Control archetypes: control humans

I have a theory about archetypes that fits perfectly well with the thesis of this book, and I want to make sure to share it. It is this: the powerful want to control archetypes.

There are two basic archetypes for any living being: ones that tell us what type of person or thing we should go towards and ones that tell us what type of person or thing we should stay away from. Loosely, I call these friendly versus predatory archetypes. And this is what all animals, everywhere do. You are probably naturally afraid of spiders, just like a gazelle is naturally afraid of a lion. These are predatory archetypes: things you naturally fear. You probably like a campfire and the sound of lapping waves. These are friendly archetypes: things you naturally go towards. And note: these don’t hold up for everyone. I know people who get seasick from mere lapping waves, and there are people who get a thrill out of spiders. That is the diversity of life and evolution in action. Archetypes are an ever evolving thing. I am speaking of fundamentals here.

This still plays out in everyday human life. If I see a woman being kind and gentle to a child, I know I am in good company. If I am around a man insidiously pressuring me to “smile,” I am instantly on alarm and know I am in potential danger. The first one can, perhaps, be classified as a “Friendly Mother” archetype and the latter can be classified as a “Creep” archetype. And having this intuition protects me, greatly, as a woman.

These archetypes are largely a collective thing. Humans decide on them in a collective way, but, once they become adopted, they get etched into the human mind, as something that is there, that gets passed down generation after generation, that is nearly impossible to erase. You can ban books. You can silence speech. You can’t erase archetypes.

If you are a predator, you want to control want other humans perceive as a threat or not. If you are trying to sell snake oil, it’s not good for you that humans have already decided that a “person who is selling snake oil” is a person selling you a fraudulent product. If you are a predator—especially a powerful one with a family lineage of power given to each other generation after generation—I would surmise, as is my proposed theory, that you would become interested in controlling archetypes: what the general population naturally fears and what they don’t.

Who taught us to fear the witches instead of the ones who burned them?

I will give an example. On his website, “Vigilant Citizen” tells the story of Elizabeth Bathory. She was a monstrous woman, of royalty, who lured the daughters of poor people in, with the promise of wealth or other, to then physically and sexually torture them, to her orgasmic delight. This is Vigilant Citizen’s commentary on it (April 8, 2022),

The story of Elizabeth Bathory was nearly erased from history. It easily could have morphed into a fictionalized legend, like many other stories involving the occult elite. Her trial was held in secret in a remote Slovakian town in 1611 and her powerful family immediately sealed its records. There were no newspapers to report on it. None of the ruling families wanted grim details against their relatives released to public scrutiny. Elizabeth was not even allowed to appear at the trial. Instead of public execution, she was walled in alive inside one of her remote castles.

And this is also my point, here: the powerful try to keep control over what behavior we are exposed to or not, as to control what we naturally fear. This predatory behavior is still seen today. There are still people, and they do indeed usually use a woman to do it, who lure young, poor women in, with promises of wealth or education, to then sexually exploit them. And, as a culture, we barely raise an eyebrow to it. It is as if this evil is beyond our consciousness. We can barely even fathom that this evil truly does exist. We aren’t on alarm to it: we have yet to develop this predatory archetype that we need. This really is the issue with various powerful people and their power over us: we, as humans, cannot fathom how evil—how very different from us—that they are.

I believe Ayn Rand did a similar thing by trashing the name of Robin Hood. The archetype of “hero who stands up to the powerful after they drove people off of land” is not something the powerful want in your mind. I will have a lot more to say on this in my section on politics and land ownership. That land ownership itself necessarily ends up being a few wealthy people who own all land while the rest of us are peasants on it is also a problem that seems to be beyond natural human consciousness. We naturally believe land will always be abundant. It is a shock when we realize this isn’t the case. History doesn’t speak well of what happens when this happens.

The powerful need the idea of tabula rasa: that we are born emotionally blank. They need to believe they can control the emotional programming of individuals: they can tell us what “values” to have and what is “proper” behavior, such that they can try to “program” us from early childhood. This is the exact language they use. They do their best, by trying to take over all stories told to us, even gutting and reforming ancient legends. They keep doing their damndest to tell us that princesses in ancient legends were weak, submissive characters—but they just keep failing. Apparently, the optimism and emotional resilience seen in these feminine archetypes (princesses) appeals too deeply in the human collective as to restructure the collective’s minds. Too bad, for you psychopaths, so dripping in jealousy for the beauty, charm, and talent of said princesses.  

Tabula rasa, as is my contention, is the powerful’s best weapon.

The book will be The Moral Bias of Objectivism: How Moral Ideals Cloud Objectivity, which deconstructs Ayn Rand’s Objectivism. We are not born tabula rasa.