam and the roots of modern Islamic militancy (Ibid)." Yet, 'Islamic Terrorism' is a term rife in the media; it is thrown around with reckless abandon, and has very severe connotations and consequences for Muslims living in Australia. Ultimately it has very little to do with a more practical definition; "terrorist violence legitimised by a particular reading of Islam but rooted in a largely political project defined by local contingencies" (Burke, 2003: 24). Essentially Burke claims that acts of Islamic terrorism have very little to do with mainstream Islamic belief, and are instead focused more on the achievement of political goals derived from anti-American sentiment.

So what does all this mean for the media and the shadow? Channel Seven's story Shrine Plans (2008), is concerned with the fate of Bali bombers, Amrozi, Mukhlas and Imam Samudra who were convicted of mass murder by the Indonesian judicature and face the death penalty. In particular, the story is concerned with the plans of an Indonesian businessman to set up a shrine to honor their memories. Amrozi and his siblings consider themselves devout Muslims, but like most religious activists, they are only a few individuals at the extreme end of a reprehensible sub-culture, that itself exists only on the very outskirts of the Islamic faith (Juergensmeyer, 2002). The Bali bombers, their colleagues, and ultimately Osama Bin Laden and the Al Qaeda network are "no more representative of Islam, than Timothy McVeigh is of Christianity, or Japan's Shoko Asahara is of Buddhism" (Juergensmeyer, 2002:28). However, throughout Channel Seven's presentation, the audience is constantly assaulted with Islamic imagery that plays on the prejudices of the shadow; Muslims at prayer, loudspeaker readings from the Qur'an, traditional dress and so on. These textual elements are all inherently linked backed to the Samudran brothers and their contrived identity as representatives of the Islamic faith. The semiology of this text, "the science of signs... and the way meaning is generated" (Berger, 2005:14), collates elements and images of Islam with a very tangible form of terrorism, a link made stronger as "it has always been easier to arouse people against the costs of a [violent act] that they can see and feel" (Cooke, 2007:244). We are led to subconsciously associate Islam and Muslims in general with the very real and devastating trauma of the Bali bombings that struck to the very core of the Australian way of life.

Shrine Plans suggests that Islam is a 'stranger' to Australian ideology and Australianness. The stranger "undermines the order of the world and embodies a form of incongruity. The stranger comes uninvited and settles in an environment" (Schaebler cites Bauman, 2004: 104). In this case the media creates a dichotomy between what we affectionately term the West, as representative of a way of life, and an abstract, foreign idealization called Islam (Schaebler, 2004: 105). Moreover, in Shrine Plans we get a very clear picture of just who the 'West' is. Burns victim Peter Hughes provides a harrowing first person account of the destruction he witnessed at the hands of the Bali Bombers; again his response is genuine and tangible, drawing real sympathy from the viewer. What perhaps may go unnoticed is Mr Hughes' constant references to 'them' and 'us', inadvertently reinforcing the propagated media message that Islam is at odds with Australian values and culture, an inference that draws solidity from the realm of the psychological shadow.

Here, Australian culture is being presented as the "real culture", whilst Islam is an "ethnic other" (Alia, 2005:6). 'The other' embodies the West's lack of understanding, and a xenophobic fear of the unknown. From colonial literature, to communism, to global terrorism, the other is intangible. We can acknowledge the threat, but we may fail to articulate exactly what it consists of (Spurr, 1993). The problem seems to be that the fear expressed by the Australian populace, and manifest in events such as the Cronulla riots, is an irrational and xenophobic fear derived from the recesses of the unconscious shadow. And furthermore, it is an element of the human psyche that the media actively manipulates and plays on to sell a product, which in this case is the commercial news (Kamilpour, Snow, 2004). Clearly Mr Hughes is not at fault, "in an age where the power of the moving image is all around us... the relationship between images, legitimacy, and war is of critical importance" (Michalski, 2007:1). Instead, it is the responsibility of the media, especially as television news is a commodity (Fiske, 1987:281), to prevent the conscription of society's collective shadow into a fruitless misconception of Islam, Terrorism, and the War on Terror.

I would argue that Shrine Plans is in its essence, a form of propaganda, "a concerted set of messages aimed at influencing a large number of people" (Hindery, Roderick, 2001:12). It is the product of a post-September 11 psycho-cultural narrative that pits Islam, a culturally divergent and subsequently clearly defined enemy, against the West (Lester, Ross, 2002). We live in a time of proposed uncertainty, where our governments, our media institutions, and to a large extent, ourselves, consider terrorism a live and diabolical issue. As a result of this, discursive media narratives such as Shrine Plans connect the individual to a group mentality which promotes in-group solidarity (Ibid). "Disagreement becomes disloyalty, and often those holding dissenting views are careful not to express them publicly" (Lester, Ross, 2002: 306). In other words, uncertainties and prejudices located in our shadow are utilised to create a single societal entity, blindly adherent to a politically infused narrative. Our news broadcasts have become a weapon of political motivation and influence, where consensus amongst the community garners support for subsequent political action. Objectivity is replaced by political language, which at its core is "designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give the appearance of solidarity to pure wind" (Purdy cites Orwell, 1992: 167). It is here that the responsibility of the media is to be found. Narratives play a key role in the conflict process, they frame emotions and create boundaries as to the actions that the individual, and the group, consider plausible (Lester, Ross, 2002). Most importantly, "when narratives portray no possible common ground between opponents, there will be no search for alternatives to the fighting" (Lester, Ross, 2002: 314). Shrine Plans suggests no such alternative. It contains enemies and victims. There is no mediation between the two groups and competing ideologies, the discourse is highly generalized and it suggests that the clash of civilisations between Islam and the West is inevitable and enduring. I would argue that this is a prejudiced discourse, that utilises the nefarious elements of the human psyche, to further, instead of cauterize, the racial and religious tension that is palpable in Australia, and in the Western world.

"Gone are the days of the Golliwog, Sambo, fearsome Injuns, and Polynesian dancing girls. Or are they?" (Alia, 2005: 141). Channel Seven's story shows that the media continue to operate along racially disparate lines, even if inadvertently, in the face of a political climate that at least superficially promotes itself as being intolerant of racial discrimination (Alia, 2005). Channel Seven and other commercial news stations are right to condemn terrorism of any kind, Islamic or not, but just because we condemn, does not mean we should not strive to comprehend as well. There is much that can be done on the part of the individual, the group, our governments, and our media institutions in promoting a harmonious and ultimately Australian way of life. We are one of the more multi-cultural countries in the world, yet in the face of a global awareness of terrorism coupled with an irrational fear of that which we don't understand, the benefits of our multiculturalism are sometimes lost, replaced by the darkness and repression of an archaic collective unconscious. It's almost ironic, the shadow is a uniquely human element, yet it inadvertently and continually contributes to situations (September 11, the Iraq and Afgahnistan Wars, Abu Grahib, the Bali bombings) that are devoid of any humanity. Equality is not privilege, it is a right. Nevertheless it demands more of us than any other arrangement. Shadow or not, we need to improve.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Alia, V. Bull, S (2005). Media and Ethnic Minorities. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Bertrand, I. Hughes, P. (2005). Researching Media Audiences: Audiences,

Institutions and Texts. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Burke, J (2003). Al-Qaeda: Casting a Shadow of Terror. London: I.B Tauris & Co Ltd.

Calhoun, C. Price, P, Timmer, A. (2002). Understanding September 11. New York: The New Press.

Conger, J (2005). Jung and Reich: The body as Shadow. Berkeley: North Atlantic Books.

Conrad, J. (1907). The Secret Agent. London: Penguin Classics.

Cooke, J (2007). Reporting the War: Freedom of the Press from the American Revolution to the War on Terrorism. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Downing, J. McQuail, D. Schlesinger, P. Wartella, E (2004). The SAGE Handbook of Media Studies. New York: Sage Publishing

Fiske, John. (1987). Television Culture. New York: Methuan and Co .Ltd

Gow, J. Michalski, M (2007). War, Image and Legitimacy: Viewing Contemporary Conflict. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.

Jung, CG, (1964). Approaching the Unconscious: Man and His Symbols. London: Penguin Books.

Hindery, R. Roderick, P (2003). The Anatomy of Propaganda Within Religious Terrorism. Buffalo:American Humanist Association.

Lester, P. Ross, S (2002). Images That Injure: Pictorial Stereotypes in the Media. New York: Pantheon Books

Purdy, L (1992). In Their Best Interest. New York: Cornell University Press.

Salmon, S (1997). The Creative Psyche: Yung's Major Contributions. Melbourne: Cambridge University Press.

Schaebler, B. Stenberg, L (2004). Globalisation and the Muslim World: Culture, Religion, Modernity. New York: Syracuse University Press.

Channel 7 (2008). Shrine Plans.