Psyche and Politics, Evening #3:
Living in a Titanic Culture
DAVID BARTON, Ph.D.
Thinking and talking together, we will attempt to identify and describe a dangerous cultural bewitchment that is difficult to see precisely because it underlies a great deal of the social, psychological, and environmental destruction taking place on the planet. Jungian analyst Rafael Lopez-Pedraza refers to this complex as "Titanism," a term that refers to psychological emptiness on the one hand and excess on the other; in short, Titanism is that which makes an archetypal imagination impossible.
The term Titanism has also been used by phenomenologist Jan Patocka to
describe a modern tendency towards excess, domination, and destruction of the natural world that must be met with what he calls "care of the soul." Patocka is perhaps best known as a friend of President Václav Havel, who served as a living embodiment of Patocka's ideas during his years as the most prominent dissident in Eastern Europe. We will use ideas from the work of both Havel and Patocka to help us see how we can resist the Titanism we face in our own life and in the culture at large.
