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Jung's Collected Works #10
Civilization in Transition
Essays bearing on the contemporary scene and on the relation of the individual to society, including papers written during the 1920s and 1930s focusing on the upheaval in Germany, and two major works of Jung's last years, The Undiscovered Self and Flying Saucers.
642 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1964
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893 people want to read
About the author
C.G. Jung
1,875 books11.5k followersCarl Gustav Jung (/jʊŋ/; German: [ˈkarl ˈɡʊstaf jʊŋ]), often referred to as C. G. Jung, was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytical psychology. Jung proposed and developed the concepts of extraversion and introversion; archetypes, and the collective unconscious. His work has been influential in psychiatry and in the study of religion, philosophy, archeology, anthropology, literature, and related fields. He was a prolific writer, many of whose works were not published until after his death.
The central concept of analytical psychology is individuation—the psychological process of integrating the opposites, including the conscious with the unconscious, while still maintaining their relative autonomy. Jung considered individuation to be the central process of human development.
Jung created some of the best known psychological concepts, including the archetype, the collective unconscious, the complex, and synchronicity. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), a popular psychometric instrument, has been developed from Jung's theory of psychological types.
Though he was a practising clinician and considered himself to be a scientist, much of his life's work was spent exploring tangential areas such as Eastern and Western philosophy, alchemy, astrology, and sociology, as well as literature and the arts. Jung's interest in philosophy and the occult led many to view him as a mystic, although his ambition was to be seen as a man of science. His influence on popular psychology, the "psychologization of religion", spirituality and the New Age movement has been immense.
The central concept of analytical psychology is individuation—the psychological process of integrating the opposites, including the conscious with the unconscious, while still maintaining their relative autonomy. Jung considered individuation to be the central process of human development.
Jung created some of the best known psychological concepts, including the archetype, the collective unconscious, the complex, and synchronicity. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), a popular psychometric instrument, has been developed from Jung's theory of psychological types.
Though he was a practising clinician and considered himself to be a scientist, much of his life's work was spent exploring tangential areas such as Eastern and Western philosophy, alchemy, astrology, and sociology, as well as literature and the arts. Jung's interest in philosophy and the occult led many to view him as a mystic, although his ambition was to be seen as a man of science. His influence on popular psychology, the "psychologization of religion", spirituality and the New Age movement has been immense.
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
May 24, 2024
Finally, after a few years away, gathering the necessary moral courage and psychological strength, I am once again able to read Jung. Nothing frightens me more. Of every thinker I have been exposed to, no one is as deep as he is, no one is even close. Also no one is as difficult to read, and not because the words he uses, nor technical language, but simply grasping the framing, grasping 'where' he writes 'from'. The lens you get by reading Jung does not provoke existential angst, but sheer terror.
Jung sees structures in the human soul that people of modernity generally are unable to see, and he explains why. But the main insight, the thing that you will resist continuously, yet, nonetheless, is a fact of existence: Not only does God exist, but all gods of all times exist. This is not even a debatable question, but has to do with our understanding. And once you grasp why this must be so, there is a crystallization happening at levels in your being you were only vaguely aware of, maybe completely unconscious of.
For what are the gods? These are exteriorizations of psychic archetypes, behavioral complexes, structures, canalizations of instinctual processes, organized as symbols, personified, concretized. The gods, the mythological figures of fairy tales, these are psychic facts. It doesn't matter if we 'believe' (understand) what the gods are, what God is, the gods have us. When you read the great religious and mythological texts of all time, you get to be a Darwin of the mind. These are the surface reflections of the operations of the unconscious, personally, ethnically, and globally.
I cannot at the present time draw out all end implications of what, you must read the collected works of Jung yourself yo really understand. But it is sheer and absolute terror. For Gilgamesh lives in us, so does Thor, Odin (Wotan), the Devil, the wise old man. Any and every God, is, at some level, a psychic fact. And these entities, these higher dimensional structures, which is so hard to conceive of - yet so easy if you are able to be naïve and sophisticated at the same time. Metaphysical speculation is beyond the point, what matters is internalizing the childishness juxtaposed with arrogance of the reductive materialist worldview.
One of the upshots of this terrifying new conceptualization of the Gods and our place beneath them - what was world war 2? What was Nazi Germany? When the Christian God (image), died, it doesn't disappear, we don't land in pure utopia, the God-image gets projected elsewhere, and it becomes repressed and unconscious, we regress to earlier times. And what was the God that in Germany previous to its Christianization? It was something more primal, archaic, instinctual, undifferentiated from the beastly. You cannot progress beyond the God-image, you can only regress. When God dies, as Nietzsche so clearly saw - we do not become ubermenschen, we regress back to being beasts. And that is if we are lucky!
There forces beyond us that we cannot speculate metaphysically about, but we can experience aspects of their reality psychically. We can see the collective unconscious operating through time, through peoples and eras, by understanding that these are not just some "words" coughed up by bored mystics - no these are intuitions about truths more truth than anything else.
Real history, to be human at all, is to understand this religious sphere. When you read poetry, mythology, fairy-tales, with this new Jungian perspective - which of course I cannot explain clearly here, I can only vaguely point towards it, you can but shake to your very core. Especially once you realize how little you know about this domain, how little you understand, how enormous your ignorance.
What understanding Jung enables you to do, is ignore very many thinkers. You should read those that has eyes towards the depths, not those who dip only in the surface. I can but give the abosolute highest and strongest recommendations, and hope that my rant gave some sort of meaning.
The impications are manifold, most philosophy is of course waste of time, as it does not take into considerations the perspectives that Jung - god knows how - manage to extract from the soul of the world.
It is just an honor to read something like this. Not enough respect is put on his name, far from it. A true genius, an artist and a seer. Scary, bold, courageous.
Read the collected works of Carl Jung. You will not regret seeing as he sees, if you can bare it.
Jung sees structures in the human soul that people of modernity generally are unable to see, and he explains why. But the main insight, the thing that you will resist continuously, yet, nonetheless, is a fact of existence: Not only does God exist, but all gods of all times exist. This is not even a debatable question, but has to do with our understanding. And once you grasp why this must be so, there is a crystallization happening at levels in your being you were only vaguely aware of, maybe completely unconscious of.
For what are the gods? These are exteriorizations of psychic archetypes, behavioral complexes, structures, canalizations of instinctual processes, organized as symbols, personified, concretized. The gods, the mythological figures of fairy tales, these are psychic facts. It doesn't matter if we 'believe' (understand) what the gods are, what God is, the gods have us. When you read the great religious and mythological texts of all time, you get to be a Darwin of the mind. These are the surface reflections of the operations of the unconscious, personally, ethnically, and globally.
I cannot at the present time draw out all end implications of what, you must read the collected works of Jung yourself yo really understand. But it is sheer and absolute terror. For Gilgamesh lives in us, so does Thor, Odin (Wotan), the Devil, the wise old man. Any and every God, is, at some level, a psychic fact. And these entities, these higher dimensional structures, which is so hard to conceive of - yet so easy if you are able to be naïve and sophisticated at the same time. Metaphysical speculation is beyond the point, what matters is internalizing the childishness juxtaposed with arrogance of the reductive materialist worldview.
One of the upshots of this terrifying new conceptualization of the Gods and our place beneath them - what was world war 2? What was Nazi Germany? When the Christian God (image), died, it doesn't disappear, we don't land in pure utopia, the God-image gets projected elsewhere, and it becomes repressed and unconscious, we regress to earlier times. And what was the God that in Germany previous to its Christianization? It was something more primal, archaic, instinctual, undifferentiated from the beastly. You cannot progress beyond the God-image, you can only regress. When God dies, as Nietzsche so clearly saw - we do not become ubermenschen, we regress back to being beasts. And that is if we are lucky!
There forces beyond us that we cannot speculate metaphysically about, but we can experience aspects of their reality psychically. We can see the collective unconscious operating through time, through peoples and eras, by understanding that these are not just some "words" coughed up by bored mystics - no these are intuitions about truths more truth than anything else.
Real history, to be human at all, is to understand this religious sphere. When you read poetry, mythology, fairy-tales, with this new Jungian perspective - which of course I cannot explain clearly here, I can only vaguely point towards it, you can but shake to your very core. Especially once you realize how little you know about this domain, how little you understand, how enormous your ignorance.
What understanding Jung enables you to do, is ignore very many thinkers. You should read those that has eyes towards the depths, not those who dip only in the surface. I can but give the abosolute highest and strongest recommendations, and hope that my rant gave some sort of meaning.
The impications are manifold, most philosophy is of course waste of time, as it does not take into considerations the perspectives that Jung - god knows how - manage to extract from the soul of the world.
It is just an honor to read something like this. Not enough respect is put on his name, far from it. A true genius, an artist and a seer. Scary, bold, courageous.
Read the collected works of Carl Jung. You will not regret seeing as he sees, if you can bare it.
December 21, 2013
Growing up with the space program and the Cold War led, almost inevitably, to an interest in UFOs--a subject covered seriously by such mainline magazines as Life and Look. A child of the generation, I became an early and avid reader of everything I could find about rocketry, space exploration and, yes, UFOs, reading, from left to right, every book the Park Ridge Public Library had on its shelves about flying saucers.
One of these books was C.G. Jung's Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Skies. Like most, but not all, of the other books on the subject, it took UFOs and UFO witnesses seriously. Unlike everyone else, however, the author had, to me, an odd view about "objective" facts. Others saw UFOs as physically objective objects. Jung saw them primarily as psychically objective objects, as symbols of what he called "the Self" while still allowing for the possibility that they had a physical dimension as well.
I read this book by Jung as a pre-teen, then moved on, my interest being in UFOs, not in Jung, just a "Swiss psychiatrist" so far as I was concerned--a confirming authority out of the left field. I only returned to it many years later, while in college, now interested more in Jung than in UFOs and now ploughing my way through all of the volumes of his collected works.
The other part of this book which I'd previously read before purchasing this volume at Great Expectations Bookstore in Evanton, Illinois was his The Undiscovered Self, commonly available as a cheap paperback.
One of these books was C.G. Jung's Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Skies. Like most, but not all, of the other books on the subject, it took UFOs and UFO witnesses seriously. Unlike everyone else, however, the author had, to me, an odd view about "objective" facts. Others saw UFOs as physically objective objects. Jung saw them primarily as psychically objective objects, as symbols of what he called "the Self" while still allowing for the possibility that they had a physical dimension as well.
I read this book by Jung as a pre-teen, then moved on, my interest being in UFOs, not in Jung, just a "Swiss psychiatrist" so far as I was concerned--a confirming authority out of the left field. I only returned to it many years later, while in college, now interested more in Jung than in UFOs and now ploughing my way through all of the volumes of his collected works.
The other part of this book which I'd previously read before purchasing this volume at Great Expectations Bookstore in Evanton, Illinois was his The Undiscovered Self, commonly available as a cheap paperback.
January 10, 2021
Importantísimo libro de las obras completas de Jung. En él uno puede aprender cómo se aplica la psicología profunda a la crítica social y política. Útil, también, para profundizar en los principales conceptos de la teoría de Jung.
Para Jung, el comunismo de su época incurre en un absolutismo de la razón que impide la integración del inconsciente colectivo al nivel del individuo, lo que se traduce en el retorno a una sociedad colectivista que violenta al individuo así como en la proyección de los contenidos del inconsciente colectivo no integrados en el enemigo político: el capitalismo. Para Jung, la democracia liberal es un proyecto político superior al comunismo porque respeta la libertad individual necesaria para integrar el inconsciente.
Interesante es también la crítica de Jung al nazismo. Para Jung, el nazismo consiste en la regresión a un colectivismo basado en el arquetipo del dios Wotan, aún latente en una civilización germánica que fuera cristianizada (y, para Jung, civilizada) hace apenas unos mil años.
Vale la pena destacar también el libro, incluido en este tomo, dedicado al fenómeno de los ovnis. Para Jung, los ovnis son proyecciones colectivas del sí-mismo, constituyéndose así en una especie de pseudo-religión tecnocientífica.
Para Jung, el comunismo de su época incurre en un absolutismo de la razón que impide la integración del inconsciente colectivo al nivel del individuo, lo que se traduce en el retorno a una sociedad colectivista que violenta al individuo así como en la proyección de los contenidos del inconsciente colectivo no integrados en el enemigo político: el capitalismo. Para Jung, la democracia liberal es un proyecto político superior al comunismo porque respeta la libertad individual necesaria para integrar el inconsciente.
Interesante es también la crítica de Jung al nazismo. Para Jung, el nazismo consiste en la regresión a un colectivismo basado en el arquetipo del dios Wotan, aún latente en una civilización germánica que fuera cristianizada (y, para Jung, civilizada) hace apenas unos mil años.
Vale la pena destacar también el libro, incluido en este tomo, dedicado al fenómeno de los ovnis. Para Jung, los ovnis son proyecciones colectivas del sí-mismo, constituyéndose así en una especie de pseudo-religión tecnocientífica.
July 26, 2024
Коллекция впечатлений Юнга от эпохи Интербеллума и последовавшей за ней общеевропейской травмы. Параллельно с политическими взглядами Юнга, читатель знакомится с основными понятиями юнгианской аналитической психологии. Автор демонстрирует внушительные познания в европейской мифологии и алхимии.
В главе "Душа и земля" Юнг развивает идею о том, что завоеватель неизбежно подвергается ассимиляции со стороны чужой почвы. Американцы впитали в себя индейскую и негритянскую культуру, Рим был пропитан ближневосточными культами, а эллинизм принёс моду на ориентализм в саму Грецию:
В главе "Вотан" через европейские архетипы объясняется подъём правых сил в Европе - самая вдохновенная и душещипательная из частей, возможно дело в том, что до прочтения я был знаком с Юнгом именно по ней:
Глава "Один современный миф" самая загадочная и интересная. Массовая одержимость летающими тарелками в 1950-х годах трактуется через призму коллективного страха перед ядерной войной. В состоянии перманентной тревоги переломного времени потребность в психической целостности у людей проявляется через образы архетипа самости - круги, шары и округлости. Утрата пространства сакрального в свою очередь дала образам кругов на небе научно-техническую обёртку. Да-да, именно так трактует Юнг феномен НЛО, по крайней мере их восприятие в коллективной психологии. В ход идут сны пациентов, картины современных художников, средневековые свитки и герметические трактаты.
В главах об Америке, Индии и Швейцарии Юнг пытается нащупать коллективную душу их народов, сравнивая их с европейскими. Удивительно почтительный тон и одновременно с этим вдумчивое изучение инаковости каждого.
Прекрасный стиль изложения мыслей омрачается бесконечными описаниями миссии психотерапевта, повторяющимися обоснованиями её уникальности и визионерства. Едва ли это стоило своих шестисот страниц. Отдельные лучи порицания - за "морально неполноценных" после 1945 года немцев.
В главе "Душа и земля" Юнг развивает идею о том, что завоеватель неизбежно подвергается ассимиляции со стороны чужой почвы. Американцы впитали в себя индейскую и негритянскую культуру, Рим был пропитан ближневосточными культами, а эллинизм принёс моду на ориентализм в саму Грецию:
"Отчуждение от бессознательного, отрыв от исторической обусловленности чреваты лишением корней".
В главе "Вотан" через европейские архетипы объясняется подъём правых сил в Европе - самая вдохновенная и душещипательная из частей, возможно дело в том, что до прочтения я был знаком с Юнгом именно по ней:
"непостижимая глубина характера Вотана объясняет национал-социализм лучше, нежели все указанные рациональные факторы в их совокупности".
Глава "Один современный миф" самая загадочная и интересная. Массовая одержимость летающими тарелками в 1950-х годах трактуется через призму коллективного страха перед ядерной войной. В состоянии перманентной тревоги переломного времени потребность в психической целостности у людей проявляется через образы архетипа самости - круги, шары и округлости. Утрата пространства сакрального в свою очередь дала образам кругов на небе научно-техническую обёртку. Да-да, именно так трактует Юнг феномен НЛО, по крайней мере их восприятие в коллективной психологии. В ход идут сны пациентов, картины современных художников, средневековые свитки и герметические трактаты.
В главах об Америке, Индии и Швейцарии Юнг пытается нащупать коллективную душу их народов, сравнивая их с европейскими. Удивительно почтительный тон и одновременно с этим вдумчивое изучение инаковости каждого.
Прекрасный стиль изложения мыслей омрачается бесконечными описаниями миссии психотерапевта, повторяющимися обоснованиями её уникальности и визионерства. Едва ли это стоило своих шестисот страниц. Отдельные лучи порицания - за "морально неполноценных" после 1945 года немцев.
July 29, 2024
Reading Carl Jung, he is changing my life. He is also demonstrating why my Evangelical education was a complete waste of time and money. With every page, with every word, he answers all theological questions. For less money, I could had a better education by reading Jung. I know I am smarter than all my theology professors, with their Ph.ds, after reading Jung. What a complete waste of time and money going to college. I could had gotten a better education by reading Jung.
All the questions asked in Christian apologetics, every question could had been answered by Carl Jung. Alas, the evangelical church ignores or even rejects Carl Jung. The conservative evangelical Church is a pseudo-intellectual movement, filled with liars and hypocrites. Dr. William Lane Craig with his double doctorate in lying and being a hypocrite. Dr. Ravi Zacharias and his seven Ph.Ds from Cambridge, seven ph.ds in bullshitiing the world, seven ph.ds in being a fraud. The evangelical church never mentioned Carl Jung. My theology professor from my undergraduate studies, he confessed that he never read Freud. He does not understand philosophy even though he has a PhD in theology and a bachelor in philosophy. I hate the evangelical church. I hate the evangelical church because these idiots lied to me.
All the questions asked in Christian apologetics, every question could had been answered by Carl Jung. Alas, the evangelical church ignores or even rejects Carl Jung. The conservative evangelical Church is a pseudo-intellectual movement, filled with liars and hypocrites. Dr. William Lane Craig with his double doctorate in lying and being a hypocrite. Dr. Ravi Zacharias and his seven Ph.Ds from Cambridge, seven ph.ds in bullshitiing the world, seven ph.ds in being a fraud. The evangelical church never mentioned Carl Jung. My theology professor from my undergraduate studies, he confessed that he never read Freud. He does not understand philosophy even though he has a PhD in theology and a bachelor in philosophy. I hate the evangelical church. I hate the evangelical church because these idiots lied to me.
March 3, 2018
Dar vienas galingas Jungo raštų tomas. Šįkart apie didesnius, visuomeninius reiškinius. Rašyta tarpukaryje, 3-4 dešimtmečiuose, pačiame verdančių įtampų katile Šveicarijoje, Vokietijoje. Jų refleksija suteikia daug peno apmąstymams apie žmogaus psichologiją. Jung'as vadovaujasi savo tvirtu nepalaužiamu principu: individo psichologija atspindi tautų/masių psichologiją. Įžvalgos įtikinamos.
O čia vyšnaitė iš šio kruopščiai paruošto pyrago:
"But I speak not to nations, only to the individual few, for whom it goes without saying that cultural values do not drop down like manna from heaven, but are created by the hands of individuals. If things go wrong in the world, this is because something is wrong with the individual, because something is wrong with me. Therefore, if I am sensible, I shall put myself right first. For this I need—because outside authority no longer means anything to me—a knowledge of the innermost foundations of my being, in order that I may base myself firmly on the eternal facts of the human psyche."
O čia vyšnaitė iš šio kruopščiai paruošto pyrago:
"But I speak not to nations, only to the individual few, for whom it goes without saying that cultural values do not drop down like manna from heaven, but are created by the hands of individuals. If things go wrong in the world, this is because something is wrong with the individual, because something is wrong with me. Therefore, if I am sensible, I shall put myself right first. For this I need—because outside authority no longer means anything to me—a knowledge of the innermost foundations of my being, in order that I may base myself firmly on the eternal facts of the human psyche."
June 3, 2021
Tirando os textos sociais do Jung, só qualidade
August 21, 2023
Some highly enjoyable essays while others weren't as impressive. Overall, well organized and delivers important ideas. I've always been fascinated on the individual and his relation to society. This likely stemmed from inferiority during my schooling years, where in general, I had felt as if society had failed me. It had neglected many parts that I found as being vital towards my way of being; something I had to defend and protect. Now, as an adult, it is something I can refine and seek to understand as a personal endeavor.
"The deciding factor appears to be something else: it proceeds not from the traditional moral code but from the unconscious foundation of the personality. The decision is drawn from dark and deep waters. It is true that these conflicts of duty are solved very often and very conveniently by a decision in accordance with custom, that is, by suppressing one of the opposites. But that is not always so. If one is sufficiently conscientious the conflict is endured to the end, and a creative solution emerges which is produced by the constellated archetype and possesses that compelling authority not unjustly characterized as the voice of God. The nature of the solution is in accord with the deepest foundations of the personality as well as with its wholeness; it embraces conscious and unconscious and therefore transcends the ego." Carl Jung, Civilization in Transition, Pg. 454-455
It is all the more important, more so, with the advent of social media and online influence.
"The deciding factor appears to be something else: it proceeds not from the traditional moral code but from the unconscious foundation of the personality. The decision is drawn from dark and deep waters. It is true that these conflicts of duty are solved very often and very conveniently by a decision in accordance with custom, that is, by suppressing one of the opposites. But that is not always so. If one is sufficiently conscientious the conflict is endured to the end, and a creative solution emerges which is produced by the constellated archetype and possesses that compelling authority not unjustly characterized as the voice of God. The nature of the solution is in accord with the deepest foundations of the personality as well as with its wholeness; it embraces conscious and unconscious and therefore transcends the ego." Carl Jung, Civilization in Transition, Pg. 454-455
It is all the more important, more so, with the advent of social media and online influence.
August 14, 2020
This was excellent.
I wasn't sure how I'd get on with it though - I'd only read a couple of Jung's books before this so only had a basic understanding of his terminology. It turned out that it was all fairly contemporary - while a basic knowledge was useful it wasn't essential.
There was some repetition in explaining certain concepts though - but as this is a collection of separate writings rather than a series, it's to be expected I suppose.
There is one issue though - at times it's unclear whether Jung is expressing his professional opinion or his personal opinion. This is made all the more important given that these days some of the things he says would NOT sit comfortably with people at all ... I'm talking about statements he makes about sensitive issues such as race ("Racial infection is a most serious mental and moral problem where the primitive outnumbers the white man") and women ("[Women develop] a kind of rigid intellectuality based on so-called principles, and backs them up with a whole host of arguments which always just miss the mark in the most irritating way, and always inject a little something into the problem that is not really there") ...
I wasn't sure how I'd get on with it though - I'd only read a couple of Jung's books before this so only had a basic understanding of his terminology. It turned out that it was all fairly contemporary - while a basic knowledge was useful it wasn't essential.
There was some repetition in explaining certain concepts though - but as this is a collection of separate writings rather than a series, it's to be expected I suppose.
There is one issue though - at times it's unclear whether Jung is expressing his professional opinion or his personal opinion. This is made all the more important given that these days some of the things he says would NOT sit comfortably with people at all ... I'm talking about statements he makes about sensitive issues such as race ("Racial infection is a most serious mental and moral problem where the primitive outnumbers the white man") and women ("[Women develop] a kind of rigid intellectuality based on so-called principles, and backs them up with a whole host of arguments which always just miss the mark in the most irritating way, and always inject a little something into the problem that is not really there") ...
December 5, 2016
A typically great and illuminating collection of Jung's wisdom. Most interesting are his insights into the influence of the Wotan archetype upon the people of 20th Century Europe (Germany in particular).
Jung here also presents a core and vital piece of work in 'the Undiscovered Self'. We find Jung continuing some of the Nietzschean aspects of his work, urging man towards a realisation of the self and separation from the herd. Jung's employment of terms such as 'herd' and 'plebiscite's' betray the positive influence of Nietzsche upon his own philosophy.
Jung here also presents a core and vital piece of work in 'the Undiscovered Self'. We find Jung continuing some of the Nietzschean aspects of his work, urging man towards a realisation of the self and separation from the herd. Jung's employment of terms such as 'herd' and 'plebiscite's' betray the positive influence of Nietzsche upon his own philosophy.
July 24, 2015
O colectie de mai multe studii de maturitate in care sunt abordate transformarile societatii in cele doua razboaie mondiale din perspectiva psihologica. Este frapanta asemanarea intre ceea ce se credea la nivel social dupa primul razboi mondial si ceea ce se crede acum la o suta de ani dupa. De asemenea este prezentata aproape profetic iminenta celui de al doilea razboi inca din 1924 desi nimeni nu mai credea in aceasta varianta. O adevarata lectie despre dinamicile colective.
February 25, 2023
C.G. Jung begins the anthology “Civilization in Transition” with his essay “The Role of the Unconscious.” Sigmund Freud maintained there was a personal unconscious. This consisted of memories that were forgotten or suppressed, but which influenced the ways one thinks and behaves, usually in unfavorable ways. Jung maintained that behind the personal unconscious there is a collective unconscious. This consists of collective memories humans share of instincts that had survival value in the past. He argued that these appear in dreams, under hypnotism, and in fairytales, myths, and legends. They appear as archetypal situations and characters.
Jung’s theories of the collective unconscious initially attracted me to his writings when I was in my late twenties. Since then I have become skeptical of this aspect of Jung’s thinking.
I continue to believe that the collective unconscious exists, but that it is less extensive than Jung maintains, and that it has little or no influence on mental illness or curing mental illness.
Most of the essays in “Civilization in Transition” concern current events and developments at the time Jung wrote them.
I do not believe that contemporary Republicans are morally equivalent to the German Nazis living when he wrote “Essays on Contemporary Events.”
Nevertheless, I see most Republicans as suffering what Jung called a “mass psychoses.” For example, they believe that Donald Trump won the presidential election of 2016, but that it was stolen from him. To believe such a thing one must believe in a conspiracy involving not only the Democrat Party, and the mainstream media, but also the polling agencies and the judiciary, including the Supreme Court. According to public opinion surveys Trump is the only president on record who never had majority support during his term. Many of the judges who determined that Joe Biden won legitimately were chosen by Republicans, even by Trump.
Despite the growing destructiveness of the weather, most Republicans continue to disbelieve in the greenhouse effect. Despite the economic record of the administrations of Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, and Trump most Republicans continue to believe that tax cuts pay for themselves, and will at some undisclosed time in the future pay off the national debt.
In Jung’s essay, “The Undiscovered Self” Jung writes, “All mass movements, as one might expect, slip with the greatest ease down an inclined plane made up of large number. Where the many are there is security; what the many believe must of course be true.”
The Democrats are equally guilty of mass psychosis. Unlike the Republicans, they try to punish those who challenge their delusions. During the past century IQ tests have proven their ability to predict academic and economic success, and other favorable life events. Nevertheless, liberals continue to maintain that IQ tests measure nothing of value and that “The Bell Curve” is pseudo science. Liberals also maintain that racial differences in average non cosmetic characteristics do not exist, do not matter, or that “Race is only a social construct.” Geneticists who find genes that influence intelligence and criminal behavior risk their careers, if they draw too much attention to their discoveries.
Even many Republicans pretend to believe in wokish untruths. In the Preface to his essay “Flying Saucers: A modern Myth of Things Seen in the Skies,” Jung writes, “news affirming the existence of Ufos is welcome, but skepticism seems to be undesirable.”
The same can be said of misconceptions about human nature and human potential which since the early 1960’s, have lead to reforms that have failed and government spending programs that have wasted trillions of dollars without having the desired effects. Social reforms and social welfare spending have sometimes exacerbated the problems they were designed to solve.
Tens of millions of Americans on each end of the political spectrum insist on believing what is manifestly not true. “Civilization in Transition” is valuable in drawing attention to civilization’s unfortunate transitions.
Jung’s theories of the collective unconscious initially attracted me to his writings when I was in my late twenties. Since then I have become skeptical of this aspect of Jung’s thinking.
I continue to believe that the collective unconscious exists, but that it is less extensive than Jung maintains, and that it has little or no influence on mental illness or curing mental illness.
Most of the essays in “Civilization in Transition” concern current events and developments at the time Jung wrote them.
I do not believe that contemporary Republicans are morally equivalent to the German Nazis living when he wrote “Essays on Contemporary Events.”
Nevertheless, I see most Republicans as suffering what Jung called a “mass psychoses.” For example, they believe that Donald Trump won the presidential election of 2016, but that it was stolen from him. To believe such a thing one must believe in a conspiracy involving not only the Democrat Party, and the mainstream media, but also the polling agencies and the judiciary, including the Supreme Court. According to public opinion surveys Trump is the only president on record who never had majority support during his term. Many of the judges who determined that Joe Biden won legitimately were chosen by Republicans, even by Trump.
Despite the growing destructiveness of the weather, most Republicans continue to disbelieve in the greenhouse effect. Despite the economic record of the administrations of Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, and Trump most Republicans continue to believe that tax cuts pay for themselves, and will at some undisclosed time in the future pay off the national debt.
In Jung’s essay, “The Undiscovered Self” Jung writes, “All mass movements, as one might expect, slip with the greatest ease down an inclined plane made up of large number. Where the many are there is security; what the many believe must of course be true.”
The Democrats are equally guilty of mass psychosis. Unlike the Republicans, they try to punish those who challenge their delusions. During the past century IQ tests have proven their ability to predict academic and economic success, and other favorable life events. Nevertheless, liberals continue to maintain that IQ tests measure nothing of value and that “The Bell Curve” is pseudo science. Liberals also maintain that racial differences in average non cosmetic characteristics do not exist, do not matter, or that “Race is only a social construct.” Geneticists who find genes that influence intelligence and criminal behavior risk their careers, if they draw too much attention to their discoveries.
Even many Republicans pretend to believe in wokish untruths. In the Preface to his essay “Flying Saucers: A modern Myth of Things Seen in the Skies,” Jung writes, “news affirming the existence of Ufos is welcome, but skepticism seems to be undesirable.”
The same can be said of misconceptions about human nature and human potential which since the early 1960’s, have lead to reforms that have failed and government spending programs that have wasted trillions of dollars without having the desired effects. Social reforms and social welfare spending have sometimes exacerbated the problems they were designed to solve.
Tens of millions of Americans on each end of the political spectrum insist on believing what is manifestly not true. “Civilization in Transition” is valuable in drawing attention to civilization’s unfortunate transitions.
July 27, 2024
This is not a book that dives into Jung's theories in the technical sense, although they are of course there, but a book that collects various articles about his general views on society, politics, and the state of the world whether in the years between the world wars and the years after with the Iron Curtain which brought with it concerns of a new kind.
It will not be easy for today's reader to read the generalizations that Jung attributes to different populations, whether nationalities, races, blacks, Jews, Americans, etc. Jung is a son of his time, in a world where such writing was accepted and widespread, and there are also some interesting things to derive from his insights.
A more negative aspect to this point comes precisely in the book's appendix, which contains articles from the time he served as president of the Psychologists Society, a position i wish he would have given up earlier, and which has entangled him with criticism as if he was anti-Semitic.
He was undoubtedly not anti-Semitic, he was highly critical of the nazis in real-time, and even helped his Jewish friends to maintain the profession of psychotherapy during the difficult years in Nazi Germany. but his insistence on dealing with the Jewish question, even if originally many years before the war, was certainly not read in the right context in the catastrophic political atmosphere of Europe in the 1930s. In another book, the Oxford Introduction to Jung, a fascinating chapter is devoted to the subject of the criticism against Jung and the entanglement with that presidency in those bad years of Germany.
It will not be easy for today's reader to read the generalizations that Jung attributes to different populations, whether nationalities, races, blacks, Jews, Americans, etc. Jung is a son of his time, in a world where such writing was accepted and widespread, and there are also some interesting things to derive from his insights.
A more negative aspect to this point comes precisely in the book's appendix, which contains articles from the time he served as president of the Psychologists Society, a position i wish he would have given up earlier, and which has entangled him with criticism as if he was anti-Semitic.
He was undoubtedly not anti-Semitic, he was highly critical of the nazis in real-time, and even helped his Jewish friends to maintain the profession of psychotherapy during the difficult years in Nazi Germany. but his insistence on dealing with the Jewish question, even if originally many years before the war, was certainly not read in the right context in the catastrophic political atmosphere of Europe in the 1930s. In another book, the Oxford Introduction to Jung, a fascinating chapter is devoted to the subject of the criticism against Jung and the entanglement with that presidency in those bad years of Germany.
March 29, 2025
"Civilization in Transition," is like Jung diving deep into the human mind to explain why things are the way they are in society. He argues that the unconscious plays a huge role in everything from individual quirks to big world events, even saying that stuff like the European conflicts had psychological origins. He really stresses how crucial it is for each of us to understand ourselves instead of just blindly going along with the group. Plus, he looks at all sorts of interesting things – from dreams to societal shifts like the rise of Nazism and even the "modern myth" of UFOs – as clues to what's brewing in our collective unconscious. It’s basically Jung saying that if we want to get a grip on the world, we've gotta look inwards first.
August 12, 2023
Many topics are explored in this book but many of them focus on the effect the 2 world wars had on the world.
Maybe it was easy to notice after the fact, but the power of collectivity and a desire to defer responsibility to someone outside one’s self is elevated to the main stage at that time.
Jung’s toys with the tension between one’s individuality and one’s collectivity. I know of the concept of collective unconscious, but in this CW, it’s made more clear what he means in relation to individuality vs collectivity.
I enjoyed most of the topics Jung wrote about, but the book as a whole felt a little too much like a mixed bag.
If I read this again I would stick to the first few parts.
Maybe it was easy to notice after the fact, but the power of collectivity and a desire to defer responsibility to someone outside one’s self is elevated to the main stage at that time.
Jung’s toys with the tension between one’s individuality and one’s collectivity. I know of the concept of collective unconscious, but in this CW, it’s made more clear what he means in relation to individuality vs collectivity.
I enjoyed most of the topics Jung wrote about, but the book as a whole felt a little too much like a mixed bag.
If I read this again I would stick to the first few parts.
February 11, 2025
Jung’s collection of writings that centers around contemporary society and politics. My favorite was “Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Skies”. Most of his discussion is more on the viewpoint of UFOs from the unconscious, as seen through exploring dreams and art that feature UFOs, and what people project upon the phenomenon. He relates these to other celestial beings, such as angels and the like. He does contend briefly with the physicality of them as evidenced through appearing on radar. He has no final answers as to what they are, whether they are “something psychic that is endowed with certain physical properties” or something more conventional.
Other topics discussed are the Cold War and relationship between the USA and USSR and also mass movements/ideologies. These are constellations of pre-existing archetypes that modern society is activating in different ways. One of excerpt I liked:
“In the same essay I uttered the almost banal truth: “The best, just because it is the best, holds the seed of evil, and there is nothing so bad but good can come of it.”6 I lay particular stress on this sentence, because it always put me in a mood of caution when I had to judge of any particular manifestation of the unconscious. The contents of the collective unconscious, the archetypes, with which we are concerned in any occurrence of psychic mass-phenomena, are always bipolar: they have both a positive and a negative side. Whenever an archetype appears things become critical, and it is impossible to foresee what turn they will take. As a rule this depends on the way consciousness reacts to the situation. During a collective manifestation of archetypes there is always a great danger of a mass movement, and a catastrophe can be avoided only if the effect of the archetype can be intercepted and assimilated by a sufficiently large majority of individuals. At the very least there must be a certain number of individuals who are still capable of making their influence felt.”
Other topics discussed are the Cold War and relationship between the USA and USSR and also mass movements/ideologies. These are constellations of pre-existing archetypes that modern society is activating in different ways. One of excerpt I liked:
“In the same essay I uttered the almost banal truth: “The best, just because it is the best, holds the seed of evil, and there is nothing so bad but good can come of it.”6 I lay particular stress on this sentence, because it always put me in a mood of caution when I had to judge of any particular manifestation of the unconscious. The contents of the collective unconscious, the archetypes, with which we are concerned in any occurrence of psychic mass-phenomena, are always bipolar: they have both a positive and a negative side. Whenever an archetype appears things become critical, and it is impossible to foresee what turn they will take. As a rule this depends on the way consciousness reacts to the situation. During a collective manifestation of archetypes there is always a great danger of a mass movement, and a catastrophe can be avoided only if the effect of the archetype can be intercepted and assimilated by a sufficiently large majority of individuals. At the very least there must be a certain number of individuals who are still capable of making their influence felt.”
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October 19, 2019Not sure how to summarize this one.
May 1, 2025
4/5 Stars (%71/100)
In Civilization in Transition, Carl Jung turns his analytical lens toward the crises and upheavals of the modern world, offering psychological insights into mass movements, war, and the discontents of Western civilization. This volume reveals Jung at his most socio-political, exploring how the collective unconscious manifests in historical trauma and cultural shifts. While occasionally speculative, the essays are remarkably prescient, and their relevance endures in a world still grappling with the tensions between the individual and the collective.
In Civilization in Transition, Carl Jung turns his analytical lens toward the crises and upheavals of the modern world, offering psychological insights into mass movements, war, and the discontents of Western civilization. This volume reveals Jung at his most socio-political, exploring how the collective unconscious manifests in historical trauma and cultural shifts. While occasionally speculative, the essays are remarkably prescient, and their relevance endures in a world still grappling with the tensions between the individual and the collective.
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January 29, 2009This is life work - will take me years I think, aim to invest in a set when I hit the northern hemisphere
January 8, 2012
Amazing look at how Jung applied his theories to society and how the individual can live in a society.
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