The Id/Ego/Superego
- The Ego poses as the authentic self and carries off that role ok most of the time. The Ego is earnest and it is important to be earnest.
- The Superego is cold, punitive, Puritanical, high and mighty. No one comes up to par, no one, except the chosen. They will rise, while the others are left behind, or cast into outer darkness. The Superego sits in judgment, at best, with gravitas, at worst with malice.
- The Id, the eternally reborn child, is the grape vine that no matter how often it is cut back grows up again, even through the pavement of a dead civilization. The Id is Dionysus, the dying and reborn god, the god of pleasure, songs, lust, crude language, jokes in bad taste, mockery of all that is holy, and drunkenness. He is also the god of carnival, riot and mob violence. His maenads would pursue their victims, including men, through the woods and tear them apart, leaving gobbets of flesh hanging from the branches of the pine trees.
Satire, Sermon, and the Flock Made Whole
Satire is sacred to Dionysus, but works in service of the Superego, when the Superego of a human or a civilization is not up to the job, or when the Ego is swollen and self-important, or has cast out essential traits. Satire too is or can be vigilante justice, mob violence, but the satirist stands in the circle alone, dressed as the sacrificial goat, before a presence not weaker but stronger than he, such as a King, or an agent of a department of government devoted to lawful torture, such as crucifixion. As the satirist dances the wine in the wine goblet will turn to blood, his own or his victim's, but the chalice once full will be raised in communion, in a gesture of consecration.
The truth is that Jesus took over when Dionysus left off, and his parables are a higher form than either sermon or satire. His parables and improvised street teaching would reframe a confrontation to provoke in the righteous no less than the sinner a shift of heart and mind that is translated in the Bible as repentance. "Go and sin no more" are the last words spoken by Jesus to the woman take in adultery. So the lost lamb is returned to the fold; the righteous are chastened; and the Shepherd rejoices.
