The Red Book, Heidi Kolb’s Blog, and the Palin Complex

A substantial number of responses to the satirical piece about Sarah Palin that appeared both in this Jungcurrents blog and the Anchorage Daily News have involved denigrating the writer (“liberal nut job”, “pinhead”, “Drink some more Kool-Aid Doc”).

I am beginning to think the need to respond in this way is part the Palin Complex itself — some inability to tolerate another person’s point of view to the level that one is threatened by it and responds aggressively.

Interesting, the new blog by Heidi Kolb (one of the few Jungian bloggers on the Web) not only talks about the Red Book (!), but about “a person’s capacity to tolerate ambiguity”:

 

Excerpt:

One way of measuring ego-strength and maturity of personality is to assess a person’s capacity to tolerate ambivalence. This capacity is closely related to the ability to feel empathy. It is all about tolerating otherness. Empathy is the genuine ability to see the world through the eyes of another. Another who is truly different, someone who cannot be easily understood. It takes effort (and ego-strength) to make room for another standpoint, another meaning. There are many ways to be right. We have reached maturity when we can give up our need to be right without losing ourselves and our values.

(Source)

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