Oh, Golden Age of Projection!

Morning Thoughts #22

“Projection is an unconscious, automatic process whereby a content that is unconscious to the subject transfers itself to an object, so that it seems to belong to that object.” - Carl Jung

Do you remember the overhead projectors once so common to classrooms? How about the clear plastic sheets placed over the machine’s clear, bright screen? And the special markers for these sheets? And how about the teacher asking for the lights to be turned off so the lesson could begin? And how, voila, in the darkness, the sheet’s markings had been so clearly transferred to a wall’s screen for all to see? Alas, I am old enough to admit that I can remember all of this very clearly!

The advent of the digital age has seemed to make such projectors obsolete, with perhaps only a few holdouts remaining in underfunded rural classrooms. So, that's it, right? The glorious heyday of projector-dominated American education has left, never to return? No! While the machinery has changed, projection has never been a more dominant force in American life! Yes, we are, in fact, living through the golden age of projection! 

You say you cannot find any modern-day projectors? Well, do not believe your lying eyes, and look instead to your disseminating mind! No, those old projectors are not gone; they have just moved within us! We are our own projectors now!

How natural it is to criticize others for traits we do not like in ourselves. What we unconsciously suspect of ourselves, we accuse with conscious certainty of somebody else. In a world almost entirely overtaken by relativism, it seems we are never more certain than when we declare: "This person is clearly a (insert your favorite derogatory label here)!"

Oh land of projectors, woe to those who prostrate their unexamined faults and fears over the soul's inner light but only look outward to find the proposition of potential enemies. How they project themselves like a finger pointed menacingly.

Self-reflection is the cure to projection. Socrates knew that when he argued that the unexamined life is not worth living. Ironically, the unexamined life also tends to think itself best at examining (and judging) other people’s lives! 

Like a farmer hobnobbing abroad during the harvest season, what a temptation it is to head out away from ourselves! With growth unconnected to our personal soil, we understand ourselves and our world though the entertainment we consume, the day’s news we read, the curated social profiles we meet, and so on. Such outward habits are indicative of an advanced state of addiction to projection.

Stop it! Redirect and reflect. It might be counterintuitive, but first you must look within and work to understand yourself before you can truly perceive the reality without and beyond yourself. Why is this? Because without proper self-reflection, we are so naturally inclined to projection!

Friends, our task (and what a difficult task it is today!) is to live against the current in an age with such a swift and strong outward flow.