Joe's Jottings

Category: psychology

  • `Viva la Vida` – `All Along The Watchtower` for 2008?

    The perennial question of ‘What the heck is that all about?’ with regard to the lyrics of Bob Dylan’s ‘All Along The Watchtower’ was kicked off last year when a haunting version of the song by Bear McCreary was used in the season finale of ‘Battlestar Galactica’.  The brooding, beat-driven, almost trancelike music provided a stunningly effective counterpoint to the unfolding action of the last 15 minutes of the episode.

    The dense, occasionally apocalyptic imagery of the lyrics of the song, drawing as they do on at least two archetypes – the Trickster and the King – provide a Rorschach Test for the listener; to a great degree you can project in to the song whatever floats your subconcious boat. 

    And so to Coldplay, and Viva La Vida.  I wasn’t a great Coldplay fan – I actually admitted to my wife that I got them mixed up with Radiohead.  For me, hipness is simply where my legs pivot. 🙂  But I caught a snatch of the song on an iTunes advert and thought – that sounds interesting….if weird….  One swift trip to HMV later – sorry guys, I’m not techie enough to manage this downloading tomfoolery – I like polycarbonate! – and I had a good listen to the album…which I enjoyed greatly.

    And so to this song…it clearly seems to have triggered a lot of thought and analysis in people.  There are a number of versions of the lyrics on the lyric sites online – most of them (to my 47 year old ears) seem reasonably accurate.  Google is your friend here…anyway:

    I used to rule the world
    Seas would rise when I gave the word
    Now in the morning I sleep alone
    Sweep the streets I used to own

    I used to roll the dice
    Feel the fear in my enemy’s eyes
    Listen as the crowd would sing:
    “Now the old king is dead! Long live the king!”

    One minute I held the key
    Next the walls were closed on me
    And I discovered that my castles stand
    Upon pillars of salt and pillars of sand

    I hear Jerusalem bells are ringing
    Roman Cavalry choirs are singing
    Be my mirror my sword and shield
    My missionaries in a foreign field
    For some reason I can’t explain
    Once you go there was never, never an honest word
    That was when I ruled the world

    It was the wicked and wild wind
    Blew down the doors to let me in.
    Shattered windows and the sound of drums
    People couldn’t believe what I’d become

    Revolutionaries wait
    For my head on a silver plate
    Just a puppet on a lonely string
    Oh who would ever want to be king?

    I hear Jerusalem bells are ringing
    Roman Cavalry choirs are singing
    Be my mirror my sword and shield
    My missionaries in a foreign field
    For some reason I can’t explain
    I know Saint Peter won’t call my name
    Never an honest word
    But that was when I ruled the world

    Again – a lot of imagery of which a great deal is religious and obviously historical.  A few theories propounded on the Internet have suggested that it’s an allegorical reference to the Bush Whitehouse, or the French Revolution and the rise of Napoleon.

    My immediate thoughts on this song were that it was pretty much something to do with Roman period Jerusalem (nothing complicated there!), and I started contemplating events that would fit.  Now, as regular readers will have realised, I’m very interested in Pontius Pilate (see my short review of ‘The Master and Margarita’), and after a few minutes thinking I got quite convinced that the song was referring to Pilate.

    I felt rather smug at this point, did a Google and found this link –http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080604143507AADrMnN&show=7 – which indicated that a chap from London had come to the same conclusion a couple of weeks previously. Anyway – in addition to the comments that are made in the link, here are a few more thoughts.

    One thing about Pilate is that he’s a very anonymous person in historical terms; there’s a great deal of speculation and mythology around him, and so my analysis here draws on that.

    “Viva la Vida” – a VERY loose translation might be ‘Live Forever’, reflecting one version of the myth that states that Pilate, like the Wandering Jew, was damned to live forever as punishment for his act of cowardice.

    “Roman Cavalry…” – Pilate was a member of the Equestrian class of Roman Society – a sort of lower rank Patrician – and in his duties in Jerusalem he would have commanded only a few hundred troops – probably light cavalry and auxilliaries, akin to a police force.  Bulgakov, in his novel, certainly took the view that Pilate would have had light horsemen available to him that were deployed at the Crucifixion.

    “See fear in my enemies eyes…” – Pilate’s military career isn’t clear; it’s likely he spent at least some time as a soldier.  Again, in fiction Pilate is regarded as having been a military officer.

    “Rolled the dice…” – this may refer to the Biblical reference where soldiers played dice at the crucifixion for Christ’s belongings.  However, I think it’s more likely that it refers to the game of ‘Basileus’ – a dice game something like Ludo which was popular amongst the troops AND was played by the troops in Jerusalem – there is evidence in the form of a game board cut in to stone in the vicinity of the palace.  The aim of the game was to become king, and the winner might easily be dressed as a mock king as part of the game – this could refer to the ritual humiliation of Christ at his hearing with Pilate as described in Matthew 27.

    “held the key…” – Pilate did indeed hold the key to what happened to Christ; Bulgakov hints in his novel that Pilate was tempted to try and free Christ and have him accompany him to his own home. 

    “Seas rose at my command”… OK…a bit of a stretch but…Pilate carried out civil engineering projects in his reign, one of which was a viaduct project to improve the water supply of Jerusalem by carrying water from elsewhere.  Another possible hint is again part of the eternal fate of Pilate according to myth – that after his death the waters and land of the Earth would not hold his body – the seas could be regarded as having risen and rejected him.

    “castles built on pillars of salt and sand” – someone with a viewpoint of eternity would regard the things that were important during his life to be ephemeral in the great scheme of things.  Again, another Biblical reference here is to the Sermon on the Mount.

    “puppet on a lonely string” – Pilate was a Governing official of limited real power – not quite a puppet, but restrained in his ability to do his job by the Empire and local Jerusalem politics.  However, it could also be read as him being a puppet of fate; the Crucifixion is the defining moment in Christianity – Pilate’s actions might therefore be regarded as pre-ordained and out of his control.  A true puppet of destiny.

    So….my personal interpretation!

    I wonder if discussions will be taking place about it in 40 years time like with ‘All Along The Watchtower’?
     

     

  • Attrition vs Shock and Awe in the Online World

    Anyone who’s spent time in any online communities will be aware of the feuds and fights that take place between users of those communities.  Whilst some degree of conflict is inevitable, there always seems to be a few people who move it form debate and discourse in to abuse and harassment.  I’ve concluded that there are two forms that this takes – attrition and ‘Shock and Awe’. 

    What’s motivated me to raise this at this time?  Firstly – personal experiences and observations, secondly the return of Channel 4’s Big Brother to the TV screens and finally a piece of legislation from Scotland, which, although aimed primarily at sexual harassment, may have implications for anyone running an online community.

    So…let us begin…

    (more…)

  • The Bus Book – 14th to 28th April – Jung!

    For many years I have had a great interest in the work of CG Jung.  This originated in my 20s, when I became inteersted in comparative mythology, and read the book ‘The Hero with a Thousand Faces’ by Joseph Campbell.  His references to archetypes in common myth of the hero greatly influenced my thinking, and to this day I regard the day I picked up his book as a great day in my intellectual development.

    From here I went to look at archetypes directly, and it wasn’t long before I encountered Jung, and the stage was set for my life-long engagement with Jungian ideas.  And, an interest in Jung helped me get soem of the ‘in jokes’ in TV’s ‘Frasier’. 🙂

    “One memorable scene had Niles filling in for Frasier on Frasier’s call-in radio program, in which Niles introduces himself as the temporary substitute saying, “…and while my brother is a Freudian, I am a Jungian, so there’ll be no blaming Mother today.”

    Anyway…the books.  How I came to have three books about Jung ‘on the go’ at once, so to say, is a short story in istelf.  My previous Bus Book was about the Knight’s Templar, and I happened to remember that Jung once had a dream about a Templar showing up in a contemporary city.  Digging out the reference to it led me to look through the three books I had about Jung, and I decided that a revision of my knowledge was in order.  So here we are.

    At some point I may blog Jung’s own ‘Memories, Dreams and Reflections’ here, but for now it’s books about the man, not by him.

    The books are:

    Anthony Stevens, ‘Jung A Very Short Introduction’ (JAVSI), Anthony Stevens ‘Jung – Past Masters Series’ (J), and Ruth Snowden’s ‘Teach Yourself Jung’.

    These are all good books.  The two by Stevens obviously cover similar ground, and I have a great liking for the ‘A Very Short Introduction’ series.  If you ever need a good ‘crash course’ on anything that these books cover, start your education with the relevant book in this series.

    Starting with the Teach Yourself Book – this is a nice, snappy, introduction to Jung doen in the usual ‘TY’ style.  Pleasantly and non-intrusively illustrated with relevant cartoons, each Chapter follows the useful ‘Tell ’em what you’re going to tell ’em, tell’ em, tell ’em you’ve told ’em’ model of educational writing and it works nicely.   It’s a very nice introduction, and can easily be read and assimilated in a a day or so – I would recommend it for anyone ‘fresh on the trail’.  It is a little incomplete; by the nature of the series, TY books are an introduction, but I would ahve expected to see something more on Jung’s alleged anti-semitism, and the accusations of Nazi-sympathies for his Presidency (starting in 1933) of ‘The Medical Society for Psychotherapy’.  These accusations are utter nonsense, but still get bandied around occasionally.  It would have been nice to see an introductory work tackle them head on.  I found the glossary in this book most useful – keeping on top of terminology is critical in a field like this, and this is a good glossary indeed!

    I’ll look at the two Stevens books together, as I think that the ‘A Very Short Introduction’ book is best regarded as a later and enhanced edition of the ‘Past Masters’ book.  These are both fine books; the ‘Past Masters’ one was the first book on Jung I bought, a good many years ago, and it’s still a fine read.  However, I prefer the ‘A Very Short Introduction’ one.  Both are solid, academic introductions to Jung’s life and work from an acknowledged expert in the field, and cover the areas that the TY book does, as well as looking in to the anti-semitism and Nazi allegations skipped by that book.  Oddly enough, neither has a glossary- something of an oversight in my opinion – but both are well indexed and, like the TY book, have good lists of further reading.

    So…which do I prefer?  My favourite is the ‘A Very Short Introduction’.  If I was pointing someone with a ‘lay’ interest in Jung at a book, I would, however, point them at teh Teach Yourself book first.  If it were soemone with a basic understanding of psychology and psychological terminology, then I would have no problems with telling them to jump straight in to the ‘A Very Short Introduction’.

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