The Monarch archetype
I was preparing for my presentation at the Watertown Arts Center, and set myself to find some images on the web that would illustrate the archetypes easily. This provided opportunities for thought, since photographs are taken from life and so reflect particular human situations first and any archetypal content second. So this was an altogether interesting challenge.
In the case of the Monarch it was easy to find pictures of royal pairs, all of whom looked so much more dignified than one had any right to expect. And to contrast them with the Homecoming Kings and Queens of various colleges was… thought provoking. Then there was the image of Elvis ‘the King’ and ‘Duke’ Ellington to make me smile at our need to elect royalty.
Most interesting, though, was the series of pictures of tyrants that popped up: Hitler, Hirohito, Mussolini, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot. These figures never appeared with any consort. In fact most of them had no wife in evidence at all, although historically there were mistresses aplenty lurking in the shadowy background. The point jumped out at me. The King without the moderating and civilizing influence of the feminine principle, without a queen who is held in esteem and therefore appears beside the king - such a king becomes merely a tyrant of the most brutal kind. The male energy cut off from female moderating compassion leads to destruction only.
It’s there in our culture, in all those pictures of male leaders without women.
We need the balance in our world, and we need it now. Think of that when you vote.
on January 31st, 2008 at 4:46 am
Does your analogy hold for female leaders? Elizabeth I came to mind. Golda Meir. Wangari Maathai. Shirley Chisholm, our nation’s first African American Congresswoman who unsuccessfully sought the Democatric nomination back in 1972.
Gender and tyranny.
Food for thought.
MLou
on January 31st, 2008 at 2:18 pm
Good point - and yet we have to look at the specifics in each case. Most of these women were working in a man’s world, so there was a chance for them to balance out the polarized energies. Elizabeth I was a tough cookie, but she refused to be someone’s wife, she refused to be the quiet queen, and she tried awfully hard to bring peace and stability to England. Golda Meir was probably the only person who could have held Isreal together at that point in its history - and she did, aiming for peace. And so on.
In none of these cases do we have anything close to a dictator of the Hitler/Stalin type. Not even close.
Perhaps the female energy simply does not become tyrannical in the same way as the male energy. I can’t think of any examples more sinister than Catherine the Great….
Allan