I spend a considerable amount of time studying geopolitics through archetypes. I even added a new module on the subject to my Archetypes: A New Ancient Way to See the World (Masterclass)
When I look at the state of world politics through an archetypal lens, here’s what I see:
We live in a time of resurgence, even dominion, of the Dark Masculine archetypes.
Today’s world leaders, specifically those that occupy the largest share of collective attention (think Trump, Musk, Putin, Xi…), have all built their political careers on presenting themselves as living embodiments of the Dark Masculine.
These men boast about their decisiveness, ruthlessness, firmness, and courage. They pride themselves on their blunt honesty and on “saying things as they are” – a.k.a. Dark Feedback. All of them, typical Dark Masculine qualities.
The unhealthy traits those leaders would never admit to, but everyone else sees, are traits like aggression, power over, pillage, abuse, lack of compassion, and lack of a higher guiding principle beyond sheer power. Classic unhealthy Dark Masculine.
Let’s take a breath into this reality. As far as world politics, the Dark Masculine, both in his healthy and in his unhealthy form, has taken center stage.
This was, in a way, predictable, since the opposite was true in the previous cycle. At least in major Western democracies, in the previous couple of decades, the Light Masculine and Light Feminine principles had held the most power.
In that previous cycle, leaders worldwide boasted about their compassion, inclusivity, patience, diplomacy, and soft power (think Biden or Obama). Their unhealthy traits were indecisiveness, false modesty, virtue signaling, being on a moral high horse, and a distorted form of compassion that is more preoccupied with not offending anyone than serving the collective good.
This alternating between opposites is normal. What is concerning, is the violence of the swings. For as long as opposites cannot acknowledge and communicate with each other, fragmentation and polarization are guaranteed.
In a time of such violent polarization, I believe the best thing we can do is engage our capacity for understanding.
The first step is acknowledging that all these archetypes, Masculine and Feminine, Light and Dark, exist within us—both in their healthy and unhealthy versions.
The second step, is recognizing that all those archetypal qualities are necessary to a healthy life. Compassion is as needed as resoluteness, patience as much as ruthlessness. This is a living paradox that every one of us faces: we need to be paradoxical in order to be whole.
However, when we consider politics and the play of Power on a larger scale, it is much harder to accept that the qualities embodied by the political party we most hate are just as needed as the ones we carry.
I can only see a way forward from our current collective plight when more political leaders recognize that their adversaries are actually their mirrors and teachers, when curiosity about the point of view of “the other” will outweigh fear and apprehension.
This is not to deny the risks and alarming signs that are so evident in today’s world leadership.
Precisely because there is no incentive to integrate the opposite point of view, today’s political leaders are stunningly blindsided, partial, unintegrated.
Yet, we don’t need to go far back in time to find a time when political adversaries talked to and even respected each other.
Yes, today, that level of dialogue, mutual respect, and recognition feels inconceivable. But as in all things human, change is always around the corner.
It would take the emergence of just two or three leaders in any of today’s opposed factions—leaders who are firmly rooted in their convictions and curious, open, and desire to understand and feel the opposite camp…
…for a totally different style of Power and leadership to take hold, one of dialogue, confrontation, even bitter dispute, but on a backdrop of mutual understanding that there is only one human race, one planet Earth, and ultimately one Life.
That is the Power that I am praying for.
Brilliant perspective!