Presentation time:
40 min
Discussion time:
5 min
Lead author:
Claudio Mele (CGJIZ)
Here we are in 2023, facing not only a financial crisis, not just a war in Europe that could readily escalate into to a global conflict, not only an ecological crisis of a kind unknown to man but a warming planet generating temperature extremes resulting in biblical fires and melting ice, so; not only a political crisis but what looks like a collapse of an entire social order in which these calamities converge, mutually inflammatory, threatening to swallow us.
The current crisis can be seen as the pathological shadow of the ‘Unus Mundus’ confronting us with a burning immediacy to understand the inter-dependency of life.
When we analyze how many, if not most large corporations, which represent the heart of the capitalist system as we know it, we see how employees and customers find their identity submerged, their multiple characters reduced to a numeric norm, neutralizing their ability to evaluate and decide. The many individuals who make up or constellate these large corporations are consumed by the narrative of the leaders in a clear process of submission, loss of identity, authenticity, or initiative.
Large corporations are able to develop a culture supported by rituals, public relations, and messaging authored by and in turn chronicled by their leaders which produces a new version of possession which like Saturn devours his own children. Individuals become disconnected from Self, lose their own individuality living a regressive process that leads to a narcissistic state and unconditional surrender to an unknown leadership, who articulate the corporate message to the exclusion of any other ‘noise’.
What we see is an increase in clinical pathologies of individuals directly or indirectly as a consequence of this type of large-scale corporate activity – but perhaps the main effect is a ‘dulling down’ a spiritual emptiness, a lack of meaning and perspective.
The key to unlocking some of these questions seems to lie in understanding the causes and the dynamics of the mechanism of destruction that nourishes the psyche of the individuals who lead and support the neo-liberal capitalist system and for us as analysts to face up to and address this phenomenon.