28 Feb 2007 @ 13:07, by John Grieve
“Nil Humanum alienum est mihi”
Nothing human is alien to me. This ancient Latin verse, written by the poet Terence was the great call of the Humanists, and the personal motto of no less a thinker than Karl Marx. But if it resonates with humanists and atheists, how much more does it mean to the psychologist, the believer and the mystic! I first began to probe the mysteries of this motto when I was thinking about the Hegelian and Marxist topic of alienation some years ago. For the “alien” in the poem is very close to the “alienation” of those theories.
As Outer, So Inner ; Macrocosm, microcosm; As Above, So Below ; Karma ; Action and Reaction. Call it what you will all these words reflect the mystical truth that whatever we do has certain consequences; sometimes appearing similar; sometimes appearing contrary. In the context of the Latin phrase that says that nothing human is alien, we need to ask why not. And what happens if we do treat something human as alien?
Jung put forward his theory of archetypes, another famous psychologist Assagioli put forward a similar, if slightly different idea in his PsychoSynthesis, which he called “sub-personalities”. Both of these are saying that human identity is infinitely complex with thousands of different facets which can be characterised in familiar terms and images as “The wise old Man”, “The Goddess”, “The internal Saboteur” and so on. Human identity is very rich and there are literally thousands upon thousands of these archetypes and sub-personalities. To be a whole person it is wise to embrace the whole of what you are, what all humans are and can be. Which means embracing all these archetypes and sub-personalities which make up the human identity and world. This means embracing the dark side as well as the light side; the feminine side as well as the masculine, the loser as well as the winner and so on. And very few people are willing to do this. Now we will see what happens if we reject any of these sub-identities. For this is inevitably what happens if someone comes across something, whether inside or outside, which he or she considers disturbing and “alien”—they reject it.
Now it is a truism that what we reject or dominate, on the outside, comes to dominate us internally and be denied or neutralized in our inner world. It is in fact this truth, or a variation of it, which is the basis of Freud’s theory of neurosis. The man who dominates a woman because he rejects as “alien” her femininity or the power of “Yin” within her, becomes a slave to the power of Yin in the form of high-heels and silk stockings. Similarly a man who rejects angrily the attractiveness of other men as “alien” sets up a reaction internally whereby he will probably panic if another man smiles at him. As this person rejects more and more of these basic human characteristics, or identities, as “alien” he is actually killing off, within himself, his basic humanity and as the process continues will inevitably end up a psychopath or a fascist or both.
To be fully human is to accept the whole of what human identity is, and not reject another person because she is a woman, black, disabled, bisexual, a vegetarian or anything else.
Love is the great law of being, not just for anything human but, as the Buddhists say, for all sentient beings.
All great teachers have said “Love your Enemy” but I fear that they have not sufficiently made clear that it is not just love and altruism which should motivate you to do so. In fact it is greatly in our own interest to love and cherish our enemies. The Buddhists say that our enemy is our greatest teacher because he teaches us patience, endurance, forebearance and forgiveness. Also, that hatred and bitterness we harbour against that person only damages ourself and in no way harms them. To this I will add a thought based on our previous analysis. The “enemy” is everything we find alien rolled up into one. If money, according to the economists, is the “commodity of commodities”, then the enemy is the “alien of aliens”. He or she is probably the incarnation of everything we reject and can’t tolerate. In ourselves, it must be said. To embrace that enemy is in fact to make friends with denied, rejected, alien and repressed parts of ourself. If we reject that person, instead of tolerating and loving them, we are setting up and activating within ourself, a sub-identity which we can call “the internal saboteur”, “the loser”, “The inner Enemy ”, which is just as real as that outer person whom we hate, but will certainly come to dominate our life and actions unconsciously, and will ultimately do what few real enemies can do, and that is destroy us.
Love, hate, liking, disliking. These feelings are linked but different. Love is what makes the universe work. Hate is something destructive of self and others and best avoided. Liking and disliking are on a different scale of intensity, and are part of the human condition. To dislike someone’s dress is natural but to hate them for a part of their identity over which they have no choice, is just to tell the world that you have a serious problem with that particular aspect of your own identity, whether it be race, sexuality, disability or whatever. No human identity is ultimately alien.
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