Personality as Hierarchy —
and Capacity for Transformation
How, then, is the personality that balances respect for social institutions and, equally, creative transformation to be understood? It is not so easy to determine, given the complexity of the problem.
For that reason, we turn to stories.
Stories provide us with a broad template. They outline a pattern specific enough to be of tremendous value, if we can imitate it, but general enough (unlike a particular rule or set of rules) to apply even to new situations.
In stories, we capture observations of the ideal personality.
We tell tales about success and failure in adventure and romance.
Across our narrative universes, success moves us forward to what is better, to the promised land; failure dooms us, and those who become entangled with us, to the abyss.
The Good moves us upward and ahead, and Evil drags us backward and down.
Great stories are about characters in action, and so they mirror the unconscious structures and processes that help us translate the intransigent world of facts into the sustainable, functional, reciprocal social world of values.*
The properly embodied hierarchy of values — including the value of conservatism and its twin, creative transformation — finds its expression as a personality, in narrative — an ideal personality. Every hierarchy has something at its pinnacle.
It is for this reason that a story, which is a description of the action of a personality, has A Hero (and even if that someone is The Antihero, it does not matter : The Antihero serves the function of identifying The Hero through contrast, as The Hero is what The Antihero is most decidedly not).
The Hero is The Individual at The Peak, The Victor, The Champion, The Wit, The Eventually Successful and Deserving Underdog, The Speaker of Truth Under Perilous Circumstances, and more.
The Stories We Create, Watch, Listen to, and Remember centre themselves on actions and attitudes we find interesting, compelling, and worthy of communication as a consequence of our personal experience with both admirable and detestable people (or fragments of their specific attitudes and actions), or because of our proclivity to share what has gripped our attention with those who surround us.
Sometimes we can draw compelling narratives directly from our personal experience with individual people; sometimes we create amalgams of multiple personalities, often in concert with those who compose our social groups.
I had seen this sort of development clearly in the case of two other clients, both characterized by intrinsically creative temperaments (very well hidden in one of the cases; more developed, nurtured, and obvious in the other). In addition, I had read accounts of clinical cases and personal development by Carl Jung, who noted that the production of increasingly ordered and complex geometrical figures—often circles within squares, or the reverse—regularly accompanied an increase in organization of the personality.
This certainly seemed True not only of my client, as evidenced by his burgeoning expertise at photography and the development of his skill as a graphic artist, but also of the two others I had the pleasure of serving as a clinical therapist.
What I observed repeatedly was, therefore, not only the reconstruction of the psyche as a consequence of further socialization (and the valuation of social institutions) but the parallel transformation of primarily interior processes, indicated by a marked increase in the capacity to perceive and to create what was elegant, beautiful, and socially valued. My clients had learned not only to submit properly to the sometimes arbitrary but still necessary demands of the social world, but to offer to that world something it would not have had access to had it not been for their private creative work.
My granddaughter, Scarlett, also came to exhibit behaviors that were indicative of, if not her creative ability, then at least her appreciation for creative ability, in addition to her socialization as an agent of socially valued pointing.
When people discuss A Story — presented as a movie, or a play, or a book — they commonly attempt to come to a sophisticated consensus about its point (sophisticated because a group of people can generally offer more viewpoints than a single individual; consensus because the discussion usually continues until some broad agreement is reached as to the topic at hand).
Now, the idea that A Story is a form of communication — and entertainment — is one of those facts that appears self-evident upon first consideration, but that becomes more mysterious the longer it is pondered.
If it is True that A Story has A Point, then it is clear that it is pointing to something.
But what, and how?
What constitutes pointing is obvious when it is an action specifying a particular thing, or a person by a particular person, but much less obvious when it is something typifying the cumulative behavior, shall we say, of a character in A Story.
The actions and attitudes of J. K. Rowling’s heroes and heroines once again provide popular examples of precisely this process.
Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, and Hermione Granger are typified in large part by the willingness and ability to follow rules (indicating their expertise as apprentices) and, simultaneously, to break them.
While those who supervise them are inclined, equally, to reward both apparently paradoxical forms of behavior.
Even the technologies used by the young wizards during their apprenticeship are characterized by this duality.
The Marauder’s Map, for example (which provides its bearer with an accurate representation of explored territory in the form of the physical layout or geography of Hogwarts, the wizarding school, as well as the locale of all its living denizens), can be activated as a functional tool only by uttering a set of words that seem to indicate the very opposite of moral behavior: “I solemnly swear that I am up to no good,” and deactivated, so that its function remains secret, with the phrase “Mischief managed.”
It is no easy matter to understand how an artifact that requires such statements to make it usable could possibly be anything but “no good” — a tool of evil purpose, apparently.
But, like the fact that Harry and his friends regularly but carefully break rules, and are equally regularly and carefully rewarded for doing so, the Marauder’s Map varies in its ethical desirability with the intent of its users.
There is a strong implication throughout the series that what is good cannot be simply encapsulated by mindless or rigid rule following, no matter how disciplined that following, or how vital the rules so followed. What this all means is that the Harry Potter series does not point to drone-like subservience to social order as the highest of moral virtues.
What supersedes that obedience is not so obvious that it can be easily articulated, but it is something like “Follow rules except when doing so undermines the purpose of those selfsame rules—in which case take the risk of acting in a manner contrary to what has been agreed upon as moral.”
This is a lesson that seems more easily taught by representations of the behaviors that embody it than transmitted by, say, rote learning or a variant rule. Meta-rules (which might be regarded as rules about rules, rather than rules themselves) are not necessarily communicated in the same manner as simple rules themselves.
Scarlett, with her emphasis on pointing, learned soon after mastering the comparatively straightforward physical act, to grasp the more complex point of narratives. She could signify something with her index finger at the age of a year and a half. By two and a half years, however, she could understand and imitate the far more intricate point of A Story.
For a period of approximately six months, at the latter age, she would insist, when asked, that she was Pocahontas, rather than Ellie (the name preferred by her father) or Scarlett (preferred by her mother). This was a staggering act of sophisticated thought, as far as I was concerned. She had been given a Pocahontas doll, which became one of her favorite toys, along with a baby doll (also very well loved), who she named after her grandmother, my wife, Tammy.
When she played with the infant doll, Ellie was the mother.
With Pocahontas, however, the situation differed. That doll was not a baby, and Ellie was not its mother. My granddaughter regarded herself, instead, as the grown Pocahontas — mimicking the doll, which was fashioned like a young woman, as well as the character who served as the lead in the Disney movie of the same name, which she had raptly observed on two separate occasions.
The Disney Pocahontas bore marked similarities to the main protagonists of the Harry Potter series. She finds herself promised by her father to Kocoum, a brave warrior who embodies, in all seriousness, the virtues of his tribe, but whose behavior and attitudes are too rule bound for the more expansive personality of his bride-to-be.
Pocahontas falls in love, instead, with John Smith, captain of a ship from Europe and representative of that which falls outside of known territory but is (potentially) of great value.
Paradoxically, Pocahontas is pursuing a higher moral order in rejecting Kocoum for Smith — breaking a profoundly important rule (value what is most valued in the current culture’s hierarchy of rules) — very much in the same manner as the primary Potter characters.
That is the moral of both narratives : Follow The Rules until you are capable of being a shining exemplar of what they represent, but break them when those very rules now constitute the most dire impediment to the embodiment of their central virtues.
And Elizabeth Scarlett, not yet three years of age, had the intrinsic wisdom to see this as the point of what she was watching (the Disney movie) and using as a role-playing aid (the doll Pocahontas). Her perspicacity in this regard bordered on the unfathomable.
The same set of ideas — respect for the rules, except when following those rules means disregarding or ignoring or remaining blind to an even higher moral principle — is represented with stunning power in two different Gospel narratives (which serve, regardless of your opinion about them, as central traditional or classical stories portraying A Personality for the purposes of evoking imitation).
In the first, Christ is presented, even as a child, as a master of the Jewish tradition. This makes him fully informed as to the value of the past, and portrays him as characterized by the respect typical, say, of the genuine conservative.
According to the account in Luke 2:42–52,* Jesus’s family journeyed to Jerusalem every year at the Jewish holiday of Passover:
And when he was twelve years old, they went up to Jerusalem after the custom of the feast.
And when they had fulfilled the days, as they returned, the child Jesus tarried behind in Jerusalem; and Joseph and his mother knew not of it.
But they, supposing him to have been in the company, went a day’s journey; and they sought him among their kinsfolk and acquaintance.
And when they found him not, they turned back again to Jerusalem, seeking him.
And it came to pass, that after three days they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them, and asking them questions.
And all that heard him were astonished at his understanding and answers.
And when they saw him, they were amazed: and his mother said unto him, Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? behold, thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing.
And he said unto them, How is it that ye sought me? wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business?
And they understood not the saying which he spake unto them.
And he went down with them, and came to Nazareth, and was subject unto them: but his mother kept all these sayings in her heart.
And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man.
A paradox emerges, however, as the entirety of the Gospel accounts are considered—one closely associated with the tension between respect for tradition and the necessity for creative transformation.
Despite the evidence of His thorough and even precocious understanding and appreciation of the rules, the adult Christ repeatedly and scandalously violates the Sabbath traditions — at least from the standpoint of the traditionalists in His community, and much to His own peril.
He leads His disciples through a cornfield, for example, plucking and eating the grains (Luke 6:1).
He justifies this to the Pharisees who object by referring to an account of King David acting in a similar manner, feeding his people when necessity demanded it on bread that was reserved for the priests (Luke 6:4).
Christ tells his interlocutors quite remarkably “that the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath” (Luke 6:5).
An ancient document known as the Codex Bezae,* a noncanonical variant of part of the New Testament, offers an interpolation just after the section of the Gospel of Luke presented above, shedding profound light on the same issue.
It offers deeper insight into the complex and paradoxical relationship between respect for the rules and creative moral action that is necessary and desirable, despite manifesting itself in apparent opposition to those rules.
It contains an account of Christ addressing someone who, like Him, has broken a sacred rule:
“On that same day, observing one working on the Sabbath, [Jesus] said to him O Man, if indeed thou knowest what thou doest, thou art blest; but if thou knowest not, thou art accursed, and a transgressor of the Law.”12
What does this statement mean? It sums up the meaning of Rule I perfectly. If you understand the rules — their necessity, their sacredness, the chaos they keep at bay, how they unite the communities that follow them, the price paid for their establishment, and the danger of breaking them—but you are willing to fully shoulder the responsibility of making an exception, because you see that as serving a higher good (and if you are a person with sufficient character to manage that distinction), then you have served the spirit, rather than the mere law, and that is an elevated moral act.
But if you refuse to realize the importance of the rules you are violating and act out of self-centered convenience, then you are appropriately and inevitably damned. The carelessness you exhibit with regard to your own tradition will undo you and perhaps those around you fully and painfully across time.
This is in keeping with other sentiments and acts of Christ described in the Gospels.
Matthew 12:11 states:
“And he said unto them, What man shall there be among you, that shall have one sheep, and if it fall into a pit on the Sabbath day, will he not lay hold on it, and lift it out?”
Luke chapter 6 describes Him healing a man with a withered hand on another Sabbath, stating
“It is lawful on the Sabbath days to do good, or to do evil? to save life, or destroy it?” (Luke 6:9).
This psychologically and conceptually painful juxtaposition of two moral stances (the keeping of the Sabbath versus the injunction to do good) is something else that constantly enrages the Pharisees, and is part of the series of events that eventually leads to Christ’s arrest and Crucifixion. These stories portray the existential dilemma that eternally characterizes human life: it is necessary to conform, to be disciplined, and to follow the rules—to do humbly what others do; but it is also necessary to use judgment, vision, and the truth that guides conscience to tell what is right, when the rules suggest otherwise. It is the ability to manage this combination that truly characterizes the fully developed personality: The True Hero.
A certain amount of arbitrary rule-ness must be tolerated—or welcomed, depending on your point of view—to keep the world and its inhabitants together. A certain amount of creativity and rebellion must be tolerated—or welcomed, depending on your point of view—to maintain the process of regeneration. Every rule was once a creative act, breaking other rules. Every creative act, genuine in its creativity, is likely to transform itself, with time, into a useful rule. It is the living interaction between social institutions and creative achievement that keeps the world balanced on the narrow line between too much order and too much chaos. This is a terrible conundrum, a true existential burden. We must support and value the past, and we need to do that with an attitude of gratitude and respect. At the same time, however, we must keep our eyes open—we, the visionary living—and repair the ancient mechanisms that stabilize and support us when they falter. Thus, we need to bear the paradox that is involved in simultaneously respecting the walls that keep us safe and allowing in enough of what is new and changing so that our institutions remain alive and healthy. The very world depends for its stability and its dynamism on the subsuming of all our endeavors under the perfection — the sacredness—of that dual ability.
Do not carelessly denigrate social institutions or creative achievement.
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