As I read Dawkins' The Selfish Gene some years ago I realized that biology and evolutionary theory can be helpful when trying to understand certain human behavior and cultural phenomena. For example, why do partners cheat on each other and why do people get jealous. It's so obvious that these behaviors don't result from the fact that our ancestors ate the forbidden fruit of knowledge of good and evil and Fell into the world of sin from Eden. The tendencies must have existed long before spoken language and abstract thinking, that is to say human consciousness, evolved.
So instead, the eating of the forbidden fruit would represent the Fall from the bliss of ignorance, as humans started becoming more aware of their already-existing natural drives, some of which clearly shocked them enough to create the myth of the great Fall from Eden.
This lead to the birth of religions, whose original purpose was probably simply to rediscover the original state of ignorant/innocent bliss lost in the Fall. This gave rise to the development of the ego transcendence aspect of religion that is so central to true spirituality, and which some call enlightenment. Religion was thus also the original counter-cultural movement, since it resisted from the start the birth of the ego and of culture itself, preferring the non-dual experience that preceded human consciousness. But it also paradoxically created culture:
While some shamans remained true to the very real process of ego-transcendence, some began to simply blame certain objects for the Fall from Eden, implying that the destruction of these "enemies" or "negative forces" would precede the Return to Eden. This basic form of Shadow Projection has taken more forms throuhout history than anyone can count. Recently, even the truly spiritual aspect of spirituality, which is ego transcendence, has come under attack in materialistically oriented cultures where individualism is often mistaken for egoism. (Adam Smith's metaphor of the Invisible Hand might explain this attitude to some extent, since it seems to imply that egoism drives consumerism and therefore the economy, hence transcendental practise is contrary to good manners)
I'm rambling a bit so lets get to the point. I like both sociobiology and Jungian shadow projection psychology. At first they may seem to be in conflict, the other one being seemingly rational and the other one somewhat mythical, but I believe there is a synthesis, somewhere out there..
First biological evolution gave rise to the foundations of human behavior. Projection is a more recent, conscious process that has used these basic natural structures in constructing the complex, evolving human culture of problem and solution.
The problem with sociobiology is its emphasis on evolution and man purely as an animal. Governments, the great managers of human societies, rely on statistics to govern their subjects. Apparently they are going to improve the human condition by changing certain societal variables and by staring at pie charts as the numbers move in the desired direction, and the money and the power into their hands. Just turn the dial a bit, pass a new law, and see how the herds react. The dreadful vision of the right-wing elite who is both physically and mentally separated from the mindless hordes of lower class homo sapiense, the greasy engines of their well-being, is always lurking in the back of everyone's mind.
The problem with shadow projection, on the other hand, is that many psychologists take the theory too far. They apply it to everything, as if every undesirable mode of behavior were the result of shadow projection. I've read several articles where someone seems to explain that the only real problem in the world is shadow projection, as if biology didn't have anything to do with it - as if every human brute could be healed by guiding him toward greater self-awareness. In fact, I remember reading somewhere that psychotherapy has been shown statistically(!) to aggrevate certain undesirous tendencies in cetain "pahtological" groups of people. (Like you all probably know, shrooms aren't necessarily that good for everyone  )
What I'm looking for is some lucid author who has considered both the psychological shadow projection aspect and the biological aspect of human behavior. Both have their place in the world, but over-emphasis seems to be rife.
Ken Wilber is someone who combines western psychology with scientific knowledge of evolution as well as (eastern) wisdom of the transcendental in his theories, but I haven't decided about him yet. I'm currently looking into it.
I just needed to unload that off my chest. Anyone care to share thoughts?
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