Two Birds in a Tree: What women want

Wednesday, July 26, 2017

What women want

I'm continuing to post amazing quotes while I work on other stuff. The below is from a highly recommended podcast of interviews with Jungian analysts by Laura London. This particular interview is with Russ Lockhart, one of my new Jungian heroes. Enjoy!

Russ Lockhart: (Said to Esther Harding at a party) "Freud asked the question 'What do women want?' and I want to know your answer."

And she was quiet for a bit, then she looked at me and then she put her hand on my shoulder and she said "Women want men... But there are so very few."

So that was like a one of those lightning bolts that go through one, you know? That pierces you and you know that that is a truth. And you’ve really got to take that into account, you know? Where are the men? What’s happened to the men?

Laura London: Well what do you have to say about that?... What did that comment mean to you?

RL: Well, it’s meant a lot to me in a lot of different things over the years. Certainly when I did the Jung lectures that became Psyche Speaks there’s a lot of material in that book that was prompted in a way by her comment. Later, as I thought more and more and more about it, it relates to this problem of power and how so consumed most men are with power. And the near absence of any real consideration we’re taking into account Eros. By Eros I don’t just mean females, I mean the genuine principle of relatedness is not very big on most men’s radar. Power is.

LL: What are they looking for in pursuing power?

RL: The solution or the cure for inadequacy.

LL: The solution or the cure for inadequacy.

RL: Yes.

LL: And they’re not finding it there. Or are they?

RL: No. No. They find all kinds of things, of course. There’s so much that reinforces that collectively and in the way other people respond to power that people enact, whether by rejection of that power (by the way rejecting power is not the same as Eros). Not having power is not the same as Eros. So Eros in that sense is not quite the opposite of power. The opposite of power is powerlessness. Eros is a completely different realm.

You might think of power as vertical, and if you think of power as vertical then there’s obviously all the symbolism of verticality is male oriented. Eros is horizontal. Much of the symbolism of the horizontal is feminine. So vertical power tends to be the enclave of the male. I’m not even going to say masculine, because I don’t feel like you can have a truly masculine quality or presence unless you have a relationship with Eros. And that’s what Esther Harding was saying.