Peace to the Gods and Goddesses of the foundation;
Much love goes to New York City;
And mad respect to London;
While a lot of Freud’s theories were somewhat universalistic and in some cases could even be applied to non-human organisms, Adler’s theories were very culture specific and applied purely to Eurocentric individuals.
That is not to say they should be abandoned completely by non-Europeans, just modified to suit non-European cultures.
As a Black man I speak for Black cultures, heterogeneous as they may be, to show forth the unity existing in the various situations of a Black person.
To begin with I shall be applying the general thesis of Adler’s ‘masculine protest’ in a radical new way.
Whereas for Adler the masculine protest was based on our psychic hermaphroditism as human beings (a theory that is in itself very questionable), and develops in men so-called feminine attributes such as passivity, weakness, shyness, frigidity, submission, etc.
These are all traits the man has to compensate for by becoming proactive, strong, confident, brave, aggressive, etc.
Such a way of looking at the gender roles and traits is extremely Eurocentric, though somewhat outdated, and applies less frequently in most non-European social statics.
In place of Adler’s feminine attributes and masculine protest I have developed my theory of Black psychological development based on the Hethor construct and the Horu construct.
Hethor is an ancient Egyptian concept that meant femininity, but in the divine sense, as in Goddess.
Horu is an ancient Egyptian concept that means masculinity, but in the royal sense, as in king, and he was the God of kings.
The feminine attributes of Hethor are more in line with what she represented in ancient Egypt: she was a Goddess of attributes like wisdom, intelligence, love, music, dance, sexuality, aesthetics, etc.
All these attributes a woman can be proud to personify and even men can be proud to represent.
Horu, on the other hand, was God of kings, courage, leadership, the self, mystery knowledge, enlightenment, militancy, strength, etc.
The development of the Horu construct, far from coming about as a form of compensation for Hethor traits, comes about to compensate for certain social irregularities.
In ancient Egypt Horu was the son of Ausar and Auset, God and Goddess of the underworld, and was fatherless due to the murder of Ausar by his uncle Setekh.
The injustice of his father’s murder pushes him forward in life until he is old enough to confront Setekh.
After defeating Setekh, with the help of Ausar in the underworld, Horu becomes King of Upper and Lower Egypt.
Hethor, on the other hand, starts out as the wife of Ra, the King of Gods and Goddesses, but takes pity on Horu in his struggle.
For her assistance in helping him defeat Setekh Horu marries her and makes her his main wife.
These two: (i) a man determined to fight an injustice, and (ii) a woman who respects his struggle and marries him on that basis; define the ideal Black family.
Most real Black families, on the other hand, may have a fatherless home but lack the struggle against an injustice.
Instead there is working for a living wage and trying to either make ends-meet or to rise higher in whatever form of employment they are in.
The men in this position may have a form of the Horu construct, being Black, but they repress it for the sake of social acceptance.
In the case of both the Horu and Hethor constructs, however, the revelation of being a social jinn and not counted as a social equal is only ameliorated through struggle.
Still, with the trauma of sexuality the trauma is far more complex due to our libidinal nature therefore sexuality is a trauma that never leaves.
When all latent sexual energy is fully used in the act seduction and sexual performance the Black man shows himself that he is Horu and the Black woman that she is Hethor.
They are no longer jinni (apocryphal) and become hissi (physical).
Yet, even after the Black woman has proven her own sexual credibility or dominance the trauma does not go away.
Not because the world is still sexist as such, or even because her sisters are still second class, but because the object of her opposition is also her sexual object.
For the man the trauma of puberty and of the first sexual experience is overcome by his developing sexual grandeur or a level sexual dominance.
If, however, the woman develops great sexual dominance then his confidence sinks as his pleasure increases.
Soon he will find himself less Horu and more Oedipal turning the black woman into his mother.
Effectively, the Horu and Hethor constructs in the Black family should be fully realised and made powerful.