The Nature of Conflict and an Investigation Into Our Shadow Selves

The deeper you look, the odder it gets

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“Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.” ― Albert Einstein

Human nature

Nature is an enigma. It has its own flow, a rhythm undetermined by the acts of human beings. At times we call it beautiful, sometimes we say it is ugly, but honestly — it is hard to comprehend. It transcends all definitions.

In some way, the same applies to people. It might be not that popular to say nowadays, but I don’t think that people are blank slates, nor that they are white canvases. On the contrary, every person has his own nature. Sometimes we call it a temperament or we describe it as a character. It can be observed ever since a baby is born.

As you’ve might experienced, some infants are quiet and relaxed, others are loud and easily irritable. Some toddlers know how to play fair; others kick, bite and steal. Some young people are drawn toward music, others — to dancing, building, or drawing. This is natural, as not everyone is the same and not everyone should be. If we were, the planet would be filled with mannequins, not people.

Diversity is one of the common factors that influences a thriving ecosystem (be it a forest, a coral reef, or a community). A forest is stronger if it is inhabited by various species of plants, animals, and fungi. A human body is healthier if it receives a diverse palette of micronutrients. A society thrives if it encourages and develops various talents of its citizens.

But what to do if one’s nature is tilted towards evil? What if all one wants is to rape, steal, and murder?

It’s estimated that about 1 percent of the general population consists of psychopaths, while sociopaths make up an additional 4 percent. According to these estimates, around 396 mln. out of 7.9 bln. people worldwide are either sociopathic or a psychopath. That is a huge number! What does that mean? Well, if around 5% of the world’s population does not experience any empathy towards others, they may pose a serious threat to the remaining 95%.

As said before, nature is not all butterflies and rainbows. It is also decomposition, destruction, and conflict.

Conflict, it’s origins and functions

As we know, conflict can exist in various forms. It can be both internal and external. It can cause havoc between individuals, or it can tear one apart from the inside out. The latter may be better known as cognitive dissonance — a state of discomfort felt when two or more modes of thought contradict each other.

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Conflict is a fact, we cannot deny it. Nonetheless, we still might be unsure about its origins. What might be its root causes? What spurs it up? And is all conflict necessarily bad? Trying to find the answer to the first question, Jiddu Krishnamurti wonders:

“Isn’t ego the origin of conflict? If there is no ego there is no becoming. As long as the mind is in conflict — blaming, resisting, condemning — there can be no understanding.”

It appears that according to Krishnamurti, the origins of our conflicts lay in the divisive tendencies of our thinking. Whenever there is a division between “you” and “me”; “us” and “them”; “what is” and “what should be”, conflict begins to peak its ugly head. But is that all there is to conflict? A fragmentation of thought? Aren’t there any other situations that we can label as “conflictual” aside of our everyday meanderings?

Let’s take the body, for example. Would it be healthy if there were no conflicts on the micro level? If the white blood cells stopped fighting viruses, we would quickly succumb to various illnesses. On the other hand, without viruses, we would not get the crucial physiological updates that the body requires to cope with the changing environment. For example, as pointed out by Yukako Katsura in the “National Library of Medicine,” around 8% of our genome is directly derived from viral sequences, while the whole process of mammalian birth would not be possible without a certain retrovirus facilitating the development of the placenta.

Another example might be nature’s food chain. We see rabbits, deer, and other herbivores as cute, but if predators would not prey on them, these herbivores would destabilize entire ecosystems by eating up all the vegetation.

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Here, a question arises. Might psychopaths and sociopaths have some type of ecological function as well? We don’t understand much about the workings of nature, can they have a specific role in it?

We can neither assert nor deny it, but one thing we know for certain is that such people help us to observe and understand aspects of our own psyches that in most cases would remain dormant otherwise. All of us have dark tendencies, although not all of us express them. Maybe this is the reason explaining why so many people are drawn to stories revolving around murder, torture, decapitation, and other aspects of gore. They reflect sides of us that don’t usually come up to the surface but exist nonetheless. As said by one of the fathers of psychoanalysis, Carl Jung:

“Unfortunately there can be no doubt that man is, on the whole, less good than he imagines himself or wants to be. Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual’s conscious life, the blacker and denser it is.”

The shadow

Contrary to the idea that deep down inside all people are good, I beg to differ. Some people are, and some of them are not. The question is not ‘if’, but ‘to what extent’ one embodies the dark side of his or her character, and believe me — everyone has a dark side. It is part of our being, just like care, love, or empathy.

This may explain why the Daoist symbol of yin-yang is not just made of two opposing sides. Inside the black and white areas of the symbol, there are also two dots, each in contrast to the wider whole. The dots show that both sides carry the seed of the other, while the curvy line in the middle signifies that there is no absolute separation between the two. In other words, in every light there is a pinch of darkness, and no darkness can exist without a pinch of light.

This correlates well with Carl Jung’s idea of the shadow and Sigmund Freud’s notion of the repressed aspects of a personality.

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Both Jung and Freud believed that parts of our psyches are made of repressed complexes (subpersonalities), which in spite of their undesirable natures have been pushed away from conscious attention. Both scientists claimed that these complexes form as a consequence of a person’s inability to cope with certain experiences, emotions, impulses, memories, or thoughts.

Such repression may cause many troubles both to an individual, as well as to the society. It is certainly not healthy to stuff down unwanted psychic content. When not dealt with properly, it doesn’t just disappear into nothingness. It remains dormant in the recesses of a person’s spirit, away from conscious attention, yet active nonetheless. Thus, when the conscious restraints are down it starts spilling over, often causing unwanted behavior and consequences. As written by Carl Jung:

“The change of character brought about by the uprush of collective forces is amazing. A gentle and reasonable being can be transformed into a maniac or a savage beast. One is always inclined to lay the blame on external circumstances, but nothing could explode in us if it had not been there. As a matter of fact, we are constantly living on the edge of a volcano.”

Most often, the person is unaware of such undercurrents whirling inside of him. The longer one persists in such ignorance, the thicker the shadow grows. Accidentally triggering such a person might result in a variety of unexpected behavior, such as shouting, crying, or in extreme situations — violence. Also, an outburst of unconscious forces can be caused by changes in one’s social fabric. When peace and civilized behavior promoting social conventions disappear — such as in instances of war, witch-hunts, or other persecutions — all hell can get loose.

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This might explain why oftentimes seemingly normal individuals have no problem killing, torturing and raping innocent civilians during wartime. Maybe it is the same reason, why such people don’t experience much shame or guilt while they are doing that. And probably it is the same reason why most of them develop PTSD after the war is over. “It wasn’t me. I don’t act this way”, some might claim, but that’s wrong. It was you, or better said, it was your shadow side of which the ego was previously unaware of. As elaborated by Jung:

“It is a frightening thought that man also has a shadow side to him, consisting not just of little weaknesses — and foibles, but of a positively demonic dynamism. The individual seldom knows anything of this; to him, as an individual, it is incredible that he should ever in any circumstances go beyond himself. But let these harmless creatures form a mass, and there emerges a raging monster.”

Shadow-work and integration

To avoid the consequences of the sadism and brutality present in our hearts, Carl Jung offers us to embark on a quest toward shadow integration.

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The scientist believes that by forming a conscious dialogue with our darker aspects we can develop a healthy relationship with them, bringing us one step closer to individuation — the process of aligning one’s persona with the self: the totality of a person’s being.

To do this, a person has to willingly embark on a quest to make the unconscious aspects of his personality conscious. This cannot be done without one’s willing effort to know and accept his or her repressed tendencies.

“The shadow is a moral problem that challenges the whole ego-personality, for no one can become conscious of the shadow without considerable moral effort. To become conscious of it involves recognizing the dark aspects of the personality as present and real. This act is the essential condition for any kind of self-knowledge.” — writes Jung.

Knowing this, we should strive to develop a healthy relationship with our darker selves, assimilating their power, while keeping their unwanted aspects at bay. This can never be done without self-investigation and a willingness to introspect. Of course, it is easy to accept our socially plausible sides, but a human being is so much more than a harmless creature. He is also a ruthless animal, and one should never let this slip out of conscious sight.

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