Friday, October 24, 2008

Empirically Assessing the Collective Unconscious

Understanding the role of the collective unconscious is becoming critical to develop parasociology. The integration of the collective unconscious into sociology is not a new idea, however. It is often referred to “depth sociology”, as it looks deeply into the human psyche in its collective dimension. In fact, I would even say that most of cultural sociology and cultural anthropology are essentially all about the collective unconscious.

How it has been used so far

I found an interesting article that shows the link that has been made between psychology and sociology, with respect to studying the collective unconscious. It is:
Staude, John Raphael. (1976). “From Depth Psychology to Depth Sociology: Freud, Jung, and Levi-Strauss.” Theory and Society 3(3): 303-338.

When I saw the name Claude Lévi-Strauss, I finally got it. Lévi-Strauss is a very famous French anthropologist who, in the 1940s and 1950s, developed the idea structural analysis. His famous book is Tristes Tropiques. The profound originality of Lévi-Strauss was that he saw in tribal myths elements that are universal, in spite of their very different appearance from one community to the other. Myths, according to Lévi-Strauss, share a fundamental narrative structure behind the actual story. Hence, the name structural analysis, as for him the main goal of anthropology is the analysis of myths and sagas.

His approach borrows from Freud the idea that the central human struggle is about balancing between one’s impulses and the requirements of having rules and prohibitions so that living in society is possible. Lévi-Strauss, without surprises, looks into social taboos to guide his structural analysis. Another element of the analogy with Freud’s approach is the idea that the unconscious expresses itself to maintain the balance through a variety of means, but particularly through night dreams. For Levi-Strauss, collective myths and sagas play the exact same role in society; they are societies’ dreams. Like the interpretation of dreams, the interpretation of myths to find the deep structures constitutes the privilege empirical mean to perceive and study the collective unconscious.

Levi-Strauss was not the first one to see the importance of myths and sagas. In fact, Durkheim the founder of sociology could be construed as being the first structuralist. For instance,

“Structuralism really started with Durkheim. In The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life he presented a symbolic conception of social reality: society is symbolically expressed in the individual in the form of religious beliefs and practices. Here he considered society as a system of active forces involved in and conditioned by the symbolizing process. Without symbols, the social sentiments would have a precarious existence at best; symbols were needed to anchor and give continuity to memories of social experience. He concluded that ‘social life in all its aspects and at all the moments of its history, is possible only thanks to a vast symbolism.’ Religion was, for Durkheim, ‘the system of symbols through which society acquires consciousness of itself.’ (Staude 1976, 323)

Lévi-Strauss, on the other hand, did not like very much Jung, but he borrowed a lot from him as well. In many ways the concepts of archetype and anthropological structure are essentially the same thing. So, when Jung looks at the phenomena of flying saucers, he sees first and foremost an archetype expressing itself through the modern myth of the flying saucers. Lévi-Strauss did not studied flying saucers or UFOs, but he would certainly see a myth expressing itself through a common structure. For instance, as discussed on the post about the 1896-1897 Airship wave, there are many mythical elements that can be found also in more recent waves (contactees, non-human entities, machine crashing and bodies recovered, meaningless conversations with “flying crew”, etc.). This type of cultural analysis is being done by the people publishing in the Magonia magazine. However, this does not resolve the question of the materiality of UFOs.

I think it is important to integrate mythological analysis into parasociology. This requires, however, a lot of work to do so as it is essentially qualitative research. That being said, one must also be aware that structuralist approaches have been severely criticized, starting in France after 1968, and elsewhere in the 1970s.

Between the 1970s and the end of 1990s, social theory was very much “bashing” structuralism. Many social theorists saw themselves as post-structuralist or postmodernist. The main critique was that the structures or archetypes are not as firm or universal as Lévi-Strauss or Jung assumed. Variations in the deep structures are rather the norm, and some even suggested that every human event is unique, and uniquely interpreted and internalized—in other words, there is no such thing as structures. Lastly, the critiques were also stating that the content of the structure, the visible elements of the collective unconscious, was essentially a projection of the sociologist, anthropologist, or psychologist. A famous one was Freud’s interpretation of women dreaming about cigars as unexpressed sexual desires. After a careful analysis of Freud’s psychoanalytic notes, it became clear that it was actually Freud who had sexual desires towards some of his own female patients and was unconsciously trying to lead them a certain way!

Yet again, starting with the early-1990s, a counter-critique of the post-structuralist, and especially of the postmodernists, took hold in the social sciences. The main argument was that if there is no such as structures, everything being unique and ephemeral, then society would not be possible, and ultimately a science of society (sociology) is not possible either. As societies still exist, and sociology can be at time useful, it is clear that the post-structuralists/postmodernists went overboard. In many ways the pendulum is now back into the middle. Structures do exist at the same time as the uniqueness of human events. In other words, at the most generic level structures are useful, but they are not enough to understand the collective unconscious: specific contents born of specific social events need to be understood also.

Parasociology also needs to integrate the post-structuralist criticism, and the counter-criticism. Concretely, this means that a UFO wave is a very generic form structural event, but its meaning and causes can only be found in the specificity of a community. The actual content of the symbols projected do matter. Symbols are not simply carriers of deeper but archtypical or structural issues; they are transformed by the symbolic content.

From an empirical perspective, the fundamental difficulty is therefore to identify the unconscious balancing act of a community around specific issues causing the need for the balancing act. In other words, how can one identify what matters for a community while the same community is not itself consciously aware of it? Looking for what is not being said is quite challenging.

However, I think it is possible narrow down the search by focussing on common social problems (environmental risks, poverty, extensive and persistent social problems, political violence, etc.) that are not discussed and are not part of a collectivity’s consciousness. This is the generic structural element. Marcel Mauss, one of the founders of anthropology also offers hints for such an approach:

“Whereas Durkheim confined himself to defining the symbolic character of social life, his nephew and collaborator Marcel Mauss suggested how the study of pathological symbolism (to which psychoanalysis had drawn attention) and social symbolism could be brought together. His basic idea was that the symbolization process is the same in both cases, and that it is possible to envisage a general theory of symbolism which would explain equally well the important elements of myths, rites, and beliefs in their efficacity, as well as of illusions, collective mystifications and delusions and their correctives.” (Staude 1976, 323)

An example, the 2008 Buck County UFO flap

Let’s use a concrete example to illustrate how these theoretical factors could translate methodologically.

The Flap
In July 2008, Buck County in Pennsylvania (north of Philadelphia) has experienced a UFO flap. MUFON reported over 50 UFO sightings in June and July 2008, and they were centralized on the Buck County. The Wave seemed to end its peak towards the end of July.

More sightings occurred in Pensylvania, before and after, to include a sighting of 4 UFOs in daylight on 4 October, photographed and filmed during an Obama rally in Philadelphia. The UFO scene in Pennsylvania seems quiet since.

Clearly, something is going on, and we have an event that would fit our definition of UFO wave, as it was socially noticed.

Buck’s County Collective Unconscious
The county had UFO sightings before, including during the October 1973 wave. Historical precedents are a useful indicator of a community inclined to believe in UFOs. However, it is a 35-year old event which may or may not reside in the collective memory.

The Buck County has a history of conflict with the nuclear industry, and environmental risks seem to be part of this community’s psyche. Particularly, the was a grassroots movement in the Buck County against changing the course of the Delaware River to cool nuclear reactors. The movement failed against the nuclear industry, being more organized and more influence on local politicians. Hard feelings certainly still exists in the Buck County. For more information:
Truchil, B. , 2004-08-14 "The Limitations of Spontaneous Grassroots Movements: The Case of the Bucks County Pump" Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association, Hilton San Francisco & Renaissance Parc 55 Hotel, San Francisco, CA.

The fear of nuclear nuclear energy is also a well documented issue. For instance, Dr. Robert DuPont, a psychiatrist, who studied people’s fear of the nuclear after the Three Mile Island meltdown (which is located in Pennsylvania) was interviewed by PBS
He answered the following question:

Q: But with your experience watching the TV coverage of nuclear, were you stumbling on a mass pathology?

A: Well, of course, that led to all kinds of things after that. I went to visit a lot of the nuclear power plants around the country, especially those that were involved in controversy, and met with public groups, and spoke about it and wrote about it and got myself quite involved in the issue, between roughly 1980 and 1985. It was, is, a very big part of my life, as I just got involved in this mess of issues. And I was convinced that the psychology was a key part of what was going on; that the media played a role, and politics, especially anti-technology, anti-big activity kind of politics, often associated with the political left, was very much a part of this. But I didn't think any of that would happen without the psychology; that there had to be a fertile field on which this was growing. And I'm convinced that that fertile field is fear. It's the "what if" fear. It's the fear that something dreadful is going to happen, something that's nameless, something that is unfathomable, and that we really have to defend ourselves against this "what if" fear.

The key here is that kind of fear is about “something dreadful is going to happen,” which is reminiscent of Keel’s Mothman Prophecy narrative structure. The fear was certainly fed by at least one specific event, on 22 July 2008 “The operator of two Bucks County landfills says it is suspending plans to dump radioactive sludge from the Limerick Nuclear power plant until public concerns can be addressed.” The timing with the peak of the wave is interesting here.

As well, Excelon, the owner of the nuclear plants in Pennsylvania, made a series of low key announcement about building another plant north of the Buck County on 19 December 2007, 29 August 2008, and on 10 October 2008.

All this occurring while there was a low key rumour on the Internet that Barack Obama was on the payroll of Excelon.

Environmental issues, however, seemed to take a back seat in people’s mind in Pennsylvania. This is not surprising given the major financial disaster that emerged during the year around the sub-prime crisis. One poll in Pennsylvania show that the environment does not make the top five issue. Another one, among rural voters shows that the environment only concern 2% of the voters.

Without having a firm verdict, it is at least possible to think that fears about nuclear energy are real in the Buck County, but were on the backburner of people’s mind because of the financial crisis.

Psi effect
Psi effects are hard to measure, but one way is to look at it is to look for synchronicity. I found at least one set around the nexus Obama-Nuclear Industry. Obama was in Philadelphia on October 4th and there was a substantial UFO sighting at the time. Also, on October 4th, 2 hunters in Northern Pennsylvania see a “gree-glowing” (radio-active?) creature, which is reported on the Internet a few days later. Larry Rother of the New York Times published a report on where Obama and McCain stand in general with respect to the nuclear industry on October 9th. Excelon made a low key announcement on October 10th about moving ahead to the next step for building a new nuclear plant.

Narrative Structure
It is interesting to note that this narrative structure actually exist in a somewhat modern mythical form through the popular cartoon series “The Simpsons”. It is about ordinary people who are relatively powerless against the nuclear industry, and where nuclear pollution is green-glowing. The town “Springfield” is visited once in a while by UFOs and aliens.

What is missing?
This remains a relatively superficial analysis, but this very recent case seems to show that I am going in the right direction. But it is important to understand why some unconscious collective conflicts turn into UFO wave (or other paranormal phenomena like Big Foot rash of sightings), while in many other situation there is nothing. A closer look at the conditions leading to poltergeist, in parapsychology, is probably the first step.

Copyright © 2008 Eric Ouellet

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