"Thought of the Week" for
THE SACRED POWER OF METAPHOR TWISTED TO MANIPULATION AND ENTRAPMENT
"Thought of the Week" for
July 5,
2004
...Quoting Manfred Lurker, "The meaning of
the symbol does not lie in the symbol itself but points to something
else outside.
Hans Biedermann. (1992). Dictionary of Symbolism: Cultural Icons and the Meanings Behind Them (J. Hulbert, Trans.). New York: FactsOnFile.
Comment:
The "sacred" power
of metaphor and symbol
by Reg Harris
Copyright © 1999 by Reg Harris. All rights reserved. Updated October 2007. All rights reserved. Apart from properly cited quotes and short excerpts, no part of this article can be copied or used in any form without written permission from the author. For permission to use, please contact me.
In traditional times, the use of symbolic
language was usually reserved for the shaman, the monk, the priest,
corandara or magic-user, the person whose character and training had
prepared him or her to live on the dangerous interface between the
temporal and eternal. The shamans had transcended the basic
attachments to life, including greed and a desire for power. They
could be trusted to use the symbols and retell the myths. They could
be trusted with the symbols (the spiritual language) of their
cultures because they were concerned with the good of the community
and the individuals in it.
Today, however, things have changed. The
symbols, myths, metaphors (including the hero)―those traditional
guides to our greater spiritual self―are now being used not by
the trusted shaman, but by those who wish to manipulate: the
advertisers, the politicians, the pseudo religious leaders. These
people have discovered the power in the symbols, and they are using
our sacred language to manipulate and control us.
The Hero, formerly a symbol of the highest
values of a culture, now is paid tens of millions of dollars to use
his/her sacred role to convince us to buy shoes or subscribe to a
certain long distance telephone service. Recently, the
But heroes are not the only cultural symbols
being used to control and manipulate us. The symbols of the
archetypal energies which are the core of our sense of being have
become tools in the hands of advertisers. The "
Who are the most susceptible to these
manipulations? Our children. They are the primary targets, and they
are the least prepared to see the manipulations for what they are
and to resist them.
Is it any wonder that many children feel like
violence it their primary mode of expression. Their sacred points of
passage have been turned into marketing opportunities. Their sacred
stories have been twisted into movies and books designed to earn
money rather than to point to growth and understanding. Their sacred
symbols are used to take from them rather than to give to them. When
our young people go to the symbols, the myths, the heroes -- those
sacred windows to their deeper selves and sense of true meaning --
they find someone trying to manipulate them, to take their time,
their money, and their minds.
The one refuge from this attack has been the
school. Traditionally, schools have been free of the pressures of
the media and advertisers. In school we can take time to look, to
explore and to understand. The words school and scholar come from
the Greek schole, which means leisure employed in learning. Even the
word educate -- from the Latin ex-, meaning out, and ducare, meaning
to draw -- suggests schools should be places where we can take time
to explore ideas and to draw out the student own understanding.
But the school's role as a refuge from the
pressure of life and the media bombardment is changing. Many schools
have bought into the message of business, which is that we should
train their workers, not educate our young. Many schools have sold
out to the advertisers, with exclusive contracts for soft drinks,
athletic equipment, and food. More and more schools buy texts which
use brand name advertisers (who pay for the privilege) in examples
of math problems. Many schools use slick, "free" lesson packages
created and provided by businesses, businesses which have their own
agenda to promote. The leisure is gone and the refuge is gone.
Where is the individual's Hero's Journey in all
of this? Unfortunately, it has been subverted for the pseudo journey
created by the media, the advertisers, and the manipulators. Is this
why children feel frustrated and too often violent?
Our children are thrust into in an accelerated,
consumption-oriented, thought-discouraging competition to reach the
top of some ladder. Will they thank us for the shove we give them on
their way up? Probably not. To paraphrase Joseph Campbell, most of
them will struggle up that ladder toward what they have been taught
is success only to discover years down the road that, in the rush
and confusion, they've put their ladder against the wrong wall.
When the language of the spirit, of the
unconscious, of the Self is appropriated to manipulate, the
connection with the spirit is damaged. When this happens, we are
damaged because a vital aspect of our lives is missing. In our
compulsion with progress, consumption and technology, we are
damaging our children in countless ways. That damage is only
beginning to manifest itself in frustration and violence, violence
made easier because the sense of Self and the capacity for deep
thought have been stolen and replaced by a fear of the future, by a
rushing to keep from being lost, and by the conditioning to be a
good consumer, a good worker -- but never oneself.
The Hero's Journey may still be a part of our
children's lives, but the din of "false calls" from the advertisers,
the media, the politicians, and the businesses make the genuine Call
harder and harder to discern. Even when one hears the Call of the
Self, that voice may do nothing more than mock our inability to act.
When the Self is crushed and the Journey is gone, what is left?
Bitterness, anger, frustration -- dangerous emotions in a world
which teaches you that violence is the first resort to solving
problems.
What do we do? Schools may be the only hope to
begin the process, but not until we decide that "job training" is
only a small part of education. We can do little until we decide
that it is more important to help our children sift through the
media din to hear their own Call. We can do little until we decide
that wisdom is the first step toward growth and trust facts and
information to come along naturally when the time is right.
The first step may be to reclaim ownership of
our sacred symbols. Teach students how they are being manipulated by
these powerful carriers of meaning. Teach them to use the symbols
for themselves, to gain insight into life and themselves through
their literature, their films, their history, and their own
experience. Otherwise, Columbine will be just one of an ever-growing
number of violent expressions of a youth which has lost touch with
its spiritual side. We can never return the sacred language to the
control of the shaman, but we can help our students see how the
language is used to manipulate them and how they can resist the
manipulations and hear the Call to their own journeys.