The articulation, by Freud, of this monumental event in the psychological development of the child, was an act of genius by this giant of the 20th Century, and lies at the heart of psychoanalytic theory.
However, I would like to suggest that this has changed in the world today. I suggest that it is no longer the parental act of copulation that constitutes the contemporary Primal Scene; it is rather the act of discovering how much (or how little) money your parents have.
However, I would like to suggest that this has changed in the world today. I suggest that it is no longer the parental act of copulation that constitutes the contemporary Primal Scene; it is rather the act of discovering how much (or how little) money your parents have.
I suggest that the awareness of your parents’ financial clout, their access to, or deprivation of, money, and by extension their social status, has a far greater influence on your developing sense of identity as a child. Furthermore, it is no secret that our evaluation of our peers and ourselves is heavily influenced by that person’s net financial worth. This really goes without saying, I suppose, but I think with minimal consideration, we can conclude that it is the determining factor in our evaluation of the other.
Let us Consider the Holy Trinity: Money, Sex and Power.[2]
Whilst these are the three principal archetypes which govern the world, I think the potency of money in today’s world is greater than the other two, or to put it in other words, that power and sex hold court principally at money's pleasure.
As far as I make it out, money is still in the hands of men. Yes, of course, women have made big strides in the last hundred-odd years in the economic arena, but by and large, it still seems to be men who hold the money card and women the sex card. Or if one wanted to be less essentialist about it, we could say the masculine plays the cash card and the feminine plays the sex card, bearing in mind that in contemporary society, both physical genders have access to feminine and masculine archetypes.
Now I don’t care how sexy you are, seriously you can be Pamela Anderson in her prime on some kind of sex steroids, you’re still not going to be a sexy as the Patek Phillipe Supercomplication Pocket Watch (Value $11 million), Porsche 911 Carrere GT2, The Eclipse Yacht (value $1.2 billion) or a luxury villa in the South of France.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting that any red-blooded heterosexual man would not love to have sex with Pamela Anderson, let alone Pamela Anderson in her prime! I, for one, certainly would, and I think I speak on behalf of most men, even those too henpecked to admit such a thing. All I’m saying is owning any one of the items above would guarantee such a high level of sex, both in terms of quantity and quality, that their net sexual worth eclipses (no pun intended) one roll in the hay, or even several rolls in the hay, with that gorgeous woman known as Pamela Anderson. If you doubt the veracity of this claim, ask Hugh Hefner; the playmates come and go, the mansion remains.
The relationship between money and power is a little less clear. However, if we’re talking political power, physical power or influence, then what is clear is that these are mostly for sale, in the Capitalist System, money rules the roost.
Extrinsic vs. Intrinsic Value
One distinction between these three is that money seems to have a principally extrinsic value, whereas sex and power seem to have an intrinsic value. Sex and power seem worthwhile in themselves. Whereas money seems principally worthwhile for its extrinsic or instrumental value, what it can do, facilitate, access, and obtain for its possessor. However, I think the argument can be made that money also has an intrinsic value in the status it so directly confers; money has become valuable in itself, not only for its extrinsic value. That is to say, money is not seen purely as a means to an end but as an end in itself.
My mentor used to say money is to the outside world what memory is to the inner world. These are the currencies with which we have to trade. Their availability speaks directly to our potency in our endeavours, be those endeavours the development of soul or of worldly power and influence.
Slavoj Žižek on Money
This Marxist Lacanian philosopher, my personal favourite public intellectual, is a cultural critic and his principal target (predictably) is Western Capitalism. Nevertheless, despite his avowed socialist stance, he clearly recognises the archetypal dominance of money.
He relates a story of a time he was invited to speak at an Ivy League American University. After the talk, the faculty and the Dean of the university hosted a dinner in his honour. At the beginning of the evening, his host asked everyone around the table to formally introduce themselves. The requested introduction was to include their academic discipline, their specific field of interest, one or two other miscellaneous things and their sexual orientation!
Now it was obviously the issue of disclosing one’s sexual orientation that Žižek took issue with. I won’t enter into the specifics around why this happened or what Žižek said about it because it is tangential to this post. What he did say, however, that is very telling, is: if we are going to go that far in the transparency game, let us also disclose our respective salaries and bank balances as well.
Only through invoking the issue of financial status could Žižek find an analogy sufficiently telling to point out how offensive and absurd he found this request regarding the disclosure of sexual orientation. The reason that he used this example is not complicated; it is the only thing even more telling than sexual orientation.
Wolfgang Giegerich, Jungian analyst and possibly the most fascinating Jungian scholar alive today, emerged from the Archetypal School as both a critic and collaborator of Hillman’s[3]. Giegerich is critical of the archetypal-pantheistic-mythological form of Jungian thought that dominates the Archetypal School’s approach. Essentially, his claim is that the animating spirit of classical Greek and Roman gods has migrated into contemporary forms, which can no longer be helpfully compared with their classical antecedents. As an example of his radical position, Giegerich, to the outrage of many Jungians, claimed that the presence of god, in the world, in the second half of the 20th Century, is only encountered in the Atom Bomb. It is only in the shadow of total nuclear devastation that we genuinely encounter the numinous in contemporary culture.
It is in a similar sense that I make this claim concerning money. Real awe, real respect and real fear, in other words, our relationship to the divine, is encountered in our relatedness to money.
There is that old cliché about sex, drugs and rock n’ roll. And I’ll grant that for the youth, for those young enough to still be idealistic and have a genuine love of spirit and the community of man, the divine may be encountered in this classic archetypal triangulation. I myself felt a deep, if transient, connection with the divine through the culture of the dance music scene as a younger man. But growing up means realising that whilst sex remains, drugs and rock n’ roll are replaced by power and money; and it is money that dominates the mature archetypal triangulation.
Jungians and Money
Psychoanalysis, in toto, is an elitist enterprise, and Jungian psychology is certainly no exception to this rule. The path to individuation costs big time if you are hoping to achieve that individuation through Jungian Analysis. You can work on around R500 ($70) a session, with a minimum of one session a week recommended, ideally more. How long does one need to remain in analysis if individuation is the goal (which it always is, regardless of what any analyst may say to the contrary)? Guess what, there is no time limit!
I’m willing to bet that no Analyst in the history of Jungian Analysis (including the great man himself) ever said to a patient,
“Hey man, you’re individuated! No more need to see me, why don’t you put the money you’re going to save towards a nice diamond necklace for your wife?”
No Analysis is definitely for the well-to-do; if you’re poor, put aside the goal of individuation.
Christ said, it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into heaven. Well to that the Jungians retort is, it is easier to read the entire Collected Works[4] and understand them, sans assistance, than for the poor man to get into Analysis.
But hey, this is not meant as a criticism of psychoanalysis; that is simply the way of the world, my brothers and sisters. Life at the bottom of the financial pile is shit; in that sense, psychoanalysis simply mirrors life. Individuation is a path reserved for those of means. This is not to say that life is so fantastic on top of the financial pile, but simply that those on top of the pile have more time to contemplate the unbearable angst of being and of course have an Analyst hold their hand in the process.
Jung himself knew this only too well. Although he grew up in relative poverty, he soon remedied this state of affairs by marrying Emma Rauschenbach, the daughter of one of the wealthiest families in Switzerland. His own journey to individuation was made possible through the Rauschenbach family's wealth. Having the time and means to build stone towers by hand, buy ancient alchemical texts, write the Collected Works and travel around the world is not the province of the working class. No, indeed, the ethos of wealth is deeply embedded in the Jungian culture.
Freud for this part never possessed this kind of money, and indeed, his personal ambition never appeared to be wealth creation. However, I think this oversight was remedied by the psychoanalytic profession, whose fees were never for the faint of heart. In fact, I am speculating, but I think it would not be entirely incorrect to say that a significant factor in the decline in psychoanalysis, in the last twenty years, is partly as a result of insufficient people having the luxury, in terms of time and money, to indulge in psychoanalytic treatment.
But does money actually make us happy?
I’m not convinced that having money actually makes us happy. Naturally, we need a minimum income simply to pay the rent on our lives, but it does seem to be a case of diminishing returns; more doesn’t necessarily mean happier. I am speculating though, I don’t personally have the kind of money that I can tell you with conviction it doesn’t make you happier; it is more of a loose observation of the seriously wealthy. You could always ask one of the elite if their money makes them really happy, but I’m guessing you're not likely to get an honest answer.
As I see it, though, it doesn’t matter that an abundance of money doesn’t guarantee happiness; that fact is probably more of an indictment of the aspiration of happiness than a criticism of wealth creation. Happiness, besides being an overvalued commodity in modern life, can never be directly pursued; it is closer to an innate disposition that some possess more than others. The very act of aspiration, for anything not only money, brings with it a degree of unhappiness.
I’m reminded of a social gathering I was invited to once (people usually only make that mistake once with me, inviting me to a social function :-)), where this dim-witted narcissist was carrying on unashamedly about how much money he had for the better part of the afternoon. At some point in the conversation, he paused and said, thoughtfully, but it doesn’t make you happy, you know, it’s not as if you cuddle up to it at night, you have to get your priorities right and figure out what you really want! It was all I could do not to burst out laughing.
So, is money actually a worthwhile goal then?
I think the answer to this question depends entirely on you. What I take as given is that we all agree that we need to make a living and that poverty is undoubtedly the cause of much misery. However, beyond that, is being financially wealthy a worthwhile goal?
Let’s put it this way if your personal goal is to endure good Christian suffering, or to be a nice person, or to lead a simple life, or to relate to your fellow man[5] as an equal regardless of his or her financial status, or if you have strict ethical views which you don’t want to compromise, then I suggest money should not be your primary goal.
However, if you seek power, status, respect, great sex, nice toys, freedom of movement and time, personal autonomy, the opportunity to travel, to spend the kind of time and energy necessary for individuation, then it goes without saying that a degree of wealth is essential.
Let me conclude by saying I think Capitalism, at least in its current form, is unsustainable; I totally agree with Žižek and that school of thought in this regard. Furthermore, I think that Capitalism is a morally corrupt system which undermines the basic dignity of the human person, both the Capitalist himself and the working class. Whilst Communism has proven an ineffective alternative, I pray for the soul of mankind that some form of enlightened socialism becomes the dominant social system at some point in the future.
The above being said, as things currently stand and as long as Capitalism prevails, money is the home of the Fire Phoenix.
Until we talk again,
Stephen
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[1]“ The term appeared for the first time in Freud’s work apropos of the “Wolf Man” case (1918b [1914]), but the notion of a sexual memory experienced too early to have been translated into verbal images, and thus liable to return in the form of conversion symptoms or obsessions, was part of his [Freud’s] thinking as early as 1896” (International Dictionary of Psychoanalysis).
[2] My thanks to Clinton Van Winkel for this idea.
[3] James Hillman (1926- 2011) is the founder of the Archetypal School which is one of the dominant schools in the Jungian world today; it emphasises the archetypal and imaginal aspects of Jung’s pioneering work. Hillman founded the Pacifica Graduate Institute.
[4] Jung’s Collected Works, some twenty volumes at the last count.
[5] This use of the masculine gender is purely in keeping with the convention of the expression and should not be seen as an actual gender differentiation.