Dear Membership,
Below is the announcement for the next IAJS ZOOM Seminar featuring Steve Meyers on the topic of “Ukraine: is the ’thin thread’ about to break?” on May 15th. As we approach that time, we will give you more details. Further below is a schedule for remaining 2022, still a work in progress. I am always amazed and appreciative of the time and effort it takes to present a seminar in today’s unintelligible world.
In gratitude,
The IAJS Seminar committeeRis Swank, Marybeth Carter and Robin McCoy Brooks
May 15th, 2022: Steve Meyers
Zoom, 2 hours beginning UK-6pm, LA 10am
Ukraine: is the ‘thin thread’ about to break?”.
In 1994, the Ukraine signed the Budapest Memorandum, in which they agreed to give up their nuclear weapons in exchange for the US, UK, and Russia guaranteeing their territorial integrity. In 1997, 50 foreign policy experts (senators, military, diplomats, and academics) sent an open letter to President Clinton saying that the planned expansion of NATO would be a ‘policy error of historic proportions… and unsettle European stability’. In 1999, Vladimir Putin was elected president of Russia for the first time. In early 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine in response to five previous waves of NATO expansion, and Ukraine’s stated ambition to be in the next wave of nations to be assimilated into NATO. At the time, this reason for military action had, according to a contemporary CNN poll, the support of 50% of the Russian population. The US and UK then said, in effect, they are unable to meet their obligations under the Budapest Memorandum because Russia have signaled their intent to use nuclear weapons should NATO become involved in the conflict.
This presentation and discussion will use presentation, symbolic music videos, and factual news reports to examine the highly relevant insight that can be provided by overlooked aspects of Jung’s book Psychological Types. It will start by examining Jung’s philosophy, which was introduced in chapter I, and illustrate its relevance to conflicting political realities, alluded to in chapter II, through the example of expert Covid analyses in the UK. It will then differentiate the typology within Psychological Types from the more general aspects of the book that apply to other forms of reality and conflict. Those general aspects will then be applied to the Ukraine crisis to show why, as per the 1997 concerns of the foreign policy experts, the expansion of NATO has helped precipitate the war in Ukraine. After the presentation, there will be a discussion to assess whether those lessons can still be used to resolve the current crisis, or whether a Rubicon has now been crossed that makes the onset of World War Three almost inevitable.
Bio: Steve Myers is a Visiting Fellow at the University of Essex. He has a Masters in Jungian and Post-Jungian Studies, and a PhD in Psychoanalytic Studies that considered Jung’s view of the relation of mythology, the transcendent function, and religious tolerance. He is a member of the British Psychological Society’s Political Psychology Section. His current research is focused on the trend towards political polarisation that presents an increasing existential threat to individuals, cultures, and perhaps even humanity itself.