I reposted Ira Gollobin's reply to a few other discussion groups to get more than one angle. Here is one reply.IG: In his version of the final act in the social drama, humans then
disclose their true, subhuman nature,acting like beasts in a world
ruled by tooth and claw.
Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! Wrong!An egregious misinterpretation of Jung.
Jung's theory of personality posits a shadow as an aspect of the
personality antipodal to the aspect of the persona. The persona is
your social mask, the nice face you put on to get along and go along
with others. The shadow contains the parts of the personality that
you try to hide, to repress, to deny. (Society by its rules
contributes to and reinforces the represssion.) It is not the most
essential part, although sometimes it seems that way because when
comes to the forefront of consciousness, it seems so much more vital,
so much more real than other aspects of the personality.
IG: Jung is now ready to come out of the dream world and dash the hopes
of the mass of people for a better life.
Not so!Attempts to find a psychological basis for the dialectic by mating
Jungian theory with Marxist theory are as fraught with intellectual
peril and folly as those that attempt to mate Freudian theory with
Marxist theory. Suffice it to say, Jungian theory would describe the
'dictatorship of the proletariat' as archetypal-derived wishful
thinking. But to assert the contraposition that "the chains fashioned
by Jung are even more eternal than those ordained by theologians" is
hyperbolic.
Just 'caz we can't reach heaven on earth, doesn't mean we're doomed
to hell on earth. If anything, one might derive from Jungian theory
the proposition that the dialectic goes on.. and on.. and on.. and
on.. but it doesn't ipso facto doom the masses to be impoverished and
disenfranchised.
