Western culture, attitudes

The three bas-reliefs suggest both the problem in the cultural unconscious and a possible new attitude. The two on the left show that Western culture had adopted rational and heroic values, identified as masculine, to the neglect of values identified as feminine. The centrality of this theme was clear in the first plate of the Splendor Solis, but it is developed more specifically here. The bas-relief on the right, the meeting of Alexander and Diogenes, represents a shift toward inner development rather than exclusive valuation of outer mastery and conquest. It also prefigures the final plate of the series (Plate Til), where the alchemist has entered the alchemical bath. The alchemists ... 

Now that the cultural background has been made explicit, we may return to the central image. The king as representative of Western culture s ruling principles consciously faces the queen, who represents the cultural feminine, which had been subordinate since the times of Classical Greece. From the queen s calm attitude and her newly elevated position, we anticipate a shift in consciousness. 

Greek culture stood for humanism and aspired towards a rational explanation of our world and all its phenomena. This attitude has permeated the western world. The aim was and remained freedoms, moderation, balance. The Athenians laid the foundation. The element silver was a part of the spadework. The mineralogists of antiquity, who searched and found the silver veins in the mountains, and the 30 000 slaves doing the hard work of mining, created the material basis for Athens position as a great power among the Mediterranean countries. They should be remembered when Greek culture and its intellectual characteristics are described and assessed. 

A widespread and pervasive culture of disbelief underpins the asylum process, with public attitudes to asylum seekers in many Western countries being overwhelmingly negative, tending to see them as Bars or bogus claimants. 

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