The 'Jade Complex'

Ok, I admit it. The last few nights I've been tuning in to watch the lastest installments in the Celebrity Big Brother saga. Last night was eviction time and as many predicted Jade Goody got her comeuppance. For me the post-eviction interview with Davina McCall was the really intriguing bit. Jade, who'd clearly had some kind of tip-off from the producers took an unusual stance in her own defence, it went a bit like this: "I'm disgusted with what I've just seen... [ref. clip of herself bitching about Shilpa] but that wasn't me... that person talking wasn't the real me." What exactly does she mean? Is she claiming to suffer from some kind of Jekyll and Hyde complex? Will we discover later that Jermaine Jackson craftily hypotised her? I'd like to suggest that she's demonstrating a personality trait that's becoming quite common in our post-modern society - stick with me now, this is going to get deep...

The 'Jade Complex' (!) is a subconscious psychological filter, a type of denial deeply rooted in the individual's drive to survive. The mirror of self-reflection is fogged to the extent that an individual is rendered blind to their own actions and deaf to their own words. It's a dualistic twist in which the self-concept ceases to rely on external information and refers only to an internal construct formed of complex emotional coalescence. Taking all this into consideration it makes perfect sense that a 'sufferer' of the 'Jade Complex', when presented with video evidence of a misdemeanour, would claim "That's not the real me." Subjective reality has begun to overrule objective reality.

Yes, I know, I'm just flexing, but I don't think my proposition is entirely fatuous. This is basically about that thing we call 'character'. Someone once said to me, "Character is what you are in secret." I quoted that for years. Then more recently I realised, of course it isn't true, unless you're a victim of the 'Jade Complex'. Yes of course character (or lack of it) will be a determining factor in the integrity of our private pursuits, but character can't be confined to the closet. Character is the activator of our potential, the force at work directing our words and actions at all times, in public and in private. Character is the executive officer of the will taking responsibility for all our behaviour, both noble and base. This week Jade has shown the nation how much she needs to develop her character, and I'd be a fool to say I don't need to do that too. What about you?