If you love M. Cervantes, this post will spoil your day.
In case you do not know it, Don Quixote, a literary piece written by the playwright Miguel Cervantes, is the first novel ever written. Some call it the greatest masterpiece of fiction in modern literature.
I had an unforgettable experience with Don Quixote because for four years, between 26 and 30 years of age, I carried it in my bag, together with my mathematics books in graduate school and goggles for swimming. Those years were the times when I was a student, instructor, and triathlete. The book stayed with me until I discovered Carl Jung and his lectures on Archetypes.
Don Quixote is an archetype, it is a psychological construct which we all posses in different degrees. It is a set of emotions and thoughts hard-wired into our psyche, which makes us predisposed to perceive the world in a particular way. This possibly explains why Cervantes' masterpiece touched us deeply. A part of us is Don Quixote, or at least, we were once Don Quixote. When we look back at our times as young men and women, we can see from our memories that we used to be the sort of fellows who want to pick a fight against unbeatable foes and dream impossible dreams. We all know the song. Its nice.
But its only when I delved deeper into the theory of archetypes and read more papers on "depth psychology" that I came to realize that Don Quixote as an Archetype is potentially dangerous, very dangerous in fact. Because it turns out that our ingrained impulse to "fight unbeatable foes' also make us prone to imagine enemies where there are none. We are agitated "to march to hell for a heavenly cause" although in actuality our advocacy is far from heavenly. Our advocacy is a desperate scream for social significance.
We are so taken by Don Quixote as a play, more so by the song "Impossible Dream", we are unable to imagine that "terrorists", and activists themselves possibly cling to the same hero and the same song.
That could be an exaggeration by the way because we have no way of knowing if they do have a thing for Cervantes. But my point is Don Quixote as an archetype resonates in the slogans chanted by activists and terrorists everywhere.
To wage wars against unbeatable foes, to march to hell for a heavenly cause, to reach for an unreachable star, this is how Cervantes put it. But listen to the slogans of activists or terrorists, train your eyes and ears to what they say. The same structure of mind, painted in different words. They sing the same "song".
In the novel, Don Quixote physically charged at windmills and fences. In September 11 some years ago, two planes were deliberately crashed into WTC towers. In our country, activists do not run out of energy to charge at the US embassy, Malacanang palace, and anti-riot police. In their minds, these clashes are as true as the violence that unfolds in battles. The parallelism between events in the novel and the violence sown by terrorism/activism is there for anyone who cares to think differently.
Peace.
In case you do not know it, Don Quixote, a literary piece written by the playwright Miguel Cervantes, is the first novel ever written. Some call it the greatest masterpiece of fiction in modern literature.
I had an unforgettable experience with Don Quixote because for four years, between 26 and 30 years of age, I carried it in my bag, together with my mathematics books in graduate school and goggles for swimming. Those years were the times when I was a student, instructor, and triathlete. The book stayed with me until I discovered Carl Jung and his lectures on Archetypes.
Don Quixote is an archetype, it is a psychological construct which we all posses in different degrees. It is a set of emotions and thoughts hard-wired into our psyche, which makes us predisposed to perceive the world in a particular way. This possibly explains why Cervantes' masterpiece touched us deeply. A part of us is Don Quixote, or at least, we were once Don Quixote. When we look back at our times as young men and women, we can see from our memories that we used to be the sort of fellows who want to pick a fight against unbeatable foes and dream impossible dreams. We all know the song. Its nice.
But its only when I delved deeper into the theory of archetypes and read more papers on "depth psychology" that I came to realize that Don Quixote as an Archetype is potentially dangerous, very dangerous in fact. Because it turns out that our ingrained impulse to "fight unbeatable foes' also make us prone to imagine enemies where there are none. We are agitated "to march to hell for a heavenly cause" although in actuality our advocacy is far from heavenly. Our advocacy is a desperate scream for social significance.
We are so taken by Don Quixote as a play, more so by the song "Impossible Dream", we are unable to imagine that "terrorists", and activists themselves possibly cling to the same hero and the same song.
That could be an exaggeration by the way because we have no way of knowing if they do have a thing for Cervantes. But my point is Don Quixote as an archetype resonates in the slogans chanted by activists and terrorists everywhere.
To wage wars against unbeatable foes, to march to hell for a heavenly cause, to reach for an unreachable star, this is how Cervantes put it. But listen to the slogans of activists or terrorists, train your eyes and ears to what they say. The same structure of mind, painted in different words. They sing the same "song".
In the novel, Don Quixote physically charged at windmills and fences. In September 11 some years ago, two planes were deliberately crashed into WTC towers. In our country, activists do not run out of energy to charge at the US embassy, Malacanang palace, and anti-riot police. In their minds, these clashes are as true as the violence that unfolds in battles. The parallelism between events in the novel and the violence sown by terrorism/activism is there for anyone who cares to think differently.
Peace.