In Babylonia myth, the flood represents chaos and it’s representative (Tiamat) is engaged in cosmic war with Marduk (the representative of order) The flood is both a source of great fear and a source of profound hope. In the real word of Babylonia, the flood was both feared and welcomed, for the yearly flooding of the Tigress and Euphrates rivers was needed to replenish the crops. Jungians relish this compelling polarity. At the deeper psychic level there is profound fear: “my god, there will be nothing but chaos if [something] occurs.” Migrants will flood across the border. Democracy will be overcome and crushed by an attack from [the right/the left wing].“ There is also profound hope and attraction: “my god, I/we need this change! We will clean out the corruption. They will all be tossed out of office and thrown in jail. Every one of them.!” The January 6, 2021 insurrection was an actual exhibition of the flood. It has been viewed positively by some people and negatively by others. Thus, we find the appeal of an authoritarian perspective in both mythic Jungian narrative and in the real events that are being enacted in our polarized world. The enemy (Tiamat) threatens chaos. This enemy is an imminent threat. This is of great concern and requires our diligent attention. In response, we must find and ally with a powerful warrior and authority figure (such as Marduk) who will restore order.
Another way in which to view authoritarian perspectives as related to internal psychological processes, comes to us from the psychanalysts operating out of the Tavistock Institute in London. Led by Melanie Klein (among many others), the Tavistock analysts write about the Splitting function that occurs in childhood, when we must grapple with the inevitably inconsistent behavior of our parenting (“mothering’) figure. We handle this inconsistency as a child by splitting the mothering figure into two intra-psychic representations (“objects”) There is the “good mother” and the “bad mother.”
While we hopefully grow out of this bifurcated imagery of our main parenting figure as we grow older, there is still the tendency to do some intra-psychic splitting when we are under stress as adults or when we are confronting a powerful authoritative figure or institution (“resembling” our parenting figure). We split off “good authorities” and “good experts” from “bad authorities” and “evil or incompetent experts.” The Babylonian wars between Marduk and Tiamat rage inside our own psyche. This is particularly the case with those who see the world through authoritarian lenses. For them, the splitting is pronounced—and the war is rigidly waged forever. The chaos to be found within the authoritarian’s psyche includes many contradictions–for some “bad” people do good things and “good people do bad things.
These contradictions are addressed by further splitting, further distortion and the isolation of psychic objects from one another. These internal defensive maneuvers are amplified—and the psychic war is escalated by the profound and pervasive anxiety that is swirling through the authoritarian’s head and heart. In an attempt to divest themselves of these internal sources of chaos, the authoritarian will project the competing and contradictory objects outward. With this projection in place, the authoritarian will view their world as a menacing setting in which very few people can be trusted –hence the abundance of lies and conspiracies. The internal wars are now being played out in the authoritarian’s external world. The splitting is now between those who hold similar (perhaps even identical) beliefs and those who hold contradictory beliefs (often because they are “not like us.”) The “object relations” psychanalysts of Tavistock do indeed have much to say about the psychological dynamics of authoritarianism.
