We are lived by Powers we pretend to understand. W.H. Auden
It could be subtitled 'Care of the Business Soul'. This fascinating book by the founding voice of Archetypal Psychology attempts to revision the way we look at Power in Business life.
Starting from the assumption that 'the drama of business... forms the fundamental myth of our civilisation' Hillman asserts that if we do not disturb the mind's familiar concepts of Power, we will not be able to change that myth; 'If for instance, I define power simply as "control", I will never be able to let go of control without fear of losing power.
Hillman often announces that he wants 'to move the furniture' in our heads, and this book is no exception. He is a wonderful exponent of the power of ideas, and living proof that we need a head as well as a heart to affect meaningful change.
He looks at Business terminology through the eyes of eco-psychology and 'anima mundi' (ensouled world). From this point of view the fundamental tenets of the present economy, Growth and Efficiency, fade in importance, while Service and Maintenance rise to prominence. When we include an ensouled world in the economic equation the worship of Growth and the addiction to Efficiency is seen as a dangerous imbalance, leading to short term thinking and insensitivity. In a particularly frightening piece Hillman argues that Efficiency as an independent principle leads to the gas chambers at Treblinka.
But he does not settle for a romantic New Age solution, and is prepared to challenge Jung's proposition that 'where love reigns there is no will to power; and where the will to power is paramount, love is lacking'. For this makes love and power mutually exclusive, and Hillman throughout the book argues for inclusion, broader thinking, polytheism, not monotheism. If we dismiss Power as old style white patriarchal thinking we will be throwing out the baby with the sullied bathwater. If we revision it in subtler ways, allowing the single to become plural, what we are dealing with is not power, but powers, and powers live through us, we do not and cannot own them.
Richard Olivier
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