Author Archives: shmoover

We can risk psychoanalyzing the mega-wealthy. I think that on one level they really do hate themselves deeply. On another, they desperately desire renewal. And on still another level they are completely constrained by their literal thinking, their inability to … Continue reading →

The third archetype we need to discuss is that of the Apocalypse.  It is critical to this enquiry about rage in American life to remember that the myth of American innocence began to take form while Puritanism was still dominating … Continue reading →

The racist, misogynist, rage-filled, working-class white male has long seen himself as embodying the American Hero narrative. But that hero is the toxic mimic of another, more mature archetypal figure. Jungians Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette envision a four-part masculine … Continue reading →

Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me. They possess and enjoy early, and it does something to them, makes them soft where we are hard, and cynical where we are trustful, in … Continue reading →

In countless Hollywood versions of the “good war,” the American Hero, dedicated to his democratic ideals, dies fighting to the last man.  Isn’t he always the last one to die – just as one of his mirror opposites, the evil … Continue reading →

The love of violence is so fundamental to the American psyche that we can easily trace it all the way back to the beginning. In 1636, a generation after landing in the New World and the same year that they … Continue reading →

Who are the angry white males? Sociologists tell us that the populations from which most reactionary activism arises are those who think they may be overtaken economically by groups below them in social class. Groups like the Ku Klux Klan … Continue reading →