Audio Essay: The Negation of Historicity

Further analysis, however quirky, has helped me understand (personal) relationship with work in a broader sense. I hope that the following interpretation may also assist others in finding a different perspective toward their work, one that is not solely defined by basic ideas.

This interpretation mainly refers to the movie Skyfall, though it is likely applicable to all Bond films.

Archetypal Patterns

Bond as a Man of Action – The Hero Archetype

Bond represents the archetype of the Hero, always ready to face dangers and moral dilemmas. His story in Skyfall portrays a fall, redemption, and return, passing through physical and inner conflicts, which makes him a complex hero. Action and instinct drive him through his missions, but this film adds depth to his character, making him a hero who faces his own limitations.

M – The Wise Old Woman – The Great Mother Archetype

M symbolizes the Wise Old Woman and the Great Mother, providing Bond with guidance and protection. As an authority figure and moral compass, she is someone Bond respects. Her death in the film has a strong emotional impact on Bond, as he loses a key maternal figure, forcing him to take on greater responsibility.

Death and Rebirth – The Transformation Archetype

In Skyfall, Bond undergoes the archetype of Transformation – his “death” at the beginning and eventual return symbolize a metaphorical rebirth. This cycle leads him through physical and emotional renewal, reexamining his identity and role, which is a crucial phase on the hero’s journey.

Reaching His Goals Mostly Through Women – The Anima Archetype

Bond’s relationship with women reflects his Anima, the feminine aspect of his soul. Women like Séverine often serve as catalysts for his actions, but they are also key to balancing his emotions and rational world. They open space for his introspective side, making them vital to his inner development.

The Shadow Archetype

Silva, the main antagonist represents Bond’s Shadow. He is a dark version of Bond, someone who has gone through a similar process but has chosen a different path. Silva personifies Bond’s inner fears – what he could become if he lost faith in MI6 and its authorities. As Bond’s shadow, Silva highlights the dangers of individualism without moral boundaries – the Lucifer (fallen angel) symbol.

The Father Archetype

MI6 and its institutional framework act as the father archetype, providing Bond with direction and tasks, offering him structure within which he operates. While MI6’s authority may sometimes appear cold and distant, it symbolizes a paternal figure guiding Bond through his mission, even when their relationship is strained.

Analysis of James Bond and What We Can Learn from His Relationship to Work

What caught my attention about James Bond (aside from all the well-known moments) is his relationship to his work. More precisely, the nature of his job, which differs from that of most people. The essence of his work is not about acquiring material wealth, which we can say is the nature of almost all jobs. For James Bond, his home or wealth does not matter. As a member of the secret service and a top operative, everything is provided for him. What retains importance is the Suit of Armor (his suit and watch) and his cars. Both can be seen as serving the function of defining his Persona. The suit is an exponent of a uniform (a certain mode of functioning), his watch represents precision, while the car signifies thought – its speed and elegance. These gadgets have their small additions and applications, but the core idea is deepening his purposefulness.

Bond’s Nature in Relation to Himself – The Negation of Historicity

Bond lacks historicity. He is not nostalgic in any way. Historicity, in his case, would be a crutch that would cause him to stumble. His conditional movement is directed straight toward the future. More precisely, he receives direction from MI6, the exponent of the Good (metaphysical, collectively supraconscious). This is a crucial point; Bond’s directions do not come from his personal consciousness (personal definitions of good), but from something greater, something universal. This idea is made explicit in Skyfall when Silva offers him the opportunity to “choose their own missions,” which Bond naturally declines. Although MI6 is depicted in the film as morally ambivalent (or even morally displaced), from an ordinary observer’s perspective, Bond still recognizes it as a higher moral authority.

This Good comes with collateral damage and has no sympathy for individual sacrifice, as long as the mission is accomplished – a reference to God (the metaphysical), who executes His Plan regardless of individual suffering. Bond is often in conflict with MI6 (the metaphysical) for this very reason: its lack of empathy toward individual suffering. His concern for the individual is what makes him human.

This type of conflict is something we all experience to such an extent that we often doubt the “authority” and its goals – just as we might doubt God’s plan. Skepticism is a healthy stance, and it must exist. However, faith must also exist, a faith that follows this “Greater Good,” even if we do not fully understand it.

Note: Suspension of disbelief – we interpret MI6 as it is portrayed in the film, as an objectively “greater good,” and not as a human construct full of anomalies and personal pretensions, as it probably is in reality.

On the Conditionals of This Kind of Work Relationship

Ancient Greek philosophers argued that one must rise above existential problems to engage in philosophy (higher matters). One must finish with the “lower” to deal with the “higher.”

That is exactly what James Bond does. He has finished with material accumulation and serves exclusively the “greater good.” This way of functioning puts him in an instrumental position, opposite to the autistic urges for repetition, ergo, security. His life is on the line at every moment, and each day could be his last. At the core of his actions is almost absolute Action, without contemplation or reflection on past experiences. There is no nostalgia, no desire for the old days or past events. Each day is a New Sun (Heraclitus), taken to the limit of the absolute. Thought (contemplation or conclusions) is reduced to almost instinctual (intuitive) action. He doesn’t need to reflect and conclude, he knows. Reflection is part of analysis (the material), intuitive guidance is part of instinct (the metaphysical, or already understood – conceptualized – part of a larger pattern that is not deduced but is self-evident). Intellectual muscle memory. Bond is not historical, even in thought. His identity does not derive from a historical mosaic of experiences but from active aspects that lead to his Goal, and that goal is established by an “other” – the Collective Supraconscious – the Good.

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“If God is absolute, then he is complete. If he is complete, then he is finite. If he is finite, then he is limited. If he is limited, he is not Infinite.”

The trap of a visual syllogism. Infinity is absolute and ultimate finiteness. Absolute finiteness includes Infinity. God is both a thesis and an anti-thesis.

The archetype of the Shadow from Tolkien

The archetype of the Shadow is hard to grasp these days. Although I have problems with other Archetypes as well, Shadow is the most difficult to appoint, and on the other hand, it is spread the most. Lately, the Shadow has been showing itself to me in the form of an ex-girlfriend, monster, plain evil, or some form of darkness. As a child, I dreamed of it as a witch, a cannibal plant, or some kind of demon. In one dream, which I had after the death of Patriarch Pavle, it appeared to me like a cuddly black dog who flattered me but actually wanted to eat a sparrow sitting on my left shoulder (the sparrow was PP). I see it in people in the form of unambiguous desire, lack of ethics, excessive need for repetitive pleasure, wrong definitions, insufficient definitions, insufficient terms, inadequate knowledge. Like everyone else, I succumb to all these ailments.

Although fairy tales introduced me to the phenomenon, and Jung indoctrinated me into the concept, it was only with Tolkien that I actually encountered for the first time the formal gradation of the Shadow that was close to me. In The Lord of the Rings, the Shadow is elaborated on three levels (Gollum – 9 riders – Sauron) – One – Many – One. The object of the shadow is the Ring. The ring as a symbol of infinite desire – our fall – our (imperfection) – our slavery.

Gollum – Arbitrariness in relation to Sauron (source). Gollum has his own will and his own intention even though he is a lower and far less powerful level of shadow. His intention is not necessarily the same as Sauron’s, it is even opposed (logical contradiction within the Shadow).

9 Riders – From the Shadow’s perspective, they shine like angels. They are completely subservient to the collective consciousness. Complete obedience of the Riders to the initial Principle (Sauron). Overpowered by Woman (Anima)

Sauron – The Contrasting Principle of Life. The end of Kant’s categories. It is destroyed at the place where it is materialized (named).

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• Theoretical elaborate of the back facade of the TECTONOMORPHIC INCARNATION OF JUNGIAN IDEA project.

Carmina Figurata

Shadow, the oculus through which one looks at the downside of Persona. Dark dimensions of demonic mono-dialogues are suppressed by identity under the influence of anonymous authority (public opinion).

Orphic lines in which the shadow prints its deconstructed sentences, are suggested by the persona’s anatomy. The remains of the area in which the persona left its mark, serves as a canvas on which the shadow draws ideograms of stupidity and wisdom. The savage nature of these ideograms is softened by the subtle poetics of their sincerity. Ideograms, the place of residence of all Baudelaire’s ideals, are presented in a burlesque manner. Their ornaments (read: statements) are non-linear and hard to read. Understatement is the main attribute of this monstrous image-text. And like every text, this one should also be translated into a language that is rather more understandable.

In order to understand and bring to reason this anti-reason-idea, it is understood that we have to understand the over-rational.

The beginning of this process involves a certain tool. A tool that we would use to suspend our cubical intellectual magnifying glass that is only good at the reading of existing (ipso facto) things, but is completely blind in the understanding of the ostensibly-non-existent over-ideas. These archi-ideas become readable exclusively in the superstructures of imagination.

In these overbuilt spheres of imaginary floors, the world is written in the eidetic (pictorial) alphabet. This kind of alphabet has no obvious beginning or end. There is no prologue, development or epilogue. No fragmented and isolated groups. However, all the connections, recognitions and shaping is actually happening right here. Here, on this phantasmagoric channels of the downside of  Persona, are drawn constellations of the true arch (above) – tecture (construction). (Third Didascaly)

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