The Oppressive State and the Ego
Civilization and our relationship with the Earth
Today, propaganda in the interest of the ruling elites is so constant and comprehensive that many people have been driven into gross irrationality or near insanity with regard to a proper or mature understanding of reality. There is no better way to describe what is happening to the human mind than the language of mental pathology because we have lost touch with even the most basic forms of truth and goodness — for examples, that we should not foul our habitat, desecrate the earth, drive so many wonderful and intelligent critters into extinction, and derail autonomous evolution, including speciation and other unknown creative processes and products.
The problems raging today cannot be understood solely within socio-economic categories or geo-political relationships. We must employ psychological insights, most notably from psychoanalysis, for a deeper and fuller understanding of the modern crisis. We are becoming more and more mentally ill with regard to a very basic or minimal standard of Reason, which is a standard that lives in the id (the older primitive mind) and the original human ego that constitutes us, except that we have turned against ourselves in a consumptive frenzy of collective cannibalism. The psychological crisis is the devouring of the self by the self that no other species experiences, and in order to explain it, we need to understand the role of the State in producing it. Whenever we describe the interior events of the human mind, we must remember that they have developed within concrete historical circumstances that have been brought to bear on the human condition.
We are self-conscious creatures with two primal needs: the need to build high civilization and the need to return to the wilderness. From the beginning of our species, the historical process has favored material production over aesthetic contemplation, but there was a reasonably good chance for self-correction and greater self-balance, until we fell under the oppressive State, which we may mark as established between ten thousand and five thousand years ago. In other words, as wilderness disappeared from our lives through the growth of civilization, we may have come to realize that building civilization everywhere at the cost of losing wilderness everywhere is not a good thing, but once the oppressive State emerged and took over the organization and direction of civilization, then the human need to return to the wilderness was not only ignored, minimized, and overshadowed, but it was brutally repressed, and the resulting mental pathology is now very effectively blocking social change toward a properly balanced lifestyle.
The State
The emergence of the State was a traumatic event because great violence was used against people within striking distance, with the psychological result that the human ego split, divided against itself, with one part of the ego turning against another part of the ego in an effort to appease the powers-that-be by identifying with them. We became our own repressors in order to appease the powers-that-be. The logic of mental illness is: “If I cannot beat my oppressors, then I will join them in beating up myself.” The false self is born, the internal hangman of society, who forbids contact and communication between ego and id because such communication threatens the ruling elites who are seeking endless wealth and power.
Before Freud, Nietzsche argued that: “The oldest State appeared not as a social contract, but as a “fearful tyranny.” The human creature is imprisoned in the State so as to be tamed. “He is the sick animal,” racked with “homesickness for the wild.” According to Nietzsche, the sick modern mind is full of self-hatred, self-torment, and self-torture as a result of the psychological internalization of the threats and actions of a “savage beast,” which is his name for the original State. Today, in many places of the world, the modern ego is controlled and manipulated more by technology than by terror, but deep psychological wounds endure in all civilized individuals, and the State, like the Sword of Damocles hanging over our heads, is prepared and ready to resort to its former violent means of protecting and perpetuating its vested interests. When we seek changes in our modern lifestyle, we should know that a deep self-loathing and guilt resists all positive changes, but an important question is: What happens to the repressed part of the ego and id?
The Ego
The repressed ego and id continue to communicate with one another, and the original person learns and develops over time. The self does not cease to evolve with the onset of repression. It continues to live and learn (in ways that are not often visible in others), and this assimilation and maturation process represents the true self. There is a true self that assimilates and integrates all that happens to us because what is repressed is not eliminated or annihilated, but rather, it survives in the unconscious mind, and it organizes itself, and presses toward awareness, and almost always succeeds in achieving some awareness of truth and reality.
The original ego is the childhood ego, and this original ego, in contact and cooperation with the id, has a developmental process that is not identical with whatever socialization process we happen to be subjected to. There is socialization at the earliest age, but contact and communication between the original ego and the id also plays a critical role in determining who we are in childhood. We are not simply what we have been socialized to be. There is also a developmental process going on between the ego and id, and this is the true self.
It is not until the person we are in childhood, the original person, the true self, is subjected to traumatic socialization by the State or its representatives that there is (what Freud called) “a splitting of the ego in the process of defense.” (1938) This splitting of the ego results in a division of the ego into a false self and a true self. Part of the original ego identifies with the oppressor(s), and becomes the false self, and part of the original ego continues its own maturation, sustaining and evolving the true self. The false self is forced on the true self by trauma, but the true self, wounded and shrunken, endures and presses for sanity and satisfaction.
The True Self
The true self, invaded and occupied by the false self, withdraws into unconsciousness, although not completely. It becomes submissive to the false self, of which it is afraid, because the false self represents an internalization of dangerous external authorities. Nevertheless, the person we are in childhood continues to grow within us, although in a reduced capacity and with less energy and vitality. The true self is now weaker, less self-confident, less self-conscious, but still functioning within the person, and for this reason it is important to address it. There is a living psychological self within us that Reason can address and influence.
This true self continues to press toward conscious awareness, in keeping with the basic law of mental life that all our ideas and experiences seek unity in one unbroken consciousness. Traumatic repression fails to completely prevent the true self from entering consciousness, and there is almost always, even in the most psychologically damaged person, at least some awareness of truth and reality beneath the false self or propagandized self. The true self hides under the pressure of the false self, but it sustains, learns, grows, so that we end up with the internally contradictory situation, today, in which we are becoming both more mentally ill under a spreading and intensifying false self, while we are also becoming more aware and intelligent under an evolving true self. We are gaining more awareness and insight into our insanity, or more freedom of thought into our unfree thoughts.
Civilization
Despite all the propaganda to which we are continuously subjected there is a (slowly) growing knowledge that our entire way of life is false, out of balance, and not worth sustaining, which makes the task of political education critically important and viable because there is a thinking self, a true self, that can be intellectually addressed and developmentally mobilized toward a new kind of civilization that satisfies vital human needs.
I have described this civilization elsewhere as Wild Socialism or Half Wild/Half High Civilization. The basic idea is that to solve the biodiversity crisis, or the Sixth Extinction, we need, according to the best science of conservation biology, to protect 50% of land and water as wilderness (defined by the 1964 Wilderness Act as places on earth where the influence of humans is “substantially unnoticeable”) and we also need to build a Beautiful Civilization on the other half. I contend that the proper dwelling place of human beings on earth is the Edge so we can go back and forth between the contrasting realities of wilderness and high civilization on a regular basis in a dialectical journey that comprises the Good Life.
The contradiction between what we are doing to the wild earth (or what remains of it) and the growing awareness of the tremendous value it has both in-itself and for us is intensifying the conflict between the true self and the false self. The response on the part of the exploiters of the planet is more propaganda and more oppression through more goods and services, or through more threats and intimidation, the carrot or the stick. A race is underway to determine whether we will learn to value the wild earth, and act to save it, or exhaust ourselves and expire from unceasing aggressive actions that have been turned (in a large degree) against ourselves.
The outcome is uncertain, but the destruction of the wild earth is becoming more obvious and widespread throughout the general population, and the role of the nature-tourist industry in exalting the value of wild nature, while simultaneously destroying it, is heightening the awareness and value of wild nature, and driving some people into a movement for a new Way of Life. In this respect, the world-wide economic nature-tourist industry is creating its own gravediggers because the commodification of wild nature is increasing the demand and need for wild nature among the general population, while it simultaneously destroys and deprives people from its real enjoyment more and more. The true self, submissive and afraid, carries on its emotional, artistic, and intellectual work, unconsciously, subconsciously, and consciously in opposition to the false self and the oppressive socio-economic reality that created it and sustains it.
The key question is: Can we build a wild earth movement that changes the world before we self-annihilate. The good news is that in addition to appeals to love and biophilia, appeals to Reason are effective because the true self is still listening and thinking, and it is a mistake to call for abolishing the ego, or dissolving the ego, as much of Eastern philosophy does because the original ego is our ally in the struggle for freedom and happiness. It is the ego that “thinks,” although it only thinks properly when it is communicates with the id, and this is what defines the true self — namely, the true self is the original ego rooted in the id that endures and matures, even after traumatic repression has installed a false self. As the pressure to repress the true self increases, so does the counter-pressure by the true self to take back its life and autonomy. There would be no need for the powers-that-be to keep retooling and refining its propaganda machine if the counter-pressure to cast it off was not also increasing.
Many of us feel that we are the same person we were in childhood and adolescence because there is a true self that preserves the continuity of our personal development, despite the splitting and fragmentation of the ego to which we are subjected on the road to adulthood. Insofar as our original ego remains true to the id in terms of its internal dialogue and development, it is the true self, in opposition to those portions or parts of our original ego that have been forced into false identifications with the masters of the universe, the ruling elites, the oppressive State and its various representatives.
Our true self has always been searching for a way to satisfy both its need to establish a beautiful civilization and its need to unite with wilderness, a task it has been unable to accomplish since the emergence of Homo sapiens. For the first time in human history, we have conquered (in principle) scarcity with science and technology, and if we limit our numbers and material wants, then Wild Socialism is easily doable and workable, so this solution to the modern crisis will appeal to the true self on both the emotional and rational levels, which is why political education on behalf of this ideal is necessary and effective.
The human ego, as the seat of Reason, cannot be reduced to a power-instrument, but it has taken this course because of scarcity and the struggle for existence within which it was born, a world of eating and being eaten, but it has always also been an ego of (aesthetic) contemplation, whose goal has always been high civilization. It is not the whole story to see the ego as anxious, insecure, and never able to get enough. The problem is not Reason per se. The human ego relates to reality both instrumentally and contemplatively, and although the former perspective has been dominant, we retain the freedom to view the world completely non-violently, and to envision beautiful change. The ego “thinks” non-instrumentally; it contemplates reality for its own sake, and this power, in contact and communication with the id, is potentially revolutionary. Contemplative consciousness, with its psychological distancing from all instrumentality, is the subjective power for human and planetary emancipation.
Us and the Wilderness
Paradoxically, our unique power to step outside of wilderness, to detach ourselves from wilderness, to contemplate, has generated power over wilderness that eventually eclipsed both the human need for high civilization and the human need to return to the wilderness. We became experts at survival and creature comforts, and in this process, we lost touch with our humanity, our species-being, which is to seek beauty both in civilization and in wilderness. There was a trap in the emergence of our species that we fell into — namely, that in becoming aware of the beauty of wilderness we gained enough power over it to destroy it, which is exactly the historical path we have taken. About ten thousand years ago the balance between ego and id, between the need to build high civilization and the need to return to the wilderness, was massively disturbed and disrupted. What happened?
We developed an institutional power-complex known as the Neolithic Revolution, entailing agriculture, domestication of animals, permanent settlements, private property, division of labor, metallurgy, commerce, the multiplication of needs, and the State, which brought about a dramatic change in culture and everyday life. So great and sudden was this change in human existence, relative to our long Paleolithic existence, that we may speak of the trauma of civilization, with the State being the spider in the web, so to speak. We became afraid to change course, and even to consciously think about changing course. The State, imposing inescapable physical and psychological terror on its members and victims, fortified and amplified the civilization-project known as the Neolithic revolution.
We can speculate about “how and why” cruel and violent people were able to rise to positions of power and privilege — perhaps climatic disruptions or other environmental catastrophes led to social disintegration and desperation, giving rise to pseudo-remedies of merciless masters and lords? Perhaps the accumulation of private property and wealth allowed the few to gain power and control over the many? The only thing we can say for sure (at this time) is that social stratification and class domination was the not the result of internal or endogenous factors in our species. Certainly, Sumer and Babylon cultivated the ground out of which authoritarian personality-types ascended the throne, and once the State was instituted, and the splitting of the ego through traumatic repression ensued, it became very difficult to challenge and change the status quo, and we are still ruled by psychopaths who are driving everyone into madness and collective death.
Two Revolutions
Before the Neolithic revolution, history is replete with examples and events of the growing ascendency of ego over id, and after the Neolithic revolution we can point to the Industrial capitalist revolution as a major leap forward in the same direction of ego over id. Probably nothing has had more dramatic impact on the everyday lives of human beings than the system of institutions, laws, and values bound up with the Neolithic lifestyle, which brought about our fast and furious removal from the wilderness, with great psychological damage to the human mind by a State that enforced this new organization of life through violence and the threat of violence, but industrial capitalism is not far behind. What sets the Neolithic Revolution and the Capitalist Revolution apart from all other historical forms of reality is the speed and extent of their termination of wilderness, and the psychological damage done to human mind and lifestyle as a result of these shockingly savage assaults on wild nature.
The Neolithic revolution and the Capitalist revolution were the most effective historical formations ever devised to kill wilderness and wildlife for the sake of privilege and profit, and now, of course, we have a global world order dedicated to endlessly populating, plundering, and pulverizing of the earth, while the true self, mostly recessed in the human mind, observes and ponders this horrific process. Isolated and alone, the true self tends, on the one hand, toward social suicide (surrender to Exterminism) as the best option for a species that has proven itself to be a failed experiment on this planet, but it also tends, on the other hand, toward revolt and revolution on behalf of a species that knows a better way to live and prosper.
The Future
The future is open, but the momentum is going in the wrong direction. Today, the true self is suffering terribly under the intensifying bombardment and assault of the false self, and everyday life, on the most intimate personal level, is becoming unbearable for many people. The true self, bullied and badgered by forces and faces it cannot control or influence, often feels overwhelmed, weak, misunderstood, insulted and abandoned. Still, there is, at the same time, a growing consciousness and love for a Wild Earth, and both tendencies exist in each and every modern individual (with exceptions of course). The “splitting of the ego in the process of defense” has given rise to a kind of everyday schizophrenia in which many people intuitively know that we will continue to decline and deteriorate along with the animals and ecosystems, on the one hand, and nevertheless feel the pressure, on the other hand, to earn a living and succeed.
In sum, the defensive ego-structure of the modern human being is the major subjective problem with which we have to deal in changing reality, but let us recognize that this ego-structure is itself an historical creation, and that the true self is breaking it up from within, as the contradictions in external reality are reflected inside our minds. Theory must guide and assist this internal revolution with facts, arguments, insights, and a vision of a viable Alternative that I call Half Wild/Half High Civilization or Wild Socialism.
