Otto Rank on Curing a Weakening Democracy

There will be post-mortems emerging on the recent election surely.  But one concern is this: 87 million Americans eligible to vote chose not to—the greatest number of non-voters in American history. 

Nicole Mathew, associate professor at Oakland University, joined CBS Detroit to break down the 2024 election results.

Millions more Americans chose to turn their back on today’s version of democracy than did those who voted for the winner.   

It seems that in turning the country’s keys over to the winner, and his ambitions to displace democracy with autocracy and the fascist program of Project 2025, the majority of Americans voted to give up on democracy. 

Clearly democracy has to reinvent itself today.  Provided it is not too late.  It is not just in America that democracy is undergoing deep rupture—Europe too is beset with breakdowns.  And they can no longer look to America for some hope. 

Ten years ago the American version suffered a near fatal blow when Chief Justice John Roberts’ court declared in Citizens United that corporations are people and that flooding elections with dark and unchecked billions of dollars is of no consequence.  

Yet 75% of Americans—including 66% of Republicans—support a constitutional amendment to throw Citizens United out;  88% want to reduce large donations.*

Former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner discusses the reasons for Judge Juan Merchan’s one-week delay in sentencing the former White House tenant for 34 felony crimes.

This season, in its infinite wisdom, the unsupreme court decided that for the first time in history and contrary to the intentions of the founders of this nation, presidents cannot be held liable for any crimes committed while in office.  (Hold onto your seats!) 

The majority of Americans, by apparently voting for the man who appointed the majority of that court, also voted to kill all checks and balances on presidential overreach this November.

Why?  Because they felt ignored and the price of things was too high. And a demagogue promised “only I can fix it.”  And here we are.

Psychologist Otto Rank, a great thinker and soul of the 20th century who died in 1939 and is finally receiving recognition as the father of humanistic psychology, pronounced on an ailing democracy in a very insightful way. 

In the conclusion to his ground-breaking book, Beyond Psychology, he writes: Rationalistic psychology was only an outgrowth of the mentality of our age which is, or rather, was up to recently so highly rationalized that the irrational had only the neurotic form of expression.  But to attempt to cure this result of rationalism by more rationality is just as contradictory as a war to end wars, or an effort to strengthen a weakening democracy by more democracy. 

“Mythmaker Stomping Out Artist’s Sense of Reality.” Stone lithograph by Navajo artist David Paladin, 1975. Published with permission.

What is the answer to strengthening a neurotic and overly rational form of psychology along with a weakening democracy?  Rank says: The only remedy is an acceptance of the fundamental irrationality of the human being and life in general.  Contrary to “typical intellectuals,” we need “a real allowance” for the irrational and “its dynamic functioning in human behavior, which would not be lifelike without it.”

The irrational includes the mystical and the arts and what religion brings to the table, the arts of silence and praise as well as grief and meaning, admittance of suffering and responsibility and art and creativity and play and chant and forgiveness and confession.

And humility, an admission of what we do not know.  The limits of our knowledge.  As Rank says elsewhere, religion has its place because it admits the Unknown, indeed recognizes it as the chief factor instead of pretending an omniscience that we do not possess.  Academia—especially that which purposefully leaves out values by ignoring the intuitive brain and focusing only on the rational brain—is part of the problem.

Rank warns about the price that is paid in a society or an educational system that is bent exclusively on the rational.  When such a constructive and dynamic expression of the irrational together with the rational life is not permitted it breaks through in violent distortions which manifest themselves individually as neurosis and culturally as various forms of revolutionary movements which succeed because they are irrational and not in spite of it.**   

How much of the attraction of MAGA is the irrationality that is honored there?  

To be continued.


* Ashley Balcerzak, “Study: Most Americans want to kill ‘Citizens United’ with constitutional amendment,” Center for Public Integrity, 2018.

**Otto Rank, Beyond Psychology (NY: Dover Publications, 1958), p, 289.

See Matthew Fox, “Psychotherapy and the ‘Unio Mystica’: Meister Eckhart Meets Otto Rank,” in Fox, Meister Eckhart: A Mystic-Warrior for Our Times, pp.139-156.

And Fox, “Otto Rank on the Artistic Journey as a Spiritual Journey, the Spiritual Journey as an Artistic Journey,” in Fox, Wrestling with the Prophets: Essays on Creation Spirituality and Everyday Life, pp. 199-214.

And Fox, The A.W.E. Project: Reinventing Education, Reinventing the Human.

And Fox, Trump & the MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election.

Banner Image: “Democracy Puzzle.” Photo by Ravenhart on Flickr.


Queries for Contemplation

How do you apply Rank’s insight about ‘not curing democracy with more democracy’ to the current situation with democracy in America and elsewhere?


Recommended Reading

Meister Eckhart: A Mystic-Warrior For Our Time

While Matthew Fox recognizes that Meister Eckhart has influenced thinkers throughout history, he also wants to introduce Eckhart to today’s activists addressing contemporary crises. Toward that end, Fox creates dialogues between Eckhart and Carl Jung, Thich Nhat Hanh, Rabbi Heschel, Black Elk, Karl Marx, Rumi, Adrienne Rich, Dorothee Soelle, David Korten, Anita Roddick, Lily Yeh, M.C. Richards, and many others.
“Matthew Fox is perhaps the greatest writer on Meister Eckhart that has ever existed. (He) has successfully bridged a gap between Eckhart as a shamanistic personality and Eckhart as a post-modern mentor to the Inter-faith movement, to reveal just how cosmic Eckhart really is, and how remarkably relevant to today’s religious crisis! ” — Steven Herrmann, Author of Spiritual Democracy: The Wisdom of Early American Visionaries for the Journey Forward

Wrestling with the Prophets: Essays on Creation Spirituality and Everyday Life

In one of his foundational works, Fox engages with some of history’s greatest mystics, philosophers, and prophets in profound and hard-hitting essays on such varied topics as Eco-Spirituality, AIDS, homosexuality, spiritual feminism, environmental revolution, Native American spirituality, Christian mysticism, Art and Spirituality, Art as Meditation, Interfaith or Deep Ecumenism and more.

The A.W.E. Project: Reinventing Education, Reinventing the Human

The A.W.E. Project reminds us that awe is the appropriate response to the unfathomable wonder that is creation… A.W.E. is also the acronym for Fox’s proposed style of learning – an approach to balance the three R’s. This approach to learning, eldering, and mentoring is intelligent enough to honor the teachings of the Ancestors, to nurture Wisdom in addition to imparting knowledge, and to Educate through Fox’s 10 C’s. The 10 C’s are the core of the A.W.E. philosophy and process of education, and include: compassion, contemplation, and creativity. The A.W.E. Project does for the vast subject of “learning” what Fox’s Reinvention of Work did for vocation and Original Blessing did for theology. Included in the book is a dvd of the 10 C’s put to 10 video raps created and performed by Professor Pitt.
An awe-based vision of educational renewal.Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, Spirituality and Practice.

Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election

Matthew Fox tells us that he had always shied away from using the term “Anti-Christ” because it was so often used to spread control and fear. However, given today’s rise of authoritarianism and forces of democracide, ecocide, and christofascism, he turns the tables in this book employing the archetype for the cause of justice, democracy, and a renewed Earth and humanity.
From the Foreword: If there was ever a time, a moment, for examining the archetype of the Antichrist, it is now…Read this book with an open mind. Good and evil are real forces in our world. ~~ Caroline Myss, author of Anatomy of the Spirit and Conversations with the Divine.
For immediate access to Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election, order the e-book with 10 full-color prints from Amazon HERE
To get a print-on-demand paperback copy with black & white images, order from Amazon HERE or IUniverse HERE. 
To receive a limited-edition, full-color paperback copy, order from MatthewFox.org HERE.
Order the audiobook HERE for immediate download.


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5 thoughts on “Otto Rank on Curing a Weakening Democracy”

  1. Another shocking statistic mentioned in today’s DM: 87 million Americans eligible to vote, chose not to! How can you have a true democracy with so much ignorance and complacency?
    Hopefully, those Americans will learn through the pain of what lack of democracy means the next four years or more in their daily lives with their families and sisters and brothers, IF our democracy or some functioning form of it survives in the US, God willing…

  2. In response to the prevalence of non-rational (or irrational) choices made by voters, I ask, How can I respond to them? I’ve had a little exposure to non-violent communication. I restate what another says and ask if I understand, and probe for reasons. Is there a sensible way to do so in print? When a MAGAn gives baseless reasons, does a statement of real facts do any good?

  3. Wäre Jesus heute für die Demokratie?
    Die Demokratie ist eine abgespeckte Version von dem, was Jesus sich vorgestellt hat.
    Denn sein Satz: “Wer unter euch groß sein will, der diene” (Markus 10,43)
    geht über die Ideale der Demokratie hinaus.
    Jesus hat von einer Gesellschaft geträumt, in der Menschen nicht nur die Verantwortung auf Politiker übertragen, sondern selbst Verantwortung übernehmen … dass sie aus Liebe füreinander da sind!
    Aus einer Predigt von Dr. Fabian Vogt, evangelischer Pfarrer
    Michaela aus Deutschland

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