I’ll never be such a gosling to obey instinct, but stand As is a man were author of himself And knew no other kin.
–William Shakespeare (Coriolanus V, iii)
As we commemorate our national independence, I thought it might be a good time to look more closely at this notion of independence. After all, the concept of independence is a foundational idea not only for nations, but also for the individual and one’s psychology as well. Herman Melville, in chapter LXVII of Moby Dick, writes: “Glimpses do ye seem to see of that mortally intolerable truth; that all deep, earnest thinking is but the intrepid effort of the soul to keep the open independence of her sea; while the wildest winds of heaven and earth conspire to cast her on the treacherous, slavish shore?” Why is independence a mortally intolerable truth? Independence is an intolerable truth because a deep seeing into the nature of independence shatters the comfortable delusion of one’s mortal, human essence. One finds that independence, the sine qua non denoting the highest achievement of enlightenment values, is not separation but is in fact a pervasive interdependence.
But first, one’s independence, or at least what one thinks is one’s independence, should be declared. Thomas Jefferson wrote that: “…a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.” While it is proving to be less and less the case in this country, the country which has been erected upon Jefferson’s declarative document, it still remains the ideal that before one declares something, one has thoroughly thought about, at least thought through, the declarations one makes. I am of no doubt that if one engages any idea or experience (including feelings) thoughtfully, one will be confronted with Truth. I am equally doubtless that at the moment of such a confrontation with the eternal verities, most of us run the other way. So in this essay, I want to try to hold my ground and explore the truth of independence.
Popular psychology unhesitatingly tells us that independence is good, and that dependence is bad. The pop culture pedagogues say that dependence is pathological, it is abnormal, it is self-defeating behavior and it results in the cosseting of our addicted partners, the abandonment of our own needs, and condemns us to an unending search for validation from without. But the dependence-independence differential is rather more complex than the popular definition might suggest. Much of what passes for independence consists of striking a psychological pose; it is defensiveness masquerading as self-sufficiency. This faux independence impels one to push others away, it requires one to inflict negative judgments upon anyone or anything perceived to be different, inadequate, or wrong. Such a pretense of independence is a defense one proffers against the experience of one’s own unpleasing or inconvenient realities, especially a sense of one’s own fears, one’s subjective intellectual, physical, and emotional inadequacies, and a conspicuous existential dread.
In the consulting room, what I usually find lurking behind the word dependence is a deep and persistent dread of one’s own neediness and a profound fear of being confronted with one’s own brokenness. To be dependent means I need another too much, that I can’t take care of myself, that my inner world is so hostile that I need you to rescue me from it. From this perspective, the dependence-independence paradigm is synonymous with self-avoidance. The dynamic to which both words aspire is, at the bottom, anything that will numb the self to its own fear and pain; in other words, addiction. And believe me, the fact that words referring to dependence and co-dependence are so often the constituents of the language employed to frame addiction is not accidental. But from my point of view, the only addiction we have is our addiction to not wanting to know, our addiction to unconsciousness, and framing this issue in terms of dependence or independence feeds that addiction every bit as much as an individual’s abuse of sex, drugs, gambling, or alcohol; in this category of addiction feeding ignorance, I would also include the abuse of psychological, scientistic, or theological theory masquerading as enlightenment, which has at its core the goal of self deception and the effective escape from what one identifies as one’s condition.
The notion of independence is the seminal concept in American life. Everything we do as Americans and how we define ourselves as a nation is rooted in the notion of independence. But the praxis of independence–the way we as a nation and as its citizens talk about it and practice independence–bears little resemblance to the archetypal ideal of independence that so powerfully informed Jefferson’s thinking and the declaration that gave birth to a nation.
The prelapserian ideal of independence has been diluted and presently exists in the collective psyche as the mythology of rugged individualism, a mythology that emphasizes, and in fact it necessitates, a deep, abiding belief in the separateness of individuals. The collective psyche has memorialized the disconnected, disaffected, existentially isolated and psychically wounded hero, or perhaps more accurately, anti-hero. These are the iconic characters we see in films like High Noon, Shane, True Grit, The French Connection, The Godfather, and the more noirish films of the Batman cycle (to name only a few). Actors like Gary Cooper, John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, and Al Pacino seem to specialize in portrayals of marginalized men, nearly broken by life and unable to allow themselves to be loved, who seem to step forward at just the right moment and offer one last, fleeting hope of defense to a defenseless few facing the ultimate in subjugation or death.
The disconnected, separated, independent hero has, in the American mythic imagination, become the last, best hope for the protection of those who are powerless, impotent and facing off against the overwhelming forces that so often control the rhythms of life. But to the anti-hero–the one in isolation, the archetypal image I am describing–the very constituent elements of his personality create a being that isn’t connected to anyone, a being not even connected to its own inner world. Such a lack of connectedness to one’s inner world endows an individual with a capacity for ruthless violence against another, which is only equaled by a startling disregard for himself.
In Michael Moore’s film, Bowling for Columbine, there is a discomfiting interview with then President of the National Rifle Association, Charlton Heston, in which Moore asks him why America is so exponentially more prone to gun violence than other equally gun laden societies. Heston couldn’t give him an answer, but I can. Our society’s capacity for gun violence corresponds to the venerated myth of rugged individualism. From the vantage point that considers independence to be separation, one easily allows oneself to see another as a absolute unknown, an alien being so completely different, with foreign values, strange ideas, and holding within itself all the destructive potential of the of the unimaginable, so that annihilating such an other creates no more of a moral or ethical dilemma than does swatting a fly.
For you see, in the peculiarly American psyche, the mythology of rugged individualism walks hand in hand with the myth of the gun. It was the rugged individualists, with the aid of Samuel Colt and his revolvers, who tamed the Wild West. It is exactly such a conflation of mythologies that permits the settling of grievances to occur through the deployment of violence, it allows one to murder the other (if not actual physical murder, then at least one may murder the soul of the other as happens in the case of slavery, racism, or domestic violence, to name just a few) in order to remove the obstacle of the foreign other standing in the way of our obtaining what we desire or need, be it in the form of a material object or in the form of an ideology.
So, what then is true independence; what are we really declaring ourselves separate from? The first sentence Ralph Waldo Emerson writes in his essay entitled, Self Reliance, is the Latin phrase, “Ne te quaesiveris extra,” or, seek not outside yourself. Now wait a minute. Isn’t this exactly what I have been saying is wrong with popular notions of independence? That we cut ourselves off from outside concerns and then proceed to marginalize and alienate anything or anyone outside the circle of our immediate concerns?
Well, yes. But this is not what, I believe, Emerson refers to. To not seek outside oneself suggests that we should, in fact, seek within ourselves. It is when one seeks deeply within that one is confronted with the truth of our existence: our interdependence, the sacred awareness that all life is interconnected, what Buddhist philosophy terms Interdependent Co-Arising and Hinduism frames within the concept of Indra’s Net. One life makes all other life possible, and vice-versa. This is as beautiful a thought as it is terrifying because in addition to the beatific vision of Unity and Oneness, we see all too clearly that life feeds on other life, and this is the horrific fact of existence which gives birth to all religions. When one begins, as Emerson urged, to seek within oneself, the nature of our interdependence becomes clearer and one begins to accept more and greater responsibility for one’s actions and thoughts, understanding that even small or apparently insignificant personal thoughts or actions may literally set in motion forces that change the world. From this awareness one moves closer and closer to understanding the breathtaking nature of independence.
Emerson writes:
I appeal from your customs. I must be myself. I cannot break myself any longer for you, or you [for me]. If you can love me for what I am, we shall be the happier. If you cannot, I will still seek to deserve that you should. I will not hide my tastes or aversions. I will so trust that what is deep is holy, that I will do strongly before the sun and moon whatever inly rejoices me and the heart appoints. If you are noble, I will love you; if you are not, I will not hurt you and myself by hypocritical attentions. If you are true, but not in the same truth with me, cleave to your companions; I will seek my own. I do this not selfishly but humbly and truly…You will soon love what is dictated by your nature as well as mine, and if we follow truth it will bring us our safe at last.
Emerson places great faith in this, well, I don’t know what else to call it–his credo. A few lines later he adds, “…all persons have their moments of reason, when they look out into the region of absolute truth; then they will justify me and do the same thing.” The deep seeking within, and the subsequent discovery of the reality of oneself creates an independent, highly efficacious individual (individual literally means one who is unable to be divided), an individual who is aware of, and in harmony with, the interdependent nature of existence and is willing and able to assume, from the perspective of psyche, a kind of stewardship in which one is responsible for the well being of others and for the world.
I believe that just such an awareness is the goal of psychotherapy. An awareness of the Self–and C.G. Jung himself might have added to this Self awareness the “religious attitude” that accompanies such an elevation of consciousness–is, under ideal circumstances, exactly what emerges from analysis. Understanding the Self in this way creates connections, ameliorates isolation, makes the alien familiar, and inspires one to the delights of loving and being loved. One is able to see the One in the Many, and the Many in the One. But one does not, cannot, start analysis from such awareness. One begins in the unknowing and in the deep seeking within, an endeavor that is necessarily solitary in spite of the therapist’s presence. The work of seeking deeply within oneself is solitary work because it is necessarily individual work, which, in its deepest aspects, can only be experienced alone. In the willingness to experience our own inner world alone, without instruction from some outside source, we begin to discover the truth of independence.
In The Bhagavad Gita, Lord Krishna is quoted as saying, “He alone sees truly who sees the Lord the same in every creature…seeing the same Lord everywhere, he does not harm himself or others.” This realization of god everywhere, and in everyone, is the summum bonum, the ultimate treasure of independence and is itself the liberation one mines from the solitary digging, it is the result of the deep inward seeking. To be alive in the world, to be conscious to any degree, and avoid seeking the truth available to every one of us is the same as living in Antarctica and trying to avoid ice. Jefferson seemed to understand that a solitary, deep seeking within oneself unites us all, and since it is the anniversary of American independence, it is right to end with Jefferson’s unique and powerful expression of this notion: “Enlighten the people, generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like spirits at the dawn of day.”
