What follows is a brief summary of how the psychology of C G Jung can be used to analyse the events surrounding 11 September 2001.
We need to consider that the psyche is real because in Jung's view all psychic activity contributes to the collective situation of humanity. We ignore the psyche at our own peril because what we “imagine” can become reality, In Jung's view all events occur first as things we “imagine”, that is, they are psychic realities first.
The fact that America (Hollywood) and the Western world in general has been imagining events such as those of 11 September for around 3 decades cannot be dismissed as coincidental to their actual occurrence. In films, television and even comic strips such attacks as those which occurred on 11 September 2001 have been imaged by the western imagination for decades. It must be wondered whether the imagining of those attacks really originated first in the psyches of those attacked rather those of the attackers. It is a challenging question.
All individuals and groups within society are connected through their common “inheritance” of archetypal factors which make up the collective unconscious. The notion of “polarity” or opposites is archetypal, or inherent in human life (and Nature), but we live it out according to the way we “imagine”, as in point 1. Each society and culture brings its own particular character to the archetypes, colouring them dark or light and weighting them according to cultural values.
Both the US/Western Alliance and the Muslim fundamentalists have imagined these polarities as taking the form of an evil enemy with whom they must do battle for the survival of what they see as civilisation.
In the west the martyr and hero archetypes are separated and Christ the redeemer/martyr is not directly conflated with the hero who fights an outer battle with the enemy. He is the "Lamb of God" not the warrior.
In the more fundamentalist aspect of Muslim faith the martyr and hero archetypes are conflated into one and he who dies fighting for his faith in battle is the heroic martyr who goes directly to paradise.
Not only individuals but groups can have complexes or emotionally loaded psychic structures around which expectations of experience adhere and via which projections arise. Projection is the mechanism via which we see in others things which have not yet become conscious as part of our own make-up.
In the case of both the US and Muslim fundamentalists there is evidence of a “Holier Than Thou” or "We Know the Truth" complex at work. Anyone who feels holier than someone else, or that they have discover "The Truth", usually also feels that they have right to instruct others as to how it would be better for them to be. This is an inflated state in which self examination is avoided by looking at others and seeing their "shortcomings". However such people often also suffer from fears of being accused of being less perfect than they are and of being envied their status of holiness. Hence the need to emphasise their own righteousness and the idea of an enemy who will attack them out of envy and desire to put them down because they are so righteous.
The way I see myself and expect to be seen and therefore its opposite about which I am relatively blind when it comes to my self image are the Persona and Shadow. “ Why do you concern yourself with the mote in your brother's eye when you cannot see the plank in your own?” is the biblical expression of this psychological truth. So, as above, if one feels “Holy” any unholiness will be in the shadow and projected on the enemy without who is expected to want to attack one in some way out of fear or envy.
The Americans feel “holy” in their view of themselves as upholding the high values of freedom, democracy and the economic wealth of which they see people in poor Muslim countries as being envious. They find it difficult to look at the shadow within such as mass killings, by children and others, the treatment of disaffected people of by the state, and the greed and materialism which seem to rule their hearts and minds and leave a massive proportion of their own population living in relative poverty.
The Muslim fundamentalists see themselves as upholding religious purity and traditional values and see the Americans/West as peddling impure and ungodly values which threaten their way of life. They find it difficult to look at the shadow within such as the treatment of women and religious dissidents within their own societies. An interesting footnote to this is the idea that martyrs who die in the Jihad will have as many virgins as they wish in paradise.
The self observing consciousness of the mature ego arises when the tension between Persona and Shadow is held in awareness and not allowed to just divide one into “I” and “not I”. Eventually this gives rise to the awareness of a higher self, or higher power (in Twelve Step terms) which Jung terms the Self. This is the indwelling image of the archetype of wholeness or “GOD/GODDESS”, a reality outside humanly defined systems of belief either religious or secular.
The Self is imaged and experienced via the highest principles of a culture, usually through its mythology/religion or in secular culture through that which is mythologised even when not acknowledged as carrying symbolic meaning; eg. Scientific materialism or political ideals.
The Americans in part mythologise their political system itself and the Presidency carries projections of the Self. Various belief systems which constitute the basis of that system are hypostasised as absolute values to which no question can be raised.
The Muslim fundamentalists see the tenets of their religious dogma as expressions of the Self/God as experienced and codified by His prophet.
President and Prophet become like projections of the mature ego in alignment with the Self and in times of threat or crises become unquestionable carriers of collective truth. People who dare to question these carriers of the projection of the Self are vilified and even terrorised. For example the female senator in the USA who voted against giving an unrestricted go ahead to George W Bush in his so called "War Against Terror" has received numerous death threats. And Sufis in Afghanistan who do not accept the literalistic dictates of the Taliban Mullahs were persecuted as betrayer of Islam.
Notions of Good and Evil arise when the natural interplay of Yin and Yang elements with human life are not acknowledged as both being valid experiences and expressions of the “Nature of Things”. Jung saw opposition as inherent in the nature of life and only giving rise to problems when individuals and therefore groups are unwilling to experience these opposites directly as within themselves. For him Good and Evil are part of the human experience and real as psychological experiences but not to be given the character of inherent natural forces
For either George Bush or Osama Bin Laden to characterise each other or the groups to which they belong as “Evil” arises from a refusal to face the shadow within their own lives and societies referred to in Point 4. It gives pause for thought to consider that George Bush has referred to Osama Bin Laden as not having a soul. Use of the term “Evil”, about a person or group rather than their actions, indicates the refusal to acknowledge one's own need to be inwardly divided so as to understand the shadow and be able to find healing from within. Only then is the necessary detachment available which allows one to be able to offer not a “holier than thou” judgment of others but true understanding and compassion. Only then can one speak with the enemy as ones brother or as Nelson Mandela did and Yitshak Rabin started to do.