“It was miraculous. It was almost no trick at all… to turn vice into virtue and slander into truth, impotence into abstinence, arrogance into humility, plunder into philanthropy, thievery into honor, blasphemy into wisdom, brutality into patriotism, and sadism into justice. Anybody could do it; it required no brains at all. It merely required no character.” — Joseph Heller, Catch-22
(I owe the title of this post to Ruben Bolling, whose satirical cartoons I’ve long enjoyed.)
Heller’s observation illustrates an inescapable truth. Though he described it in what most would see as an extreme form, the general psychic facts of the human predicament confirm that most of God’s children do, indeed, revile their own natures such that their professed values will somehow turn into their opposites and yet they will still see them as ideals. How does it happen?
“Anybody could do it; it required no brains at all.” It’s in the nature of the beast Bolling facetiously characterized as “the only animal that can be the master of its own destiny.“
Beneath the literary license Heller and Bolling used to make their points lies a more complex psychological picture than truisms or cartoons express: not only can anybody do it — everybody does it. It doesn’t require brains (see the pigeons in the cartoon): an instinctual spirit-condition which, as Jung stated, is a primary one in which consciousness must actively mediate the contradictory impulses it perceives. Whether fate or choice (or maybe both?) dictates our decisions is a paradox neither science, philosophy, nor religion will resolve.
“It merely required no character.” — an integral part of the subjective equation, but this is where the more complicated picture departs from the truism; such judgments are so relative to the individual, so personal, they generally land on those we don’t like or can’t understand for more intimate reasons than opinion or ideology: projections of subjective tendencies incompatible with conscious ideals.
ˈkerəktər/
noun
- the mental and moral qualities distinctive to an individual.”
Even in its simplest form, character is defined as individual; but the psychic facts state also that we are products of human history. How we came to acquire these individual traits is a complicated evolutionary process as subjective as it is objective. Only knowledge of how the unconscious works can give us a sense of an internal opposite and how we perceive it — if we perceive it at all.
As a concept, Jung described projection as a primary function which design is to relate consciousness in two directions, an original psychic condition. Our entire human history can be seen in terms of the conscious dissolution of projections in the development of the individual as well as the species.
This idea is far-fetched only to the ego who believes itself to be outside the laws of nature. Biology long ago described it: “ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny.” — the individual relives the developmental stages of the species in condensed form: an analogical concept that applies to psychology in the most profound ways.
Only an inflated and disoriented ego could conceive such an outlandish notion as the Christian idea that man was “not of this world” — a stage of development in which consciousness is still under the direct influence of mythic images and projects an internal reality onto an external one. Physics and astronomy proved its concrete impossibility; Jung, its psychic probability. Few conceived that the inner reality was of the same fundamental objective nature as the outer one.
But, many still live the unconscious ego-demands of the mythical image. I knew Christians in high school (living examples of the phylogenetic stage of symbolic medieval thought) who denounced me as a ‘natural man’ (I couldn’t fight the statement) — a contrast to their own ‘other-worldly’ spiritual desires which even then science (and an empirical psychology) had proved to be the products of its own imagination.
Science, too, is a product of human imagination. However far it may project itself, it will sooner or later come to understand that worlds are born from the forces of nature and not our contradictory notions of an anthropomorphic deity — whether as ideas of a concrete body or a body of concrete ideas. Even as its symbolism re-appears in the scientific imagination: ‘the God-Particle’, ‘the End of Science’, the ‘Theory of Everything’ — they remain the mythic image of an inflated ego which would know all the constituent parts of an objective reality yet little of its own or the whole or its effects on either.
You may read a synopsis of my book on Amazon. Also, I recommend John Ferric’s website, Jung2.org. Check out his Article Library for an interesting collection of Jung-related subjects.
Evan, I do flip-flop back and forth between noun and verb, sorry. My preference for the term “process” as much more descriptive in understanding Jung’s psychology comes from Jung himself(note: I cannot format this quote, so I indicate italics in the original
with (I) ):
“In “The Relations between the Ego and the Unconscious” I had discussed only my preoccupation with the unconscious, and something of the nature of that preoccupation, but had not yet said anything much about the unconscious itself. As I worked with my fantasies, I became aware that the unconscious undergoes or produces change. Only after I had familiarized myself with alchemy did I realize that the unconscious is a (I) process(I), and that the psyche is transformed or developed by the relationship of the ego to the contents of the unconscious. In individual cases that transformation can be read from dreams and fantasies. In collective life it has left its deposit principally in the various religious systems and their changing symbols. Through the study of these collective transformation processes and through understanding of alchemical symbolism I arrived at the central concept of my psychology: (I)the process of individuation(I).”
MDR, p.209
W.,
I should apologize to you for quibbling about words when I knew what you meant. Thanks for holding to the subject, because I also think it’s the most important feature of Jung’s work. If it appeared that I was defending the idea of structure, it was only to stress it as a complement and not intended to minimize your point. Don’t you hate it when some asshole starts dissecting words at the expense of substance?
“. . .. Don’t you hate it when some asshole starts dissecting words at the expense of substance?”
Of course I do and if I ever see it happening on your site I will alert you.
OK, let’s stick with your “yes.”
From Sharp’s Lexicon:
Collective. Psychic contents that belong not to one individual but to a society, a people or the human race in general. (See also collective unconscious, individuation and persona.)
The conscious personality is a more or less arbitrary segment of the collective psyche. It consists in a sum of psychic factors that are felt to be personal [“The Persona as a Segment of the Collective Psyche,” CW 7, par. 244.]
Identification with the collective and voluntary segregation from it are alike synonymous with disease.[The Structure of the Unconscious,” ibid., par. 485]
A collective quality adheres not only to particular psychic elements or contents but to whole psychological functions.
Thus the thinking function as a whole can have a collective quality, when it possesses general validity and accords with the laws of logic. Similarly, the feeling function as a whole can be collective, when it is identical with the general feeling and accords with general expectations, the general moral consciousness, etc. In the same way, sensation and intuition are collective when they are at the same time characteristic of a large group.[“Definitions,” CW 6, par. 692.]
I apologize! I intended to include this in my last post and failed to do so. Every and anything you wanted to know about consciousness, 7734 papers on consciousness: http://consc.net/online
Thanks! Great references.
The importance of these concepts as orienting ideas can’t be understated; in practice, however, collective and individual qualities are so intertwined and so relative that in my opinion it’s often better to start from a position that assumes nothing.
“Identification with the collective and voluntary segregation from it are alike synonymous with disease.[The Structure of the Unconscious,” ibid., par. 485]”
As you suggest, it’s a very sticky situation that seems better left to unconscious guidance. (That doesn’t say a whole lot, though, does it?). Thanks for bringing attention to the importance of the concepts.
Am I correct in assuming you are referring to the “collective unconscious?”
Yes, but not necessarily in the context of any but the most roughly definable idea — more in terms of an ‘unknowable’. Not that we know nothing, and not that we shouldn’t keep in the backs of our minds what we know — but it seems like the more we know, the more it sometimes restricts knowledge.
What are these “mental and moral qualities” you refer to, and what is their source?
That’s part of the miracle of consciousness: the source is an unconscious kind of template built up over many thousands of years but which is flexible enough to afford as many subjective variations as there are hairs on a cow’s body. The miracle is that their qualities can be anything you want! All it takes is an ideal and a little imagination. Fortunately, both come ready to wear. Only one thing is required for the miracle to work — the ideal must never be conceived as a goal to be attained through sacrifice and achievement but as something automatically accomplished when consciously professed.
Consider the following quote. However, before you read it I raise a long-held objection of mine to a specific term used by Jungians, that term is “structure.” Structure is a noun and postulates a fixed pattern such as the structure of a bridge. Consciousness is, to me at least, clearly a process, not a structure, and process is a verb.
“In Jung’s view of the psyche, individual consciousness is a superstructure based on, and arising out of, the unconscious.
‘Consciousness does not create itself-it wells up from unknown depths. In childhood it awakens gradually, and all through life it wakes each morning out of the depths of sleep from an unconscious condition. It is like a child that is born daily out of the primordial womb of the unconscious. . . . It is not only influenced by the unconscious but continually emerges out of it in the form of numberless spontaneous ideas and sudden flashes of thought.[“The Psychology of Eastern Meditation,” CW 11, par. 935.]’ “
While this definition tells us what consciousness is, it does not tell us how those “. . . numberless spontaneous ideas and sudden flashes of thought.” affect our lives. That is a horse from another stable.
As I understand Jung’s use of the term ‘structure’, it refers to basic collective elements in the same way our bodies have two eyes, two arms and two legs. The body’s structure is visible though no less a dynamic process than the psyche. His outline of conscious, unconscious, complexes, persona, shadow, etc., to me at least, describe the ‘building-blocks’ which order the psyche. The idea of the structure of the atom seems similar to me as an analogy of a working model in which the dynamics of the whole are more readily understood through the inference of its parts — but which result in energic processes.
As Philip Wylie suggested, for example, the idea of a state (California, Texas) does not exist in nature. Jung said the same thing about numbers and even time. They reflect organizing factors consciousness uses to orient itself to the world. They also reflect an organizing principle in the unconscious which presupposes consciousness in the form of orienting ideas, and I relate to that as part of the psyche’s structure.
I agree with everything you’ve said, but on the other hand, just as Jung separated the ideas of structure and dynamics, ‘process’ is also a noun (even as you use it) which somehow seems to aid in the understanding of a human reality that must discern between a sensual, concrete world of cause and effect and an energic one beyond the senses that is purpose-driven.
“While this definition tells us what consciousness is, it does not tell us how those “. . . numberless spontaneous ideas and sudden flashes of thought.” affect our lives. That is a horse from another stable.”
That horse lives in our dreams, and all I know about him is that he is not what he appears to be. (It’s not lost on me that your comments have evoked nearly opposite responses from my initial replies: a thoughtful illustration of the importance of orienting concepts. But, at the same time, once out of the nouns and into the verbs, the dynamics become very contextual, don’t they?) Thank you, W. Your original point is well-taken.
“As I understand Jung’s use of the term ‘structure’, it refers to basic collective elements in the same way our bodies have two eyes, two arms and two legs. The body’s structure is visible though no less a dynamic process than the psyche. His outline of conscious, unconscious, complexes, persona, shadow, etc., to me at least, describe the ‘building-blocks’ which order the psyche. The idea of the structure of the atom seems similar to me as an analogy of a working model in which the dynamics of the whole are more readily understood through the inference of its parts — but which result in energic processes.”
Let’s play with words here. Begin with this sentence: ““As I understand Jung’s use of the term ‘structure’, it refers to basic collective elements in the same way our bodies have two eyes, two arms and two legs.” Now lets make the word “structure” superfluous, it isn’t needed. The word “collective” also describes the “. . . way our bodies have two eyes, two arms and two legs.”, and is much more consistent with Jung’s writings.
Now this sentence “His outline of conscious, unconscious, complexes, persona, shadow, etc., to me at least, describe the ‘building-blocks’ which order the psyche.” The words “ building-blocks” again nouns, denote something static non-dynamic. Replace “building-blocks” with the word process, a verb, which connotes activity of an on-going nature.
I’ll get to the horse later.