Reference: Cat hate = misogyny?

So, I just ran across this on Facebook:

roach-works

hey so, as a man who works with other men, here's a quick relationship tip: if he doesn't much like cats, that might just be a personal preference. if he hates cats, if he tells you he hates cats as soon as he hears that you have a cat and love your cat, he's an asshole. he's telling on himself.

every guy i've ever worked with that makes a point of telling me how much he hates cats as soon as i mention that i have a cat and love my cat, is always someone who is regularly cruel for fun and who laughs in the breakroom about the mean things they do for fun to their girlfriends and children

--------------------

luscious-theomorphic

I wish I could articulate all the ways this makes sense and why it makes sense and stuff but it's just like... something something misogyny something something resentment of creatures that don't need you and don't hang on your attention and approval all their lives.

As Marie-Louise von Franz says:

The cat, in contrast to the dog, has never sold its soul to man. It has a kind of egocentric reserve. The cat says, ‘You may stroke me and you may serve me,’ but it never becomes your slave. And if you annoy it, it just walks out on you. In women's dreams, therefore, the cat often is an image of something feminine, independent and sure of itself, just what modern women so often lack. That's why the cat goddess comes up in women's dreams as a positive model of feminine behavior. It is not brutal; it does not display any masculine features. It is feminine and, at the same time, very firm, very identical with itself. The cat is not very amiable, but very true to itself.

(The Way of the Dream)

Also, drawing a connection to serial killers and cult leaders; these brutes hate nothing more than independence in those they're trying to control. For centuries, during the middle ages, women were accused of witchcraft and murdered if they showed affection to animals. This same time saw some of the most horrific torture and murder of cats, and a fear and hatred of them. If someone doesn't like cats that's one thing, but if they hate cats, maybe you should GTFO of there.

The anima of the animus

Whenever you have a Bluebeard, you have a witch standing behind him, and whenever you have a witch, you have a Bluebeard. A woman who is possessed by the witch, either in her persona or in her shadow, is the prisoner of the man eating troll or the evil magician, and vice versa.

It's fairly clear if a woman is possessed by the witch because of her aggressive, power-hungry behavior, but if the woman doesn’t normally express the witch (except when she “acts out of character"... but in character for the anima behind the animus), then the witch is her shadow. The man who is possessed by Bluebeard, either in his persona or in his shadow, is the captive of the evil witch. And standing behind the troll or the witch is the witch or the troll. The four characters - passive Kore/evil Witch, ineffectual Son/brutalizing Bluebeard - form a prison. So long as we simply take up one role or another, we do nothing more than send back the other half of the syzygy into the shadows of the unconscious. We remain imprisoned.

The Bluebeard animus is as much a captive of the witch as the woman is of the animus, and vice versa. That’s why women act out the witch; they’re possessed by the power-driven animus. That’s why it’s important for women to admit this about themselves - both when it starts criticizing the woman as well as making nasty judgments about others - and just let it go. But the animus wants to hold onto his grievances and his anger, just as the anima wallows in a man's black mood of self-hatred.

Maybe what Eckhart Tolle says about the pain body applies here; Tolle says the pain body, the thing that tortures us, wants to live, and since it feeds off pain it does everything it can to cause us suffering. Maybe the negative animus (and negative anima) are the similar; the animus feeds off anger, so it’s always finding things to rage about. For men, the anima cuts them down, tells them they will never amount to anything so they might as well give up. It seems as if the negative animus and anima, like Tolle’s pain body, feeds on us to perpetuate its own existence.

Women can escape the Bluebeard animus by agreeing with the animus and then leaving emotionally, just as we often humor and then deflect the Bluebeard men in our outer lives. “Yes, yes, you are absolutely right. Yes, that’s awful. I’m awful. You are absolutely right.” And then leave, let go.

The negative anima is a poisoning witch. If a man’s anima is masculine, he’s leaving to Her to act assertive, and has nothing left for himself. If a woman is aggressive, she’s leaving to the men in her life to live out her inner passivity (the negative of the anima). By refusing to feed the negative anima or animus, we free ourselves to get in touch with our strengths as women and as men. I suspect that we also free our significant others to find their strength, as well.

The Animus can torture a woman, feeding her ruminations and thoughts about failure. To step out of this internal conflict, the best way is to say to the Animus, “Ah, you are right, it is too late, I am a failure, so let’s not speak about it anymore”. This allows the energy to move forward and not to dissipate in the internal conflict and the woman is left alone to try her hand at whatever she is doing anyway.

When the Animus is arguing and criticizing, the right approach to deal with this, is to say to the Animus, “Since you are so opinionated about what is wrong with others, let’s look at my shadow”. These two opposing forces, the shadow and the Animus, results in consciousness. This consciousness allows her to discern what her own ideas and opinions really are, and the difference between her feminine ego and masculine Animus.

Animus Possession: Are you a ball busting bitch?

When the man finds himself lost in ambiguity and at a loss on what to do, he needs to act. The Anima is an expert on implanting doubt. He must step into life to get out of this trap. He needs to act in some way. He must escape the repetitive pattern of getting excited about ideas and then discussing it to death until he is totally uninspired. He needs to develop a disciplined consciousness for solutions and directions. The correct attitude is to accept that it may not work, or that it is possibly not the right thing to do, but taking action anyway. One must take action based on the knowledge and understanding available at that point in time. Overcoming the Anima is through experiencing reality and the unknown, not talking about it.

Anima Possession: Are you a spineless wimp?



Links:

When the Pain-Body Awakens, Eckhart Tolle

The hero sun

The finest of all symbols of the libido is the human figure, conceived as a demon or hero. Here the symbolism leaves the objective, material realm of astral and meteorological images and takes on human form, changing into a figure who passes from joy to sorrow, from sorrow to joy, and, like the sun, now stands high at the zenith and now is plunged into darkest night, only to rise again in new splendor.

The psychic life-force, then libido, symbolizes itself in the sun59 or personifies itself in figures of heroes with solar attributes. At the same time it expresses itself through phallic symbols. Both possibilities are found on a late Babylonia gem from Lajard's collection (fig. 19). In the middle stands an androgynous deity. On the masculine side, there is a snake with a sun halo round its head; on the feminine side another snake with a sickle moon above it. This picture has a symbolic sexual nuance: on the masculine side there is a lozenge, a favourite symbol of the female genitals, and on the feminine side a wheel without its rim. The spokes are thickened at the ends into knobs, which, like the fingers we mentioned earlier, have a phallic meaning. It seems to be a phallic wheel such as was not unknown in antiquity. There are obscene gems on which Cupid is shown turning a wheel consisting entire of phalli60. As to what the sun signifies, I discovered in the collection of antiquities at Verona a late Roman inscription with the following symbols:

The symbolism is plain: sun=phallus, moon = vessel (uterus). The interpretation is confirmed by another monument from the same collection. The symbols are the same, except that the vessel has been replaced by the figure of a woman... From here it is clear that sexuality as well as the sun can be used to symbolize the libido. 

Footnotes:

1. Hence the beautiful name of the sun-hero Gilgamesh, "The Man of Joy and Sorrow," in Jensen, Das Gilgamesch-Epos.

59. Among the elements composing man, the Mithraic liturgy lays particular stress on fire as the divine element, describing it as [Gr. "the divine gift in my composition"]. Dieterich, Mithrasliturgie, p. 58.

60. An illustration of the periodicity or rhythm expressed in sexuality.

- Jung, Aspects of the Masculine, p.3

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.

Speaking of Jung podcast #16: Russ Lockhart, (1:11:40)

Where love rules, there is no will to power, and where power predominates, love is lacking. The one is the shadow of the other.

- Jung, "On the Psychology of the Unconciousness"

The positive mother complex

I'm posting a quote because I wasn't able to finish today's post. Actually, posts - I have three different things I'm working on, and, because each is pulling at me, I'm running from one to the next like a hamster in a wheel. Especially after the last few weeks (and months) of very intense work on the MBTI and house symbolism posts. So here's a quote from one of my favorite writers, Marie Louise von Franz. The topic is actually related to some issues I've been wrestling with; namely, the inferior function and the animus/anima.

Enjoy!

Augustine’s new feeling attitude toward the Christian church stands opposed to the fact that he was first a fanatic opponent of the church. For an intellectual introvert, as he was, it meant a complete about-face. This is his imitatio Christi. After Ambrose’s allegoric instruction the restless pace began, until the inferior function broke through with great emotion; feeling overwhelmed him through its newness. Until then, as we have seen, his feeling had been hidden in the mother; this is typical for a mother’s son, and when feeling is in the keeping of the mother then all other women are present only for a vulgar biological affair. His intellect runs around alone. It is interesting that Augustine’s mother died so quickly after his conversion; had she become superfluous now that his feeling had found a higher mother image – the Ecclesia?

The mother-complex thread runs through the lives of many important men, giving them an inner feminine attitude which leaves them open to the contents of the unconscious. Such a man is a vessel for new ideas; he can follow a spiritual movement. We see from this that the mother complex in itself is nothing abnormal – Dante was guided to Paradise by Beatrice as a mother figure! It means rather an inner structure which can be lived in either a positive or a negative way.

- Marie Louise von Franz, Dreams, p. 9

Glossary: Logos

The psychological function of logic, reason, and discrimination; associated with the masculine, whether in men or in the animus of women. Logos is Yang: the sun, light, fire, air, spirit, practicality, reason, the mind, hard, straight, dividing, and Heaven. The meaningful word, logical decision or judgment, human intellect; divine reason, world reason, God's Word as the force which created the world; revelation. Logos is impersonal and not influenced by feeling; it’s concerned with the search for universal, impersonal truth as opposed to individual, personal relations. As everyone contains contrasexual traits anyone, male or female, can be characterized by logos. The psychological function associated with logos is the thinking function. It's opposite is eros.

Woman’s psychology is founded on the principle of Eros, the great binder and loosener, whereas from ancient times the ruling principle ascribed to man is Logos. The concept of Eros could be expressed in modern terms as psychic relatedness, and that of Logos as objective interest.

- Carl Jung, Aspects of the Feminine, Princeton University Press, 1982, p. 65

There is no consciousness without discrimination of opposites. This is the paternal principle, the Logos, which eternally struggles to extricate itself from the primal warmth and primal darkness of the maternal womb; in a word, from unconsciousness.

- "Psychological Aspects of the Mother Archetype," CW 9i, par. 178

After middle life, however, permanent loss of the anima means a diminution of vitality, of flexibility, and of human kindness. The result, as a rule, is premature rigidity, crustiness, stereotypy, fanatical one-sidedness, obstinancy, pedantry, or else resignation, weariness, sloppiness, irresponsibility, and finally a childish ramollissement with a tendency to alcohol. After middle life, therefore, the connection with the archetypal sphere of experience should if possible be re-established.

- C.G. Jung, "Aspects of the Masculine," p. 136

By Logos I meant discrimination, judgment, insight, and by Eros I meant the capacity to relate. I regarded both concepts as intuitive ideas which cannot be defined accurately or exhaustively. From the scientific point of view this is regrettable, but from a practical one it has its value, since the two concepts mark out a field of experience which it is equally difficult to define.

As we can hardly ever make a psychological proposition without immediately having to reverse it, instances to the contrary leap to the eye at once: men who care nothing for discrimination, judgment, and insight, and women who display an almost excessively masculine proficiency in this respect. . . . Wherever this exists, we find a forcible intrusion of the unconscious, a corresponding exclusion of the consciousness specific to either sex, predominance of the shadow and of contrasexuality.

- “The Personification of the Opposites," CW 14, pars. 224f

The piggish, Trumpian animus

Overeating, bulimia, and other eating disorders are the woman's reaction to the internalized bad father. She wants to nourish herself, feed herself. To give life and love to herself (that's what the kitchen is in the unconscious; the place where nourishment is made by someone's hands, with their love).

This is why so many women have emotional and digestive disorders. The only way for the feminine to fight this aspect of the masculine is to pull away from it, to abandon him, to deprive him of any sustenance. It's why he's so ravenous, so rape-full of everything he desires, like a piggishly greedy spoiled little boy. This is why such men are insatiable in their childish neediness; they get no real nourishment. Like irate babies they fling their food on the floor and scream and throw temper tantrums. What need did they never get fulfilled, that they scour the earth hungrily for anything to stem the tide of hunger that gnaws at their ribs, any sort of satisfaction, even if it’s only temporary (satisfaction that he, of course, denies her.) Not that he consciously denies her (although sometimes he does), it’s more that he neither knows nor cares what she thinks, because he neither knows nor cares what anyone thinks about him. He is one of those ones who deep inside is a retarded, shit covered little child, alone in the center of a vast, empty nothingness. This is why they do what they do. The only possible solution is to create a world in which they never have the ability to hurt others or to cause them any suffering. Maybe they can be reached, maybe they can't. But they should never be free to hurt others with impunity.

It's also why we women tend to love cats and their feminine nature. A cat just wants pleasure, and maybe some affection (ok, lots of affection). To care for a cat, whether in a dream or in your life, is to care for your sensual, affectionate, pleasure-loving femininity. It’s very healing, especially when dealing with the brutal Animus.