THE DUALITY OF MAN
1 FEBRUARY 2022 (16 MIN READ)
In most popular action movies, the plot follows a battle between good and evil, in the form of a hero versus a villain. Consider the battles between Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader, or The Avengers against Thanos. Imagine if the plot had no villain, and all we saw was the protagonist going about their daily lives. In this alternate reality, there would be no hero, or even “good” for that matter. This leads to the assertion that a hero and good can only arise in the face of a villain and evil. But what if these entities were not so separate? (Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker were literally cut from the same cloth). What if that duality exists inside of ourselves and the rules of the movies still apply? This would mean that not only do we have the capacity to be the hero and the villain, or good and evil, but we can only get to know the hero inside of ourselves if we face the evil within. Let’s investigate this claim further through psychological reasoning. I once had a friend named Jimmy, who was the sweetest man I knew, but when aggravated, he would just punch people in the face without restraint. How can we explain this distinction? Most people would only look at one side of the equation in defining him. His friends would focus on the sweet side and ignore his capacity for violence, while people who did not know him so well would laser in on his aggression. Thus, people would either see him as good or evil, but this limited identification is entirely incorrect. He is both good and evil. And our societal tendency to only focus on one or the other is a reflection of our own inability to see the duality inside ourselves.
Let’s take this even further. What happens inside of Jimmy when he chooses to punch someone? Put succinctly, he loses the war within to defeat evil. Whatever good inside of him that ruled his normal day-to-day existence was pummeled by the dark desire for destruction. The crazy part about all of this is that Jimmy had no idea about this internal battle, as he only saw himself as a “good” man and refused to dwell on why he chose violence. This reality leads to a key point in the duality of man: our need to be “good”—both for others’ acceptance and to tolerate ourselves—leads us to ignore the evil within, which allows the evil to leak out without us even knowing, destroying some good in the process. Put differently, evil will kill the good inside of us if we choose to ignore it, which is why we always have to be on the lookout for our own capacity for evil, because, eventually, if we don’t, there will be no good left in us.
What unconsciously controls how we choose to act out our impulsive desires to destroy and dominate are the guardrails of society. While Jimmy chose to ignore the law by engaging in illegal violence, many choose legal avenues to unknowingly release their inner demons. Whether it be commenting deeply hateful things on social media, masturbating to overtly aggressive porn, or playing shooter video games, people need a way to release their evil unconsciously. The people who are engaging in these acts, which I used to do at one point, are unaware of the driving forces behind them. And the more these avenues of aggression are accepted in society, the more people will keep refusing to look at why they are engaging in them. For instance, Jimmy ultimately ended up severely hurting someone and going to jail, which led him through a deep journey of rehabilitation, due to the fact that he could physically see the damage his evil was causing. But where’s the space for this type of realization in porn or social media comments? There is none. The only answer is awareness of the darkness within. In other words, understanding why we are choosing to engage in acts of aggression and violence. It took me realizing that I had deep sexual shame from trauma as a kid to understand why I was addicted to porn. Furthermore, how my hatred of that childhood experience was driving my pleasure behind watching others hate their own sexual experiences—in the form of aggressive porn. That monster inside of me took pleasure in observing others experience the shame I once did. It’s not easy making these painful realizations of the darkness within ourselves, but it’s a whole lot better than the other option: the deepening of that darkness inside, and as a consequence of that, our capacity for engaging in evil. If I remained on the path of watching a ton of aggressive porn, where would I have turned once that was no longer doing the trick? Thank God I never had to find out.
This article will attempt to illustrate how we tend to masquerade our evil through leaking it out in socially acceptable ways. And even more importantly, the devastating consequences this habit leads to, providing motivation and concrete reasoning as to why we must confront the evil inside of ourselves.
RAGE
Whether we like it or not, we all possess a certain degree of rage inside of ourselves. And the more we do not acknowledge its presence, as well as its roots, the more it will leak out unconsciously. Reflect on a moment where you snapped at someone intensely and you felt like it came out of nowhere, as if a beast had just broken into your mind momentarily. In that moment, that intense anger felt so disconnected from your true identity, which led you to shame yourself and vow to never do something like that again. But that angry monster doesn’t magically go away, it will just find a more acceptable way to release itself. However, you do not consciously control this metric of acceptability—the beast inside of you does, suggesting that this monster will leak out in ways you are not aware of. To combat this, the key is becoming aware of its mechanisms of action. In this section, I will break down the manifestation of suppressed anger in two domains: the internal and the external.
In terms of the internal, undealt with anger can lead to intense judgment of the outside world, as well as being unnecessarily harsh towards oneself. At its root, judgment is an unconscious mechanism to place somebody beneath you, boosting your ego in the process. We can only judge what we refuse to acknowledge in ourselves, meaning that whatever judgments we make about someone else is our ego’s way of blinding the shadows within. Following this logic, the more we tend to judge others, the more we allow ourselves to ignore our own darkness, making judgment an amazing outlet for the rage inside of us to leak out without our knowledge. (I’m more so talking about petty judgments, rather than judging genuine monstrosities). But how exactly does anger breed the need to judge others? The inverse of anger is love and peace, and within love and peace, you are in a state of complete acceptance of yourself, the present moment, and the external world. This means that if you choose to judge in that state, it will immediately take you away from love and peace, since you are no longer in a state of acceptance. And since judgment transports you to the opposite place of love and peace, it means that judgment lands you into the territory of hate and chaos. And the driving emotion behind those two states is anger, leading to my belief that the more anger one possesses, the more hatred that breeds within, and therefore the more love vanishes—resulting in an increasing inability to accept oneself, others, and the present moment, which leads to frequent judgment. And as was previously explained, judgment is an easy outlet to ignore our inner rage. We shift that anger inside ourselves towards somebody else, saving ourselves from internal shame in the process.
On the other hand, many people have the opposite issue—usually those who tend to be more agreeable. Because they want to please others and see the good in them so badly, they often refuse to judge them, provoking their internal anger to leak out elsewhere: at oneself. This results in frequent, harsh judgment of oneself, which, as explained earlier, is a reflection of deep anger within. And the judgment is an unconscious release of anger without the knowledge of the person judging. But why is it important to become aware of these sorts of judgments? Because they will eventually land you in hell. The external world is only as beautiful as your mind allows it to be. And if your internal world is full of negative judgment and bullying, then your perception of the outside world will match that mentality, landing you in literal hell. So, it’s crucial to notice when you start harshly judging yourself and the world around you, because the more you allow it to move into unconscious territory, the more you will become accustomed to that mentality, and the more you will allow anger to move throughout your body unknowingly, eventually leading you to fully become that monster inside of you.
The mechanism to reduce judgment is intense awareness of the root cause. First, when you catch yourself negatively judging someone or yourself, accept that you have anger inside and be ok with that—remove the need to be “good.” Next, try to move that anger through your body in a more productive manner, such as intentionally screaming into a pillow, going boxing, or simply going for a walk. Once you get into this practice of catching your anger leaking out through judgment and releasing it intentionally, you will notice yourself becoming a lot more at peace with yourself and the world. To summarize, you have to become aware of the mechanisms of the beast within or else it will eat you alive. But what about the world? How does the uncontained monster inside of ourselves affect the world at large?
I believe the most morally accepted way to release hatred and anger in today’s day and age is through political division. As Elon Musk masterfully put it, “At its heart, wokeness is divisive, exclusionary, and hateful. It basically gives mean people… a shield to be mean and cruel, armored in false virtue.” While his statement is entirely true, I believe it would be more accurate if “wokeness” was replaced with “politics.” Although “wokeness” definitely has more “morality” on its side, due to the mainstream condemnation of conservatives as evil and Hollywood bowing down to “woke” demands to save face, the opposite side is playing the exact same game: condemning and villainizing the other. At this moment in time, you literally have two sides of the world unable to talk to each other over their opinions about a vaccine. Although that word probably brought about all sorts of emotions in you, try your best to stay rational and think about that concept again: two sides of the world cannot talk to each other over their opinions on a vaccine. And no, this divisiveness has nothing to do with science at this point, it has all to do with politics. Genuine hypocrisies and areas of idiocy exist on both sides, which I will not get into, but each side cannot acknowledge those faults because their identities have become synonymous with their stance on the vaccine. Acknowledging that some of their opinions are entirely incorrect would mean accepting that a part of themselves is invalid. And that’s a brutal thing to do, especially when that piece of your identity has been an unconscious vehicle to disseminate hatred—a therapeutic outlet of sorts. When one can no longer say that their anger is justified, they have to face that rage, which humans hate doing more than anything. Thus, the refusal to face one’s internal anger is what drives them to hold on to their rigid political beliefs. And stubbornly holding on to one’s political beliefs—to release anger and hatred—is disallowing humans to unite. So, what starts as a refusal to look at one’s demon inside eventually turns into a war between two sides, destroying the peace of humanity in the process.
I believe the only way out of this is to stop making division not only acceptable, but popular and “cool.” Because once it becomes morally incorrect in society, the masses will stop treating it as an unconscious avenue to release their hatred. The reason why more people do not commit violent crimes is because society has deemed it as an immoral and illegal avenue to release rage. I’m not demanding that divisiveness be made illegal, but I am presenting an argument for the case that polarized political divisiveness should be seen as immoral by society. The more people start getting repulsed by divisiveness, which they should, the more they will refuse to take part in it. But this strategy still leaves them with the monster within. And that’s a good thing, because until we accept that evil inside of ourselves and stare at it in the face, it will control our lives without us even knowing. And if we reduce access to the easiest societal outlet to manifest our rage, people will have a much higher chance of dealing with it, as well as coming to terms with the duality of good and evil inside of them.
We are currently facing the biggest mental health deterioration in the history of mankind. Unfortunately, divisiveness has become the easiest way to project that emotional turmoil outward—having devastating consequences on the individual and society at large. So, we must try our best to shut down that route, or else people will never acknowledge their mental suffering, and within that ignorance is where the real monsters arise. And I’m not asking for mass agreement in the form of totalitarianism, but I am pleading for civil discourse.
LUST
In the film, Blue Velvet, a psychoanalytic exploration of the sexual duality of man, the love interest of the protagonist jokingly tells him, “I don’t know if you are a detective or a pervert.” For context, this is her reaction to his wish to spy on a troublesome woman to try and solve a murder. The movie goes on to show how he is both the detective and the pervert. His curiosity in becoming a detective led to the manifestation of his deep perversion. In other words, he could become a pervert without facing any moral consequences, due to him hiding behind the facade of being a detective solving a crime. I believe a similar duality occurs in almost every man—using morality as an unconscious excuse to engage in perversion. And I’m not using perversion in the fucked up sense, such as pedophilia, but more so that of a peeping Tom. Consider the prototypical trophy, suburban husband, who is great to his wife, an excellent father, makes a great salary, and everyone in the neighborhood loves him. Behind closed doors that man is beating his meat to grotesque porn. He gleefully watches young women get annihilated by large men with inordinately massive penises. He loves saving his moment of ejaculation for when the young woman has semen overflowing out of her anus. After engaging in this behavior, he goes right back to his wife and kids with a smile on his face, forgetting about what he had just done. If you think I’m being over the top, then consider the statistic that 94% of men in the United States admit to watching porn in the last six months.¹ Furthermore, the action sequences I was just describing are the exact same ones in today’s most popular porn videos. How the fuck have we gotten to this place, where the majority of men are basically perverts?
The more pressure we put on men to be “good” and moral, the more they will find ways to unconsciously release their filth and fail to realize what’s going on. The fact that the vast majority of men are making themselves cum to movies on their iPhones and feeling ok about it, should tell you that something deeply unnerving is going on with humanity. It’s because men have gotten to the place where they have separated themselves from their own id, in order to be seen as moral to both themselves and the world. (The id represents the inherent desires of man). And the more societal pressure there is for the feminization of men, the more men will refuse to face their inherent desires. Back when I was addicted to porn, I would take a break from family dinner to masturbate to obscenely grotesque porn in my bedroom, and then return to the table like nothing happened. In other words, I treated the perverted sexual beast inside of myself as something separate from my identity. I did not know a world existed where I could be both good and slightly perverted. So, I refused to acknowledge that side of myself in fear of what the world would think, but more importantly, how my own conscience would perceive me. Unfortunately, our inner beasts grow in darkness—which led to my own sexual perversion getting much worse over time. In my mind, I would start sexualizing every attractive woman I saw—removing their souls from their bodies in the process. I would think that sex was just a quick in-out process without emotions and foreplay. And the categories of porn I watched would get increasingly more aggressive over time. However, behind this mentality, I was a loving son, a great friend, a stellar student, and an all-around kind person, which allowed me to feel like my porn habit had nothing to do with who I really was inside. This ignorance of my shadow came to an end when I had severe erectile dysfunction and I had to investigate what the fuck was going on inside of me. This is when I came face-to-face with the beast inside of me.
Going through the process of discovering my relationship with my shadow side of sexuality was deeply painful, but it led to a lot of healing as well. The conclusion I came to was that you can never cut the head off the beast, but with awareness, you can stop it from taking action. And the problem we are facing right now—stopping men from being aware of this side of themselves—is that not only are we demanding that men have no shadow, but we are also giving them the easiest outlet to unconsciously expand their inner demons through pornography. In terms of the former, if we demand that men always be good, kind, and agreeable, then we are giving them ammunition to shame the opposing sides of themselves, and therefore refusing to look within. Within this unconscious refusal to be aware of the shadow, the inner beasts grow and wreak havoc in society. Since men shy away from discussing or sharing their inherent sexual desires in the name of morality, they resort to porn to take away the pressure. And unlike a human being who can level with you, porn will throw you straight into the deep end, and actually make the beasts even larger than one can imagine. This is why you have young male teens demanding insane sexual acts from their peers unlike ever before. This is also why rape cases have skyrocketed on average since 2012—a reflection of the popularity of the feminized expectations of men and the proliferation of online porn.² We are simultaneously forcing men to repress their sexual shadows and giving them the easiest tool to do so, expanding their darkness in the process. So, what’s the antidote?
We must accept, especially men, that we are both the moral man and the pervert. We have the capacity to both hold our wives with immense love and wish to see the maid naked. We must compassionately come to terms with this duality and hold no shame, while refusing to allow the id to act through us—with loving awareness. Love always has the capacity to defeat darkness, but love can only defeat what it can see, not what it refuses to accept. In terms of society at large, we must stop expecting men to suppress their shadows, opting instead for encouragement to face them. Furthermore, awareness of the dangers of porn has to vastly increase worldwide, as well as decreasing the moral acceptability of it among male peers. Men should encourage and uplift each other to stop watching porn, instead of refusing to acknowledge their relationship with it and remaining in denial about the reality of their engagement.
