Shadow Sides

There are a num­ber of char­ac­ters in all of us. They are usu­ally referred to as “arche­types.” You can watch them being acted out by chil­dren. Boys develop the inner “war­rior” early. Girls gen­er­ally go for the “care­giver” with dolls and stuffed ani­mals. In any movie or novel, you will see depic­tions of the good and bad sides of our var­i­ous inner char­ac­ters. The shadow side of the old wise woman is the witch. The shadow side of the war­rior is the bully. Shadow sides are not inher­ently evil unless they are acted out. Many movies depict the strug­gle between someone’s shadow war­rior (crim­i­nal, tyrant, killer) and the arche­typal hero (James Bond for exam­ple). We like to see evil over­come force­fully — espe­cially obvi­ous evil. The drama helps us pla­cate our own inner shad­ows — and there are many.

Bul­lies and witches are big themes in movies made for chil­dren. Chil­dren know they are vul­ner­a­ble. They know they want to win over such char­ac­ters, but they are more afraid of becom­ing like their adver­saries than over­com­ing them (inno­cence still reigns supreme in chil­dren). Jesus gave stern warn­ings about offend­ing the young (even con­sid­er­ing it the ulti­mate offense for keep­ing them away from belief in him). As I spir­i­tu­ally mature, I come to see life through the eyes of chil­dren more and more. What is it about a small child’s behav­ior that brings out the bully or the witch in a “mature” adult? Why does soci­ety put up with such abuse? Have you ever wanted to call the police on some­one ver­bally or phys­i­cally hurt­ing a child? Is there some­thing in our own shadow that keeps us from doing so? Why does soci­ety work so hard to ham­mer chil­dren into insti­tu­tional molds (then won­der what­ever hap­pened to their bright lit­tle faces and trust­ing attitudes)?

Evil gets acted out on grand scales — wars, ter­ror­ism, face­less social forces that hurt by pol­icy — care­ful to hide the names of peo­ple mak­ing such poli­cies. Could we call Orwell back from the grave to explain his pre­dic­tions more fully? “Lesser” evils hide beyond the head­lines. They are the every­day actions taken by the uncon­scious to hurt chil­dren and other inno­cent or more vul­ner­a­ble peo­ple (our aged, our truly poor, or our men­tally and phys­i­cally ill). For some strange rea­son, I am notic­ing the home­less beneath the neon signs more than before. Soci­eties have shad­ows just as indi­vid­u­als do. What we reject is what we fear most about our­selves — that “those” shad­ows are actu­ally our own shadows.

Dis­ci­pline is not abuse. To dis­ci­pline is to teach. It is a kind set­ting of appro­pri­ate bound­aries. The bully or the witch is in the tone more than the action. Lis­ten care­fully. Shad­ows make com­mon sounds.