The Emperor's New Clothes

 "In the preceding chapter, I chose the depictions in art of the sacrifice of Isaac to suggest that it is possible for grown children to have a creative confrontation with their parents. But I do not see the symbolic content of that scene as being limited to the relationship between father and son. Everything I said about Abraham's attitude is equally valid for mothers. And of course, Isaac also symbolizes the daughter who can be hindered by both father and mother not only in her movements but also in her ability to see, speak, and breathe.

The assertion that men are solely responsible for conditions in today's world does just as little to expose and combat the presence of evil, destructive rage, violence, and perversion as does the demonization of women. Both sexes have always contributed to the genesis of the forces of evil. 

Mothers as well as fathers have considered it their duty to punish their children and have used their children to satisfy their own ambitions and other needs. Every aggressive reaction on the child's part to this abuse was suppressed, and this suppression laid the foundation for destructive behavior in adulthood. 

And yet there always have been individual parents who were capable must of giving love and who provided their children with a counterbalance for the cruelty they suffered. Above all, however, there must have been helping witnesses present in the person of nannies, household staff, aunts, uncles, siblings, or grandparents-who did not feel responsible for raising the child and who were not camouflaging cruelty as love because they had experienced love in their own childhoods. 

If this were not the case, the human race would have died out long ago. On the other hand, if there had been more mothers and fathers capable of love, our world would be different today; it would be more humane. People would also have a clear understanding of what love is because they would have experienced it in childhood, and it would be inconceivable for biographers to call something an expression of maternal love that in its essence was a prison, concentration camp, refrigerator, or brainwashing institute. Yet according to most of today's biographers, Stalin and Hitler had "loving mothers."

When punishment is held up as proof of love, children are filled with confusion, which bears bitter fruit later in life. 

If these children become involved in politics, they continue the work of destruction initiated with them in childhood, and they camouflage it by taking on the role of savior just as their parents did before them. Both Stalin and Hitler claimed that they wanted only to do good. Murder was simply the necessary means to good. This ideology was passed on to them by both parents. If this had not been so, one parent had served as a helping witness and shielded the child from the other parent's brutality and coldness, the children would not have become criminals in later life

Although it is men who make preparations for war, the confusion in their heads is the end product of child-rearing practices and ways of treating children that are attributable to men and women of past generations. The absolute power a mother has over her little child knows no limits, and yet no qualifications are required of her. It is therefore of the utmost urgency to examine more closely the effects of such unchecked power, to recognize parental power for what it is, and, through this awareness, to reduce its danger for the future.

While reflecting on these ideas, I was reminded of the fairy tale "The Emperor's New Clothes." Here a man, the emperor, symbolizes the seemingly mighty but actually helpless parents who are at the same time dangerous because of their total blindness and their great power over their children.

The Emperor's New Clothes

Many, many years ago there was an emperor who s terribly fond of beautiful new clothes that he spent money on his attire. He did not care about his soldiers attending the theatre, or even going for a drive in the pr unless it was to show off his new clothes. He had an outfit for every hour of the day. And just as we say "The king is in his council chamber," his subjects used to say. The emperor is in his clothes closet.

In the large town where the emperor's palace was life was gay and happy, and every day new visitors arrived. One day two swindlers came. They told everybody that they were weavers and that they could weave the most marvelous cloth. Not only were the colors and the patterns of their material extraordinarily beautiful, but the cloth had the strange quality of being invisible to anyone who was unfit for his office or unforgivably stupid.

"This is truly marvelous," thought the emperor. "Now if I had robes cut from that material, I should know which of my councilors was unfit for his office, and 1 would be able to pick out my clever subjects myself. They must weave some material for me!" And he gave the swindlers a lot of money so they could start working at once.

They set up a loom and acted as if they were weaving. but the loom was empty. The fine silk and gold threads they demanded from the emperor they never used but hid them in their own knapsacks. Late into the night, they would sit before their empty loom, pretending to weave.

"I would like to know how far they've come," thought the emperor; but his heart beat strangely when he remembered that those who were stupid or unfit for their office would not be able to see the material. Not that he was really worried that this would happen to him. Still, it might be better to send someone else the first time and see how he fared. Everybody in town had heard about the cloth's magic quality and most of them could hardly wait to find out how stupid or unworthy their neighbors were.

"I shall send my faithful prime minister to see the weavers," thought the emperor. "He will know how to judge the material, for he is both clever and fit for his office if any man is."

The good-natured old man stepped into the room where the weavers were working and saw the empty loom. He closed his eyes and opened them again. "God preserve me!" he thought. "I cannot see a thing!" But he didn't say it out loud.

The swindlers asked him to step a little closer so that he could admire the intricate patterns and marvelous col of the material they were weaving. They both pointed ours to the empty loom, and the poor old prime minister opened his eyes as wide as he could; but it didn't help, he still couldn't see anything.

"Am I stupid?" he thought. "I can't believe it, but if it is so, it is best no one finds out about it. But maybe I am not fit for my office. No, that is worse, I'd better not admit that I can't see what they are weaving."

"Tell us what you think of it," demanded one of the swindlers.

"It is beautiful. It is very lovely," mumbled the old prime minister, adjusting his glasses. "What patterns! What colors! I shall tell the emperor that I am greatly pleased."

"And that pleases us," the weavers said; and now they described the patterns and told which shades of color they had used. The prime minister listened attentively, so that he could repeat their words to the emperor; and that is exactly what he did. The two swindlers demanded more money, and more silk and gold thread. They said they had to use it for their weaving, but their loom remained as empty as ever.

Soon the emperor sent another of his trusted councilors to see how the work was progressing. He looked and looked just as the prime minister had, but since there was nothing to be seen, he didn't see anything. "Isn't it a marvelous piece of material?" asked one of the swindlers; and they both began to describe the beauty of their cloth again.

"I am not stupid," thought the emperor's counselor. "I must be unfit for my office. That is strange; but I'd better not admit it to anyone." And he started to praise the material, which he could not see, for the loveliness of its patterns and colors. "I think it is the most charming piece of material I have ever seen," declared the councilor to the emperor. Everyone in town was talking about the marvelous cloth that the swindlers were weaving.

At last, the emperor himself decided to see it before it was removed from the loom. Attended by the most important people in the empire, among them the prime minister and the councilor who had been there before, the emperor entered the room where the weavers were weaving furiously on their empty loom.

"Isn't it Magnifique?" asked the prime minister.

"Your Majesty, look at the colors and the patterns," said the councilor.

And the two old gentlemen pointed to the empty loom, believing that all the rest of the company could see the cloth.

"What!" thought the emperor. "I can't see a thing! Why, this is a disaster! Am I stupid? Am I unfit to be emperor? Oh, it is too horrible!" Aloud he said, "It is very lovely. It has my approval," while he nodded his head and looked at the empty loom.

All the councilors, ministers, and men of great importance who had come with him stared and stared; but they saw no more than the emperor had seen, and they said the same thing that he had said, "It is lovely." And they advised him to have clothes cut and sewn, so that he could wear them in the procession at the next great celebration.

"It is magnificent! Beautiful! Excellent!" All of their mouths agreed, though none of their eyes had seen anything. The two swindlers were decorated and given the title "Royal Knight of the Loom."

The night before the procession, the two swindlers didn't sleep at all. They had sixteen candles lighting up the room where they worked. Everyone could see how busy they were, getting the emperor's new clothes finished. They pretended to take the cloth from the loom; they cut the air with their big scissors, and sewed with needles without thread. At last, they announced: "The emperor's clothes are ready!"

Together with his courtiers, the emperor came. The swindlers lifted their arms as if they were holding something in their hands, and said, "These are the trousers. This is the robe, and here is the train. They are all as light as if they were made of spider webs! It will be as if Your Majesty had almost nothing on, but that is their special virtue."

"Oh yes," breathed all the courtiers; but they saw nothing, for there was nothing to be seen.

"Will Your Imperial Majesty be so gracious as to take off your clothes?" asked the swindlers. "Over there by the big mirror, we shall help you put your new ones on." The emperor did as he was told; and the swindlers acted as if they were dressing him in the clothes they should have made. Finally, they tied around his waist the long train which two of his most noble courtiers were to carry. The emperor stood in front of the mirror admiring the clothes he couldn't see. "Oh, how they suit you! A perfect fit!" everyone exclaimed. "What colors! What patterns! The new clothes are magnificent!"

"The crimson canopy, under which Your Imperial Majesty is to walk, is waiting outside," said the imperial master of court ceremony. "Well, I am dressed. Aren't my clothes becoming?" The emperor turned around once more in front of the mirror, pretending to study his finery.

The two gentlemen of the imperial bed-chamber fumbled on the floor, trying to find the train which they were supposed to carry. They didn't dare admit that they didn't see anything, so they pretended to pick up the train and held their hands as if they were carrying it.

The emperor walked in the procession under his crimson canopy. And all the people of the town, who had lined the streets or were looking down from the windows, said that the emperor's new clothes were beautiful. "What a magnificent robe! And the train! How well the emperor's clothes suit him!"

None of them were willing to admit that they hadn't seen a thing; for if anyone did, then he was either stupid or unfit for the job he held. Never before had the emperor's clothes been such a success.

"But he doesn't have anything on!" cried a little child. "Listen to the innocent one," said the proud father. And the people whispered among each other and repeated what the child had said.

"He doesn't have anything on. There's a little child who says that he has nothing on. "He has nothing on!" shouted all the people at last.

The emperor shivered, for he was certain that they were right; but he thought, "I must bear it until the procession is over." And he walked even more proudly, and the two gentlemen of the imperial bed-chamber went on carrying the train that wasn't there.

The belief that older people understand more about life because they supposedly have had more experience was instilled in us at such an early age that we continue to adhere to it even though we know better. Naturally, older craftsmen have more experience in their trades, and older scientists have more facts in their heads, but in both cases, their knowledge has precious little to do with wisdom.

Nevertheless, most people never give up hope that they can learn something about life from their elders, whose advanced years must imply richer experiences. Even people whose parents have long been dead will seek out parental substitutes such as priests, psychotherapists, gurus, philosophers, or writers, convinced that those who are older must know better, especially if they are famous. They wouldn't have gained recognition, the thinking goes, without some inherent justification for their fame--if the doctrines they proclaim, the values they represent, and the morality they preach didn't have significance for many others too.

And they actually do have significance. Even if the gurus and their disciples are not from the same culture, the repression of childhood experiences is common to all of them, for full awareness of early experiences is taboo in every culture, religion, and system of child-rearing. 

This situation was not noticed until after World War II, when the first scientifically substantiated reports about childhood appeared, calling into question many of the ideas that had been accepted as right and good for thousands of years. I am thinking here of René Spitz's discovery of hospitalism, John Bowlby's writings about infant abandonment and its consequences, Lloyd De Mause's new look at the history of childhood, Frederick Leboyer's revolutionary discovery that infants already have feelings at birth, and the corroboration provided by primal therapists that feelings repressed in childhood retain their potency and influence our body and mind, often for the rest of our life.

The fact that so many obstetricians still warn today against the dangers of gentle homebirth is attributable not only to their outdated training and the requirements of the hospital system but also to the stunting of their perceptive faculties. They lack the capacity to recognize that a newborn has feelings because such recognition has been blocked for them, possibly as early as the moment of their own birth or perhaps later when their own traumatic experiences are repressed. They examine the newborn infant, and even though they hear its heart-rending cries, they smile at the new mother and tell her that everything is just fine because now the baby's lungs have started to work. These physicians seem to be unaffected by the existing body of knowledge about the role of feelings in the human organism.

The above example of ignorant obstetricians attending childbirth makes clear why advanced age has nothing to do with the value of a person's experiences. Millions of women have given birth in hospitals in recent years under cruel and inhumane conditions, and no one seemed to notice that here a human creature of the tenderest age is being subjected to torture. All that was needed to change this pattern was for one obstetrician, Frederick Leboyer, to take the difficult path of discovering, with the aid of feelings, the memory of his own birth concealed in his psyche and his body. All that was needed was for him to relive his own repressed pain, and suddenly he was able to perceive for the first time what was self-evident: the cries of an infant in the delivery room are expressing pain that is altogether avoidable. To make this simple observation, he first had to overcome the resistance that each of us builds up as a child. We are entitled to this resistance, for we must protect ourselves as best we can from what is unbearable; but what happens when it makes us blind to the most obvious phenomena in our life?

Now computers are being used to help in the care of the newborn, and it has been determined that the child already begins to learn in the first hours of life. Scientists seem to be fascinated by this idea and are busily investigating various achievements of the newborn. But infants also experience feelings and hurt, even prenatally, that set the course for later life, yet these facts haven't attracted the attention of many scientists. It is true that the different functions of the newborn's body can be measured, its behavior observed, the correlates evaluated by the computer. However, as long as the adults involved have not gained access to their own childhood feelings, the infant's feelings, the cause of so many troubles in later life, go totally unnoticed.

What are we to think, then, of the wisdom of older people who had to learn as children that good behavior could be acquired only at the expense of genuine feelings and who were proud of having managed to accomplish this? Since they were not allowed to feel, they became incapable of perceiving vital facts and learning from them. 

What can these people have to tell us today? They attempt to pass on to the younger generation the same principles their parents once transmitted to them, firmly convinced that they are doing something useful and good. But these are the very principles that destroyed their ability to feel and perceive. Of what use are instructions and moral sermons if one's capacity for feeling and compassion has been lost? The most that will be achieved is to inculcate the absurdest of attitudes, which won't be perceived as such because they are shared by so many.

Thus, politicians can profess to be peace-loving Christians and at the same time advocate the production of weapons five million times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb. These politicians can defend without a qualm the necessity for an absurd arms race because they learned long ago not to feel. 

It is therefore possible for those caught in this kind of mental system to plan multiple Hiroshima catastrophes and still to pray in church every Sunday for peace; what is more, they consider themselves entitled to bear the responsibility for the fate of the whole world because they are advanced in years, because they have with wars, because the last time, forty-five years ago, they took part in one. 

Yet what now awaits us hasn't the slightest to do with the way the world was forty-five years ago. The wisdom of our fathers, their experience with war, and with the destruction of feelings since childhood, can be of little help to us today.

If anything can save us from catastrophe, it is not Abraham, the old man who raises his eyes to heaven and does not see what he is doing. It is his son, who we can only hope has perhaps not completely lost his ability to feel and who, owing to this ability, can also imagine the implications of preparing for nuclear war. 

If Isaac is capable of being horrified at his father's monstrous intent and of feeling outraged without repressing this feeling or acting it out, then he will be in a position to understand things that were kept from his father all his life. It is the ability to feel that enables us to establish the right connections, to notice what is going on around us, and to relinquish the illusion that age brings wisdom. Only this painful experience will open Isaac's eyes and make him a man of action instead of a victim. 

Someone who is not allowed to feel can't learn from experience. Again and again, he will accept the so-called wisdom of his elders, which has proven to be unmistakably wrong in our generation-as, for example, "Spare the rod and spoil the child." All his life he will avoid crucial experiences because he must protect himself from pain, and this means ultimately from the truth. He must never doubt his father, must not confront him. Even when his hair has turned white, he will still be his father's obedient child.

Where does such obedience lead? It leads Abraham to the point of murdering his son for the sake of proving his devotion to God the Father, Who requires this act of him. And in our day it leads many old men to prepare for nuclear war with a clear conscience. They destroyed the feeling child in themselves long ago and in doing so learned to kill for the principles of their parents, in good conscience, without remorse, and without being able to imagine the suffering of their victims. For a long time, we were able to overlook their lack of imagination and their unawareness, thinking "for they know not what they do." But can we still afford to do this when we ourselves, like Isaac, are lying on the sacrificial altar and have not yet completely lost the capacity to imagine what nuclear war would mean? The Isaacs of today, the feeling young sons and daughters, have no alternative but to arise from the altar and confront the psychic reality of fathers preparing for war.

Isaac's actual superiority, if he were to refuse to be made the sacrificial lamb, would be based on his awareness, on the fact that he finds out what his situation is and clearly recognizes his own need: "I don't want to die for being obedient, and I don't want to kill others. I don't want to let myself be forced to kill by following absurd orders, no matter how cleverly they are packaged or accompanied by threats. I am ready to look carefully, to refuse to have my eyes bound any longer, and to find out who really has an interest in my being docile. There must be a way to prevent ourselves from repeating the war games of our fathers, and we now must search for it--- without having any models because no models exist for this situation in which we are threatened with nuclear annihilation. We can and we must rely on our own experience and on our desire to create a world in which we can live without having to kill others. Since we want to be true to this desire and not to incomprehensible orders, we are willing to take a careful look around us. We are willing to look closely at the psychic landscape of those who label us naive pacifists. We are willing to examine the sources of their reasoning and to consider whether or not it can be valid for us today."

The cry of the child in Andersen's fairy tale "But [the emperor] doesn't have anything on!"-awakens people from a mass hypnosis, restores their powers of perception, frees them from the confusion caused by the authorities, and mercilessly exposes the emptiness to which rulers, as well as masses, have fallen victim. All of this happens suddenly, sparked by the single exclamation of a child. Although these words are enormously liberating, we don't know what to do with our freedom. It is a great relief, to be sure, not to pretend to see the emperor's golden train when, despite our best efforts, we really don't see it a relief not to have to think we're stupid for not seeing one. But since our fate lies in the emperor's hands, since we have to rely on his wisdom, perceptiveness, and sense of responsibility, our discovery at first fills us with fear. Who will protect us in times of danger? It is now obvious that this emperor can't do it. He appears to be so taken with self-admiration that it would be easy to talk him into doing something foolish. That much seems clear, but only to someone who is not dependent on this emperor. If our future does depend on him, however, because he is the only one we have, we would prefer not to know what he is really like but would rather believe he will protect us when we are in trouble. For this belief we are ready to sacrifice ourselves, to doubt our own perceptions.

Like children who endure psychic death to preserve the illusion of having an intelligent, foresighted father, soldiers go to war to die for the leader who misuses them. That has been the way of the world, until recently. Many can still remember it, and those who can't are still able to see in films the pageantry surrounding Hitler and the jubilant masses. But it needn't be this way. Indeed, it must not, for the methods of misleading people and destroying them have now taken on gigantic proportions. Therefore, we can no longer afford to deny our perceptions and evade the truth, even if it is painful, for only the truth can save us. It is frightening and painful not to have a strong father when we need his strength. Yet if holding fast to illusion should mean Isaac's death and our destruction today, then the first, imperative step toward turning things around is to relinquish the illusion. Even if this step is fraught with fear, is not even conceivable without fear.

For only a little child can uninhibitedly cry out, "But he doesn't have anything on!" and then only if that child cannot yet assess the consequences of these words. Moreover, the child in Andersen's fairy tale is taken seriously by the father and therefore feels secure. But for adults who never had such a father, the liberation of their senses also endangers or even destroys a vital hope: the hope of being protected. We are horrified at the sight of the deceived emperor without his clothes when we consider that he has the power to issue orders that determine our fate. Of course, it would be more conducive to our momentary well-being to deny what we see and to go on believing that the affairs of the state are in good hands. But this would be no solution for our future or the future of our children. The Isaac of today can't afford to close his eyes again once he has opened them. Now he knows that his father is not protecting him, and he is determined to protect himself. He is determined not to look away but to examine his situation.

Abraham's upward gaze and his childlike submissiveness are a symbol for numerous experiences Isaac had had earlier without being able to understand them. Likewise, the naive and vain emperor is transformed into a little child who wants to show his father his wonderful new clothes so that the father will finally notice the son. This child, this emperor, could have said, "Father, now that I appear in all my imperial splendor, surrounded by these throngs, you can't overlook me. Now at last you will admire and love me." And the politician who tries to make us believe he has our freedom at heart (even if we should be incinerated by a nuclear bomb), raises his eyes-like Abraham-to his father, who died long ago, and asks like a child: "Haven't I done splendidly? See how well I am representing your values? See how hard I am trying to keep the world the way you described it to me sixty years ago and to keep sacred the values you held dear? See how careful I am not to let anything change, just the way you always wanted? Now, are you pleased with me? Now can you love me?" There are many varieties of politicians like this. Perhaps one had a father who always felt he was being persecuted. His son will say to him: "I won't rest until I have destroyed all your enemies. Now, are you pleased with me?"

"But what does all that have to do with my fate?" Isaac asks himself. "I can well understand the dealings old men have with their fathers, but I don't want my life to be determined by my forefathers. For what I now have to lose is not real protection but only the illusion of it."

A great many politicians claim they are doing something for us, and we want to believe what they say because we are dependent on them and because the world has become so complicated that we need experts for everything: technical experts, computer experts, and above all safeguards, more and more safeguards so that the world won't fall victim to the bomb. But what is to be done if our fear of the danger that makes such vigilance necessary unceasingly produces new dangers for the simple reason that people who are blocked by their repressed past do not want to look to the future? "What I can try to do now," thinks Isaac, "is direct my father's eyes to me, away from his forebears and to me lying here on the sacrificial altar he has prepared for me. Perhaps that will bring him to his senses, perhaps it won't. But turning my eyes to that altar and to my father has brought me to my senses. I am not willing to die, not willing to march and sing war songs. I am not willing to forget that all this has always preceded a war. I have awakened from my millennia-long sleep."