Innocence Lost: The Liberal Defeat & Shadow Maiden Archetype

An Archetypal Exploration of Liberals & Conservatives

On election night, I hosted a watch party for hundreds of New York City’s most enthusiastic liberal minds. 

But their characteristic sprightliness was nowhere to be seen. As guests filed in, the marchers felt more like foot shufflers. The hopeful charge that thrusts signs into the air and organizes demonstrations in Washington Square Park felt entirely neutralized. The mood was subdued, even submissive. 

As the results rolled in, a deathly pallor fell over the space. It was dissociation in her fullest form: Glazed eyes, flushless cheeks, and limp hands haplessly holding half drunk glasses of red wine. As the reflection of the news coverage reflected off a sea of sedate bodies, a peculiar image intruded my consciousness: 

A liberal in a maiden’s dress, laying over the lap of the masculine, awaiting a spanking, almost knowingly.

This vision of sorts inspired a reflection on liberals and conservatives from an archetypal perspective. It has never been more clear that both parties have their strengths, along with their precipitous shadows, and I began to wonder: Which archetypes capture liberals and conservatives, in their light and shadow, and how can we use these archetypes to bring wholeness to our fractured political reality?

The Maiden Archetype & Liberalism 

The vision of liberals as the Maiden is quite fitting, archetypally speaking.

According to Jungian psychology, the Maiden archetype is associated with youth, innocence, exploration, and the blossoming of selfhood. To the Maiden, everything is possible: She believes in the goodness of people, the validity of impossible ideas, and the fairness of the world. She is the rosy cheeked young person, full of hope and wonder, frolicking through green fields of possibility. In other words, she is a liberal. 

(Before I continue, let me clarify a point I imagine will get lost in the course of this discussion: Archetypes are metaphorical. They are symbolic generalizations. Not all liberals or their activity are befitting of the Maiden, just as not all conservatives or their activity can be captured by another archetype. Also, gendered archetypes — like the Maiden as a woman — are not exclusive to a gender, but instead represent archetypally feminine or masculine qualities. All to say, this exploration is not meant to be reductive, but to lend color to the at-times ungraspable complexities of our political strife.)

We can see the Maiden archetype reflected in the demographics of liberals: According to research, the average American is more likely to identify as liberal at age 25, but more likely to be conservative 20 years later. By 45 years old, most people have moved far enough to the right that they are no longer considered liberal. And regardless of age, women tend to be more liberal than men.

But the Maiden’s essence can also be found in the virtues of liberals: Idealism and progressivism, compassion and care, hope and innovation. She yearns for fairness and kind treatment for all, whether people, animals, or the earth herself, and endeavors to give a voice to even the tiniest, most disempowered creatures. With wistful hope, she empowers the young, proliferates beauty through art and culture, is a steward of the earth, champions the underdog, and invests in bright-eyed innovations that may very well change the world. 

When in balance, the Maiden archetype is a highly useful political force. The 2008 Obama victory brought with it a fresh wave of Maiden energy, inspiring young people with the belief that anything is possible, and capturing a much needed sense of “Hope” that citizens craved amidst a crippling financial crisis and languishing war fatigue (all consequences of the shadow masculine). Obama’s election saw unprecedented levels of young voter turnout, impassioned activism, and the use of Maiden-age digital tools to secure his victory.

However, when the Maiden archetype is out of balance, she exudes naïveté, unrealistic idealism, victimhood, dependency, and avoidance. There is an overreliance on utopian visions of society without pragmatic plans, well-intentioned policies that create cycles of dependency, and surface-level solutions that focus on the symbolic over the substantive. She sees herself as the victim, is reliant on others to rescue her, and stomps away from those who point out her blind spots. Mythologically, she is Persephone, Alice in Wonderland, and Snow White.

The Hero Archetype & Conservatives

But if liberals are the Maiden, what does that make conservatives?

The case can be made that liberals are to the Maiden archetype as conservatives are to the Hero. According to Jung, the Hero is associated with courage, determination, ambition, and sacrifice. He is efficient, practical, and excellent at working his way out of problems, aptly captured by the patriotic soldier, swashbuckling tycoon, and salt of the earth citizen who strong arms his way into the American dream. 

From an ideological perspective, the Hero is most motivated by the idea of successfully completing his own quest. While the Hero is interested in the protection of others — to the extent this saviorism plays into the broader theme of his own Hero’s Journey — he doesn’t relate to the collectivistic standpoint of the Maiden. He values freedom, independence, self-reliance, merit-based victories, and the preservation of long-standing traditions of his people.

When in balance, the Hero is the fearless knight who the masses call for in times of crisis. In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, former president George Bush and former New York City mayor Rudy Guiliani both embodied the Hero spectacularly. While both have faced rightful scrutiny in the years since, their jaw dropping portrayal of the Hero in that particular moment— guiding and protecting the country when it was most afraid — is not to be dismissed. 

(The photographs of president-elect Trump’s fist thrusting into the air in the wake of being shot are among the most powerful of this archetypal essence). 

However, when the Hero archetype is out of balance, he is arrogant and self-serving, tyrannical and domineering, rageful and unrelenting. He views others as weak, incompetent, or villainous to maintain a sense of superiority, sees threats where none exist, engages in obsessive battles to maintain power, and overextends his authority through surveillance, violence, or control. Mythologically, he is Achilles (and his heel), Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader, and Macbeth.

The Archetypal Nature of the Election

When liberals and conservatives are in balance, they can exist in highly-functioning harmony together; their equal but opposite energies keep the other in check. The Maiden ensures the Hero doesn’t burn the kingdom down and the Hero ensures the Maiden doesn’t get lost in a rabbit hole. Both energies are essential for political, social, economic, and intellectual balance.

It is clear, however, that liberals lost because they waded too far into their shadow essence. Since the election, countless articles (in liberal news media, no less) have criticized liberals for spending too much time in their lofty towers, attending to lovely ideals and looking down on those who don’t see their vision. In their distracted state, they lost sight of the practical interventions that the country was hungry for, and ignored the deleterious outcomes of their well-intentioned but overly simplified attitudes.

It bears repeating: Liberals are not imbalanced by nature. Liberals are the emotional, social, and moral counterpart to conservatives’ more practical and severe essence — and this is absolutely necessary. Liberals must care about fairness and goodness, as that is their nature and their essential contribution to the harmony of our broader social ecosystem. 

In this election cycle, however, liberals over-identified with their Maiden energy to the detriment of their efficacy and influence. In their benevolent yearning for hope and change, they isolated their electorate and lost the election.

While it’s impossible to predict exactly when and why the Maiden’s archetypal energies moved out of balance, we can reasonably posit that it was a reaction to the shadow Hero archetype introduced by Trump’s rise to power in 2016. In reaction to this, the Maiden likely felt as though she must overemphasize her essence to stand a chance. It is an understandable though unproductive sentiment: To win a screaming match, all I must do is yell louder.

Rebalancing the Maiden

And so, how does the Maiden move out of the shadows and back into her potential?

Ironically,  she must empathetically extract wisdom from her equal but opposite counterpart, the Hero. As Jung believed, there is great wisdom in that which we are triggered by. Instead of fighting the opposition by becoming more extreme in her own essence, the Maiden might be better served by examining why the Hero is such a trigger for her and how she might embody some of his wisdom to make herself more whole.

Imagine how powerful the Maiden would be if she could create her hopeful change through practical action rather than idyllic rhetoric. If she could strategize around obstacles and nuances rather than ignore or deny them. If she could teach naysayers with compassion rather than judge or cancel them. If she could lovingly empower others to become independent rather than dependent. This is a version of the Maiden that the American people would be relieved to cast a vote for.

Liberals can spend the next four years casting blame on the equally shadowy Hero archetype that is currently in power, or they can examine his appeal and authentically integrate threads of his wisdom into their own sense of wholeness. This is not to say the Maiden must change her essence, but embark upon the process of individuation that requires a thorough merging of opposites.

It is my hope that in the future, she is better equipped to discern the temptations of the pomegranate seeds that can send her to the underworld. But for now, in the underworld she will wait… a season of four years.