Why can’t we just get along? This is a question that I have been working on in my new book, Divided: Five Colliding Worldviews and How to Navigate Them. I would like to share with you some ideas that I have been exploring.
Join me in learning about the trickster archetype in this series of blogs. The trickster is surfacing today in our uncertain times. What does the trickster represent and what can we learn from him?
Beware of the Trickster
We are living in uncertain times. Our divisions seem to be intractable. It is a time for us to be attuned to strange occurrences and alert to messages from questionable leaders. Tricksters are most visible when people are in conflict and trauma, whether on an individual, national or local level. Now is such a time!
President Trump: Our Trickster Archetype, Part 1
The trickster is a universal archetypal figure found through the history of humanity. Psychologist Carl Jung coined the term archetype and defined it as universal, archaic patterns and images that derive from the collective unconscious. The trickster is one of the most reoccurring of the many archetypes found across time.
Tricksters are always around. But Americans have invited the trickster archetype into our midst in the form of Donald Trump, our trickster president. Why has our society 
invited a trickster figure like Donald Trump into the inner circles of power? Trump has legitimately seized power and established an audience of millions of people because we are in a historical situation where fear, confusion, uncertainty and the loss of a sense of home are real.
Trump is far from the only trickster character around the globe, but because of the wealth and influence of the U.S., he is the most noticeable and important. Because of uncertainty today, current world politics are increasingly influenced by trickster figures. Because of their influence, we now have no idea what will happen to us.
Both the trickster archetype and President Trump share a commitment to spontaneity and improvisation that always pushes the envelope. Trump clearly enjoys his role as cultural destroyer. He seems determined to break every rule and overturn every norm. Trump as the trickster is more interested in images than issues. Perhaps one of the reasons he has been able to elude criticism by his supporters, is that much of his behavior is primal, unconscious and fed by archetypal forces. It is slippery and ephemeral, hard to pin down.
About the Author:
Dr. Denise R. Ames is a long-time educator, grade 7-university, author of seven books, and president of an educational non-profit, Center for Global Awareness, based in Albuquerque, New Mexico. CGA provides books, resources, and services with a holistic, global- focused, and perspective-taking approach for their three programs: Global Awareness for Educators, books and resources for educators and students grade 9-university; Gather, Global Awareness Through Engaged Reflection, a self-organizing study and conversation program for adults focusing on seeing different perspectives of pressing global issues; and their most recent program Turn, Transformative Understanding and Reflection Network, which encourages lifelong and transformative learning to help us arrive at a place of personal and global well-being using a seven “path” approach.
Please email info@global-awareness.org or visit www.global-awareness.org for more information.
For more about worldviews see Dr. Ames’ book Five Worldviews: How We See the World. $9.95
Why can’t we just get along? This is a question that I have been working on in my new book, Divided: Five Colliding Worldviews and How to Navigate Them. I would like to share with you some ideas that I have been exploring.
the most reoccurring of the many archetypes found across time.
While presenting himself as a solution to the crisis, he actually perpetuates insecurity by blurring boundaries and undermining the very sense of distinction and judgment. In fact, the trickster is not really interested in solving the crisis. His real interest lies in perpetuating conditions of confusion, the world he thrives in.
We are living in uncertain times. Our divisions seem to be intractable. It is a time for us to be attuned to strange occurrences and alert to messages from questionable leaders. Tricksters are most visible when people are in conflict and trauma, whether on an individual, national or local level. Now is such a time!
can be seen as another post-modern rejection of modernity. Fundamentalists are not what we traditionally think of as conservative; indeed many are anti-orthodox and regard the more conventional faithful as part of the problem.
Since they reject a modern society, the only other choice they see is the preservation of their traditional ways. Also many people in modern nations find that traditional values give resolute comfort and reassurance in a fluctuating and inexplicable world.
that some adversaries vow to destroy religion. They have found that their religion has provided them the sole guarantee of certainty in an increasingly uncertain and complex world. They will fight to their death to defend this certainty.
legislation that supported a “secular humanist” agenda. In Israel, fundamentalists proclaimed Israel to be a religious state.
forming their own churches, broadcasting stations, publishing houses, schools, universities, and Bible colleges. By the late 1970s, when they had gained sufficient strength and confidence, the fundamentalists would return to public life, launching an offensive to transform the nation to their principles.
Muslim movements would also follow this pattern. As noted, before the Scopes trial Protestant fundamentalists fell on the left of the political spectrum, willing to work with socialists and liberals in the poverty areas of the nation’s rapidly industrializing cities.
It would become difficult to discuss the issue sensibly, because evolution was no longer about scientific findings but a symbol of the deeply felt fear that religion would be crushed under the modern views of mainstream society. Armstrong notes, “When attacking religion that seems obscurantist, critics must be aware that this assault is likely to make it more extreme.”
answered, perhaps something is wrong with the individual. Fundamentalists crusade against the teaching of evolution in public schools, are staunchly patriotic but suspicious of democracy, see feminism as one of the great evils of the day, and fight against abortion and homosexuality.
