Revisiting this little stump speech, I realize that I did not (originally for the sake of concision) address a sister problem to the post-Jungian identifier issue. Namely, that there are plenty of people claiming post-Jungian status who have not actually "come through" Jung to get there. The quibble I have is semantic. After all, the post-moderns (and in my field of literature and creative writing, the "post-post-moderns") have not actually "evolved from or solved the problems of the Modern. Rather, they have taken a branch or detour off of the modernist path while still be concerned with the same essential problem of modernism.
So it is with many commonly titled "post-Jungians" today. They are often not so much building on Jung's theories and writings as they are taking a detour off of Jung's "personal experiment". That is, they are taking a road away from Jung that was built by someone else rather than continuing to pave the road that Jung began. Or perhaps they are taking a parallel path that doesn't intersect significantly with Jung at all, but still embarks from the general territory of what Jung called the Collective Unconscious. When I wrote this little sermon above, I was using the term "post-Jungian" is a slightly different way. I meant it as, quite literally, building on the foundation of Jung and continuing the project he established, continuing his experiment.
But I don't mean this as a kind of dogmatic Jungian fundamentalism that insists on sticking to the letter of Jung's texts (what a nightmare that would be!). We already have too many variations of that, even as each of these "textbook Jungians" takes his or her entirely unique interpretation. What I am thinking of is a project that specifically seeks out the blockades that Jung (and Jungians) have butted up against and failed to get past, and making these the main areas of investigation. I would like to see innovation and revision thrown at these areas in a true "post-Jungianism".
So what trips us up? What is most dissatisfying in the Jungian world view? Which of Jung's ideas seem to have not stood the test of time? What Jungian thinking now seems maladaptive in the 21st century? If mistakes have been made (by either Jung or his followers), what are they and how might they be remedied?
These are the kinds of questions I would like to see on the plates of "post-Jungians". As another example, I have noticed (along with many if not all Jungians in the last few decades) that some of Jung's psychic constructs no longer seem appropriate or functional in the 21st century (or were in the end of the 20th, for that matter). Take the animi, for instance. Or the Self as Light and Dark Opposites (rather than a complex system, as it currently seems to be). Or the puer/senex archetypal dynamic. What we have learned is that notions like these have proven themselves to be less about "psychoid", universal, instinctually-rooted structures than Jung seemed to assert . . . and much more about cultural constructions.
This problem (especially where the animi are concerned) has long been grumbled about in post-feminist Jungianism. It turns out that Jung's constructs of the major archetypes (although they may still exhibit "primordial" attributes) are not exactly fixed, partially biological structures, but have clearly evolved (or need to evolve) in the years since Jung wrote about them. Numerous (but by no means "innumerable") attempts have been made by Jungians to critique and tweak these archetypal constructions. I am personally unaware of any interesting innovations in the construction, theorization, or understanding of the anima archetype made since Jung. Yes, plenty has been written elaborating anima phenomena and images, but has there been any advance in the theory of the anima, what it "is", what it is for?
I haven't seen all the literature, and perhaps I missed something, but the anima was the first element of Jungian theory that I found myself thinking unconventionally about. Over a decade ago, I tried to seek out all the Jungian writing on the anima, but came away nonplussed. Yet, it seems like Jungians have accepted that the thinking about the anima has all been done, that the topic is exhausted, understood, explained. If anyone has done more extensive readings on this site (such as in the forum called "The Animi Work", s/he has found that the notion that we know all there is to know about the anima and have said all there is to say is an absurd hubris. Agree or disagree with my revisions, they at least suggest that the investigation is not over (no investigation of data in a constantly changing world is ever over).
But much worse than this is the current Jungian thinking about the animus. Many Jungians became so frustrated with the animus that they decided to excise it altogether from the Jungian "archetypal pantheon". More commonly, others have stuck to the incredibly antiquated and sexist notion of the animus that Jung and his original colleagues championed (this perspective has actually come back in the post-feminist world, now that the radical trend in feminism seems to have passed).
To me, these are examples of fertile ground for a true post-Jungianism. These are psychic artifacts that Jung unearthed, but they remain on the Jungian shelf, gathering dust with most of their hieroglyphs untranslated. I don't think a post-Jungian should be content with such a situation. I don't mean to imply that the mysteries of the psyche are just a Rubik's Cube to be solved with the proper number of twists or that we should have an expectation for all things psychic to fit nicely in place and be explained away. I am merely concerned with the lack of theoretical pursuits and investigative inquisitiveness in the professional Jungian community. Has it become the Jungian way to keep all mysteries at arm's length, to make them over into totems? Where has the hunger to know gone? What I see in Jung and his writing is a distinct hunger to know, a drive to test and experiment and generally poke around the psyche like it was a laboratory filled with marvels and wonders.
It's that kind of hunger that I'd like to see driving a post-Jungianism. This hunger (and the flexibility and open-mindedness with which it was exercised) was what to me, at least, was the libido behind Jung's thinking. It was a scientific or gnostic libido. Can we establish a post-Jungianism based on this gnostic drive? Can we continue Jung's project by recognizing and continuing to channel its scientific spirit?