AS IT IS? IS IT AS IT IS? IS AS IT IS AS IT IS? AS IT IS?
In many ways, and on certain days when I'm feeling a particular way, I feel that a lot of human behavior is modeled to a child by the art they experience very early on. Movies have a resounding effect on the young psyche, depending on the level of exposure and awareness level, the moving picture, in combination wtih sound and music have a profound effect on the young. The archetypal social situations are being layed out, which by now is reflecting the world around us, the world it once created; is art influencing life? or is life influencing art? and is it art influencing life influencing art influencing life on and on and also and also?
So, what would happen if we were to remove the upkeep of particular cultrual myths: don't show them bullies, don't show them stories about class clashes, and race wars. The idea of every reader identifying with a hero within a text is not a proven fact, it is an idea. Reading/Media observing is dangerous. You have the additive social hang-ups of the author always to worry about (.) , besides imprinting--a youth, anyone for that matter, but especially youths who have not yet mastered the formula of narrative present in most movies created for them, can find inspiration in any character/idea that they miracously identify with. This is something I say with only a modest education of psychology, but I say it with feeling:
We want a better world? We want to start building it now? Let's stop the archetypes, and that's a beginning. Grind them to a temporary halt, don't let there shadows guide them any longer. We show them base reality, and they'll take that base reality. I mean the word base here in as many definitions as you can conjure.
I'm aware of the counter-arguments to a position like this, but I think about the possibility of the next generation of humans who have gone beyond formulating their early world views based on the mistakes of others. Some children's authors seem to "get this," but more often than not most media-creators are interested in presenting a representation of the contemporary life they lead, a contemporary life predicated on the archetypes and architecture of our current society. And then the other counter-argument, and this is the biggest one, and the most difficult, and also in consequence "the crippling stance," who decides what to input instead? What do we input instead? What about "today's chidlren"-- do they get left behind?
This may be construed as some form of censorship. Acknowledged. Remember, that I'm only taking this all as seriously as an attempted investigation of the thoughts I normally keep locked inside. This is my attempt at a brain recording device. Let's throw away these sort of counter-arguments for now, they only provide a bottleneck to seriously thinking about this.
I've noticed in my own fiction that I've adopted particular socially constructed relationships, influenced by the ghosts of previous selfsimilar kin. But there are kinds that I've definitly deselected from my cultural vocabularly, it is these ones that people tend to be looking for the most, the ones that have been hooking up with them since childhood. There's some people on certain wave lengths of awareness that tend switch tracks to another set of archetypes, like clay to work into their lives.
The collective unconscious is ever-changing. It will mold and shape itself, and adapt to a changing human nature, a rerepresented reality. I extend and am liberal with my definitions. I wiggle from them. This is a fault. It's ok.
Think about it. Model a whole new gestalt. A transition.