Abstract:
This essay attempts to look closer at the sense of "something missing" or "loss of soul" in Jungianism, something Jung arguably had or valued but Jungians struggle to grasp. I argue that what Jungians are often missing is not something "spiritualistic" or religious, but a capacity to scientifically observe and objectify the psyche and its phenomena (and therefore to functionally relate to the autonomous psyche). I analyze "objectivity" as a bad word in Jungian thought and culture and look at some of the context and history both of Jung's efforts at objectivity and empiricism and at his and other Jungian romantic anti-modernism and anti-science. "Objectification" of psychic phenomena is interpreted not as "reductionism" or some form of "de-spiritualization", but as a necessary ethical effort to honor and understand an object-other. Subjectivity, which Jungianism often adores and indulges, lacks an adequate other-object and therefore has no relational or intellectual ethic directing its sense of psychology. Subjectivity leads merely to personalized fantasy, while objectivity allows the object-other to have autonomy and any investigation of it to become relational. Additional attention is given to Jung's concept of the "personal equation", which I interpret as a "margin of error" that helps refine psychological observation when properly applied.
I want to make a topic on this issue for further discussion and development. I have written about it in a number of other places, but I think it deserves more specific focus and attention.
In my ongoing excavations and/or constructions of a valid and sustainable "Jungian project", I have continuously run up against obstacles. Two main categories of these obstacles would be 1.) Jung was notoriously and exquisitely complex, digressive, disorganized, and even self-contradictory in his constructions of the psyche and its structures and dynamics, and 2.) Jungians from the very beginning just seem to be missing something, something rather intangible, subtle, and complex, in Jung's project and approach to the psyche.
There continues to be ways in which Jungians, regardless of how bright they may be, do not live up to and fully grasp something about Jung and his project. This is not to say that Jungians have not far surpassed Jung's thinking in many ways (politics and social and psychotherapeutic ethics come to mind, although there is still much room for improvement on these fronts). But something is missing . . . and many Jungians have sensed it and commented on it. And many Jungians have made proposals about what this missing piece (Jungianism's "subtle body") is . . . and we all disagree with one another, it seems, as we have neither reached a consensus nor dispelled our sense of dissatisfaction and lack.
Like many Jungians, I think I have an idea what it is Jungians have always been missing that Jung had or was oriented to. My diagnosis is perhaps a bit more (but not entirely) novel. Most Jungians define the Jungian project (if they even conceive of such a project at all) as fairly mystical or spiritual and often psychotherapeutic. It could be something in the family of "treating the sick soul of the [modern] world". Jung was pretty clear that he was interested in this sort of thing, so this is a logical way to construct the Jungian project.
But it happens to not only be the "wrong" way, it is also a very diseased way to imagine the Jungian project. It is really more of a puer fantasy . . . detached, romantic, inflated. It can be maintained and defended only where Jungians remain entirely monotribal and insular and aloof from the modern world. That illness is also evident in the effectiveness of this form of Jungian treatment of the "world's soul". That is, it's utterly ineffective. Jungians can get caught up in the fantasy of treating something that doesn't really exist (outside of Jungianism, at least) with methods that don't really work in accordance with a goal that is distorted into meaninglessness.
From what I've seen, most (all?) Jungian constructions of a "Jungian project" are connected to this world-saving/soul-saving paradigm. It is one of the "Jungianisms" that connects the classical, developmental, and archetypal schools of Jungian thought. In classical Jungianism, soul-saving is a spiritualistic and often occult/New Age phenomenon. In archetypal Jungianism, it is a mythopoetic and aesthetic/philosophical phenomena. In developmental Jungianism, it is a political, typically psychoanalytic (therefore, more "personalistic" and maybe "psychiatric"), and often academic phenomenon.
What is almost universally missing from Jungian constructions of the Jungian project is a scientific approach (here I would differentiates "scientific" from "academic", where "scientific" would mean based in scientific methods and theories of verification/falsification, the amassing of evidence for argument, and the analysis of data, and "academic" would mean contextualized by various citations and references to other academic authorities and not specifically oriented to data analysis and the presentation of evidence).
Both Jungians and critics of Jung have largely agreed that Jung, despite claims to scientific legitimacy and "empiricism", was NOT a scientist (or was a really poor one). The general push has been to strip "science" out of Jungianism. That is almost universally true in classical and archetypal forms of Jungianism, and in developmental Jungianism it applies to nativist and biological science but not developmental social science. In my opinion, the way developmental Jungianism strongly favors developmental science over evolutionary/biological is itself an unscientific attitude. Science should not be ideology driven. It must be data driven. To ideologically favor some data over other data (which are equally relevant) defeats the true purpose of the scientific method. It makes for "bad science" . . . or more accurately, pseudo-science.
In any case, all varieties of Jungianism fail to adequately embrace an ethic of scientific observation, an empirical orientation to the psyche. All varieties of Jungianism approach the psyche through theoretical paradigms and belief systems that are not themselves scrutinized (although they might scrutinize one another). No Jungianism is consistently and distinctly data-orieneted. We could also say that all Jungianisms are extremely subjective and don't care much for being, or have much aptitude to be, objective. There is no Jungian push for objectivity. In fact, there are numerous assaults on it (as in Wolfgang Giegerich's approach).
What I see is a Jungian failure to imagine a useful objectivity and science. Subjectivity is celebrated and defended/fortified . . . or just taken for granted. Jungianism is different than any other credible form of psychology in this assumption (including psychoanalysis, which strives to be objective, even if its objectivity might be considered spurious).
The problems with this assumption and prejudice are many, and I don't mean to go into them all here (again). One of these I will reiterate, though, is that, without a valuation of objectivity, there is no position from which to functionally evaluate and scrutinize one's subjectivity. In other words, where objectivity is not valued, belief is as good as knowledge (as knowledge is considered impossible). But that inevitably leads to a theory without an ethic, without a good enough reason to be valid. It is no better than a fantasy (as far as being a tool for verification).
It is this failure of imagination (a failure not only often unrecognized, but actually at times taken as a point of pride) that differentiates Jung from the Jungians. And it is this issue that allows us to recognize and begin to investigate the "lack" and wound in Jungianism, the missing "soul" and "subtle body" of the Jungian project that has seemingly not been passed on from Jung to his successors.
It seems like such a minor thing, but I feel it is a germ of massive, systemic issues. And despite its apparent smallness, it cannot merely be plucked out like a thorn. It is in the Jungian DNA now, inextricable. The system itself must evolve, must be mutated in order to allow this disease to be restructured into something functional.
Jung questioned (fairly casually) psychology's lack of an "Archimedean point" (for the psychological observer) outside psyche/subjectivity. Without a well defined Archimedean point, perfect scientific objectivity in psychology would not be possible. But the construction of this "perfect scientific objectivity" needs to have its historical narrative outlined a bit.
The idea can be traced to two main sources. The first would be a formulation of post-Enlightenment, 19th century scientific exuberance and hubris that placed "science" and "reason" on pedestals and used them to bludgeon dissenters. This was not science, per se, but
scientism that usurped the name and credibility of science.
Nowhere has this hubristic scientism been more pervasive and persistent than in modern medicine. Jung, especially post break-up with Freud, was a strong critic and opponent of this form of scientism. But his opposition had two major weaknesses. First, there was no concept of "scientism" at the time Jung formulated his criticisms. At least not one that reached Jung. The efforts of the philosophers of science to understand how science really works (how it develops and tests truth claims) came either late in or after Jung's life. As I will go on to explain, Jung cold be seen as one of the (unrecognized and parallel) forerunners of later philosophies of science like Thomas Kuhn's. But for Jung, Science and Reason were still like idolized gods with dangerous powers. Jung's critique of science and rationalism does not therefore carry over into modern dialogs intact. Today, "grand narratives" of "Science" do not exist in the way they did in the 19th century (at least not for actual scientists). Sciences have shed much of their old religious ideologies, and they have done this in the name of a scientific method that is self-correcting and oriented to addressing its own errors. That Jungianism often carries on as if sciences were still ideological Science/scientism is anachronistic and effectively removes it from any progressive dialogs on the topic.
Often, Jungian critiques of "Science" are even more simplistic than Jung's, as if they developed in a vacuum where the other of Science was only a fantasy and projection of the shadow. Jung actually witness and lived with (and as a part of) the kind of Science he opposed.
Jung's opposition to science and rationalism is also weakened by the conventionality of his critical position. It was not in any way original or unique, but a product of the volkisch German romanticism of his era. The same kinds of suspicions of science and rationality that Jung inherited from his peers and intellectual forebears were applied in Nazi ideologies, rationalizations, and self-justifications. They are not innocuous. They are not "inspired truths". Jung went through his entire life without significant self-consciousness about the limitations of this volkisch romanticism. It was a part of his socialized identity that he was seemingly not able to analyze or recognize as partly arbitrary. It was his "persona equation".
This volkisch romanticism weakens Jung's critiques of science because it was not intellectual, philosophical or, of course, scientific. It was a matter of tribal identity politics, of differentiating an Us and a Them. Much of Jung's critiques of science and reason and rationality and materialism was an assertion of collective selfhood or affiliation. It was not fully "conscious", but tainted by prejudices that defended and fortified a particular group's identity constructions. It was, to use Jung's favored term (from Levy-Bruhl) "participation mystique".
That means that it would need to be deconstructed. We would need to determine how much of this volkisch romantic critique of reason and modernity was arbitrary identity politics and differentiation of group selfhood and how much was legitimate analysis of science. As the rise and reign of Nazism demonstrated, anti-modernism, modern monotribalism, anti-science, anti-rationality, etc. can be terribly dangerous and wholly illegitimate as intellectual positions.
Despite these limitations, Jung's critique of science had, I think, some viable intellectual (and therefore scientific) foundations. But it was plagued by an attraction to and dependence on scapegoats (the Jews being a primary one, especially during the 1930s . . . emblemized for Jung especially by Freud and psychoanalysis). The use of scapegoats allowed Jung and Jungianism to enter into a deluded fantasy of heroic battle against a foe. This Jungian "hero" means to liberate and promote his chosen people and smite the dragons (and others) who would impede the expansion and self-promotion of these chosen people. This, of course, was also the perspective of Hitler. The idea of entitlement to "purity".
Even as Jungianism has engaged in criticisms of Jung's and early Jungian anti-Semitism and Nazi-collaboration, it still remains largely an expression of this monotribalist, Hitlerian fantasy of purifying and unifying the world (with the chosen race/tribe on top). Jungians, of course, don't advocate genocide or any kind of violence. Instead, they just fantasize about the "unus mundus" (one world) and the "anima mundi" that unites this world and renders it meaningful (i.e., pure). As Jungians have no power and influence in the modern world, they are not in danger of harming others. But if we look more closely at the typical Jungian characterizations of "science", rationalism, materialism, and those who supposedly "worship" these foreign gods, we can see that these others are not treated with any more respect or humanity than the Nazi's afforded the Jews and other "degenerates".
This is a fairly brutal analogy, and I use it to make a point. I use it as a clarion call for Jungians to look more closely at their romantic, monotribalist, anti-modernist prejudices.
To back up a bit, the second place we can locate the idea of a "perfectly objective science" is in academic postmodernist critiques of science as modernist grand narrative. In many ways, this is just another expression of the kind of anti-modern romanticism that Jung's volkisch influence expressed. It is extremely monotribal, very Us vs. Them oriented.
It's a critique that comes out of literary criticism and the liberal arts most of all. As a philosophy of science it depends less on argument and logic than on group consensus. That is, it remain viable only when enough people are willing to believe and espouse it, and when those people will write for and read one another's "professional" publications. It requires a kind of elite monotribe to sustain it. It has no real applicability outside of this academic ivory tower community. It has no significant impact on real science.
This is not to say it is utterly devoid of useful criticisms. Many of the criticisms academic postmodernism brings to science and other modern institutions are (at least when boiled down to their basic arguments) quite apt. They are also largely common sense critiques despite being couched in radical linguistic formulas and overcomplicated abstractions. But what makes these critiques potent is not their logic, it's their ferocity and totalitarianism. It's a ferocity that breeds rallying indoctrination. It can be an "acting out" of rage against "the machine" of modernity and a retreat into monotribal (and therefore anti-modern) identity.
Also, although many members of the academic postmodern tribe continue to fire rockets toward the land of "Science", this demonic kingdom hardly exists anymore . . . except in the scapegoat fantasy of the academic postmodernists. Real science has mostly learned all of the common sense lessons of the postmodernist argument, incorporated this knowledge, and moved on. And it managed this by learning not from the postmodernists but from more moderate critics and philosophers of science. It also simply learned from experience and from experiments that helped refine best practices in science. Science learned the functional lessons postmodernism continues to preach at it by looking at the data. Dedicated observation of these data is self-correcting for the scientific method. As long as the data are valued and carefully observed, science doesn't move closer and closer toward its own corrupt fantasy narrative (that strikes me as an academic postmodernist projection par excellence). It moves closer to the "truth" of the other/object.
We need to recognize that the idea of "perfectly objective science" simply doesn't exist in modern science . . . or where it does, it contradicts the real momentum of modern scientific method. Science is a tool. What corrupts science (as a verifier) is not science, but the unscientific attitudes and idea we bring to it. Human greed and pride and bias can harm the validity of scientific verification/falsification. It is the human hand and mind that repurposes the tool as a weapon. Science itself has no mind.
That is my relatively brief jog into the background of "objectivity", which I feel is necessary as we move on to investigate why Jungians have failed to imagine a functional psychological objectivity and thereby lost the golden thread from Jung. My feeling is that the Jungian project is founded upon and cannot function without an objective and essentially empirical approach to psychic phenomena. It is not "spiritualism" or "soulfulness" or intuition or faith of any kind that makes the Jungian project special and sustainable, it's the particular model of objectivity.
Jung's Model of ObjectivityJung strove, imperfectly but significantly, to view the psyche objectively. The objectivity and empiricism Jung claimed to practice cannot be very well understood in contemporary contexts . . . or even outside of psychoanalytic ones. Jung's "empiricism" was notable and meaningful only in contrast to Freud's approach to psychic phenomena as data.
As Jungians are fond of saying, Freud's theories were very reductive. Superficially, they seemed (or claimed) to be based on rationalistic and scientific principles, but just because Freud spoke of instincts and drives for sex and aggression does not (it is easy to see today, where these constructions are no longer granted much credibility) make Freud's constructions scientific. Freud notoriously used a very strict model of psychic structure and behavior to interpret a vast and variable amount of phenomena. One example among many: the theory (assumption, really) that dream content is composed of sexual and infantile drives too disturbing for the ego and must therefore be disguised by a repressive psychic mechanism. And so every dream hat is a disguised penis.
I can't recall Freud's exact data on which this theory was based. Maybe there were a few dreams that seemed to suggest this kind of disguise, and this led him astray. In my experience of dream work and reading about dreams, I have never noticed anything like a mechanism of disguise. It is much more reasonable to see the density of dream symbols as indicative of multiple meaning clusters. They are economical representations of complexes of related, often emotionally charged, memory quanta. Observation of the data bears this out (i.e., dream contents are not disguised). It is not that symbolic penises or vaginas are impossible in dreams, but where these appear, there is something more going on than simply penises or vaginas. Jung's childhood dream of the "underground phallus" is a useful example.
As Jung split form Freud, he became something of a crusader against Freudian psychoanalysis. That crusade was so powerful for Jung that it carried him at least through the 1930s with great hostility toward Freud and psychoanalysis, even encouraging him to collaborate with and echo Nazi psychological propaganda. Analytical psychology needs to be understood as significantly (but perhaps not entirely) an "anti-Freudianism". It is a reply to, compensation for, and critique of psychoanalysis . . . for better and for worse.
Where we investigate Jung's model of observation, we need to see Jung's approach as a reaction to and attempted compensation of Freud's. Where Freud was very theory-centric and used data very secondarily and conformingly, Jung was extremely skeptical and standoffish about theories and preferred to allow the data to guide interpretation. This meant, for Jung, a much greater devotion to objectifying these data, to allowing them to be what they presented themselves as and not to become a brick in the wall of a theory. As this approach was largely reactive to Freud's, Jung seemed to manage it fairly well, but he did not absolutely break from Freud's interpretive models. He recognized Freud's approach as extremely (excessively) Freud-centric. That is, Jung saw Freud shaping his theories about psychology based far too much on Freud's own personal psychology. Jung felt these generalizations from Freud's person were not widely applicable. In the 1930s, Jung took this too far and wrote that "Jewish psychology" should not be applied to non-Jews (i.e., German gentiles). This seems to have been a powerfully affect-drenched reaction to Freud's error. Fundamentally, Jung had a good point: not every person has the same complexes, defenses, and neuroses . . . and some of these complexes, defenses, and neuroses can be part of a group identity construction, inherited through a sense of identification and participation with that group. Unfortunately, Jung capitalized on Nazi power and propaganda that was used to subjugate and persecute the Jews in Germany when he made such statements. Jung, its seems, sought revenge against Freud and the Freudians, and he wasn't above using perverse Nazi power and influence to wage his own private war against psychoanalysis.
But underlying Jung's differentiation of "Jewish psychology" in the 30s is an astute awareness of the variable, often arbitrary social construction of personality (and many of its diseases). There is not one psychological complex or disease for all of humanity. Complexes are situational and variable. Moreover, theorists and philosophers, too, were subject to personal contextualizations and complexes that dictated their worldviews. Jung used the term "personal equation" for this inescapable tendency in human thought to be shaped not by "rationality" alone, but (significantly) by personal habits, assumptions, beliefs, attitudes, and identity constructions. Freud, Jung would have diagnosed, failed to adequately recognize his own personal equation, and therefore projected his own psychology (which he analyzed quite deftly) onto everyone.
Jung accepted, at least superficially, that he too was subject to a personal equation, which shaped much of his own approach to psychological observation and interpretation. Jung seemed to recognize how his personal equation drew him to certain phenomena, but he did not dwell on (or really even address) how it also blinded him in other ways. The personal equation theory is important to Jungian thought, but it is not adequately developed. It becomes quite clear that the various weaknesses in Jung's theories and interpretations could be traced back to his personal equation. The incidents of collaboration with Nazi psychological propaganda in the 30s mentioned above is a case in point. Could Jung really have written about "Jewish psychology" in a way that seemed to echo and support Hitler if he did not have unanalyzed, largely unconscious prejudices against Jews (and especially centered around Freud)?
Ideally, though, the personal equation theory belongs with the observational and empirical approach Jung argued for. As noted above, scientific observation of psychic phenomena (especially one's own psychic phenomena) is notoriously difficult due to the problem of a very shaky Archimedean point . . . i.e., because the observational mechanism used to observe the object (psyche) is part of that object, and therefore extremely biased and often incapable of detecting self-deceptions.
Jung, though, did not reject psychological objectivity as an ideal and necessary approach to psychology (as Giegerich seems to). What is Jung's solution to the no Archimedean point problem of psychology? The introduction of the personal equation. And what scientific mechanism might this personal equation (specifically, the dedicated awareness of it) represent to psychology? The concept of "margin of error". The personal equation as a margin of error in observation is attached to the attempt to objectively observe psychic phenomena. With some phenomena a given individual's margin of observational error is more or less than with others. And those places one suffers from the largest margins of error are where the phenomena that most closely touch on unconscious and compulsive complexes reside.
Freud, of course, abused this concept of personal equation as margin of error tremendously. Instead of recognizing his own susceptibility to his complexes and their tendency to distort his perception on particular issues, he developed what is in many ways a theory of psychology based entirely on these most personal complexes. His theory grew from where he was most blind. Jung recognizes this and takes offense (especially when Freud projects this onto Jung . . . and all the more so because it happened to fit, perhaps turning into a self-fulfilling prophecy of the Son that "murders" the Father). Jung's analysis of Freud (as devouring Father) was just as astute as Freud's analysis of Jung (as patricidal Son). Both men's interpretations of their relationship are reasonable, especially given their respective personal equations.
Regrettably, Jung did a much better job at recognizing Freud's personal equation than he did at recognizing and "factoring out" his own. I suspect Jung did factor his personal equation as a margin of error at times in his interpretations of data, but he did not really expose this process in his writing or demonstrate how it could be done. In fact, much of the time, it seems as though he really didn't bother to factor out his personal equation. Unlike Freud, Jung acknowledged that he had and was subject to one, but he didn't really deal with it analytically. Instead, Jung drew on his theory of the shadow (which had the opportunity to work as the foundation of a "Jungian ethics") to seemingly excuse his personal equation. In effect, Jung said, "Well yes, I have a shadow. It affects and distorts my perception. But everyone has a shadow. We must have a shadow. Now that that's out of the way, let's move on."
That is, Jung often used an acknowledgement that he had a shadow as an excuse not to really aggressively deal with/confront that shadow. He did not use that shadow as a margin of error in his theorization and observation. He essentially left it for us to apply this margin of error to his observations of psychic phenomena (as he himself had to to Freud's observations and theories). That was probably extremely irresponsible on many levels . . . and it seems all the more so when we recognize that other Jungians were not successfully applying this margin of error (not at least until the last couple decades) to Jung's ideas. And how could they? They had a shadowless vision of Jung. Jung was a myth, a godman, an individuated transcendent "master" and "genius".
Today, the tables have turned. Jung has come to seem far less than divine to many contemporary Jungians. But Jungians are still caught up in their Jungian identity complexes. Instead of being able to accurately apply a margin of error to Jung's thought based on his personal equation, Jungians react very emotionally to Jung's "betrayal" as disappointing Father and have come to often use Jung's personal equation (and shadow) as a bludgeon to smash his theories and observations. Neither extreme is scientifically functional. That is, neither manner of application of the personal equation as margin of error leads to more accurate and objective observations.
Jung was, in this legacy, a "bad father" to Jungians. He did not functionally model the personal equation as margin of observational and theoretical error. But he
did leave this fairly sound theory to us to use . . . and when applied with ethical consciousness, it works pretty well. It does not make psychological observations "highly accurate", but it manages to put up numerous red flags (where margin of error might be greatest) that can allow observers to devise more stringent tests or look more carefully at decisive data sets. It can work like a series of road signs that help a psychological observer weave her or his way through a maze of possibilities and complexities. It also allows this observer to hold off on theory-making and to be more aware of the arbitrariness of assumptions and the contexts in which they are formed.
Although the effective use of the personal equation idea in Jungian thought is still significantly unrealized and in need of reform and revitalization, another observational approach Jung took that was quite functional (and now, quite neglected) was the valuation of the object. In the passion for subjectivity that now drives Jungian thought, the very idea of the object (the psyche or psychic phenomena) is devalued and often discarded. There is no valid "object" in Jungian thought today . . . there is only subject. Subject is not anything like a margin of error that cloaks and distorts an object for contemporary Jungians. As a result the exploration of subjectivity is a kind of arbitrary, creative exploration . . . something like a linguistic art form. "Truth" of this subject is seen as being an element of its expression. It is brought into being subjectively and exists only as its final product (the expression). It is
ex nihilo. This continues to grant (albeit unintentionally) a kind of "divine" status to the Jungian that embraces this religion of subjectivity. One is (as HIllman called it) "soul-making". Jungians engage in soul-making rather than soul-investigating . . . or, it should be recognized, soul-relating.
The underlying problem with the subjectivizing of psychology is that this leads to the loss of the psychic Other. The Jungian psychologist no longer seeks or finds a way to relate with that Other. There is no relational ethic, no respect and honoring of the Other. The Other only exists for many contemporary Jungians as a part of subjectivity, a part of ego and its beliefs, attitudes, and identity constructions. There is still a sense among Jungians that they are looking back into something deeper and more ancient (a kind of "collective unconscious" or world soul), but this is merely lip service paid to the Jungian identity totems. The actual
experience of Jungianism is extremely subjective and lacking a developed relational ethic to an Other. The Other of Jungian fantasy is mostly a reflection of the Jungian identity constructions, of the ideal ego. What matters most about that totemic Other is that it tells the Jungian who s/he is. By taking up a certain worshipful, awe-inspired attitude toward the tribal identity totem, the Jungian identifies as a Jungian and feels confirmed in this identification.
Jung is distinct among Jungians for the extensive objectification he afforded autonomous psychic contents and the psyche as Other. That in itself is a stance of valuation of the psychic Other that is all too often lacking in contemporary Jungianism. And it is the core of a viable Jungian project. But even in Jung, this was a complex and problematic kind of relationship. Jung did not exclusively take an ethical, self-sacrificing relationship to the psychic Other and autonomous psychic phenomena. He had to build the model of that relationship as a problematized one.
There was a profoundly ethical aspect of this relationship for Jung that is lacking from today's Jungianisms. But Jung's ethics was flawed. He was determined (and I would consider this an ethical position) to see the psychic Other as other, as "object" that was not-I. Therefore, this Other-object had to be related to . . . it could not be determined or "made". This, I feel, is tremendously important and absolutely essential to a viable Jungianism. It is also more genuinely "scientific" and interested in accurately understanding the Other-object. But Jung also projected many prejudices on this Other that he did not manage to factor out as the margins of error due to a personal equation.
His characterizations of the autonomous otherness of the psyche are heavily tinged with the kind of "othering" that we see in all prejudices and shadow projections. He portrayed the "unconscious" as a volatile, often chaotic "superpower" that made an aggressive claim on "consciousness" and would threaten to devour, seduce, or undermine that consciousness. Jung proposed that this required some specific "care and feeding" of the "unconscious"/Other. But it equally required the construction of an extremely strong ego that could stand its ground against the demands and desires of the "unconscious". The ego, in effect, had to become its own "superpower" to engage in a cold war struggle with the "unconscious". This meant that the psychic Other would always be a fairly poorly seen other. The Jungian ego was greatly concerned with holding back that Other, with maintaining a "tension of opposites" that allowed some of the "trade" between consciousness and the "unconscious" to occur under very careful scrutiny.
The psychic other remains a fairly demonic and untrustworthy "partner" in this cold war for psychic health (i.e., ego determined health). And this, I feel, is entirely unnecessary. It is only the product of Jung's unresolved complexes and prejudicial projections. It does not make for a sufficiently accurate representation of the Self-as-Other or the autonomous psyche. BUT . . . it must be said that this approach
does manage to keep the association between the ego and the autonomous psyche relational. It involves a kind of mutual respect, even as it is riddled with prejudices. And it is precisely this prejudiced but oddly respectful relationship we see in all of Jung's constructions of others. He is a bit of a walking contradiction on these relationships with others/Others.
With his constructions of the anima, for instance, he has depicted something powerful and autonomous that is a fertile repository and resource for psychic energy (that the ego can utilize) and even some insight (into egoic constructions), yet at the same time, this anima is untrustworthy, seductive, devouring, and volatile. He theorizes an archetype with a positive and a negative pole. It can shift along this axis, but it can never become one pole at the expense of the other. And therefore even when it seems positive, it should always be mistrusted and treated with skepticism and reservation. Jung treats the anima as a kind of natural resource that needs to be conquered and transformed for the ego's "civilized" purposes. It shouldn't be rejected or squandered, but it needs to be adapted to the ego's needs. It is not therefore valuable as a wholly autonomous Other. It must be "colonized".
And yet, there is this lingering sense (not clearly articulated by Jung, but definitely implied) that the anima also "colonizes" the ego . . . as any conquered culture might end up seeping into the conquering culture even in very profound ways. There is a part of Jung that accepts and even embraces this "reverse colonization" from psychic Others, but his "official position" remains solidly colonial. As I have said before, Jung was the kind of man who would decry promiscuity and infidelity in public while indulging it personally in private. He is a bit of a hypocrite and a prude/conservative, but he at least has some degree of personal access to vital otherness.
It is a perverted situation for Jungian psychology, but I feel Jung's hypocritical stance on Otherness is still far superior to and healthier than the contemporary Jungian attitude toward the Other which is non-relational and not so much "colonial" as "genocidal" (i.e., it seeks to destroy the Other and convert it into a token to hang on its office wall). Jung's relationship with the other was complexed and distorted, but it
was a relationship, and it did allow the Other some autonomy. It was, therefore, valuative in ways. But Jungianism treats Jung's complexed colonialism as its inherited birthright. Jung went out and colonized the "unconscious" so that Jungianism can now possess it entirely. What was objective for Jung is now subjective for Jungianism . . . and this is a terrible loss.
It would be much healthier for Jungianism to move more decidedly and consciously in the direction Jung leaned (often in spite of himself). Jungianism should seek to remedy Jung's prejudices and repair his complexed relationships with Others. But that requires an ethic that is both scientifically and relationally sound, and no such ethic has developed in Jungianism.
Concealed (for Jungians, at least) behind a simple scientific objectivism is a deeply affective ethic of relationship and construction of otherness. Objectification that is ethically guided (i.e., valuative) is not an "evil". It is essential to relationship and to the valuated construction of the other. It is better to objectify with some (albeit impaired) accuracy than it is to subjectify. Of course, it is best to objectify ethically (and without excess intrusion of the personal equation and shadow projections), to grant others objective autonomy and the equal right to be. That goal is viable where Jungian models of observation and ethics (understanding of the mechanism of shadow projection) are improved and refined. The foundation for doing this exists in Jung's thought . . . even if the model he presented with his own behavior was quite flawed and not functionally imitable.
The pathway to repair and revitalization of this observational objective model can likely only come from a deeper and fairer analysis of Jung's own approach and personal equation. Secondarily, the way Jung's personal equations and complexes have been inherited by Jungians will need to be analyzed. The Jungian personal equation will have to be factored as a margin of error. But that important step will only be useful if Jungians can begin objectively observing psychic phenomena again (and not merely assuming and making it out of their subjectivity). Jungianism suffers from a disease that shrouds and represses its Otherness, its autonomous Self. The Jungian shadow stands between Jungian identity and its Self-as-Other. As long as the shadow work remains repellent to Jungianism, it will experience its lack and lostness ("loss of soul").
This is especially ironic, since Jungianism has conventionally championed the value of "shadow work". But perhaps its inheritance of Jung's "hypocrite gene" complicates this. These things are not really that hard to see (for those outside Jungianism). Jungianism has a problem with awareness of its own personal equation and has found increasingly ingenious ways to flee and distance itself from that personal equation. Jung himself is now being used as the scapegoat to facilitate this retreat and repression. The sacrifice of Jung may serve as the ultimate denial and dissociation of Jungian identity . . . the point at which Jungianism will rapidly decline and cease to exist. It is Jungianism's eleventh hour, and Jung-the-man is the ticking bomb it needs to defuse. Many Jungians are just trying to figure out how to get out of the building alive. But not everyone will make it . . . and the whole building will also be lost if the bomb blows. Some Jungians have to make a devoted effort to address the bomb directly . . . to think communally and not only selfishly.