How Disney Destroyed the Western Psyche
14/10/2013 23:30
In his 1976 book The Uses of Enchantment, Austrian-born American psychologist Bruno Bettelheim demonstrated that fairytales (in their traditional format and narrative) are like mirrors into the darker aspects of our childhoods. We as adults tend to think that children are all pure and innocent when nothing could be further from the truth. Childhood is filled with fears and aggression. Bettelheim explained how the fairytale is a vital tool for children to cope with the unresolved darker aspects of childhood. Cultivating compassion and empathy for the downtrodden, creating a sense of responsibility to intervene in the oppression of others from an early age.
For example; in the original version of Jack and the Beanstalk — the story can be stripped down to the basic premise of a 'hero' clandestinely hiding in a man's house, while playing on his wife's sympathies in order to rob and finally murder the owner. Now that's a psychopath. Now let's re-examine all children's fairytales in this light of this darker understanding. They all have this underlying acceptance of the darker aspect of the human condition. They were the mirror before the Mirror Neurons were discovered.
For example; in the original version of Jack and the Beanstalk — the story can be stripped down to the basic premise of a 'hero' clandestinely hiding in a man's house, while playing on his wife's sympathies in order to rob and finally murder the owner. Now that's a psychopath. Now let's re-examine all children's fairytales in this light of this darker understanding. They all have this underlying acceptance of the darker aspect of the human condition. They were the mirror before the Mirror Neurons were discovered.
As I myself have pointed out in my own book Defeated Demons: Freedom from Consciousness Parasites in Psychopathic Society, the underlying metaphor of the most children's fairytales is to warn us of psychopaths and paedophiles. The telling of these fairy tales (in the pre-Disney form) allows us to carry forth this archetypal acknowledgement of the dark sides of the collective and personal psyche. Navigating the unconsciousness dimensions of the personality — in order to find a way through them. Understanding that not all humans are good and some are very evil indeed.
How the Disney corporation has altered these tales may go some way in order to understand the neurosis in modern Western humans concerning irrational fears and anxieties used by governments, religions/cults and corporations to manipulate us. Disney, in this context, can be viewed as a kind of psycho-logical operation of sorts to keep us in an infantile state dependent on the control structure and by extension, to keep us safe from imaginary enemies.
How the Disney corporation has altered these tales may go some way in order to understand the neurosis in modern Western humans concerning irrational fears and anxieties used by governments, religions/cults and corporations to manipulate us. Disney, in this context, can be viewed as a kind of psycho-logical operation of sorts to keep us in an infantile state dependent on the control structure and by extension, to keep us safe from imaginary enemies.
image source: 9gag.com
