Richard Lloyd Jones: Almost a century ago, we had a war to end all wars. But we could say we've had nothing but since. Millions dead. Homes torn apart. Artistic and philosophical movements stop dead in their tracks. While some may rhapsodize about the war years being the best years of their lives, perhaps this is an example of selective nostalgia. I'm Richard Lloyd Jones, and today I'm Thinking with Somebody Else's Head, war, what is it good for?
And we shouldn't forget the exclamation point of the Edwin Starr hit from the 70s, absolutely nothing. Well, this is a delicate subject because many people have lost loved ones to war situations, so I do not want to come across in any way as disparaging their memories. My point of view is that it's a terrible thing that we have any situations here on Earth, especially here in the 21st century, where any human beings are losing their lives because we have not found a way to live together without killing and torturing each other.
I believe we should be able to live in a world where the laying down of life for country or religious group or tribe would simply never come up. And so it is from that perspective that I would like to step out and explore this subject. And I hope I can express myself well enough here to add something valuable to the conversation that, actually, we have very seldom, to our shame, especially in the media.
Norberto Keppe is a Brazilian psychoanalyst whose work can give us a profound view of all aspects of human experience, particularly the sick aspects. For Keppe, the essence of life is goodness, truth, and beauty. All that exists by itself naturally has those qualities. Any deviation from that is created and maintained by we human beings, and the moment we stop feeding destruction and evil and sickness, they stop.
This is a profound basis from which to move out on in analyzing our lives and social situations, of course, and is the one we will adopt in looking at human war and the role of the media today. My guest is Italian journalist Fabrizio Biliotti, who sat down with me recently for an expansive discussion about the role of the media in analyzing the world we live in, especially as it relates to war and our highest profile war in particular.
I remember back in 2004 when we first were sort of living here, Fabrizio, maybe we've been here a couple of years, And Mr. Bush came up with a comment during one of his speeches that I thought was really interesting to analyze from our perspective here as two journalists working with Norberto Keppe, how we would see this now. Because he said in 2004, he said, "our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we."
"They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we." What is he really saying here?
Fabrizio Biliotti: Well, we have to consider one important aspect. It is, in this case, of the slips of the tongue. That's very typical, for example, that people say something that maybe they think they don't want to say, but they say. But from a psychological point of view, this aspect shows something about our real intentions.
Then how can we understand this quote of George Bush? Obviously, a journalist should consider this quote like this. Okay, no, but it was very funny because he said something that he didn't really want to say. But in reality, from a psychological point of view, from the perspective of the discoveries of Norberto Keppe's science, we know that, for example, 90% or more of our inner life is hidden.
We don't perceive our real intentions. We don't perceive our real will. Just ten percent or less is conscious. Then it means for example through the lips of the tongue we can really see what is the intention of the people and maybe
Richard: of george bush. Maybe then his comment that the terrorists never stop thinking about new ways to harm our people and neither do we.
Maybe this is a true statement. Maybe yeah in an unconscious way he wants to destroy his own country.
Fabrizio: Yeah that is why for example is very important the consciousness of our real intentions. Because for example how can we see what are our real intentions through the facts. We are what we do and not what we think that we are. And not what we say we are.
Yeah, exactly.
Richard: Even
Fabrizio: less what we say we are. Even less. Then this is an important point. And this process of conscientization is very important to understand, for example, what is happening in our world and also, for example, in many powerful people who are leading the countries, governing the countries, and so
Richard: on.
Let me come back to this, Fabrizio, because I can sort of feel the shockwaves of people when we suggest that Mr. Bush's real intention, in conscientize to him, is to harm his own country. We certainly can see that the United States is in big difficulties economically now, so it seems that that is being borne out in reality. But this is a shock for us, I think, to think that there's these hidden intentions.
You talked about 90% of our inner life is hidden from us. We don't understand. What's in this 90% that we don't see? Are these good intentions, good things? What's going on there? Dr. Keppe shows
Fabrizio: something different. We are 100% consciousness, that is, but we don't accept. And this process of not accepting the consciousness makes the consciousness unconscious. For example, what is war?
War is destruction, war brings suffering, war brings death.
But we don't want to see that our intention is really to attack other people. But what does war represent in our inner life, for example? It's destruction. Then our real will is to destroy and not to bring democracy. If you deny, what is universal that are the good, the truth, and the beauty? And every time you go against this universal that are inside of yourself, they are innate.
And every time you attack this, doesn't matter how, attacking other people or using your power to destroy something, it's not something that is happening only outside of yourself. It's something that comes from your inner self, your inner life.
Richard: Let me come to this to explain this a little bit more, because we're talking about something that's quite profoundly different from how we see the world.
You're suggesting something much deeper, which is that this desire, this war externally represents something that we haven't conscientized about the way human beings are inside.
What is it that we need to know about the human being and this inconscientized part of ourselves?
Fabrizio: Yes. What we need to know is that every time we attack other people, we don't want to see that our real intention is to do this.
Richard: So I have an intention already to attack, to destroy, and I use the war to justify the intention I have.
But I don't see my intention. I see
Fabrizio: the war as a justified thing. Yes, exactly. And that is something that people don't want to see. This destruction, this attack they do against the goodness, against the truth in life.
Richard: Let's try to use another example to explain this, Fabrizio. I remember we were both here. I had just moved here when September 11th happened in 2001.
I'd been here for like a month, month and a half maybe. And I had moved here from New York City. So I was very linked to what was going on in that story because I had friends in New York City, of course.
I had lived there for a couple of years. And I remember very clearly that after September 11th, there was a lot of questioning going on, particularly in New York, and I even saw this in the media, a lot of consciousness that was coming up as a result of this terrible attack. People were asking questions. Why has this happened? Why do people hate us so much?
Was there something we did that contributed to this situation? Why are the terrorists wanting to attack us? We are very vulnerable. We are not as powerful as we thought. There was a lot of consciousness coming up. People were really questioning. A lot of very healthy dialogue. And that got very quickly turned. It lasted for a few weeks, and then we didn't see anything about that more.
We started to see guys going on the radio saying, it's time to bomb Afghanistan back to the Stone Age.
"We will set you back by pulverizing you." We saw Ralph Peters, a former U.S. Army officer writing in the Wall Street Journal who said, "this is a killing hour and we must rise to it." So I think this is something that's very clear. That there was consciousness coming. And the media should be involved in exploring that consciousness. Trying to get to the bottom of that.
What's happening, what's really going on. Instead, it gets completely taken away and we just start to talk about attacking, bombing. That must be our real intention then.
Fabrizio: Yes. For example, people, they don't want consciousness. Because there is an inverted idea, Richard, in our society, that consciousness brings suffering. And how is our reaction in front of all these happenings? Well, many people, they wanted to be more conscious of what was happening to try to solve, to give a solution to this situation.
But many other people, they want to deny this consciousness. For example, imagine I have a problem, okay? I have a bad attitude. I don't know, I'm paranoid. And I attack all the people, okay? Then it comes the moment that I have to be conscious about this. But, for example, then how is my reaction? Okay, I can react in two different ways. I can accept the consciousness of this attacking, aggression that I do.
And what is the logical consequence? I will hold my bad actions, my bad attitudes. And the same thing can happen in society, okay? But what is the consequence if I continue to feed this anger, if I continue to feed this aggression? It will start a process that will never end, and which will bring to an increasing violence all over the world. So as
Richard: journalists, what can we begin to do here?
Because this is a complicated situation.
If a country is attacked and people die, how can we as journalists begin to look at this situation in a more mature way? The quotes
Fabrizio: that you were reading before were very interesting because this reaction, this violent reaction, oh, let's bomb Afghanistan, let's destroy everything, let's pulverize everything. This is a kind of reaction to a consciousness that we refuse. What is this consciousness?
The answer is in the questions that people were bringing. That is why are we so vulnerable. Why did it happen. Did we
Richard: contribute in some way. Yeah did
Fabrizio: we contribute in some way. Why do people hate us so much. Then the more the mature
Richard: and that's a very serious question. Those are very deep because it's not a simple thing of saying that we're responsible for that completely.
But we can begin to look, how did we contribute?
Is there something that we are doing? Why do people hate us so much? How can we get people to be more on our side, you know? Yes. We
Fabrizio: don't want to have this consciousness because we know that somehow we contributed to this situation. And then a mature person tries to be conscious of this and to calm down. And a mature person reacts, destroying everything and think that the problem is outside.
And then if the problem is outside, the only solution is to eliminate the problem and not to be conscious of this.
Richard: And that's exactly what happened. Very shortly after this discussion began, after September 11th, it very quickly turned to we need to attack in order to defend ourselves, to destroy the enemy outside. So we're not having the consciousness of what's going on inside.
We're trying to bomb the other country, which is actually bombing, destroying the consciousness that we could have by looking at this situation differently.
Fabrizio: Then you add, for example, "to a bad situation another bad situation. And that means that the violence will increase all over the world. Which it is. Which
Richard: it is. That is what actually is happening. We have to ask Americans if they feel safer today, if they feel that they're under less threat of terrorism. I would say absolutely not. There's more terrorism in the world.
They're in more danger. There's more paranoia in the United States today. Everything has increased because of this failure to want to see the consciousness deeper." I remember doing an interview with Norberto Keppe shortly after September 11th, and I was asking him about the correct response in this situation. And he used an analogy of a human being. He said that "a mature person, when they're confronted by an attack, They can actually not be harmed in the situation."
The person who's doing the attacking can actually be more hurt than the person who's been attacked. A mature person's response is not necessarily to attack back. That's the point that really struck me. It'd be like a little kid coming up and kicking you hard in the shin. If you're an immature person, you're going to smack the kid back. "Oh yeah, you want to do that to me?
Then let me show you who's boss here." But if you're a more mature person, you'll try to conscientize the child. "This is not good, try to help the parents to see that their kids shouldn't be behaving this way." Here we are attacking a country like Afghanistan, which is already in the Stone Age. That's a very
Fabrizio: poor country. Very immature response to this.
I think the big problem is what Dr. Keppe says. We know already that war is wrong. Everybody knows that.
Because war is destruction, it's something against our well-being, it's something against our health, something against our harmony.
Richard: My father fought in the Second World War, and he told me one time, he said, "nobody wants to go through a war, Richard. Don't pretend that it's a wonderful, romantic, beautiful thing. It's not good for anybody, even the people who win, who are fighting for a good cause." He said, "don't pretend that it's some romantic, fantastic thing." Yes,
Fabrizio: I remember.
I had two grandfathers, one in Italy. I am Italian. Then one participated in the fascist side, and the other to the liberation side. But both said that the German and the other, the Allies, were kind of criminals. I know that's very delicate what I'm saying. Yeah, of course. I understand. But the difference that
Richard: Dr. Kepes shows to us through his
Fabrizio: discoveries and through his work is war is something wrong.
But what is important for us to know is What is the consciousness that hides behind the war? This is what a major journalist
Richard: should do. And what is the consciousness behind this desire for war and aggression that we've had for centuries in humanity?
Fabrizio: The big mistake is, for example, the violence, aggression is natural in human beings. Dr. Kepes says, "no, this is pathological.
This is a denial of goodness, of what is good." When we consider the war, we have to understand that war is a distraction, an attack. When we are in front of this kind of situation, like war, terrorism, and so on, we must be conscious of this fact, that war or terrorism is something pathological, is a denial of something good that is the reality that we should live.
We should live in goodness. We should live in truth. We should live in beauty and harmony.
But we don't. Then every time we have this desire to destroy something, we must be conscious of this. If we think, no, but violence and aggression is natural in the human being, then what does it mean? That when I attack another person, okay, it's natural, it's part of my nature, then why should I have to be conscious about this? But if I consider the good, the truth, and the beauty, then every time I do something against these elements, I have to be conscious about the reason why.
Richard: In this sense, then, we must use war as a justification for the pathological attitudes we have to go against the essence of what we are. This is a discussion that should be happening in journalism today. Yes,
Fabrizio: exactly. And if you ask, for example, to everybody, for example, what do you prefer? Do you prefer a war, or do you prefer to live in goodness, to live in harmony?
Everybody, everybody tells you, okay, no, I prefer goodness. I don't like violence. Everybody will answer. Just crazy people will tell you, okay, no, I like war, I like destruction, violence, and so on.
Richard: This is a very sick person.
Fabrizio: A very sick person, okay. But most of the people will tell you this. But the problem is, why do we do war? Why do we create a violent society?
Then this is the big important deal to understand today, and journalism must help people to do this. It's like, for example, in psychotherapy. The function of a psychotherapist is to show the client what is wrong. And through this consciousness, the client will have an attitude to correct. Now, what is the function in the sense of the media? Is to help society, to help the individuals to be conscious of this pathological part.
Not to justify the wrong things we are doing, but to be conscious that is a wrong way to act, is a wrong way because it brings only violence and death and destruction.
And this process will increase. He is the destruction of our planet, and that is why, for example, journalists must have this function like a therapist of society.
Richard: Because here's what we do now, Fabrizio, to continue your point. We, as journalists, we look at a story, we take a controversial issue, and then when we're writing the story, we make sure that we include all ten points of view that are represented in that story.
And we put this point of view, that point of view, that point of view, and at the end of the story, at the end of the debate, We leave it to the public to decide what they want to believe in. And people are going to believe what they already believe. We don't try and weigh the story against what's reality, what's the truth of a situation.
This is what we don't do as journalists. I
Fabrizio: think the big problem is it doesn't matter if these point of views are right or wrong.
Everything is relative, you know. This relativity brings humanity to a kind of craziness. Then the function of media must be this one of lighten the consciousness of people, trying to reach this real part inside of ourselves and inside of
Richard: society. Gandhi said it this way. He said when faced with an attack in some way, he said, "if a man hits you and you hit him back, he will feel justified to hit you harder.
But if a man hits you and you don't respond with hate or revenge then that other man has a choice to make. He can make one of two choices. Ah this person is not what I thought they were and this is bad that I'm hitting him so I need to stop. Or he will hit harder because now he's angry because you've not responded the way you should." Gandhi understood this dialectical question that the human being is in essence good.
And when faced with goodness, he must either rise to the same goodness or completely corrupt himself and fall to complete decadence. This is
Fabrizio: the function of the media to show, for example, what is the goodness through the consciousness of evil too. This is the big deal. And you said a very interesting thing when we were talking about Gandhi because the reaction in front of this consciousness of evil is important.
Because you a person can have two reactions. That he can accept this consciousness and then calm down. Or this person could also attack. It could happen but this process will provoke a decadence in himself because he's increasing and not only outside but also inside a pathological attitude that will corrupt himself and destroy his inner self.
Richard: But we do this all the time because we look for excuses to vent our anger or frustration.
I'm feeling a little frustrated. I'm not feeling good. I had a difficult day at work. I go home and immediately I pick on something that my wife did or my kids did. I immediately look for an outlet for the thing that I'm already feeling. War is like this. War is an outlet for the aggression that we're already feeling. We have created a violent world because of our economic system, because of our political system, because of the way we treat other people, because of the way we destroy our natural resources.
We've created an extremely violent world. Why should we be surprised at violence that occurs in any area? We need to try to see that this violence is a reflection of something that's going on inside the human being. It's not just
Fabrizio: a few terrorists in some other part of the world. We are doing this in our own countries.
In our own countries and in ourselves. And in ourselves. That comes from a wrong idea. The wrong idea is that if you are angry, you have to show this anger. If you are irritated, you have to show this irritation. And somehow you have to discharge outside this anger. Then you will be free from this. That is, the war is the same thing.
I have a problem. The problem is this country. That country is terrorism. Okay, let's attack them to eliminate the problem. But this is a wrong idea. This is a totally inverted idea because the way I'm behaving like this, I am increasing my anger, I am increasing my irritation, I am increasing violence and so on. I'm not liberating myself from this. And this increases the pathological process,
Richard: total destruction.
That's why Gandhi said, "in this cause, I am prepared to die, but there is no cause for which I'm prepared to kill."
And Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jesus, some of these great leaders we've had throughout history, Nelson Mandela, we don't follow them when we come to a crisis situation. Exactly. We have a terrible situation where the World Trade Center is attacked and thousands of people are killed innocently. And we don't look to those leaders for how to respond to the situation. We don't look to what Norberto Keppe is showing us in terms of human psychopathology.
We just react in the same old way we've reacted for centuries and we continue to feed this cycle of destruction and violence that is continuing without stop in the world today.
Fabrizio: Yeah, that is why, for example, we haven't learned from the two world wars and we have the Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. Yes, it was beautiful, so beautiful. Why don't we follow this?
This was a very important moment of consciousness. But what did humanity with this? They cancelled the memory. They cancelled this consciousness. And that is why we are feeding our pathology, forgetting, pretending that this kind of situation will not happen anymore. And it will happen. It is happening all over
Richard: the world. The Declaration of Human Rights is so beautiful. In the Geneva Convention, the Declaration of Human Rights, it talks about not torturing.
Mr. Bush just recently vetoed a bill from the Congress to prohibit torture. He said, "no, we need torture. We need to have torture. The CIA needs to be able to interrogate people to get information from them." We are feeding exactly the violence that we say we're trying to stop. Yes. Extraordinary, isn't it?
Fabrizio: Yes. This is a big problem. And then what happened with all those people that you were talking about?
They were killed. Then what is mankind killing when humanity killed Jesus Christ, Gandhi, or Martin Luther King? They are not killing only a person. They are killing the consciousness that these people brought to humanity. And this is the consciousness of the attack we do every day to all our goodness, to all the truth.
Richard: It's a most important discussion. How are we contributing to the destruction and how do we stop? I think Norberto Keppe's work offers some real solutions. Write me to continue the dialogue. Rich at richjonesvoice.com. This is Thinking with Somebody Else's Head. I'm Richard Lloyd Jones. Talk to you next time.
