A major
part of Europe and parts of the globe have
been involved in the environmental actions called Let's do it! World Cleanup 2012,
aimed at cleaning up natural surroundings and illegal garbage dumps. The
global environmental cleanup action is patterned or planned on the project »Let's
do it, Estonia!«,
carried out by Estonian volunteers in 2008. The action, introduced to Slovenia two
years ago, was met with a tremendous response from the public.
Slovenia is one of the East-European
ex-communist transition countries whose »comeback« to capitalism was done in a rather
rampant, unfortunate, even corrupt fashion. The new capitalists and the nouveau riche lack moral judgment,
with small-scale sleazeballs blindly following suit. A number of East-European
countries have witnessed thriving corruption, clientelism, cronysm, elitism and
social networking, such as the old-boy network, over the period of the last
twenty years. It is then no great wonder that this type of environmental
movement first sprang up or took root in East-European countries, where there
was no end to prospering callous and presumptuous moral degenerates, who would
rise to influential positions, yet maintaining their addiction to moral
imprudence and to a diversity of economic, financial and political vices.
In 2010, during
the time of the first environmental action “Let’s
clean up Slovenia
in a day!” a psychoanalytic thesis was formed, “When the state or society cannot be cleansed of all their moral vices,
it is the cleaning of physical filth or illegal garbage dumps that can make a
difference.” So far, so good. It is, however, worthwhile noting that it is
just in some countries that he action is met with a tremendous response.
Interestingly
enough, Slovenia surpassed Estonia in the
response to the cleanup action in 2010 and this year too. A legitimate
psychoanalytic thought leads to a conclusion that an environmental of the kind
can be thought of by orthodox environmentalists and, above all, those that are
painfully aware that their country or society is vice-ridden. What is meant
here as vice is not mere sexual vices, which will thrive all around the world,
but rather the vice found in politics, finances, esp. banking, and economy. It
is, of course, difficult to draw a clear parallel between political, economic
and banking vices and a general moral corruption of (some) politicians and
(some) economists or bankers. General
moral corruption is not inherent just to tycoons but also to marginal,
small-scale moral degenerates who mushroomed during the transitional period in
a number of East-European countries. Well, Westerns Europe, Northern and
Southern Americas, Australia
and capitalist Asia, eg. Japan and South Korea, are no exceptions. Africa is one of a kind. Eastern Europe, however, makes
an exceptionally interesting case, as the former real-socialist countries would
not see the rise of diligent and hardworking people only, but also those who
had acquired their wealth in rather suspicious or outright dishonest
circumstances, or profiteered in some other way during the transitional period.
The
Super-Ego, the Freudian concept of moral standards that usually cause pangs of
conscience in people that have committed a sin or have been deceitful in some
way, has lead to an interesting phenomenon regarding the environmental cleanup
action, namely, people who are covertly morally
corrupt feel ‘pressed’ towards acts of clean(s)ing. Analysis of biographies
of some mafia bosses and their accomplices shows that many of those have been
drawn into continuous cleaning of objects and rooms or places as well as
washing their bodies. Some would go on cleaning up the surroundings of their
houses. Some would wash their hands or take a shower several times a day,
brushing their bodies, without being dirty or sweaty. They washed for no good
reason or (physical) need, as it were. Their need to clean(se) themselves
stemmed from their psyches. Psychopathology of everyday life is well acquainted
with the phenomenon of compulsive hand-washing. It is well-known that
pathological hand washers rinse their hands for some unconscious or repressed
guilt. They rinse out the vices or sins from their past.
Estonia and even more so Slovenia were
faced with a theoretical question of why so many East-Europeans - for instance a
record-breaking 300,000 Slovenian volunteers, making up some 20 % of the
cleanup-able population - decide to take part in an environmental action.
According to psychoanalytic theories it is not necessary for so many people to
cleanse themselves of their guilt or past mean actions at the symbolic
unconscious level of their mental reality. However, each person, including the
honest ones, has an intimate or emotional symbolic attitude towards their
country. It is fully legitimate to claim that many volunteers take part in the
cleanup actions because of their loyalty to the organizers and their environmental
awareness. We may, however, bring another reason to light: it was an
unconscious desire on the part of many volunteers to clean(se) their country or
society of the vices that have been committed by other fellow citizens.
How come
the idea of a cleanup action cropped up in the first place and why would it be
met with such a wide response? Are illegitimate garbage dumps really so
disturbing? Psychoanalysis allows us to expose some latent reasons for this and
paradigmatically similar cleanup environmental actions. Orthodox psychoanalysis
would make it possible to claim that it is not about questions of ecology or
nature, but rather of corruption and moral sinfulness of people whom “something
unconscious” drives into symbolic cleansing. What is at stake here is not mere (manifest) cleaning of nature, but rather
(latent) cleansing of the soul. It may not be the very person’s soul. It may be
the corruption of the fellow citizens who soiled their country or society in
the past.
The moral
purity of a country or their citizens, especially the purity in economy,
finances and politics, can be measures in the number of people involved in
cleanup actions. The greater the lack of
moral judgment, the greater the overall problems, the greater the corruption
and clientelism, the more people are involved in this type of action. Some
cleanse themselves of their past sins, other people cleanse themselves of the
sins committed by those soiled their shared country and society.
It has to
be noted that on a global level there are a great many politicians, economists,
bankers and a number of people from other walks of life who are morally
corrupt, yet such cleanup actions have not been organized there so far. This,
however, does not disprove the universality of our psychoanalytic
interpretation of a symbolic comparison between moral corruption on the one
hand and environmental cleanup actions or an overall tendency towards cleaning
on the other. Through symbolic mental processes, the human mind transforms or
“reads” the everyday reality as perceived by senses according to its own
spontaneous and involuntary symbolic logic.
Many women
are observed to clean their homes in a near-compulsive fashion as good as every
day, decorating or making them beautiful at the same time, as many of these
women have unclean or untidy or disorganized family (sexual or partner) relationships.
In some cases people will (unconsciously) reproach themselves, taking on the
blame for some sins. This is reflected in their gaudy, clinically-sterile
living spaces. Tasteless, gaudy decoration of the living spaces and the home
surroundings derives from an (unconscious) desire to make themselves more
beautiful in their own eyes as well as in the eyes of other people – in reality
they are very “ugly”, “dirty”, somehow “untidy” or even morally corrupt.
Moral people
will not even think of simply dumping some irritating garbage “wherever”, in a
secret place. A normal and cultivated
person will throw their refuse and garbage into special waste containers.
Covert dumping of waste and garbage carries some symbolic value. The ritual of illegitimate waste dumping in
a secret place is practised primarily by people who have problems with their
(im)morality or their sinful nature. In a secret and symbolic way, some
people dump the sins that no one knows of. Normally, people dump their waste
into containers, so everybody can see and know where the refuse has been
disposed of. Covert illegitimate dumping
brings some sense of relaxation, which, in turn, carries an indirect message
that the person is inflicted with some vices or sins that they hide away or are
ashamed of – and this is the very reason why these are secretly and
illegitimately dumped. Secret and illegitimate garbage dumping (in nature)
contains a somewhat perverted status of a symbolic confession, as known from
the paradigm of classic Christian confession by an ordinary sinner. The country
having many illegitimate garbage dumps may be said to have many people who wish
to secretly “dump” or rid themselves of their sins and other (concealed)
mind-inflicting problems.
Just as
environmentalists try to sensitivize people to the issues of waste disposal,
they could address a moral lecture at corrupt politicians, elite tycoons and
“small-scale” crooks, driving home the message that their country will face
cultural downfall, if business (economy), everyday life, politics and banking
tolerate such corruption as is now happening, especially in the East-European
countries during the transitional period. The fact is that it is deceivers,
liars and thieves that have been economically and politically thriving in Eastern Europe for the last twenty years of transition. Moral people find it difficult enough just to
live and make their ends, causing them to burn out. These people suffer from
the absurdities of the system and moral wrongs done to them. The suffering is greatest
for those that live by the moral code, yet have to see others make profit from
contentious businesses or political power.
Theoretically,
it is quite reasonable to expect that in the times of recession and corruption
there will be someone in the East-European countries, especially some
politician, to add a new action “Let’s start up our country!”
Roman Vodeb, double M. A., is a Slovenian theoretical
psychoanalyst and an independent scholar. He has published five books in which
he applies psychoanalysis to sport, ideology of sport and gender. He writes for
Slovene media, providing psychoanalytic interpretation of current social events
and issues dealing with gender issues, politics, sport, culture and art.
