Section 2 and Thesedays
Section 2
This section lays the groundwork for how religion and God can help the individual attain self knowledge avoid becoming simply one of the masses. This is interesting for me because religion, which today is thought of as creating generic people, is seen as the antidote to mass mindedness. However, Jung’s idea of both religion and God are different from the common western take on it. Both are relational and very personal for him. That is why religion is a force for individuality in Jung’s system. What we think of as religion Jung calls creed (and what we think of as creed should be called something like: confession of [shared] faith).
Anyway, lots could be said here… actually was. But it failed in its aims and was untimely (and unruly). So this will do for now. I think things will come more clear in the nest couple of sections. See you on Saturday.
This section lays the groundwork for how religion and God can help the individual attain self knowledge avoid becoming simply one of the masses. This is interesting for me because religion, which today is thought of as creating generic people, is seen as the antidote to mass mindedness. However, Jung’s idea of both religion and God are different from the common western take on it. Both are relational and very personal for him. That is why religion is a force for individuality in Jung’s system. What we think of as religion Jung calls creed (and what we think of as creed should be called something like: confession of [shared] faith).
Anyway, lots could be said here… actually was. But it failed in its aims and was untimely (and unruly). So this will do for now. I think things will come more clear in the nest couple of sections. See you on Saturday.
posted by Zophorian at 1:11 PM
5 Comments:
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
In the original post, I really liked the attempt to show the positive side of living the complaisant life. It's valuable to defend those aspects of human behavior that Jung criticizes.
How far, Zo, is Jung taking us towards a (radical) individualism or subjectivity? I'd like to dialogue this question, now or later.
I THINK THAT JUNG follows what might be called a ontological hermeneutics as his foundation, or what I called a hermeneutic philosophy. The way that he advocates God and metaphysical foundations but wants to allow the individual to explore (and interpret) these things for himself recalls the Nietzschean quote “There are no facts, only interpretation—and this too in an interpretation.” This is a favorite of Vattimo’s.
I DARE SAY, that Jung is working on a version of the Overman. This is an Overman that is searching and creating, not the dominating and controlling Overman of the Nazis. (The grounds for this creative Overman are in the sections where Nietzsche talks of the Will-to-Power as art, which I have read only parts of.) For this reason what I am reading here tends to get blurred with the Vattimo I am currently reading—his “Dialogues with Nietzsche.” But I am convinced that they are close with one another. In the very least they are both working on the problem of modern man and have a strong foundation in Nietzsche. And it is understandable that Jung would not have used Nietzsche by name at that point in history because Nietzsche had been so fully manipulated and assumed by the Nazis (and his sister) and was not yet freed.
JUNG MENTIONS here, and in other places, that man psychologically, needs community. So I am not sure that he is for a radically type of individuality that eliminates community. Community needs to be tolerant and open, giving the individual space to be an individual—that is a good balance. It is a bit heavy on the individual side, but only in comparison to what we are used to.
RADICAL SUBJECTIVITY? I think this is irrelevant to Jung. That is because Vattimo’s interpretation of Nietzsche rejects it, and I think he is spot on. I may be making too much of Jung’s grounding in Nietzsche in doing this but I believe in it and am going to stick to it. They way that he talks of belief, and how it needs to be strong but also the result of personal reflection, does a lot to support this—in my eyes at least.
WHEN WE ARE done with the book I may re-work my mammoth post so that it takes into account the last sections, and then post it as my summary for our Jung adventure.
Is he working on the ubermensch or a philosophy of life that would promote individuality, critical thought, etc. and, thus, combat "massmindedness"? There is a distinction here.
I see him as espousing a logical and impassioned system of belief (emphasis on the "passion"), because, as he says repeatedly, logic is not enough.
I'm caught up in my other book too, Said's Humanism and Democratic Criticism. Said has a much less cynical view towards people than Jung.
Are normal folks able to achieve the modern man that Jung imagines?
That book by Said is the only thing of his I have read. I was disappointed, it didn’t really have much to say in my opinion. I remember choosing it over a Derrida book (one of his thinner less complicated ones) to read it over the summer two years ago and being very disappointed in my choice. His views and arguments just seem to bland and un-ambitious. Plus he places a lot of faith in the course of progress that we are on, as if it were a given as long as we tow our own weight. That kind of opinion of the future drives me nuts.
Philosophy of life or the Overman? I am not sure that there is as much of a gap between these two things as you want there to be. But then again that depends on how you read Nietzsche. The Overman can be read as a strong and independent individual among other like individuals. He is someone who is more than just critical but is also creative. This is a philosophy against mass mindedness. Nietzsche spends time critiquing the heard mentality of Europe so I don’t think that it is a stretch at all. The problem with the idea of the Overman is that it was taken to be the idea of a superman among normal men, someone—like Hitler—who would rule over the masses. It is true that Nietzsche does talk like that sometimes but at other times he sounds as if there will be a time when all men are Overmen and the world will be very different.
But maybe we should shelf the discussion on Nietzsche. We can schedule a Nietzsche book sometime in the future and take this kids of thing up then.
Post a Comment
<< Home