JOSEPH GELFER

In Numen, Old Men I have a good poke at those forms of men’s movement that claim to draw inspiration from Jung. These movements are called by numerous critics “neo-Jungian”: the “neo” suggesting they flirt with some Jungian themes rather than pursuing any Jungian orthodoxy (for example, Jungian scholar David Tacey charged the movement with “conservative and simplistic appropriation of Jungian theory”). Furthermore, I don’t much like Jungian orthodoxy.

About six months ago we saw the publication for the first time of Jung’s Red Book. Jung spent 16 years on this book, but for a variety of reasons never published it. The Red Book is basically an illuminated manuscript charting the topography of Jung’s interiority. It contains numerous visionary dreams and experiences which were later distilled in a more scholarly fashion in his published writing. The book’s editor, Sonu Shamdasani, claims The Red Book is “nothing less than the central book in his [Jung’s] oeuvre”, and that his other work cannot really be understood without reading this in tandem.

Following the way Jung is mobilised in the men’s movement we would expect to see plenty of material in The Red Book about masculine archetypes, and how these are unavoidable in the male psyche. We would also expect to read of complementarity: of both natural gender roles, and of the gendered aspects of the soul (anima and animus). We certainly read plenty about complementarity, but almost nothing about archetypes. There are only two relatively short passages which speak to these issues: one in “Liber Secundus”, the other in “Scrutinies”.

Specifically, quite early in the section “Liber Secundus”, Jung refers to “completeness” in both men and women: men, for example, must seek the feminine more in themselves rather than in women. This would resonate quite clearly with men’s movement literature. Gender wholism is also referenced when Jung states, “humankind is masculine and feminine, not just man or woman. You can hardly say of your soul what sex it is”. Indeed, Jung aspires to be free from gender: “This is the most difficult thing-to be beyond the gendered and yet remain within the human”.

However, Jung goes on to outline some problems in masculine performances, claiming men tend not to engage the task of identifying with the feminine within: “It pleases you, however, to play at manliness, because it travels on a well-worn track”. This suggests a critique of normative masculinity, as does his comment of “man despises you [woman] because he despises his femininity”, which speaks to both an awareness of misogyny and homophobia. Jung speaks either to the limitations of normative masculinity, or his own problematic issues about femininity when he claims, “It is bitter for the most masculine man to accept his femininity; since it appears ridiculous to him, powerless and tawdry”. Again, is Jung asserting a queer challenge to masculine normativity or his misogyny when he states, “It is good for you once to put on women’s clothes: people will laugh at you, but through becoming a woman you attain freedom from women and their tyranny”? The jury remains out.

Later, in the section “Scrutinies”, Jung speaks to issues of sexuality and spirituality, which is framed by various forms of binary thinking, of sexuality/spirituality and men/women: “Spirituality conceives and embraces. It is womanlike and therefore we call it MATER COELESTIS, the celestial mother. Sexuality engenders and creates. It is manlike, and therefore we call it PHALLOS, the earthly father. The sexuality of man is more earthly, that of woman is more spiritual”. This, and other comments in this section, reinforce tired false distinctions: the separation of sex and spirit, the assigning of particular roles to men and women (although it complicates the common assumption that the feminine is earthly and the masculine transcendent). This strategy has a long history of confining men and women to the roles they are given rather than those they choose. Indeed, Jung is very explicit about maintaining such distinctions: “Man and woman become devils to each other if they do not separate their spiritual ways, for the essence of creation is differentiation”. Furthermore, should anyone question the construction of such boundaries, Jung states, “no man has a spirituality unto himself or a sexuality unto himself. Instead, he stands under the law of spirituality and of sexuality”, and that in the end all we can do is be subject to these spiritual-sexual “daimons”. Doesn’t sound very empowering, does it?

In short, the themes of sex and gender in Jung’s Red Book offer significantly more nuance than anything found in men’s movement literature, but they are still bound up in a worldview which seeks to impose a structure upon spirituality and sexuality which is neither natural nor necessary.

Source Text

It flirts somewhat with the boundaries of fair use, but I include the source text below, as The Red Book is too expensive for the regular reader to access.

Jung, Carl. (2009). The Red Book (Sonu Shamdasani, ed.). New York: W. W. Norton.

From “Liber Secundus”:

What about masculinity? Do you know how much femininity man lacks for completeness? Do you know how much masculinity woman lacks for completeness? You seek the feminine in women and the masculine in men. And thus there are always only men and women. But where are people? You, man, should not seek the feminine in women, but seek and recognize it in yourself as you possess it from the beginning. It pleases you, however, to play at manliness, because it travels on a well-worn track. You, woman, should not seek the masculine in men, but assume the masculine in yourself since you possess it from the beginning. But it amuses you and is easy to play at femininity; consequently man despises you because he despises his femininity. But humankind is masculine and feminine, not just man or woman. You can hardly say of your soul what sex it is. But if you pay close attention, you will see that the most masculine man has a feminine soul, and the most feminine woman has a masculine soul. The more manly you are, the more remote from you is what woman really is, since the feminine in yourself is alien and contemptuous.

If you take a piece of joy from the devil and set off on adventures with it, you accept your pleasure. But pleasure immediately attracts everything you desire, and then you must decide whether your pleasure spoils or enhances you. If you are of the devil, you will grope in blind desire after the manifold, and it will lead you astray. But if you remain with yourself as a man who is himself and not of the devil, then you will remember your humanity. You will not behave toward women per se as a man, but as a human being, that is to say; as if you were of the same sex as her. You will recall your femininity. It may seem to you then as if you were unmanly; stupid, and feminine so to speak. But you must accept the ridiculous, otherwise you will suffer distress, and there will come a time, when you are least observant, when it will suddenly round on you and make you ridiculous. It is bitter for the most masculine man to accept his femininity; since it appears ridiculous to him, powerless and tawdry.

Yes, it seems as if you have lost all virtue, as if you have fallen into debasement. It seems the same way to the woman who accepts her masculinity. Yes, it seems to you like enslavement. You are a slave of what you need in your soul. The most masculine man needs women, and he is consequently their slave. Become a woman yourself and you will be saved from slavery to woman. You are abandoned without mercy to woman so long as you cannot fend off mockery with all your masculinity. It is good for you once to put on women’s clothes: people will laugh at you, but through becoming a woman you attain freedom from women and their tyranny. The acceptance of femininity leads to completion. The same is valid for the woman who accepts her masculinity.

The feminine in men is bound up with evil. I find it on the way of desire. The masculine in the woman is bound up with evil. Therefore people hate to accept their own other. But if you accept it, that which is connected with the perfection of men comes to pass: namely; that when you become the one who is mocked, the white bird of the soul comes flying. It was far away; but your humiliation attracted it. The mystery draws near to you, and things happen around you like miracles. (pp. 263-4)

…

Therefore, because I rise above gendered masculinity and yet do not exceed the human, the feminine that is contemptible to me transforms itself into a meaningful being. This is the most difficult thing-to be beyond the gendered and yet remain within the human. (p. 264)

From “Scrutinies”:

But ΦΙΛΗΜΩΝ stepped before them, and began to speak: (and this is the fifth sermon to the dead):

“The world of the Gods is made manifest in spirituality and in sexuality. The celestial ones appear in spirituality, the earthly in sexuality.

“Spirituality conceives and embraces. It is womanlike and therefore we call it MATER COELESTIS, the celestial mother. Sexuality engenders and creates. It is manlike, and therefore we call it PHALLOS, the earthly father. The sexuality of man is more earthly, that of woman is more spiritual. The spirituality of man is more heavenly, it moves toward the greater.

“The spirituality of woman is more earthly, it moves toward the smaller.

“Mendacious and devilish is the spirituality of man, and it moves toward the smaller.

“Mendacious and devilish is the spirituality of woman, and it moves toward the greater.

“Each shall go to its own place.

“Man and woman become devils to each other if they do not separate their spiritual ways, for the essence of creation is differentiation.

“The sexuality of man goes toward the earthly, the sexuality of woman goes toward the spiritual. Man and woman become devils to each other if they do not distinguish their sexuality.

“Man shall know the smaller, woman the greater.

“Man shall differentiate himself both from spirituality and sexuality. He shall call spirituality mother, and set her between Heaven and earth. He shall call sexuality Phallos, and set him between himself and earth. For the mother and the Phallos are superhuman daimons that reveal the world of the Gods. They affect us more than the Gods since they are closely akin to our essence. If you do not differentiate yourselves from sexuality and from spirituality, and do not regard them as an essence both above and beyond you, you are delivered over to them as qualities of the Pleroma. Spirituality and sexuality are not your qualities, not things you possess and encompass. Rather, they possess and encompass you, since they are powerful daimons, manifestations of the Gods, and hence reach beyond you, existing in themselves. No man has a spirituality unto himself or a sexuality unto himself. Instead, he stands under the law of spirituality and of sexuality. Therefore no one escapes these daimons. You shall look upon them as daimons, and as a common task and danger, a common burden that life has laid upon you. (p. 352)

Always nice to get a bit of advance attention for a book … my anthology 2012: Decoding the Countercultural Apocalypse gets a mention in the story CCSU professor to enlist geological community in combating 2012 myths on Examiner.com:

Larsen feels there is good reason to worry about the pervasiveness of these unfounded beliefs. In an essay for a book titled 2012: Decoding the Countercultural Apocalypse (to be released in September), she points out that doomsday fables have led to hysteria and even death on numerous occasions.

Kristine Larsen, the physics professor in question, contributed an excellent chapter to the book, “Chichén Itzá and Chicken Little: How Pseudosciences Embraced 2012,” conveying some quite serious science in everyday language. My favorite line from her chapter, in reference to the 2012 movie:

While some geologic phenomena were grossly exaggerated in the film, the supposed supereruption of the Yellowstone Caldera was closer to reality (if one ignores the ability of a Winnebago to outrun a pyroclastic flow).

I’m not one for reposting articles about masculinity, largely because it’s rare to find one worth reposting. However, a recent article in the Daily Mail (!) by Tom Mitchelson is an exception, My (very) weird weekend with the naked woodland warriors who travel to remote England to ‘reclaim their masculinity’. Mitchelson goes undercover at the Mankind Project, on one of their Warrior Training Weekends, the like of which I’ve critiqued in the past. Now you could be forgiven for not taking an article seriously by a young author photographed like this:

However, some of the highlights from the article include the following quotes:

• It’s all rather bizarre, as they begin a strange game where I am asked to walk up to a man who stares at me, with black camouflage paint on his face. The process is repeated again, and again.
• They seem to have a paranoid fear of anything getting out. This, I suppose, should have set even more alarm bells ringing.
• I seem to have wondered into a Marx Brothers film, but without the laughs.
• He tells us how to be a man. It’s hard to take from a man wearing face paint, carrying a feathered stick.
• We are asked to describe how we fail to stand up to women. ‘They’re always getting at you to put the seat down on the loo,’ one of the staff men explains by way of example.
• Some of the staff are very skilled at reading visual signs of hidden emotion. At times, three inquisitors demand the answers to questions that eventually leave a man weeping and apparently broken.
• If these staff men have any professional training, I am unaware of it.
• They talk of regressing me. I don’t know if these amateur psychiatrists could achieve that or not, but they opt for getting me to wrench the guilt from my stomach by wrestling a rope up through my legs being held by four men.
• The cult-like intensity with which some of my fellow warriors converted to the brotherhood astonished me.
• This was an organisation that aimed to tell me how to be a man. Yet not once during that weird and frightening weekend did I ever hear it acknowledged that we men share a world. With women.

Mitchelson’s tragicomic tone in this article is an insightful reflection of this type of men’s movement.

Two things happened in my email this morning that lead me to let you know about a new article of mine coming later in the year called A River Runs through It: Queer Theory and Fatherhood. First, a narcissistically-sourced Google alert told me that Redeyedtreefrog, a commenter on the blog Feminist Philosophers, highlighted the article as sounding interesting, which is not bad for something that has yet to be published. Second, I received the copy edit of the article from the copy editor. The article will appear in the anthology Papa, PhD: Essays on Fatherhood by Men in the Academy, edited by Mary Ruth Marotte, Paige Martin Reynolds and Ralph James Savarese, and published by Rutgers University Press. Description:

A River Runs through It: Queer Theory and Fatherhood

Queer theory is not just about the experiences of gay and lesbian people, but about troubling categories. We can queer almost anything, including fatherhood. This essay casts an autoethnographic glance at my attempts to combine queer theory, masculine identity and fatherhood. I show how my masculine identity, which has historically accommodated a wide array of performances which resist normative masculinity, is challenged for the first time by the idea of suckling my son. I frame this anxiety by a broader consideration of the effects that being a masculinities researcher have on fatherhood (the application of theory, comparisons to the body of literature) and how this process can prove problematic for the practice of fatherhood. I then go on to draw comparisons between the task of fatherhood and the production of academic research: the hours invested, the letting loose into the world, the identity and momentum gathered outside my direct control. I conclude by likening academic work to a bridge across a river: one side of the bank representing the default way of doing fatherhood, the other side promising brighter, more informed possibilities. The bridge enables us to reach the far side of the river, but ultimately we have to leave it behind to continue the paternal journey.

Of course, the book contains a whole bunch of other male liberal do-gooders:

Gaining a daughter: a father’s transgendered tale / Lennard J. Davis. Gifts from the sea / David G. Campbell. The luck of the Irish / F.D. Reeve. Shifting the tectonic plates of academia / Jerald Walker. Hair-raising experiences / John W. Wells. On writing and rearing / David Blake. How to do things with words / Ira L. Strauber. On fecundity, fidelity, and expectation: reflections on philosophy and fatherhood / J. Aaron Simmons. Sheathing the sword / Gregory Orfalea. Weighed but found wanting: ten years of being measured and divided / Robert Mayer. Vespers, matins, and lauds: the life of a liberal arts college professor / Ralph James Savarese. How white was my prairie / Mark Montgomery. Meniscus / Robert Gray. Once was lost / John Bryant. Shared attention: hearing Cameron’s voice / Mark Osteen. Accidental academic, deliberate dad / Kevin G. Barnhurst. Late fatherhood among the Baptists / Andrew Hazucha. Being a dad, studying fathers: personal reflections / William Marsiglio. Single dad in academia: fatherhood and the redemption of scholarship / Eric H. du Plessis. Superheroes / Stanford W. Carpenter. Maybe it is just math: fatherhood and disease in academia / Jason Thompson. Dreaming of direction: reconciling fatherhood and ambition / Mike Augsperger. Making a home for family and scholarship / Ting Man Tsao. Change is here, but we need to talk about it: reflections on black fatherhood in the academy / Jeffrey B. Leak. Vocabularies and their subversion: a reminiscence / John Domini. Balancing diapers and a doctorate: the adventures of a single dad in grad school / Charles Bane. It’s a chapter-book, huh: teaching, writing, and early fatherhood / Alex Vernon. Pitcher this: an academic dad’s award-winning attempt to be in two places at once / Colin Irvine. Odd quirks / Christopher Gabbard.

If you’re in Melbourne, feel free to come along to a talk I’m giving next week at Sea of Faith:

Undoing Christian Masculinities

18 March 2010 at 7.30pm

Carlton Library Meeting Room

Corner Rathdowne and Newry Streets

North Carlton

I’ll be talking about the different kinds of masculinities that can be identified within the broad Christian Men’s Movement: specifically, how evangelical men’s ministries promote a traditional masculinity, whereas their Catholic counterparts promote a somewhat “softer” masculinity.

Please, bring your questions. After someone from my 2012 talk at the Atheist Society this week called me a “parasite”, I’m ready for anything

A little while ago, I was contacted by Sarah Nicholson who is editing a book with Vanessa Fisher called Integral Explorations of Sex, Gender and Spirituality: Emerging Visions of Women and Men, under preparation for the new SUNY Press’ Integral Theory series. The blurb states:

This anthology highlights the cutting edge discourses on sex, gender and spirituality that are emerging from within the Integral paradigm of theory and practice. This collection of essays from academic theorists and advanced practitioners brings the Integral perspective to bear on issues of gender, sexuality, feminism, the men’s movement and women and men’s spirituality, as they appear within disciplines as diverse as psychology, sociology, philosophy, religious studies and art theory. This anthology will feature a broad range of scholars and practitioners working across a diverse field of disciplines including: Ken Wilber, Elizabeth Debold, Robert Masters, Warren Farrell, Sarah Nicholson, Giles Herrada, R. Michael Fisher, Claire Zammit, Luke Fullagar, Vanessa Fisher, Diane Musho Hamilton and Marc Gafni.

Sarah wanted to know if I was interested in contributing to the book, to which I said something along the lines of “have you actually read any of my stuff?” Anyway, after a period of time which equates quite closely with how long it takes to find a copy of my modestly-distributed book in Australia, Sarah got back to me and repeated her question. So now we have settled upon the inclusion of an edit (minus some of the naughtier bits) of my integral chapter from Numen, Old Men in Sarah and Vanessa’s book.

Now, given that I’ve had a bit of a poke at a few of the other contributors in this book, lining up with them on the same Table of Contents seems a bit unlikely. But credit is due to Sarah and Vanessa: this is exactly the type of editorial decision that moves the debate along. It seems there are now a number of folks who want to pursue this debate (see my previous post on Rebecca Bailin’s paper): at some point this should affect the Integral Party line which hasn’t budged since the limited perspectives outlined in Sex, Ecology and Spirituality.

“Men Were Created to Work”: this is the headline of the new ad for men’s ministry guru Patrick Morley’s new book, A Man’s Guide to Work. “We feel most happy, most alive, and most useful doing the work we were supposed to do”, the blurb states.

This continues a long connection between men’s ministry, business and work. Particularly within evangelical ministries, work is used as a signifier for masculinity and, following the prosperity gospel, the pursuit and receipt of wealth through work is seen as a sign of God’s favour. As William Connolly amusingly puts it, “the right leg of the evangelical movement is joined at the hip to the left leg of the capitalist juggernaut. Neither leg could hop far unless it was joined to the other”.

Men’s ministry leaders often flaunt their business pedigree to confirm their ministry leadership and masculinity. Indeed, ministry leadership is often spoken of using business terminology. For example, Patrick Morley is described as ‘Chairman and CEO’ of Man in the Mirror and his biographical details refer to his past business success. And now Morley’s new book makes this connection between Christian masculinity and work even stronger.

There are problems with this from two different directions.

First, too many men are already dissociated from their interiority: the last thing they need to do is to start constructing their masculine identities around yet another external variable such as work. The seemingly endless pursuit of work is one of the things which results in a pathological masculinity.

Second, it is part of the continuing co-opting of the spiritual into the economic domain, demanding that we employ that last part of the world that belongs to us (the spiritual) in the office 9-5. The end game here (usually engineered in the management realm) speaks more to the priority of work than us as individuals. As Jeremy Carrette and Richard King say in their excellent book $elling Spirituality, “What is being sold to us as radical, trendy and transformative spirituality in fact produces little in the way of a significant change in one’s lifestyle or fundamental behaviour patterns (with the possible exception of motivating the individual to be more efficient and productive at work)”.

No thanks, Patrick.

Some years back, when discussing how the study of men and masculinities was divided up, Jeff Hearn and Keith Pringle put critical studies of masculinities in opposition to men’s studies, which they perceived engaged in “much more ambiguous and sometimes even anti-feminist activities … which can become defined in a much less critical way as ‘by men, on men, for men’”. I have always resisted this binary, because while my political allegiances have rested with critical studies of masculinities, men’s studies has been more accommodating to the study of masculinities and religion, and also I simply know plenty of people engaged in what they describe as “men’s studies” who are very clear in their political/feminist stance.

However, a new subset of this broad area of enquiry is far less ambiguous: Males Studies, describing itself as “a new academic discipline” has its inaugural symposium on April 7. A lengthy article by Miles Groth on Men’s News Daily outlines how he sees the discipline shaping up. It really is the most bizarre article, in which Groth states that gender studies (both women’s and men’s) is a made-up area of enquiry, and that only a biologically-determined category (“male”) can genuinely be studied. We read other gems such as:

Gender reconciliation is not an issue of male studies. It would be as silly an idea as expecting zoology to bring about peace between panthers and gazelles. Gender difference is one of the inventions of women’s studies to provide it with one of its basic themes. Another of its inventions is the notion of gender equality (on the presumption of there being gender inequality).

Groth scoffs at those who study this fantasy-subject, stating of them, “not everyone with a PhD and a university post is a scholar. In fact, sadly, today most academics are not scholars,” suggesting that via his discipline of male studies we are getting the real academic deal. Let there be no mistake: if researchers of male studies walk into any vaguely orthodox gathering of academics and start arguing this case they will be laughed out of the room. And this is not because there is some liberal conspiracy in the academy seeking to oppress the study of males (as the followers of male studies might suggest), but because holding this position is like being a member of the Flat Earth Society: by all means, hold the position, but don’t expect to be taken seriously (by anyone, at least, other than men’s rights activists, which is ironic, as Groth states of gender studies that “as interests of social activists and reformers, it may have a kind of life. But it cannot be a discipline”).

But let’s not get too comfortable either in the critical studies of masculinities camp. In the latest issue of Journal if Men’s Studies we read Michael Murphy’s “An Open Letter to the Organizers, Presenters and Attendees of the First National Conference for Campus Based Men’s Gender Equality and Anti-Violence Groups” where he and his colleagues found at this event a certain reluctance to hear the concerns regarding violence against gay and trans-folk.

Where’s a decent fellow to go amid all this compromising of values in the study of men and masculinities? Over to Journal of Men, Masculinities and Spirituality, of course

If you’re in Melbourne, feel free to come along next week to a talk I’m giving at The Atheist Society.

A Critical Look at the 2012 Phenomenon

Tuesday 09 March 2010 at 8:00pm

Unitarian Church Hall

110 Grey Street

East Melbourne (Opposite the old Mercy Hospital)

I’ll be giving an overview of 2012, an outline of some of the key players in the movement, and my own “prophetic” take on how 2012 is going to play out in Australia and New Zealand. All viewed through a suitably critical lens, of course (especially as Melbourne will be on FULL DEBUNKING ALERT with the 2010 Global Atheist Convention in town just a couple of days later).