The New Great Depression is a great tune by band The Moth & The Flame with a fantastic music video that sparked my interest. Please watch the video and come back if you’re interested in my analysis.
Over the past year I have been reading a lot of Carl Jung. I started with Man and His Symbols then moved onto his Red Book. Both were enlightening though I could use another read of both for comprehension and understanding especially The Red Book. After learning about the symbolic means of communication that the unconscious uses I have been using it to interpret media. Nowadays the media that people are interested in is like the myths that people were enthralled by in ancient times. By analyzing the symbols and associations of the media that people latch onto we can reach a greater understanding of their collective psyche.
In Jungian Psychology an archetype is a pattern of thought or image present in the collective unconscious. The archetype that I found in the video is the one that is most commonly talked about. The shadow. The shadow archetype is the dark side of your personality. It’s all the things that you think you shouldn’t be. The more perfect and harmless a person appears to be the larger a shadow they cast.
This brings us to my analysis of the video. Children as they grow up usually have a lot of external expectations from adults for them to be ‘good kids’ this leads to the suppression of things that ‘bad kids’ do like causing chaos by breaking things, being loud, or general being anger. But these feelings of anger naturally happen to anyone under certain circumstances. Many young boys go to school 5 days a week where they are told to sit down, be quiet, and listen without reason. This could make anyone anger. The needs of the child are not being met and the anger of the child is not being validated. The boy also appears to not have a strong father figure in his life which could be another factor attributing to his anger. The anger is an animistic instinct that is suppressed into the unconscious. The suppression of these experiences and resulting emotions bundle up into the archetype of the shadow which is the personality which is the accumulation of all the parts of our self which are not allowed to be expressed in society. While we are unconscious of The shadow we are subject to it’s projection onto others. Thinking that other people have bad intentions or are anger. You’re unconscious uses others as a mirror to express the emotion of your unconscious. You may encounter The Shadow in a dreamer like the child in the video in an unknown place like in the dark. Eventually if the unconscious emotions of The shadow are not expressed or integrated they will find a way out. Like when the child breaks things without being conscious of it. If The Shadow is not properly integrated into the personality it results in a split of the whole moving all unwanted traits into the unconscious and stunting a persons psychological growth. Depression is thought to be anger turn against the self. So that is what is happening the suppression of anger results in a split of the personality and a formation of an unconscious shadow. The shadow that claws at you from the inside. Needing to express anger and only have one subject to express it to. You. This is why proper integration of The shadow is very important. I think that the last scene of the video when all the people are under the bridge with there monsters symbolizes the valley of lost souls being lead by their unconscious.
If you want to learn more I recommending watching videos on the Jungian Shadow Academy of Ideas is a good channel or you can read Man and His Symbols by Jung.