Flummoxed by 2020 and Beyond? Advice from Dickens, Jung, and McCauley

Thanks to the great writers of the world, especially the English, the first authors of our language, we have at our fingertips words that express not only our every meaning but the depth of our feelings as well. It is appropriate and very much in order to celebrate one English writer in particular, Charles Dickens, whose recent birthday was February 7^th. Dickens engaged in neologism, the coining of a new word, usage or expression, and his word of the day is flummox.  Although the word flummox was first used by James Halliwell-Phillipps in his Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words in 1846, the word is generally credited to Dickens who revived the word in his novel The Pickwick Papers, his first novel that made serialized stories popular.

So why is the word flummox so appropriate today? You can guess the answer to that from the definition itself: to bewilder, confound, confuse, perplex. What better word could describe the general state of Americans after a year like 2020? And perhaps still does in 2021.

Fear of covid, grief from the loss of loved ones, anxiety over job and income loss, fear of isolation—I can understand this kind of anxiety and confusion. But, friends, here’s where I am totally flummoxed. Too often I see caustic social media posts from people I know—friends I grew up with, new friends, colleagues, family that stop me cold. These posts are always about politics, a topic that wasn’t so relevant until Trump became president and then left office in the historically chaotic way we’re all now familiar with. But to the point, I thought I knew these people, their kind and generous hearts, their love of life and respect for humanity—the kind of respect for decency, justice, peace and the moral and ethical principles that I believe gave our country the image of that shining city on a hill. Yet I’ve seen vitriolic language arrogantly aimed not only at politicians that represent the opposing party but any ordinary citizen like me. Now this is not to say that both parties haven’t engaged in this kind of behavior, but it’s wrong no matter who does it. Not even free speech can excuse it. It’s wrong. Wrong! Period. So why is it happening when we know better?

Trump clearly brought out the dark side in us with his behavior and his language. Some have excused it, saying we needed someone bold and brash in the White House. We needed the dark side? I’m not so sure about that. When I think of Thomas McCauley, British historian who wrote The History of England from the Accession of James II, these words always come to mind:

“In every age the vilest specimens of humanity are to be found among demagogues.”

McCauley was an amazing observer of human nature, and I do believe he hit the mark with this statement.

For more than fifteen years I was enrolled in courses at the C. G. Jung Center in Houston, Texas, and many of those included references to Jung’s ideas about the Shadow. The shadow theory states that this darker side of our unconscious selves is everything we have been taught to avoid because someone thinks it is bad or evil. We keep our shadow out of sight in order to be good and win the approval of people who are important to us. James Hollis, renowned Jungian scholar and former director of the Houston Jung Center, wrote that the contents of the shadow are “an affront to what we consciously wish to think of ourselves.” We fear others discovering our weaknesses and mistakes that would humiliate us, but what if the most powerful leader on earth with the most influential and respected position in the world gave us not only permission but also encouragement to release this egregious behavior in our shadows and enact the content hiding there in the dark recesses of our minds?

It’s a thought, one that flummoxes me for sure, but maybe it’s not one I want to dwell on. Perhaps Trump’s policies that isolated us from the world and the tax breaks for the wealthiest were enough to draw people into his arena. Or maybe his supporters don’t keep up with the news, and the nature of truth has taken a back seat to the more pressing issues of their lives. Perhaps it’s time for schools to teach the principles of our two party system and make journalism a viable part of the English curriculum so that the youth of our country can grow up with a head start on how to recognize the truth. I wish at times I were back in the classroom. I’d teach it in a heartbeat.