Synopsis: Captain Picard is transported down to the planet El-Adrel by the Children of Tama, in an effort to learn to communicate with their captain, Dathon.
In my last blog, I wrote how the episode “Redemption II” could be seen as an illustration of James Hillmans’ acorn theory from The Soul’s Code. This episode can be interpreted as his fundamental theory from Re-Visioning Psychology. That being that the process involves four moves: personifying, pathologizing, psychologizing, and dehumanizing – or soul making.
I have presented a paper on how this is physically manifested in “Darmok,” which is much more detailed than can be done here, but here is the gist of my analysis.
For the Children of Tama, like our psyche, and the ancient cultures, their “words are persons” (Hillman, 1975, p. 9), and when put together, their words create images that have meaning. This is personifying. “Temba, his arms open” (Menosky & Kolbe, 1991), to mean give, for example.
As for pathologizing, Hillman asks us to consider that which causes us pain as a message from the psyche to bring our attention to an opportunity for understanding, rather than something that needs to be avoided. An idea that Safron Rossi beautifully and succinctly describes as “valuing the suffering of the soul” (2018, p. 44). Dathon, the captain of the vessel of the Children of Tama, understood that he needed to present a situation in which there was a deep need for survival in order to motivate the understanding he wanted to create with Starfleet. That is why Captain Jean-Luc Picard was transported down to El-Adrel. The Enterprise crew is unable to assist their captain on the planet, where Dathon has orchestrated a situation in which Picard will be pushed to extremes – forced to learn how to understand the Tamarians or die.
Psychologizing is working through the events for the awakening of understanding. Hillman writes that “psychologizing does not mean making psychology of events but making psyche of events — soul-making” (1975, p, 134). And he also describes this activity as taking place in many ways and at many levels, from the simplest “figuring out,” questioning curiosity, and paranoid afterthoughts about “What do they mean?” and “What else is going on here?” to reflection in tranquility, [and] the most sophisticated scrutiny of . . . scientific doubting. (1975, p. 134)
Picard is learning that “ideas are both the shape of events, their constellation in this or that archetypal pattern, and the modes that make possible our ability to see though events into their pattern” (Hillman, 1975, p. 121)
Dehumanizing is to understand that “our perceptions are shaped according to particular ideas” (Hillman, 1975, p. 121). I believe that disengaging one’s rational ego in order to learn a language based on nonhuman individuals, as we see here, represents a way of dehumanizing. Picard is finally able to understand Dathon when he looks at the Tamarian language from a different point of view. And by learning to communicate from the Tamarian point of view, Picard is able to bring a boon back to his community, the ability to stop the destruction of the Enterprise, and the death of everyone aboard her, by being able to speak with the crew of the alien vessel and stop their attack upon his ship.
References:
Hillman, J. (1975). Re-visioning psychology. New York: Harper.
Menosky, J. (Writer), & Kolbe, W. (Director). (1991, September 28). Darmok (Season 5, Episode 2) [TV series episode]. In R. Berman & G. Roddenberry (Executive Producers), Star trek: The next generation. Hollywood, CA: Paramount Television.
Rossi, S. (2018). Waves become wings: Neptune, betrayal, and the myth of Ariadne. The Mountain Astrologer, 2018, 44-46.
Original post created 24 September 2021
mydailysoultrek 