Ego Old, Ego New, Ego Borrowed, Ego Blue or It's All Individuation NowadaysWhat then do we do with an instinctual drive, an archetype? It is, it would seem, the ego's job to facilitate the adaptation of this instinct to the informational environment (the cognitive niche). And how, then, does the notion of a "return to hunter-gatherer Eden" sound as a prospect for adaptation? To my ears, like a pretty stupid idea. Of course, this is the way egoic man thinks: "How can I change my environment to suit my needs?" It is this conceptual ability and and the power to actualize it that has spelled evolutionary success for our species. And in general "changing the world to make it a better place", though romantic, is considered a pretty decent human ideal. But is neoprimitivism really better than modernism? No doubt there is at least one positive to fantasized primitivism: a closeness with instinct. That, to paraphrase Jung, is the problem of modern humanity . . . the loss of myths, meaning, and religious feeling, the loss of primal connectedness to the earth and to one another (the tribe). The loss of God.
But even if this was the deepest Wound imaginable to the human being, the problem of reconstructing a primitivist Eden (i.e., Utopianism) is vast and menacing. The 20th century gave us numerous wide-scale attempts at constructing what amount to nation-sized tribes. The result was apocalypse. To recreate primitivism or tribalism in the modern era, horrendous, unimaginably extensive destruction would be required. This is where the Christian End Time fantasy comes from. It imagines the reversal of modernism about as accurately in its symbolic fantasy as anything I've seen. The reduction of billions of people to hundreds of thousands (or fewer). The absolute annihilation of everyone who isn't perfectly down with the tribal spirit, who isn't indoctrinated into the tribe (euphemistically, "saved"). This was initially the fantasy of radical Jewish sects reacting against the "globalist", colonial modernism of the Roman Empire around the turn of the Common Era (the book of Revelations comes from this sectarian literature . . . and probably had nothing to do with the Christianity that appropriated it).
Sects are like tribes . . . tribes that have been swallowed in the modern (i.e., forced to interact with Others) and don't like it. Around the first century CE, there was a huge conflict in the Jewish community living under Roman rule. In general, Judaism had always been highly tribal (it even uses the term "tribe" to differentiate its identities and was classically obsessed with lineages and kin cohesion). But under Roman rule, a great deal of diversity and modern culture was hurled at the Jews. As one might expect, this caused many fissures in the Jewish community. Many Jews embraced (or at least accepted) Romanism as "the way of the world". They tried to adapt to it. Those who did (again, not surprisingly) were often the wealthiest ones. They could get along with Rome, because they could profit by Roman trade routes and wealth (i.e., modernism).
The poor were not in such a good position, though (remember, "Blessed are the poor, for theirs is the Kingdom of God"? That most likely had to do with a Jewish sect eventually called the Ebionites, or Poor Ones; the
Qumran community's scroll writers often referred to themselves as "the Poor" in the 2nd and 1st centuries BCE). The poor Jews had their tribal religiosity to cling to, but felt oppressed by Roman (and modernist) impositions . . . and more distinctly, by their wealthier fellow Jews. The tribal splintering within the Jewish community was so severe that it led to two wars with Rome. The Jewish messiah mythology is focused on this period especially . . . many sects longed for a warrior from God to be sent to lead them to holy victory against Rome against all odds. The Christian mythos came together in this era of severe tribal splintering and conflict with the Modern. The best first hand account of this comes from
Josephus, whose ideology represented the wealthier, "Hellenized" Jew of the first century CE. He basically saw the radical Jewish sects as terrorists whose furious zealotry ended up dragging all of the Jews into (unwinnable) war with the Romans. Josephus was a governor who became a Jewish general in the first war.
I relate this, because I mean to suggest that the messianic/apocalyptic origin of Christianity was a matter of neoprimitivist sentiment (or perhaps, madness), a reactionism against the modernism that Greco-Roman, secularist, relatively democratic, middle classist society had introduced. The eventual institution of Christianity by Constantine did in fact come with an apocalypse: the destruction of the educated, pagan, middle class followed by constant purging of heretics and Others (Jews and Muslims especially). This is, of course, whitewashed and redressed in our conventional Christianized history, but if we look at this from the modernist perspective (the imagined perspective of a middle class, educated, professional, Roman pagan in the first few centuries of the Common Era), there can be no other conclusion but that Christianization was a global, social apocalypse. I feel it is important to emphasize this (as I often do) because (among many reasons), we are in a very similar position today. The psychological conflict between tribalism (which manifests as regressive fundamentalism of various kinds) and modernism is of enormous importance in the collective psyche today. The resolution of this conflict (if only on an individual level) is what is behind Jungian psychology's philosophy of individuation.
How do we live the "symbolic life" today? Can we reunite with our instincts without bringing about Armageddon (i.e., radically changing our environment to suit our needs)? The lesson of Christianization would seem to say, "No". We can't destroy modern society well enough to prevent the rise of modernism some time down the road. Modernism, I propose, is inevitable. Therefore, we should concern ourselves not with the problem that there is modernism and this oppresses our instinctuality, but with the real Problem of the Modern: what can we do to
adapt to this inevitability of modernism? Here we cannot think "instinctively" with our egos . . . where "instinctively" would mean conceptualizing how our environments can be conformed to our instincts. We need to learn how to think adaptively, consciously in order to face the Problem of the Modern. It is the human being that must find a way to change in order to change the environment . . . in order to change the social environment, our informational environment. It is not the Other who must be reformed or eliminated. The individual must evolve.
This is what I think Jung's idea of individuation was hinting at. Evolutionary pressure is being placed on the human individual to either harness its innovative, conceptual super-adaptivity to adaptive change or to face extinction. Regressivist ideologies that promote fundamentalism (whether Christian, Muslim, or Neoprimitivism, or scientific) are shrinking back from the demands of innovation and evolutionary progress. Yes, adaptation in this work will be extremely difficult . . . but regressivism coupled to today's destructive technologies (the articles of modern warfare) flirts ultimately with extinction of the species. The dream of the coherent tribe is a delusional fantasy. The reality of this dream put into action is Holocaust.
And this is the real dilemma that Anthony Stevens (like most other Jungians and New Age devotees) does not properly recognize in his prescription of a return to instinct. The return to primitivist constructions of instinct is impossible. We must evolve, adapt our instincts to the modern environment.
Adapt . . . not conform. It is important to understand the difference. I agree that instincts need to be recognized and re-incorporated in the therapeutic process, but trying to get individuals to abide by a more primitivist instinctuality (although this might make some of them happier) will result in the externality of shadow inflation. That inflated shadow is the unconsciousness that was behind the Holocausts of the 20th century . . . that is still behind the prejudice and Othering that is rampant in the shadow-purged New Age and Jungian communities.
In other words, we have to be very careful, I think, not to "sell" instinctuality to patients without consciousness and devout shadow work. Instinct is not wholly "good", nor is it Law to be obeyed unquestioningly. It would be better to say that we need to learn to adapt our instincts to the modern than it would be to say we need to get back in touch with our instincts. The prior perspective is actually representative of a natural process (i.e., it is in line with the way matter behaves). The latter is just another formulation of religious fundamentalism that holds apocalyptic, tribalist Edenism in its shadow.
I don't mean to portray Anthony Stevens as a biological fundamentalist. The flaw in his philosophy, I think, is a failure to conceptualize sufficiently, to think in a long enough term. We see our Holy Grails and excitement, anxiety, and numinousness possess us. But to see the Grail is not the same thing as reaching the Grail, nor is the strategy required for Grail recognition the same one required for Grail acquisition.
My opinion is that
Archetype Revisited is a very important Jungian book. We would do well to read this book, use its research and basic argument as a jumping off point. But it is not the Grail and has nothing to offer us regarding how to seek it (not that it claims to be). I think many of Stevens ideas need to be critiqued and revised. His research is sound, but we are not forced to draw the same conclusions from it that Stevens draws. But to reject the research and the basic notion that biology and Jungian thinking go hand in hand would be intellectually and ethically hazardous. Some of Stevens' conservative/prescriptive interpretations of evolutionary biology's relation to Jungian psychology will gall readers who are more inclined to embrace cultural construction theories . . . but this is not the real dangerousness of Stevens' book. And to reject his arguments because they are not as PC as we would like would be a much greater act of prejudice and ignorance than the one Stevens commits in "prescribing biologism".
What is dangerous in the biological argument for archetype and human meaning is that its rabbit hole runs all the way down to that shadow we have tried to avoid in every other religious and mystical construction we've endeavored to create. The tribal shadow, that point at which our individuality is in conflict with our tribalist instincts, that point where only individuated consciousness can formulate some sort of reconciliation between the Opposites. In this conflict, we have our desire for the gods, for our spiritualities, to provide on one hand. And on the other hand, we have "spiritual discipline", gnosticism, God as a human responsibility (rather than as provider). Do we want to "follow our bliss" (searching eternally for our Eden-on-Earth, abolishing or ignoring anything that is in our path), or do we want to know, do we want to do the Work? Does God serve us or do we serve God? That is the shadow conundrum at the root of all spirituality. And we don't want to see the answer.
The small (but growing, I hope) body of Jungian literature that draws from the field of evolutionary psychology is, I feel, indicating the right direction to go. But the preliminary offerings (or, more accurately, fantasies) from this direction have not yet been developed, their implication have not yet been explored. We are still in the phase of fighting over what general direction to go, and the majority forces opposing the biological direction have no imagination for the direction evolutionary biology suggests. Regrettably, the advocates of evolutionary biology's inclusion in Jungian thinking have barely more imagination for what lies ahead in a more biological investigation of psychic experience.
One thing both camps have in common (to their mutual detriment) is a notion of the spiritual quest hampered by Jung's truncated individuation opus. Jungianism of all stripes is overly concerned with getting to the source, the Self, the gods, the instincts, the symbolic life. That is, no doubt, a compelling journey. But this attitude aligns Jungianism with regressivism. The first alchemical opus could be seen as the "regressive opus", while the second is the "progressive opus". We
must first regress to progress when it comes to the Work, but I worry about denuding the individuation process of its progressive leg. It is a Big Lie, a false advertising that strips the most shadowy and challenging parts out of the Work. This advertising allows Jungian individuation to be more salable than real individuation actually is. Yes, that helps Jungians sell more books, because it taps into the healthier economies of the New Age and self-help markets. But what is the cost of this? Too great, in my opinion.
This sale of the individuation process as "feel-good enlightenment journey" condemns Jungianism to failure as both a mysticism and a science. What I would like to see (and hope to be able to contribute to) is a coupling of the exploration of Jungian biologism to the kind of more rigorous exploration of mysticism I call the Work. I have personally found the "second opus" of the Work highly compatible with evolutionary biology. They have been mutually encouraging investigations or processes for me, each informing the other. But this synchronous motion has driven me to see (the potential of) biologism in a progressivist light. That is, I have been pretty conscious of the inadequacy of any prescription that would have us
regress to biologism, of the inadequacy of making the discovery of biologism or instinctuality at our source our goal. The most appealing aspect of biologism to me (and my opinion about what is most important in the application of evolutionary biology to Jungian thinking) is the "naturalization" of progressivism (or the recognition that progressivism is a fundamental attribute of nature and life as it is expressed in evolution and adaptation).
I therefore feel that the first place we should concentrate our biological contributions to Jungian thinking is in the re-interpretation of the individuation process as an
adaptation process. It is inadequate and/or inaccurate to think of individuation as a meaning-finding or instinct-finding process. The "Philosopher's Stone" is not a deep well or breast to be discovered, claimed, and eternally nourished by, but a kind of co-creation in the world, a creative act or becoming in which the instinctual unconscious and the conscious ego collaborate in the successful adaptation of the organism to its environment. It is all a matter of relationality. Relation between the ego and the Self, relation between the organism and the environment. It is not about possessing a specific thing: a wisdom, a spirituality, a power, a secret of immortality or health. The Philosopher's Stone is relational super-adaptivity. Not to possess or to be a specific thing (a kind of singular super-strategy for everything), but to be able to connect or relate to many different things, to allow libido to flow in and out through relationship.
We tend to look upon libido as a precious resource. We covet it, fortify it. We miser our own away and sometimes try to maraud the libido of others. But libido is an Erotic drive to relate, not a commodity. The flow of libido as the energy of Life connects to everything it can. It is the principle of interaction with environments . . . or the principle of interaction among environments (where a being is as much an environment as a locale or body of information or culture). Libido is a property of matter itself, and the evolution of life on this planet is a manifestation of the libidinous or Erotic relationality that can gradually develop under certain natural conditions. Emergence (of life) is a result of this libidinous relationality. I don't want to overly anthropomorphize this principle and prescribe a "love-in" for everyone everywhere. This would be a mistake of literalization, I think.
But the path to super-adaptivity, to effective adaptation to our modern environment is, I believe, facilitated by the freeing up of our relational ability or Eros. It is a matter of being naturally influenced by and naturally influencing others and the world around us (in its elements). Not by imposing a specific egoic will upon it, but by allowing ourselves to be affected by stimuli. The problem of our egoism (especially in the modern world) is that it is essentially fortified. Coherence is the drive behind ego formation . . . and this ego coherence makes a good parent for us, providing for and protecting us as we enter the world through our extended and fragile childhoods up through adolescence and indoctrination into the tribe of adulthood and social role/occupation. But this coherence, although a great provider, is not very conducive to interpenetrational relationality (beyond the tribe, especially). It helps nurture us as we come into the world, but it can hinder our interaction with the environment after the time of "coming into" is complete.
This is a fairly abstract and un-motivating problem until evolutionary pressure on the species asserts itself and adaptation becomes necessary and compelling. The coherent ego formulated in childhood through early adulthood (roughly the period of about 20 years during which the brain is still growing and "cohering" or establishing its "wiring") belongs to an informational environment much more like the one thought to be our material environment of evolutionary adaptedness. That is, it is dominated by parent and peer influence, by group formation, indoctrination, and socialization. But the social evolution of our species has resulted in an evolutionary pressure placed on the individual (not the group) compelling it to adapt. Human groups have been instinctively and unconsciously adaptive (as evidenced by our enormous population growth). The "recipe" for human socialization innately leads to such expansion . . . until expansion itself becomes too much of a problem for or burden on the individual. Then the socialized, constructed, coherent ego begins to prove insufficient for equilibrious interaction with the environment.
The new environment cannot be effectively controlled and conformed by the adolescent, coherent, group-determined ego (not without numerous externalities that will eventually rebound on those externalizing). The individual suffers under the weight of this evolutionary pressure. The individual is the lowest point where all the silt settles. An so it becomes up to the individual to devise a new adaptive strategy, a way of allowing human instinct (the archetypes) to interact with the new (modern) environment rather than fortifying itself against that environment (as is the ego's unconscious tendency). The environment has to penetrate the instincts so that the instincts can penetrate the environment. The ego as strategy maker is (or has been) a device for controlling or conforming the environment, not actually interrelating with it (as life must in order to adapt). In order for instincts to become adaptive, the environment must imprint itself on them. In such a circumstance, adaptation will eventually emerge.
But faced with the Problem of the Modern, the human ego with its group-oriented coherence is in the way of the Erotic, natural relationship between instinct and environment. This ego, what we might also call the unconscious or primitivistic ego, is the expression of ego as adapted to the primitive, tribal environment of our hunter-gatherer ancestors (a providential environment, where everything is there to
take so there is no need to
make or work to sustain). This primitive ego is most likely the best formulation of adaptedness to the ancestral environment. In that environment, tribal cohesion was the key to success. Individualistic innovation was only infrequently required. But my guess is that such individualism was essential enough that tribal structures evolved "token individualism". Being merely "instinctual zombies" would prove less adaptive for our genes than the addition of a "pinch of individuality" that allowed for periodic, hopefully adaptive, innovations (of course, all innovation is a gamble; there is no sure thing).
The token individual in the primitive tribe would be the shaman . . . but the shamanic instinct, I believe, should not be seen as an anomaly, a "mutation". It is a genetic potential in every human being that, like any other trait, is expressed in varying degrees and in varying ways from individual to individual. The conventional "Call" for the awakening of the shamanic instinct for individuality has always been ego-decohesion or dissolution/dismemberment. This could be illness (physical or mental) or some other characteristic that hindered typical indoctrination into the tribal roles for its adult members.
But as population expanded and society progressed toward its modernist expression, tribal cohesion was "demoted" from its primitive role as super-adapter and more social responsibility was placed on the latent individualism that had previously been reserved only for the shaman of the tribe. Of course this latent individualism only emerged (and emerges) to the absolute minimum degree it has to in order to promote survival . . . so the modern individual is by no means a shaman or even shaman-in-training. An actual shaman would be a conduit for the super-adaptive, shamanic instinct, a person who has given her or himself entirely over to innovate individuation as it proves adaptive for the tribe. In other words, in such severe individualism, there is a massive burden of responsibility that demands a sacrifice of one's coherent selfhood for the sake of others or for a collectively adaptive purpose. Individualism does not free one from group sociality. It merely introduces innovation (and generally consciousness) to group dynamics. We might even say that individualism can be seen as a natural adaptation in our species to the need for innovation in groups in order to promote their evolutionary success. Or, in other words, individualism (as a principle) evolved as a
group trait (and should then be seen in distinct contrast to "egotism", or the placing of ones self-promotional and personal coherence concerns above all else).
What I mean to suggest is that even the modern ego, despite its seemingly increased individualism, is typically still primitive or unconscious. It eschews true individuation at all costs. But because we have the innovative (or we could say, "heroic") shamanic instinct, we do have the potential to adapt our individualism to changing environments, via conscious individuation. But the further we pursue this (or are compelled to abide by it by various circumstances and in the struggle to merely survive) the more individuality resembles shamanism (in its instinctual sense, not necessarily in its typical tribal trappings or social role). And this is the bad news portion of my present circumambulation of the role of instinct in Jungian psychology. It means that (as far as I can see), the only way we can manage to adapt to and resolve the Problem of the Modern is to do the Work. We have to learn how to make our individuality useful, functional, adaptive . . . and not just for our own egotistical interests, but for the Other, for the world, for the innumerable human tribes.
I hate to even put that sentiment on paper, because in my experience, the number of people (even in the Jungian community) who really try to do the Work is minuscule. We Jungians happily embrace individuation so long as it promotes our egoism, opens up further resources to us, allows us to conform our immediate environments (such as in finding or constructing a tribe for ourselves online). As long as individuation brings gods and other pleasures to our door, we are all in. But inasmuch as individuation means confronting our deep shadows, our selfishness, our destructiveness, we will pass, thank you very much (and it will be like passing on the dessert course at a restaurant . . . we will consider it inconsequential, and may even feel a little proud of our "self-restraint").
That is to say, I simply don't trust Jungians (or any other group of humans) to really devote themselves to the Work. Jungianism (especially in its New Age spiritualist manifestations) is primarily a complex smattering of philosophies designed to help one avoid doing the Work or avoid shadow responsibility. This isn't meant to suggest that all Jungian thinking is fraudulent or that Jungians never benefit adaptively from their indulgences with Jungianism. Many of us "heal" and find much-needed meaning to bolster our lives (without which we would never be able to pursue the Work at all). But we almost always stop there, where we have found an ego-strategy that allows us to live in participation with our primary tribe or tribes. We might still be totally boneheaded around true Otherness, outside of our tribal territory, or in the realm of the shadow . . . but "who cares" when one has found one's tribal niche, when one has gotten what one wanted?
But in this selfishness, we do nothing to address the Problem of the Modern. We do not adapt our individuality instinct to the modern environment. We do nothing for that environment or for Otherness. Such "individuation" is only an ego-gratification routine driven by the selfish desire to return to the maternal lap of tribalism, of belonging, of being unconscious and irresponsible for the species and for the planet.
But you can't make anyone do the Work. You can't even really prescribe it. It's too difficult, too dangerous. It would be like prescribing a leap off a cliff. "If you survive, come back and we'll talk." I feel the best that we can do is to talk about what the Work entails and what it is. We should keep investigating the nature and details of its adaptivity, its usefulness. We should keep telling our individuation stories, being careful to include discussions of the shadow work especially. We should never try to dress up, prettify, and sell the Work to anyone (as is the standard Jungian practice). But neither should we hoard or mystify it, demanding the obedience of acolytes and initiates. We should, I feel, make as scientific and factual a study of the Work as we can manage.
The human race is a long way off from embracing individuation en masse. I personally have no idea whether our species will survive the Problem of the Modern or not, nor do I have any clue how long progressive adaptation might take. But I believe the characterization I have made above of the "evolutionary pressure" on the modern individual, the predicament of that individual, does point to the problem that must be addressed. That is, the problem of our survival is not in the Other. It is not the terrorists or the fundamentalists or the globalists or the religionists or the rationalists, etc. that are threatening the species. The threat is much deeper and more localized. The threat to the species is in the evolutionary pressure on the individual . . . who must ultimately either adapt (individuate) or go extinct (along with the species).
I don't mean to say (in Jungian fashion) that our self-indulgent individuation will save the world one soul at a time or that we are doing some kind of heroic social good just by navel-gazing. It is not the individual as a singular entity, as a "Me", that must adapt and evolve, it is individualism as a trait of the species and as an expression of group adaptedness that must adapt and evolve. That is, we cannot will it to be. Nor can we take credit for it when it happens. The Work is a matter of giving our instinctual individualism over to nature and its Erotic, relational, evolutionary process. It is not a work of self-fulfillment. Which is the principle lesson of the second alchemical opus.
Therefore, it is a worthless stone, a useless science.
