Spiritual Forum

Western cultural socialization is deeply connected to roots of the West, and the long trail of historical events and influence does not appear without traces.

Every history has influences in the souls of humans. Even without not knowing how and to which degree. Humans are creatures of space, time and manyfold traces.

Western thinking developed of Aristotelian thinking and christian ethics. And this makes it a little difficult encountering for instance Quran thinking. While christian scholars took Aristotelian glasses in looking upon God and World, islamic scholars used Aristotle´s style in looking upon God and His Word alone. Christian thinkers saw in the World a place getting culturized related to divine revelations as they saw it. They wanted to pull God`s revelations into this World. Islamic thinkers saw also relations to divine revelations, but did the opposite: they wanted to pull the World into God`s revelation of theocracy.

Both ways are strong answers on how to deal with the experience of God in this World. And while christian thinkers included criticism and philosophical thinking apart from divine revelations, islamic thinkers did not leave the path of connecting all in this world to divine revelations.

We all know the history. While Islam pushed the West in the early middle age (amazing, how advanced math, medicine, philosophy, architecture, canalisation of cities etc. were!) to get a stand, nowadays advanced thinkers live in the West - see for instance the number of Nobel prize winners, the number of books being translated each year, the number of technological patents. The West has become leading in science, technology and logistics.

Islamic cultures on the other hand could not be silent on that. The West as Capitalism and Colonialism was not a shy mammal, but a hungry wolf thus threatening so called "undeveloped and primitive beings" (an english notion from the beginning of 20th century; in Australia at this time it was still allowed to hunt Aborigines like animals). The rise of islamic power was the exact answer toward the arrogance of the West. The old trauma of being a human appeared in manyfold ways. The West had not only created the ghost of communism, but the rage of islam. And we are amidst a thing nobody knows exactly.

Now rage is a basic human ability and sometimes a need, and the western way has revealed a big hole within it`s heart - western people have never learned to deal with rage. Instead, their christian heritage led them to rage denial. Psychologically spoken, the western always-looking-for-love-person and always-looking-to-forgive-man and women is systematically overcharged in dealing with a different thing than love and being good as thought would be the essence of christian heritage.

The truth is, that rage is an essential expression if needed. And people both in West and in islamic cultures are full of rage.

Now think of both figures which serve as cultural and psychological pattern:

the Oedipus complex

and the story of Narcissus.

Can those western basic figures really serve the challenge of our contemporary problem of people being in rage? I think, absolutely no!

Traditional western anger treatment therapies still work being inspired from both pattern, and the question rises, whether this is still valid or has to be transcended in dealing with new approaches.

Christian temperance strategies miss and underestimate the vivid power of rage. A proper dealing with it would need a new approach to basic human forces. Henry Bergson´s elan vital (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89lan_vital) has to be understood also in terms of rage forces, for rage is a vivid life force besides love. And encountering islamic rage is not simply done by pulling back into the christian fortress of love and forgiveness, nor in declaring such kind of rage antihuman. The truth is this:

There is also a western rage coming from a wrong understanding of basic human forces. One reason is the christian temperance approach as inhuman overcharge process. And overcharging is leading to projection and fantasies of violence - the bad boy is always the other one.

Fantasies of violence - not actually being done but fantasized - generate an explosive mind mixture of different appearances. One might fall into deep conspirational thinking, another one might invent tools of destruction, and another one might get sick in being unable to deal with all those soul tensions.

The Oslo man is a typical example of a human being trapped in such dead end streets. A mix of true insights, prejudice and compulsive assumptions is leading to rage outbursts at it`s worst. And the offender is perceiving himself as victim, and victims are necessary for the sake of the rage case...