The Collective Shadow
Author: Diane Awenydd-Evans
Posted: March 10th. 2013
Times Viewed: 538In a discussion of the “shadow” at a recent conference of people who would generally fit into the population that this resource serves, the subject of the shadows of society was brought up. One person invoked Hitler and another Abu-Grab. While their observations have merit, I want to address the tendency within our culture of seeing the “evil” in everyone else and using that to hide from our own failures… not the failures of the mundane society in which we live, nor those of the neo-pagan culture that we continue to strive to create, but our own, personal failures.
My intention is not to throw stones or to preach guilt, but to encourage personal responsibility. I am not responsible for the bad behavior of others but for my own action, or inaction, in the face of that which I believe to be right. While I believe Hitler was indeed a damaged human being who committed great evil, and was the impetus of even more evil committed by others under his control, he was dead long before I was born. It is comforting to think that I do not have to face such shadows; it is comforting and it is delusion.
I had a Professor in college who was a teenager in Germany during the rise of the Nazi party. He once shared his story about how his father tried to discourage him from joining the army and fighting for the Nazis. He chose to ignore his father and indeed eventually came to understand the error of his choice. He carried the responsibility for that choice into his adult life. It was a heavy burden that taught him the wisdom of considering carefully the nature of those that he chose to follow.
(via Witchvox Article)
