Political Jingoism

[Phoenix44]

I'd suggest you read Professor George Lakoff's book "Don't Think Of An Elephant," if you haven't already done so. It's meant for progressives, but it gives a very good explanation how conservatives and liberals can both think they're right. It's simply a different "frame" of thinking.

I agree with Raedyn that there are many people in this country right now who simply believe that if you were a decent person who worked hard, then you'd have enough money to get a good education, a nice house, and good health care. And no, many of them do not care about the learning disabled kid. It's a strange kind of "independent" thinking--every man for himself. Maybe it worked in the wild West, but I don't think it's helping us in the global picture.

 

[heretic888]

First off, you mean, "pantheism."

Actually, no I don't.

"Pantheism" and "panentheism" are two completely different --- albeit superficially similar --- philosophies. "Pantheism" essentially equates the Divine with the physical cosmos in a reductionistic sense. Basically, God = The Sum of All Things. "Panentheism", on the other hand, maintains the Divine is prior to, but not other than, the physical corsmos. Basically, the paradoxical belief that all things are in God, yet God is also in all things.

It should be mentioned that most of the great wisdom traditions (Valentinian Gnosticism, Hindu Vedanta, Mahayana Buddhism, Ismaeli Sufism, traditional Taoism, Neo-Platonism, mystical Christianity, Jewish Kabbalah, etc) all maintain the position of "panentheism".

Second off, it is grossly inaccurate to claim that archetypes are mere forms--"eidolons," someone like Emerson might say--emptied of specific content. In Plato, archetypes are containers of elements of the Real; in Jung, they stand for the specific contents of the deep human unconscious, an unconscious shared by the entire human race [....]

Sorry, Rob. 'Fraid not.

In both the Platonic and Neo-Platonic systems, the involutionary Forms are the archetypal patterns or models upon which the specific and particular manifestations of matter are dependent upon. They themselves are utterly transcendent of worldy particulars. For example, the Form of, say, Light is not a great big green light or red light or yellow light or transluscent light or any other light or color with which we could try and associate it with. It is "emptied", so to speak, of manifested particulars.

Regarding Jung, pretty much the same thing --- albeit his archetypes are evolutionary forms and not involutionary Forms. He (as well as his later followers like Neumann) distinguish between archetypal energies and archetypal manifestations. The Virgin Mary is a manifestation of the Mother archetype that arose in Western Christian society. However, Mary is not the Mother in and of itself --- just one of its many potential particularizations. In ancient Egypt, for example, the Mother is Isis. However, yet again, Isis cannot be reduced to the Mother archetype itself as the particular form it takes varies from culture to culture. In and of itself, it is little more than a 'pattern' or a 'groove' or a 'conduit'. Nothing more.

To claim otherwise demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of both Plato and Jung (who, by the way, are really talking about completely different things anyway).

Third off--my point was that you are collapsing historical differences and historical developments into nothing, and arguing for some underlying pattern or structure in human existence that does not change.

Wrong again, Rob. Never said a thing about an underlying pattern that, as you put it, "does not change".

Now following in the research of Jurgen Habermas, Jean Gebser, and Clare Graves --- among others --- I do think there is some pattern or direction which human beings have, thus far, historically developed along. I do not think this pattern is necessarily "fixed", however, nor do I believe that it is the only possible direction we can take. Its just how we have developed so far.

In much the same way, there is an overarching pattern of psychological structures as well --- investigated by people ranging from James Mark Baldwin to Jean Piaget to James Fowler to Lawrence Kohlberg to Howard Gardner. Which, again, does not mean these structures are "predetermined" or "fixed", but that that's what we have developed through so far in our evolution.

Ontogeny, after all, recapitulates phylogeny. Or, is that the other way around??

I'm afraid that instead, I actually take history seriously--and terms like, "liberal," and, "conservative," meant absolutely nothing in, say, Imperial Rome, where they had neither those words nor the concepts they represent.

Quite right, in that "liberalism" did not truly emerge on a collective scale until the late 1600's or so --- centuries after the fall of the Roman Empire.

Of course, yet again, "liberalism" is a philosophy. It is not an archetype (whether Platonic or Jungian). It may be underlined by various psychological and sociocultural structures that you could chose to term 'archetypal' (such as, say, Piaget's formal-operational cognition). But, in and of itself, it is nothing more than a political philosophy that developed in accompaniment with a series of cultural and socioeconomic changes.

The terms only mean something in the cultural mileau in which they actually existed [...]

Quite right, again. Since you are arguing for the terms themselves, then this is a matter of language and linguistics --- which exist within particular sociocultural and historical contexts.

Of course, one is perfectly entitled to make such a claim: Jung did, and in a different way Hegel did. But it is not a claim that rests on material proof of any sort.

Sure --- if you've never read Habermas, Gebser, or Graves anyway.

Laterz.

 

[rmcrobertson]

Hurl names as you like--it won't change the collapse of historical difference inherent in taking a theological concept such as, "archetypes," seriously.

Nor do they evolve in Jung.

 

[heretic888]

Hurl names as you like--it won't change the collapse of historical difference inherent in taking a theological concept such as, "archetypes," seriously.

In other words...

Logical Fallacy: Composition
Logical Fallacy: False Dilemma
Logical Fallacy: Genetic Fallacy
Logical Fallacy: Guilt By Association

Just so we're clear.

Nor do they evolve in Jung.

Jungian "archetypes" are unconscious patterns resulting from millenia upon millenia of shared human experiences. They evolve and change as humans and their environments evolve and change.

At least that's how Jung and his followers explain it.

Laterz.

 

[rmcrobertson]

No, they don't. Clearly, you do not know the material. Please see the following website from a Jungian analyst, noting carefully the citations from Jung's works.

http://mythsdreamssymbols.com/archetypes.html

Most likely, what is getting in your way is this:

http://www.newworldview.com/library/Helfrich_P_The_Five_Phases_of_Wilber.html

And here, taken from the "Books and Writers," website, is where this sort of historical reductionism leads:

In 1933 Jung was nominated president of the General Medical Society for Psychotherapy, an organization which had Nazi connections. He also assumed the editorship of its publication, Zentralblatt für Psychotherapie. Jung's activities with the organization and his writings about racial differences in the magazine have later been severely criticized. However, Jung had already in 1918 explained his differences with other schools of psychotherapeutic practice with racial terms: "...I can understand very well that Freud's and Adler's reduction of everything psychic to primitive sexual wishes and power-drives has something about it that is beneficial and satisfying to the Jew, because it is a form of simplification." He also saw in National Socialism "tensions and potentialities which medical psychology must consider in its evaluation of the unconscious." From mythology Jung took the figure of Wotan, an old Nordic god, "the truest expression and unsurpassed personification of a fundamental quality that is particularly characteristic of the Germans." In 1937 Jung said of Hitler less than critically: "He is a medium, German policy is not made; it is revealed through Hitler. He is the mouthpiece of the Gods of old... He is the Sybil, the Delphic oracle" (see Jung in Contexts, ed. by Paul Bishop, 1999) One of Jung's pupils, Sabina Spielrein, who was his patient first, and later mistress according to some sources, practised psychoanalysis in the USSR after completing her studies. She was killed with her two daughters by German soldiers in 1942.

 

[heretic888]

No, they don't. Clearly, you do not know the material. Please see the following website from a Jungian analyst, noting carefully the citations from Jung's works.

http://mythsdreamssymbols.com/archetypes.html

I failed to see a single reference on said webpage as to the "archetypes" being fixed or unchangeable. References to them being pre-existent (meaning, not created by the individual psyche) and universal (meaning, they exist cross-culturally), sure. But, none of that precludes (or excludes even) the idea of evolution.

Just so you know --- and while Jung's description tends to vary somewhat from work to work --- Jung believed the archetypes (most of them, anyway) originated from millenia of shared experiences among the human species. They developed, in his view, over a long period of time due to repeated species-typical behaviors and experiences. Its also no secret he believed them to be biologically based (as did Campbell).

Oh, and may I add...

Kettle. Pot. Black. :ultracool

 

[rmcrobertson]

Please read the revised post, and please note that the already cited material emphasized that archeytpes do not evolve: their outward manifestations change, but this is epiphenomenal. For example, the first website insists that in Jung's thought, archetypes exist before people do, and that they do not change over time or across culture.

The archetypal case of archetypes is, of course, Joseph Campbell's "Hero With a Thousand Faces---" an excellent title, inasmuch as it beautifully conveys the central Jungian concept that while archetypes may be dressed in a thousand masks, it is always the same essence being expressed in different guises.

You're welcome to buy the theological approach if you like--but it is ahistorical, inasmuch as any particular expression of a category such as, "the hero," is always linked back to underlying realities that do not change nor evolve in any fashion. The approach is also acultural, because it insists that the "differences," of cultures are in fact trivial if not wholly illusionary, with the underlying essences again being the Real.

You see it differently than I do. That's fine, of course; the only thing that isn't fine is the attempt to make the words and the concepts not mean what they mean.

 

[Flatlander]

Would either one of you care to relate this back to the topic for the viewers at home?

 

[rmcrobertson]

Well, here's how we got onto it. He thinks that "liberal," and "conservative," represent two ongoing, opposite tendencies in human politics--that they're inherent in the human condition, and they always have been. I think that this completely erases historical change, the evolution of politics over time, and the way that these two ideas appeared in the English 19th century and have developed since.

In effect, he's arguing that there are two kinds of politics, and they started long ago--and in fact, even these two types are simply expressions of deeper, "archetypal," realities about human beings.

I ain't buyin' it. I think that history matters, and that human beings make their history--they don't simply express their "instinct," or their, "nature," or, "God's Plan," or whatever.

 

[heretic888]

Please read the revised post, and please note that the already cited material emphasized that archeytpes do not evolve: their outward manifestations change, but this is epiphenomenal. For example, the first website insists that in Jung's thought, archetypes exist before people do, and that they do not change over time or across culture.

Actually, no. From a source more reliable than a short article by some random Jungian :

Jung often seemed to view the archetypes as sort of psychological organs, directly analogous to our physical, bodily organs: both being morphological givens for the species; both arising at least partially through evolutionary processes.

It should be noted that Joseph Campbell gives an almost identical understanding of the archetypes, describing them as "elementary forces" arising from the interaction of "the body's various organ systems".

Also, since you brought it up, the following gives a somewhat more balanced and accurate view of Jung as a "Nazi sympathizer".

The archetypal case of archetypes is, of course, Joseph Campbell's "Hero With a Thousand Faces---" an excellent title, inasmuch as it beautifully conveys the central Jungian concept that while archetypes may be dressed in a thousand masks, it is always the same essence being expressed in different guises.

Pretty much, yeah. Campbell, like Jung, also distinguishes between the archetypes themselves and their actual manifestations.

You're welcome to buy the theological approach if you like--but it is ahistorical, inasmuch as any particular expression of a category such as, "the hero," is always linked back to underlying realities that do not change nor evolve in any fashion.

Two points here.

First off, this approach is not "theological". Jung's approach to these phenomena are from a distinctively psycho-analytic methodology. His idea of the "archetypes" are no less grounded than Freud's ideas of the "unconscious", "ego", "id", and "superego" --- being based, namely, on an analysis of the collective first-person reports of hundreds of respective patients. In fact, unlike Freud, Jung's ideas have not been out-and-out rejected within modern psycholoy, either.

Secondly, as I pointed out above, the idea that the Jungian "archetypes" do not change or evolve whatsoever is simply not true.

The approach is also acultural, because it insists that the "differences," of cultures are in fact trivial if not wholly illusionary, with the underlying essences again being the Real.

Actually, if you're going from the Jungian perspective, most of the "underlying essences" (i.e., the archetypes) are biological and inherited. To a point, anyway.

In any event, pointing out the universals and commonalities across cultures does not in any way deny their differences, either. Of course, this is a common argument from many pluralistic approaches of various kinds, but its still baseless. This would be like arguing that pointing out all humans have the same organs, bones, and brain structures somehow negates the physiological differences across cultures.

You see it differently than I do. That's fine, of course; the only thing that isn't fine is the attempt to make the words and the concepts not mean what they mean.

Likewise.

 

[heretic888]

He thinks that "liberal," and "conservative," represent two ongoing, opposite tendencies in human politics--that they're inherent in the human condition, and they always have been.

Heh, funny.

I could'a sworn that what I actually said --- repeatedly, I might add --- is that "consevatism" is a philosophical orientation that developed during the rise of the complex city-state (roughly 5,000 years ago) and that "liberalism" is a philosophical orientation that developed during the rise of democracy and the corporate state (roughly 300 years ago).

Last time I checked, 300 years ago and 5,000 years ago aren't "always have been".

In effect, he's arguing that there are two kinds of politics, and they started long ago--and in fact, even these two types are simply expressions of deeper, "archetypal," realities about human beings.

Nope, sorry. Not once did I connect "conservatism" or "liberalism" with any "archetypal realities" (whether Platonic or Jungian).

What I did connect them with was, perhaps, with inherited psychological structures best explored by the likes of Jean Piaget (such as, say, formal-operational cognition resembling capacities that would ultimately see a collective "liberalist" philosophy). But, I wouldn't consider the Piagetian cognitive levels to be "archetypes". Not in the strict sense, anyway.

I ain't buyin' it. I think that history matters, and that human beings make their history--they don't simply express their "instinct," or their, "nature," or, "God's Plan," or whatever.

Hey, whaddayah know?? Me, too!! :ultracool

 

[rmcrobertson]

Oh, fer cryin' out loud. The people I've cited--Joseph Campbell, Erich Neumann, JUNG HIMSELF, and a Jungian psychotherapist--are hardly random.

Please also look at the piece you just cited first. It tells you, among other things--right off the bat, first thing--that Jung took much of his idea of archetypes from Kant's notion of an ," a priori--" of, that is, a category that exists prior to all perception, experience, and conceptualization.

As for my being unfair on the Nazi thang, well, here's an excerpt from what you yourself just cited. I've capitalized and commented upon a few of the juicy bits.

Nazi Sympathizer
Like many others, JUNG initially WELCOMED the FOCUS OF UNITY {well, that's certainly one way to describe Hitler's asuming the dictatorship after the '33 election and the Reichstag fire} that swept across the German land as the National-Socialist "revolution" took hold (Stern, 1976). {Freud got the hell out of there in '33, since he understood exactly what was up.} Though as time went on and Jung grew increasingly cautious in his views, accusations of being a, "NAZI SYMPATHIZER," emerged; accusations WHICH, in some respects, SEEMS JUSTIFIED {this is from a guy who's ON Jung's side, too} as we will see.

In 1928, Carl Gustav Jung became a member of the International General Medical Society for Psychotherapy (Gallard, 1994). This society, which began two years earlier, was founded on the desire to develop a psychotherapeutic science with a spiritual, rather than widely popular material, emphasis. In the same year that Jung joined the society, so too did Matthias Heinrich Goring, the cousin of the now infamous Marshall, Herman Goring. {Uh...when I join a society and I find out that a very well-known Nazi has joined...basically, I quit or he quits.} Jung was elected vice president in 1930 and was asked to assume the presidency in 1933 due to the deteriorating political climate. {Well, "deteriorating," would surely be one way to put it.} It was believed that Jung, being a Swiss National and thus neutral, would be in a better political position to handle the role (Gallard, 1994).

Later that year, there was a reorganization of Zentralblatt fur Psychotherapie, the society's publication journal. The decision was made that two separate but aligned editions of the journal would be published: an international edition edited by Jung, and a German edition under the control of Goring for the purpose of ensuring that all material conformed to Nazi ideology (Sherry, 1986). {Hey, no problem there! Nothing to raise a warning flag at all...}It was soon after recommended by Goring that every practicing psychotherapist adopt Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf as a basic reference. (Of course, Jung immediately protested this...oh wait, no he didn't.} This written appeal was slated for publication in the German edition of the journal but somehow ended up in the international journal above Carl Jung's signature (Gallard, 1994; Sherry, 1986). {Somehow, eh. Of course Jung immediately protested...wait, no he didn't.} Though the society's headquarters were located in Switzerland and he was certainly far removed from this "Nazi deception," it was a commonly held belief that Jung accepted the presidency of a Nazified German organization; thus he must be a sympathizer. (But Jung immediately protested...wait, no he didn't.}

His decision to accept such a position was heavily criticized by many. Perhaps the fact that Jung fantasized of national glory, {Hm. Who was it in Germany, fantasizing at the time of "national," glory? Was it....HITLER?} was purportedly not immune to the lure of power, and felt neglected and misunderstood, played a role in his acceptance of the presidency for a society in which some members were almost certainly familiar with Mein Kampf and Nazi ideology (Stern, 1976). Jung, however, offered the excuse that he simply followed the wishes of his German (and Jewish) colleagues; his true aim was to save psychotherapy which could easily disappear, as he had put it, with a single stroke of the pen by higher authorities (Gallard, 1994). {"his true aim," brilliant} He did initially doubt his decision from a moral standpoint but the desire to preserve the interests of science made the risky effort worthwhile (Gallard, 1994). In the end, Jung's professional reputation was certainly affected by these events, though he seemed to have a blind spot to these ramifications. {a blind spot} However, this blind spot, some have suggested, also allowed Jung to see and clarify elements which went previously undetected, out of which his fascination with events in Germany grew. {hm...'nother blind spot}

Jung's Fascination
Part of Jung's fascination with the Nazi movement was due to his belief that his archetype theory was best able to explain the "rumblings" of pre-World War Two Germany. He saw the Nazi movement as an enormous eruption of the collective unconscious he had previously postulated as far back as 1918 (Stern, 1976). {In other words, a historical event is merely the expression of an underlying, essential reality present long before the event.} Jung believed the archetype "Wotan," which represented the German state of mind in the 1930's, was the return of the collective repressed, and constituted a great event in light of the belief that the Germans were experiencing a reintegration of archaic elements into their psyche (elements that had been, over past centuries, suppressed by various cultural movements). { Ah....Nazism...just the return of long-repressed national archetypes. Repressed, no doubt, by ze jews.}

By 1936, Jung's excitement waned as he recognized (and clearly stated) the demonic aspect of Hitler and the Nazi movement (Gallard, 1994). However, according to his theories, there is an inherent duality of the archetype, leading Jung to the expectation that the evil side would turn into its opposite, allowing these forces to humanize. {Vell, you zee, I don't deny zat Hitler has had his excesses...but in ze end, zis vill be ze triumph of ze Cherman Human.} Thus, Jung believed a new and positive cultural form would emerge and remained hopeful (Gallard, 1994). Such hopefulness was frowned upon by those opposed to the Nazis but, as we will later see, his medical profession may have accounted for his unpopular views. Despite these events there were other damaging accusations. His relationship with Freud, it has been suggested, represented a darker side to Jung's Jewish attitudes. {the phrase, "darker side to Jung's Jewish attitudes," is fall-down funny, or would be if we weren't talking about Jung's public positions and private beliefs in the Europe of the late 1930s}

Jung and Freud
The anti-Semitism charges in the 1930's were dismissed as having been started by a vengeful Sigmund Freud in order to discredit Jung's work (Sherry, 1986). These accusations, however, were continually repeated by Freudians and stuck with Jung wherever he went. {Ah yes...thoise wacky Freudians, upset just because Jung supported a Naxi-run psychiatric society, with which he never broke, which he never criticized in any way I am aware of} It is true that a superficial glance of Jung's attitude concerning Freudian psychology seems frighteningly similar to Nazi phraseology. {this is from a SUPPORTER of Jung?} Jung referred to the Freudian school of thought as subversive, depreciatory, undermining, obscene, and smutty-minded, while the Nazis described Jews as alien, subversive, lascivious, and parasitic (Stern, 1976). {Anybody who doesn't find the spectacle of a world-renowned psychologist and writer referring to Freud's work this way in the context of the Nazis and 1936...looks bad at second glance, too} His statements may have sounded anti-Semitic but Stern (1976) proposes they were more correctly attributable to the resentment that periodically overcame him; he may have overshot his initial target, which was undoubtedly Sigmund Freud (Stern, 1976). (Oh. Not Nazi at all...just pathological resentment, which resulted in public attacks centered on being Jewish against possibly the most famous Jewish intellectual in the world at the time Hitler rose to power and WWII began} These anti-Semitic accusations by Freudians, Jung warned, were a confirmation that psychoanalysis was a Jewish psychology (Sherry, 1986). {Ach!! Ze Jewish mind-science!!}

I'm not sure about tying this to liberal and conservatives and their ideologies--except that I will note that when either side relies on similar religious notions (people are naturally evil....no, people are naturally good), or socio-economic theories (competition is natural, part of God's Plan--no, cooperation is natural, part of God's Plan), they are repeating Jung's essentialist fantasies.

it's why I ain't one of them.

 

[heretic888]

Oh, fer cryin' out loud. The people I've cited--Joseph Campbell, Erich Neumann, JUNG HIMSELF, and a Jungian psychotherapist--are hardly random.

Nope, but that comment was directed at the author of the article in question --- not the sources he selectively chose.

Please also look at the piece you just cited first. It tells you, among other things--right off the bat, first thing--that Jung took much of his idea of archetypes from Kant's notion of an ," a priori" [...]

But, y'see, here's the great thing about my position --- I can have it both ways. I am essentially positing a "both/and" position: namely, that Jung's "archetypes" were both biologically-inherited structures and aspects of the psyche that predate personal experience. It doesn't detract from my statements in the slightest that Jung was influenced by Kant, since I know he also saw the "archetypes" to be, at least in part, a result of biological inheritance.

You, on the other hand, are positing an "either/or" position: you have to somehow make it out that Jung only saw the archetypes as a priori structures independent of biology or evolution. This, very plainly, is a false claim.

[...] of, that is, a category that exists prior to all perception, experience, and conceptualization.

I know what a priori are, Robert. In case you haven't noticed, I tend to use the term a lot in the discussions around here.

As for my being unfair on the Nazi thang, well, here's an excerpt from what you yourself just cited.

Okay. So, you can selectively cut-and-paste the parts of the article that benefit you best. This disproves you being unfair how???

I'm not sure about tying this to liberal and conservatives and their ideologies--except that I will note that when either side relies on similar religious notions (people are naturally evil....no, people are naturally good), or socio-economic theories (competition is natural, part of God's Plan--no, cooperation is natural, part of God's Plan), they are repeating Jung's essentialist fantasies.

it's why I ain't one of them.

Sure yah are. You just give them different names.

Laterz.

 

[rmcrobertson]

If you claim that archetypes are biologically inherited, or present as a priori categories that existed before civilization and beyond culture--if you say they're there and human beings cannot change them in any way, if you claim that they're fundamental to our identity whatever we do, if you argue that psychic health is simply a matter of coming to terms with these essentials, then this is a denial that history matters. Material reality is itself a mere peripheral manifestation of what is essentially real beneath such appearances.

Nor is this in any fashion scientifically provable, nor is it observable, since anything and everything material is simply a "mask," over essential, unobservable reality. That's why it's a theological concept rather than a historical or scientific one: no experiment and no observation can produce the archetype.

Among the disasters of such thinking is the strong tendency to segregate racial and national groups along the lines of the different archetypes they articulate--and to cheerfully overlook little things like Nazi death-camps on the grounds that they are mere transient manifestations of deeper truths.

But don't take my word for it!

See:

http://www.stormfront.org/archive/t-99972

And see the discussion forum on:

www.cgjungpage.org

 

[heretic888]

If you claim that archetypes are biologically inherited, or present as a priori categories that existed before civilization and beyond culture--if you say they're there and human beings cannot change them in any way, if you claim that they're fundamental to our identity whatever we do, if you argue that psychic health is simply a matter of coming to terms with these essentials, then this is a denial that history matters. Material reality is itself a mere peripheral manifestation of what is essentially real beneath such appearances.

Maybe its just me, but I absolutely fail to see the logic behind this line of reasoning.

This would be like arguing that because all humans have the same number of organs and bones, that "this is a denial that history (or culture) matters". This would be like arguing that because all humans pass through Piaget's stages (sensorimotor, preop, conop, formop) in logico-mathematical development, that "this is a denial that history (or culture) matters". This would be like arguing that because all humans pass through Kohlberg's stages (precon, con, postcon) in moral reasoning, that "this is a denial that history (or culture) matters". This would be like arguing that because all humans pass through the same general sequential order in Gardner's multiple intelligences, that "this is a denial that history (or culture) matters". This would be like arguing that any number of the cross-cultural universals that we have come to acknowledge concerning the human condition --- such as, say, inborn instincts and species-typical behavior as a whole ---somehow "deny that history (or culture) matters".

This, of course, is sheer nonsense.

There are a number of universal commonalities that human beings of any culture (or race) seem to share. This does not in any way deny the significance of historical context, cultural upbringing or physiological differences of various individuals. Rather, it puts all of the above in their proper perspective. Not everything about the human condition is a culturally-relative "social construction". Some things are, and some things are not. To claim otherwise is to embrace cognitive incompetence.

For what its worth, the Jungian archetypes are really little more than concrete-operational role personae --- the common roles that humans for millenia have found themselves assuming and/or projecting (whether it be Loving Father, Strong Leader, Nurturing Mother, or Accursed Enemy). They are clearly based upon our evolutionary history as a species, and are the result of thousands (perhaps millions) of years of shaired experiences and --- in all likelihood --- genetic imprinting of some kind. The actual personae that manifest, of course, are clearly dependent on both the individual's experiences and his/her cultural upbringing.

All of this is readily obvious in the writings of Jung. The only point I personally disagree with him on, is that these archetypes of his are in any way "spiritual" or "transcendent" in nature. They are not. Some of the archetypes can serve as mental symbols for the transpersonal --- such as, say, the mandala. But, they are not, in and of themselves, "spiritual forms".

Also, if you're going from the point of view of Mahayana Buddhism, then "material reality" is illusory.

Nor is this in any fashion scientifically provable, nor is it observable, since anything and everything material is simply a "mask," over essential, unobservable reality. That's why it's a theological concept rather than a historical or scientific one: no experiment and no observation can produce the archetype.

This may be a shock, but repeatedly asserting that a claim is "theological" or "unprovable" doesn't somehow make it true. Repetition does not confer factuality, I'm afraid.

As for the observability of the Jungian archetypes, you'd have to be a blind man --- or defending a worldview that feels the need to deny cross-cultural universals --- not to notice them. That there are scores of shared themes, motifs, images, and symbols across cultures is beyond question. That these cannot in all cases be attributed to direct cultural influence is beyond question (such as, say, the mandala symbolism happening with both the Tibetans and the Navajo Indians). That these symbols, motifs, and images commonly surface in the dreams of people all across the globe is beyond question.

All of the above is readily observable. Jung was not the only theorist to put forward the idea of something like the "archetypes", nor was he the first. Anthropologists had suggested the concept for decades prior to Jung (such as the aforementioned "elementary ideas"). The only thing that really set Jung apart was he applied these universal themes and motifs to the realm of psychoanalysis --- a logical step, considering they appear universally in human dreams --- and that he incorrectly elevated them to some "spiritual" or "transcendent" status.

That, the Nurturing Mother appears across cultures in mythology, literature, and dreams is not some kooky pie-in-the-sky idea. Nor is it "unobservable". Nor is it "ahistorical" or "acultural". Its simple, basic, human reality.

Among the disasters of such thinking is the strong tendency to segregate racial and national groups along the lines of the different archetypes they articulate--and to cheerfully overlook little things like Nazi death-camps on the grounds that they are mere transient manifestations of deeper truths.

Sure. Absolutey.

But, in no way does this make the ideas invalid in and of themselves. To claim otherwise would be like arguing that because cars can run people over, we should never drive one. Ever. It would be like claiming that because genetic engineering can be used to achieve a Nazi "super-race", that we shouldn't work to figure out the genetic code of the human race (and subsequently work to prevent many genetically-inherited maladies). Ever. It would be like arguing that because evolutionary theory can be used by the unscrupulous to formulate barbarities such as "Social Darwinism", that Darwin was clearly full of it.

A "what if" hypothetical that spells doom is surely something to look out for. But, alas, in no way is it grounds for dismissal.

Nice try, though. Laterz.

 

[rmcrobertson]

Jung's is an essentialist philosophy, resting on the notion that there are certain timeless, unchanging figures engraved into the very structure of the universe and manifesting themselves throughout the ages and across cultures in the deep structures of the human unconscious.

These archetypes of Jung's did not come from culture. They are not subject to human intervention. They do not change over time. They differ from race to race. They determine how people should be, because for Jung, mental health depended upon reconciling one's conscious life with their underlying, timeless, unchanging reality.

You can throw as many words at it as you like, cite Piaget (who incidentally, was actually interested in the way...oh, never mind), offer redundancies like, "role personae," (a "persona," is quite literally a, "mask," a false face one assumes; "role," simply repeats that concept), etc. I'm not gonna buy the notion that there are, "cross-cultural universals."

It's a theological notion, because you cannot produce or test these universals. You must merely claim they exist, as Plato did. The concept has some ugly consequences for the ways Jung saw the world--all women are this, the German Race is that.

As for jingoism--essentially, and I do mean essentially, jingos such as Kipling really did see the British Race as having a particular, ordained Duty engraved into their national character. And for him--ambivalent as his writing was about it--it was also the destiny of colonial subjects to be ruled. It's very different from a liberal colonialism that you can find in a writer like Tennyson, whose "Parliament of Man, the Federation of the World," ("Locksley Hall," if memory serves, and it may not)--and still, the same idea that it is the unique destiny of white, Christian civilization to educate the dusky masses reappears.

 

[heretic888]

Jung's is an essentialist philosophy, resting on the notion that there are certain timeless, unchanging figures engraved into the very structure of the universe and manifesting themselves throughout the ages and across cultures in the deep structures of the human unconscious.

While there is a certain degree of truth to this assessment, it isn't entirely accurate.

The problem with Jung's basic theory --- as well as the theories of subsequent neo-Jungians --- is a tendency to collapse pre-rational consciousness structures (namely, the concrete-operational role personae of the concrete-literal, mythic-membership, role/rule mind) with actual trans-rational consciousness structures (namely, the Platonic Forms and subtle illuminations as expounded by various traditions of meditation, yoga, and contemplative prayer). This, in my opinion, is a grave confusion within the Jungian paradigm.

So, while on one hand, we'll hear Jungians speaking of the "archetypes" as timeless involutionary Platonic Forms as encountered in certain forms of deity mysticism --- at the next turn we'll hear them describe the "archetypes" as evolutionary structures that are explicitly rooted in humanity's shared biological history and have emerged fairly recently (say, within the past 20,000 years). Its a rather deep confusion, I feel, in that we are simultaneously hearing the "archetypes" described as both timeless and evolutionary. Not in any Zen or non-dualistic sense, mind you, but as logical contradictions within Jungian theory itself.

So, yes. The Jungian "archetypes" are unchanging and timeless. And, at the same time, they're not. Go figure.

These archetypes of Jung's did not come from culture.

They are not particular or unique to any one culture, if that's what you mean.

They are not subject to human intervention.

In a collective sense, no they're not. In an individual sense, yes they are.

Within Jungian therapy, the archetypes can be manipulated to some degree by the individual. They can even be ignored altogether --- although, this isn't always the healthiest route to take.

They do not change over time.

I already covered the quasi-evolutionary nature of the Jungian archetypes above. If we pragmatically tease apart the Jungian archetypes from the Platonic archetypes, then we can easily see the evolutionary nature of the Jungian model.

Jung's "collective unconscious", by the way, was explicitly taken from the Yogacara school of Mahayana Buddhism --- which expounds what they describe as a "storehouse consciousness". It, too, changes and evolves with time as it is constantly "bombarded" with the shared experiences of every human being (as is the Jungian collective unconscious).

They differ from race to race.

No. They do not. I'm sorry, Robert, but this is one point were you are, very simply, emphatically wrong.

Previously on this thread, you suggested the archetypes within Jungian theory were only inherited by "the white race". This, unfortunately, is a bold denial of the number non-Western symbols and images that are used by Jung as archetypal manifestations --- the mandala by far being the best example. Jung also used the Chinese tai-chi (the infamous "yin-yang" symbol) as a manifestation of his circle archetype.

You even cited an article in which Jung is quoted as linking the archetypal "Wotan" with the rise of the Nazi movement within Germany. Unfortunately for your assertion that the archetypes are racially-specific, Wotan is a South American deity (Brazilian, if memory serves).

They determine how people should be, because for Jung, mental health depended upon reconciling one's conscious life with their underlying, timeless, unchanging reality.

Dunno about any of that, but general Jungian therapy differs very little from, say, scripting and similar methodologies. It centers primarily upon strengthening role/rule structures within the individual psyche, usually in response to a sense of chaos and lack of stability.

You can throw as many words at it as you like, cite Piaget [...], offer redundancies like, "role personae," [...], etc.

The point I was trying to use in that particular context --- the point you have clearly failed to grasp in even the most basic sense --- is that your argument that the Jungian archetypes "denies" the importance of either history or culture is just ill-founded. You would, by logical extension, have to enlarge that argument to any of dozens upon dozens of cross-cultural scientific truths we have come across concerning human nature. Starting off with the Darwinian theory of evolution via natural selection.

I'm not gonna buy the notion that there are, "cross-cultural universals."

"Buy" whatever you wish.

But, just know that your refusal flies in the face of the evidence and facts and common observations. Both Piaget and Kohlberg's developmental hierarchies have been demonstrated to be cross-cultural. Gilligan's femal developmental hierarchy has been demonstrated to be so, as well. Even James Fowler's "stages of faith" have been demonstrated across religious traditions (and individuals ranging from age 3 to age 81)

It is an exceedingly anti-scientific position to deny these "cross-cultural universals". But, you are free to do so at your own expense.

It's a theological notion, because you cannot produce or test these universals.

Actually, yes I can, as I already demonstrated in my previous. Commonly reasserting something that flies in the face of cross-cultural observation doesn't somehow magically make the observations disappear. For the second time, repetition does not confer factuality.

So, to go over it again, we see "the Mother" across cultures --- in dreams, myths, artwork, and literature --- whether we're talking about the "Motherland", Mary the "Mother of God", the "Black Isis", Amaterasu Omikami, Hera, or any of the dozens of other manifestations. Deny it all you wish. Fundamentalists deny the paleontological record, but its still there. Same deal here. The presence of these images, motifs, and themes across cultures within a given time in human history is unmistakeable.

But, oddly enough, people still deny it. Of course, as I previously stated, this is almost assuredly due to defending a worldview that literally cannot "process" the existence of these structures --- not from objectively reviewing the evidence.

You must merely claim they exist, as Plato did.

Well, first off, the Jungian archetypes and the Platonic Forms are very different things --- the Shadow, Father, Mother, Old Man, Animus, and so on are not Platonic Forms or subtle illuminations experienced in contemplative meditational practice.

Secondly, Plato directly experienced the Forms he writes about. Jung acquired his archetypes through inferential assessment of the reports of others (as well as existing anthropological, mythological, and literary information).

Very, very different.

The concept has some ugly consequences for the ways Jung saw the world--all women are this, the German Race is that.

Actually, Jung never proposed anything of the sort.

I'm afraid you are exhibiting another misunderstanding of Jungian theory --- y'know, you seem to have a lot of those --- that of collapsing the archetypal forms with actual living individuals. The Mother archetype may be largely projected as female figures, but there is nothing stopping the Mother manifesting as a man, or even as an institution. Jung commonly used "the Mother Church" as an example of this. Its the same with his anima and animus.

In any event, actual Jungian psychotherapeutic practice makes it pretty damn clear that how the archetypes play out is an exceedingly individual thing. They are fashioned explicitly by the personal experiences of the individual in combination with his or her cultural upbringing.

Besides, aren't you the guy always citing Sigmund Freud?? Y'know, Mr. "Penis Envy" & "Men Have Stronger Superegos Than Women"?? Neh??

Laterz.

 

[rmcrobertson]

1. Most of what you wrote is a smokescreen. Unfortunately, a) in Jung's account, archetypes are directly linked to racist (and not incidentally) sexist notions about what men and women must be; b) you cannot provide proof that these archetypes exist; you can, at best, provide examples of material symbols which you can then claim--without proof--are manifestations of underlying archetypes; c) since the archetypes are by definition not material, they are not subject to scientific proof--and therefore, claiming that they are scientifically verified is absurd; d) Plato could not have had direct experience of archetypes, since his whole point was that--oh, what's the use.

2. The issue isn't what I think. It's what Jung believed. You may find joining a Nazified psychiatric society (as a partner with what was it? Goering's brother?) and describing psychoanalysis as, "Jewish science," in the 1930s perfectly acceptable. A beautiful example of rationalization of madness. But I find it revolting.

3. The difference is that Freud--and in a lesser way, me--looked for explanations in language, in history, in culture, in the arts, in fantasy, in primitive thinking, in childhood, in the family--not in some claim of trans-material reality that cannot be made available to empirical test. In other words, some of us look for explanations in the material world. We certainly don't overlook symbology of different cultures--we just don't try to "explain," them with mysticisms.

4. I see that you did not take up the issue of jingoism. I wouldn't either, if I were wedded to a philosophy that justifies it.

 

[heretic888]

Hrmmm..... perhaps I should clarify a few points here:

1) First off, I'm not a Jungian. Or, even a neo-Jungian. Haven't been for, oh say, almost five years or thereabouts (my later high school days) --- and, even then, most of that was from the writings of Joseph Campbell, not Carl Jung.

2) If anything, I'd consider myself something of an ecletic that integrates numerous aspects of neo-Freudian (mostly Erikson and some Jung), neo-Piagetian (while acknowledging the general utility of Piaget, I also acknowledge the existence of postformal cognition, view development as domain-specific, and don't hold to the view that cognitive levels are rigidly wedded to particular ages), and Kohlbergian theories with Gardner's MI approach. Among other things (I also rely, for example, greatly on Mahayana Buddhism for my views, especially Madhyamika, Zen, and Vajrayana).

3) As such, in no way am I "wedded" to either Jungian philosophy nor to any philosophy that supports "jingoism". I personally don't think the United Nations should be disbanded.

4) In addition to the Nazi "connections" you have mentioned previously, Carl Jung also admitted numerous Jewish psychiatrists into said German organization, vilified Hitler as a "monster" and Nazi Germany as "the blonde beast", rescued a number of Jewish refugees from the Holocaust, personally financed and supported them, and even had a number of Jews as his assisstants and students. Among other things.

See: http://www.cgjungpage.org/talk/archive/index.php/t-54.html

5) Jung is best known in mainstream psychology textbooks for his writings on psychological androgyny (the view that the masculine and feminine qualities in both men and women should be integrated), leading ultimately to what he called 'individuation'. His 'anima' and 'animus' archetypes were gender qualities that he believed were present in both men and women --- which was how you could actually go about achieving androgyny in the first place.

6) Regardless of any accusations of 'racist' or 'sexist' bias, it should be pointed out that ad hominems do not make for good public discourse.

7) Sorry to point out, but science and positivism ain't the same thing. You are perfectly free to cling to a reductionistic materalist philosophy is you so choose, but its not how things are done in most scientific disciplines.

8) Going along with this point, the vast majority of scientific laws, truths, and theories we acknowledge have very little, if any, "material" evidence for them. Almost all of physics rests on mathematical abstractions that only exist in "our heads" (which, of course, doesn't make them any less real). Psychology and anthropology rest almost exclusively on non-material phenomena (there is no material evidence, for example, of Piagetian cognitive structures, the Freudian unconscious, Kohlbergian stages of moral reasoning, or just plain ol' cultural values systems). Even evolutionary theory has no direct material evidence (as opposed to being a logical inference based on indirect material evidence).

9) The claim you made concerning the archetypes --- "you cannot provide proof that these archetypes exist; you can, at best, provide examples of material symbols which you can then claim--without proof--are manifestations of underlying archetypes" --- could equally be said of Darwin's theory of evolution. In fact, it highly resembles more than a few creationist critiques of evolution that I have heard. Like Jung's archetypes, evolutionary theory is a logical inference drawn from existing material evidence. There is no "direct evidence" for either (nor can there be).

10) That these symbols and images that Jung termed "archetypes" occur cross-culturally in regions that had no contact with one another is beyond dispute. Well, I guess you could dispute it, but this would be the intellectual equivalent of sticking one's head into the ground. Personally, though, I thought Campbell gave a much better defense of the archetypes than Jung --- oweing to Campbell's exhaustive knowledge of world mythology.

11) Actually, the difference between Freud and, say, Jung is that Freud based his theories on an almost exclusive sampling of young, white, Viannese women that just so happened to be daughters of his personal friends. That he rationalized the obvious truth that his friends were abusive fathers into "penis envy" on the part of their daughters is well-established at this point. That, and the man was a cocaine addict.

12) Continuing on the point of Freud, virtually all of the particulars of his system have been rejected by mainstream psychology (although the general "mood" and "themes" have been retained, such as the importance of biology and family on development). Other psychoanalysts, especially Erikson, have had much better luck during the process of peer review. Even Jung has fared better.

Again, nice try. Laterz.

 

[Tgace]

Boy..talk about thread hi-jack...