The Undiscovered Self

Last updated Aug 15, 2023

• Source: Carl Jung
• Tags: #psychology
• Notes:

One of the world’s greatest psychiatrists reveals how to embrace our own humanity and resist the pressures of an ever-changing world.

In this challenging and provocative work, Dr. Carl Jung—one of history’s greatest minds—argues that civilization’s future depends on our ability as individuals to resist the collective forces of society. ==Only by gaining an awareness and understanding of one’s unconscious mind and true, inner nature—“the undiscovered self”—can we as individuals acquire the self-knowledge that is antithetical to ideological fanaticism.== But this requires that we face our fear of the duality of the human psyche—the existence of good and the capacity for evil in every individual.

In this seminal book, Jung compellingly argues that only then can we begin to cope with the dangers posed by mass society—“the sum total of individuals”—and resist the potential threats posed by those in power.

Some key ideas:

• Rationality, emotional hysteria, collective possesion
• Latent psychoses
• Wish fantasies
• The mandate/s of the State and crowds
• Individal’s search for meaning
  • What makes life worth living? In a world where collectivism is doiminant

• Self-knowledge defined as knowing what to do in a certain circumstance
• But this may be illusory, because we know little about our unconscious
• Nomothetic (ideal average) v.s. ideothetic (uniqueness of the individual)
• Knowledge (dealing with the general acts) v.s. understanding (getting to know the individual person)
• Raison d’etat: state morally superior to individual
• State is held in high regard over the individual because of all its respobsibilities

The mass crushes out the insight and reflection that are still possible with the individual, and this necessarily leads to doctrinaire and authoritarian tyranny if ever the constitutional state should succumb to a fit of weakness.

• Only by understanding self-knowledge is it possible to explore the unconscious
• Mystery of the unconscious: contact and conflict with other cultures, ideas, morals, ideologies, etc.
• This makes us inclined to do evil onto others, as self-evident by our imaginations. And we often project this evil onto others
  • E.G. Mother telling daughter “I hate you” actually hates her own mother
• This is why recognizing our shadow self is important; ignoring it will only make us harm ourselves and others
• Cards/Psychological dualism: recognition of capacity for good and evil in the human person ^3864ad
  • Exemplified by Yin and Yang
  • “Reason alone does not suffice” because of the unconscious.
  • The unconscious makes it easier to blame others for our problems v.s. ourselves

Most people confuse “self-knowledge” with knowledge of their conscious ego personalities. Anyone who has any ego-consciousness at all takes it for granted that he knows himself. But the ego knows only its own contents, not the unconscious and its contents. People measure their self-knowledge by what the average person in their social environment knows of himself but not by the real psychic facts which are for the most part hidden from them.