Sections 6 & 7
Section 6 is entitled "Self-Knowledge". For reasons unknown, I expected Jung to either describe what self-knowledge is, or put forth a few guidelines for its attainment, or both. Instead, he argues (as many have before) that most men of his time lack it--to deleterious ends. Of course, this is no surprise given the 5 preceding sections. What I do like about this part of the essay is Jung's description of those deleterious ends. One in particular stands out: in order to promote true relationships between people, i.e., "mutual understnding," individuals must have a commitment to self-knowledge. Without an understanding of oneself, one cannot hope to understand another. According to Jung, absolute states promote atomization to prevent solidarity among men. He says, "The more unrelated individuals are, the more consolidated the State becomes, and vice versa." So Jung removes the notion of solidarity or brotherhood or comradery from totalitarian mass movements: a move that I think is very powerful.
I think I know why this essay has been a struggle for me. As my first look at Jung, I wanted something systematic or programatic: a general foundation of his thought. But The Undiscovered Self is polemical. His audience already understands his brand of psychoanalysis. That being said, I did enjoy Jung's take on politics and history.
I think I know why this essay has been a struggle for me. As my first look at Jung, I wanted something systematic or programatic: a general foundation of his thought. But The Undiscovered Self is polemical. His audience already understands his brand of psychoanalysis. That being said, I did enjoy Jung's take on politics and history.
posted by AJV at 9:00 AM
1 Comments:
THE BROTHERHOOD OF a mass movement is real but comes at the expense of the individual. It is only because the individual doesn’t know himself and is shaped by the state or organization into a generic person—a person made by the organization’s cookie cutter—that that sort of strong brotherhood exists. I would disagree if Jung is saying that that brotherhood does not exist. It does exist it is just a very low and base sort of relationship based on people who are themselves zeros because they don’t know themselves.
I STRONGLY AGREE that you can’t know someone unless you know yourself. This however creates a different kind of knowledge of the other person, which Jung would call understanding. Yeah, to know someone can make you feel very close but that kind of knowledge is superficial and not of the person, the individual, it is of the place they occupy in society and the labels society has put on them. In other words: the state or organization projects a uniform idea of what a human should be on to the people and they conform to that projection. They are not individuals and don’t have self understanding, so you cannot have mutual understanding. (This is a place where the interchanging of knowledge and understanding is problematic. I think Jung should say self-understanding and not self-knowledge here—it would make his point more clear.)
When you have self-understanding then you can understand the other, which is a deeper type of relationship but does not feel as close. When people know themselves they know better what distances them from others, which if you expect a superficial kind of knowledge and the closeness that follows, will leave you feeling disappointed and alienated. I think along with Jung’s idea of mutual understanding needs to come a re-valuation of what is important in a relationship and what a relationship means.
I HAVE REALLY enjoyed this book. It is very polemic and tied to the times that he wrote in, but I see the depth behind what he is saying here. It is very much in line with his other works.
I am currently working my way through the last few pages and will post on it in the next day or so… I have been caught up in CNN and the news from the Middle East (as you can see from my personal blog) and have been neglecting my readings.
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