How a Turkish Playwright and an American Executive Influenced Election 2012

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We have a story to tell about The Big Lie, social networking, and influencing society at an unconscious level.  Dr. Carl G. Jung is largely credited with developing the psychological concept of the Collective Unconscious.  By definition, when an idea springs out of the Collective Unconscious it is coming from something that is deep in the psyche of everyone, even though only a few may consciously express its significance.  Somewhere between the Collective Unconscious and the Personal Unconscious is the Societal Unconscious.  These are unconscious ideas of a country or group which are broader than the Personal Psyche, but not so broad that they relate to every human being, as the Collective Unconscious does.  

Our influence fell somewhere along the continuum between the Collective Unconscious and the Societal Unconscious.  Here is our story, so you can decide for yourself:

Meltem Arikan is a Turkish novelist and playwright, who’s innovative new play Mi Minor opens in Istanbul on December 1, 2012.  Meltem knows something about censorship and The Big Lie.  Her 4^th novel, Stop Hurting My Flesh, was banned by Turkish censors in 2004, because they denied that incest occurs in Turkey.  After taking the matter to court, Meltem’s novel was published and won the Free Expression of Thought Prize of the Turkish Publishers’ Association.

In the summer of 2011, Meltem became incensed by the revelations about the Turkish government, and the interactions between the American and Turkish governments, which were revealed by Wikileaks, the controversial outlet of Julian Assange.  

She was upset about the plight of Private Bradley Manning, who allegedly provided hundreds of thousands of military documents to Wikileaks.  Primary among her concerns was that Private Manning was exposing alleged war crimes, which was his duty as defined in the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials of 1945-46.  These alleged war crimes were partially exposed in the documentary film “Collateral Murder”.  

These events inspired Meltem to write her article “Confronting the Big Lie”, which she published at the Wikileaks Movie web site on October 15, 2011, and on Archetype in Action on October 17, 2011.  

Skip Conover is an American executive, who has been studying Jungian Psychology since 1987, and is the Founder of the Archetype in Action™ Organization.  One of the focuses of this work has been how one can use the Societal Unconscious and archetypal ideas to influence political views.

During the summer of 2011, I was becoming more and more conscious of the fact that many of the claims of Republican candidates were simply untrue. I was trying to find a way to get my mind around what they were doing from a political psychology point of view.  If I had ever heard of the concept of “The Big Lie,” it certainly was never consciously in the context of Adolph Hitler’s Mein Kampf.  

When Meltem Arikan’s “Confronting the Big Lie” came to my attention, I knew that she had highlighted something that must finally reach the societal consciousness, so that no people, anywhere in the world, will ever be subjugated by “The Big Lie” again.  Once I had Meltem’s article, I wrote “The Big Lie in American Politics” and published it on October 25, 2011.  

The next step was to promote our articles through Twitter, focusing the attention of the mainstream media through hash tags, which yielded over 16,800 hits on the two articles.  By February 2012, we do know that the mainstream media was talking about political lying nearly constantly, and by the end of the campaign it was difficult to hear a political advertisement without a mention of lying.  

We leave it to the reader to decide how effective we were.  Obviously, we know that the terms lie, liar, and lying became ubiquitous and stuck to the Republican campaigns like Velcro™.   The lies of Mitt Romney’s campaign were highlights of Election Night coverage on all of the major networks.  

Read more: How a Turkish Playwright and an American Executive Influenced Election 2012

Mi Minör--A New Play by Meltem Arikan

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Meltem Arikan, Memet Ali Alabora, Pinar Ogun - "We want the audience to see that the decisions they make are more effective than they assume.  We call upon them to realize that there are no rescuers, and it is time for each one of us to take our own responsibility."

Theatre will never be the same! Mi Minor is both a theatre production and a global role-playing game, which is conducted while the play is being presented. Anyone in the world can participate with us on Twitter using #MiMinor.  Parts of the production are live streamed, to assist you in knowing what's happening.

Next productions are:

December 1, 2012 -- Istanbul time 9:00 p.m.; U.S. time 2:00 p.m. EST

December 2, 2012 -- Istanbul time 8:00 p.m.; U.S. time 1:00 p.m. EST

Full interview can be found at

LIBERTÉ INFO

Opens December 1, 2012 in Istanbul

Buy tickets at this link.