Our Quad One becomes important in a society (such as the United States) that is founded on the basis of and dominated by Calvinists and the Protestant Ethic. Quad One is important because we are known (and judged) through our actions. In a Puritanical world (our heritage), we are to act in an ethical manner—for God is always watching (variation on the Christmas theme: “You better not pout, you better not cry . . . he knows if you’ve been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake!”).
Yet, in this Protestant society there is also the lingering power of Quad Three (Private Self). After all, God is all-knowing as well as being all-powerful. He knows what we are thinking and feeling, as well as what we are doing. President Jimmy Carter’s “lust in my heart” exemplifies this lingering sense that our internal state (Quad Three) is ultimately known at least to God (and perhaps to other people through the “leaking” of Quad Three into Quad One).
There is one other dimension to add to this portrait of the Protestant psyche. Behind all the dynamics operating in Quads One, Two and Three stands the power of Quad Four. The fourth quadrant in the Protestant psyche is filled with evil and temptation. Satan is sitting on our shoulder, just as Beelzebub once sat at the right hand of God. The British School would suggest that the Protestants (especially the Calvinists) are quite right in suggesting that their fourth quadrant is filled with evil and temptation—for they have been in massive denial about these aspects of their own psyche, thus making these all-too-human forces powerful and menacing.
This denied content (thoughts, feelings, blocked actions) lurks in the background, assigned to and becoming a major component of the unknown psyche (the fourth quadrant). Furthermore, this denied content threatens the independent and isolated Protestant worshipper, who must face these demons (what I will later identify as the “numinous”) alone, without the support of priests, rituals or a caring community.
From Hunting to Growing to Producing
I want to go further back in this analysis of the etiology of profound individualism in our society. I propose that we turn to an even earlier factor, as represented in Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs and Steel.[iii] Diamond proposes that Agrarian societies have tended to foster hierarchy, warfare, and government throughout human history—leading to profound individualism. While Hunter/Gatherer societies (the earliest form of human community and enterprise) requires that everyone in the community engage in the same tasks (hunting and/or gathering of food), this is not required in an Agrarian society. An Agrarian economy allows for specialized tasks—for not everyone needs to engage in basic survival activities, as is the case with Hunter-Gatherer societies.
