When Our Shadow Makes Us Blind and Deaf to Suffering

When facing information about life under continuous trauma caused by humans, there is a part of the psyche that resists knowing. Various mechanisms of denial and disavowal are used in order to avoid knowing. Drawing on the concepts of collective shadow and cultural complex in the Israeli context, this chapter examines the obstacles to seeing, hearing and acknowledging the human experience of trauma suffered by Palestinian people. This chapter offers a discussion of the threat that knowing presents to the conscious mind, and asks under which conditions we will be able to face this knowledge. How is it possible to agree to know, when the suffering is caused by our own group, and in our name? In light of Erich Neumann’s idea of “New Ethics” based on taking responsibility for one’s shadow, the chapter looks at shadow projection processes that compromise the possibility of acknowledging the other’s suffering. This paper describes the archetypal themes and historic processes that are at the basis of the Israeli cultural complexes of victimhood and power, and tries to explain how the collective trauma of the past is used in the service of denying and justifying the suffering perpetrated in the present. It also offers a description of the effect that socio-political processes in contemporary Israel regarding the ongoing occupation of Palestinian lives has on the ability to take responsibility for our shadow and acknowledge the other’s suffering. This paper was written in 2022 and published first in May 2023 before the devastating events of October 7th.