Episode 424 - Hubris Comes Before the Fall

Living Myth

Michael Meade

Transformation, Philosophy, Society & Culture, Genius, Education, Myth, Soul, Culture

4.9 • 944 Ratings

🗓️ 26 February 2025

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This episode of Living Myth begins with a consideration of psychological characteristics of the archetype of the king. In its positive form the king archetype is often connected to the sun which appears as a unifying force that brings warmth and light along with generosity and life enhancing generativity. Since it is the nature of archetypes to manifest negative as well as positive energies, the shadow king manifests the dark side of power, the corrupt side of ruling and the backside of humanity that everyone else must suffer.

The dark side of the king archetype appears as the tyrant or dictator who rules by fear and force, who seeks to control everything, while growing increasingly vindictive and destructive. The old term for the kind of arrogance and psychological inflation that causes a person to run amok and violate the natural order of things was hubris. When those stricken with hubris are given power, they display a great insolence and recklessness that leads to a shattering of norms and breaking of laws with callous disregard for any damage done or suffering caused to other people.

At a time when the world is experiencing a rise of dictators and autocrats, some psychologists are describing a Hubris Syndrome that shows how destructive patterns intensify the longer an afflicted person is in a position of power. Pride may come before a fall, but overbearing hubris can be said to come before a complete implosion and collapse. It becomes increasingly important for the future of democracy and the well-being of humanity that we all learn to see more clearly how the psychological disorders of those given positions of great power can plunge enormous numbers of people and even entire countries into unnecessary levels of division and disaster.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Living Myth podcast with Michael Mead, where this shifting, changing world is looked at from a mythic perspective.
0:17.0	This episode begins with a consideration of psychological characteristics of the
0:23.4	archetype of the king. In its positive form, the king archetype is often connected to the sun,
0:30.0	which appears as a unifying force that brings warmth and light, along with generosity and life-enhancing
0:37.2	generativity.
0:39.3	Since it is the nature of archetypes to manifest negative, as well as positive energies,
0:44.3	the shadow king manifests the dark side of power, the corrupt side of ruling, and the backside
0:50.3	of humanity that everyone else must suffer. It becomes increasingly important for the future
0:56.7	of democracy and the well-being of humanity that we all learn to see more clearly how the
1:03.4	psychological disorders of those given positions of great power can plunge enormous numbers of people
1:09.8	and even entire countries into unnecessary
1:13.4	levels of division and noble leadership.
1:40.7	The old idea was that the king or the ruler of a society was secretly at one with the land,
1:48.1	and thus able to balance culture with nature, as well as having a magnanimous capacity to bring
1:57.1	together the different strata of society and the diverse factions of human community.
2:04.5	On the other hand, if a king or a leader should rule with an iron fist or not be inclusive of the people
2:13.0	or allow injustice to spread over the land, then the subtle connections with nature and its abundance would become frayed,
2:24.3	and the earth would become infertile, and the wasteland would begin to grow.
2:30.3	At that point, all efforts to create abundance and inclusion would be fruitless,
2:37.8	while all divisions amongst the people would intensify and become increasingly polarized
2:44.1	until a living balance could once again be restored by noble and inspired leadership.
2:52.7	In both mythological and psychological terms, the issues and the images and the ideas that
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