The Better Angels of Our Nature

During the last portion of the seminar on October 13, 2011 titled Energy! The Ecology of the Psyche and the World, Dr. Murray Stein spoke about a book review he had just read on "The Better Angels of Our Nature" by Steven Pinker. I looked up the source of that title and discovered that it was in the closing lines of President Abraham Lincoln's First Inaugural Address given on March 4, 1861.
Here is an excerpt:
We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

These words, uttered over seven generations ago as a nation was being torn asunder, remind us that we are not enemies. We are not enemies with each other, with the companion animals who share the earth, nor with the environment; though at times, it seems like we have declared war. Perhaps the day is dawning when again touched by the better angels of our nature, we may be at peace with our world.

Dr. Egger and Dr. Stein imparted so many profoundly important things during last Thursday's seminar that any remarks are likely to detract. Instead, I offer a few quotes I jotted down during the seminar and subsequent question and answer period. Let these remarks, like dew upon a parched land, offer the promise of renewing waters.

"When we face a destructive phenomenon, a symptom, we can take it heuristically, as a solution, we can take it as energy" (that is blocked).

"Everything psychic has a slight asymmetry (between the material world and psyche) in favor of the psyche."

"If libido retreats from the world it goes to the unconscious and there, Jung says, you must follow it."

"Nothing is so dangerous as life energy unable to be expressed honorably."

"When you cannot listen to the other person, you may be under possession, where something is projected."

"...the older the mythology, the clearer."

"...energy is a movement that evens out opposites."

"The archetype behind energy is the capacity for Divine Creation."

"To withdraw a projection is to regain energy."

"Neurosis is always a projection on a stupid thing...the symbolic life is a means to fee energy..."

"Human beings are born with an instinctual appetite ... (and) driven to a spiritual inheritance."

Seminar participants were invited to consider the impact of excessive energy usage and also invited to consider what energy is devoted in our society (both psychic energy and external energy). Strangely, the distinction between the energy of the interior life and the energy of exterior engagement grew less certain but more meaningful.

Dr. Egger recommended cultivating Joy, Hope, and Love. She likened this to the proper tuning of a violin in that proper tuning makes it easier to find the correct note. As she explained, cultivating Joy, Hope, and Love "makes opportunity".

The depth of perspective provided by Drs. Stein and Egger in the handling of their subject is difficult to convey. The work of individuation and the work of conservation in their skillful hands seemed to be different facets of the same jewel. Their teaching was clear, evocative, and nourishing.

Many thanks to those who chose to share something during the past two weeks.

Len Cruz, MD

Community and Social Media

What sort of community does social media engender?  Deriving from a very transient media that prizes immediacy over deliberation, the sense of community that social media produces is large on appearance but short on substance.  Perhaps this helps explain how mobs of individuals can suddenly band together as if they are a single organism without any real, substantive intention.  

The same superficial sense of community that can be ignited in a flash mob can also easily be exploited by politicians, disaffected groups, terrorist enterprises, and corporations seeking to manufacture tastes among consumers.  

If the immediacy and speed with which community can form in the internet age is the persona, then perhaps  violent, mindless collective actions like those displayed by a mobs, the Tea Party activists, terrorists, or youngsters attending a rave are shadow aspects of communities in the internet age.This discussion stirred some thoughts concerning the sort of community that social media engenders.  Deriving from a very transient media that prizes immediacy over deliberation, the sense of community that social media produces is large on appearance but short on substance.  Perhaps this helps explain how mobs of individuals can suddenly band together as if they are a single organism without any real, substantive intention.  

The same superficial sense of community that can be ignited in a flash mob can also easily be exploited by politicians, disaffected groups, terrorist enterprises, and corporations seeking to manufacture tastes among consumers.  

If the immediacy and speed with which community can form in the internet age is the persona, then perhaps  violent, mindless collective actions like those displayed by a mobs, the Tea Party activists, terrorists, or youngsters attending a rave are shadow aspects of communities in the internet age.

Architecture of the Soul: Inner & Outer Structures of C. G. Jung

On February 4, 2011, Dr. Murray Stein will present a conference together with Andreas Jung, in collaboration with the Asheville Jung Center titled “Architecture of the Soul: Inner and Outer Structures of C. G. Jung”. Andreas Jung is an architect whose father and great uncle were also architects.  He is a graduate of Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich (ETHZ) and currently lives in the home on Seestrasse.

C. G. Jung was intimately involved in the design of this home and attended to such things as the cladding upon the walls that provided deeply niched windows and lovely inset glass cabinets in the dining room.  Andreas Jung authors two very personal chapters and serves as the co-editor of the book.

Arthur Rüegg, a professor of architecture at ETHZ, opens one of the chapter titled “Living in a Museum?” with the following rendering:

The house of Carl Gustav Jung is without a doubt the physical expression of a great mind.

In 1906, while still “an impecunious assistant medical director at the Burghölzi mental home in Zürich”, Jung wrote to his cousin, architect Ernst Fietcher, of his plans “… to build a house someday, in the country near Zürich, on the lake”.  It was the untimely death of Emma Jung’s father that allowed the couple to build the home.   The Jungs worked closely with the architect and landscape architects on the design. 

Three generations of Jung’s have lived in this home that is now owned by a foundation (Stiftung C. G. Jung Küsnacht).  Two of those generations of inhabitants were “…families who could read these traces and respectfully carry on the tradition.” (p 90). The history of the house and it’s renovations is crisply and artfully presented.

What emerges from the pages of  The House of C. G. Jung is a portrait of an intentional man who demonstrated an uncanny ability to move between the worlds of the mythopoetic interior life and the tangible, concrete realms.  It should be no surprise that the man who constructed the Tower at Bollingen would have built a home worthy of memorializing.   Jung gave attention to details such as wall hangings, tile selection and placement of the rooms where he conducted analysis so as not to displace Emma from the library and interfere with her work.

The chapter “Living in a museum?” reads like a patient’s anamnesis as it reviews the homes history and developmental influences.  The reader is reminded that homes, like organic things, change and adapt to their circumstances and their inhabitants.  Despite several major renovations through the last century, the respect and regard for the original home was preserved.  The home is a testament to what concentrated self-examination and openness to the individuation process can produce.  It is the biography of a house that is no less impressive for what it reveals or the man who built it.

Architecture and psychology are first cousins.  Consider a few quotes assembled from several renown architects:

“Space and light and order.  Those are the things that men need just as much as they need bread or a place to sleep.”  Le  Corbusier

“The home should be the treasure chest of living.”  Le Corbusier

“Buildings, too, are children of Earth and Sun.”  Frank Lloyd Wright

“Form follow function – that has been misunderstood.  Form and function should be one, joined in a spiritual union.”  Frank Lloyd Wright

“Freedom is from within.” Frank Lloyd  Wright

“The heart is the chief feature of a functioning mind.” Frank Lloyd Wright

“Architecture is the will of the epoch translated into structure.” Ludwig Miles van der Rohe

Invitation:  The house that “you” built

Take a moment to consider the space you inhabit, whether it is a home, office, apartment, or just a room.  Examine it for details that reflect aspects of your interior life.  Where do you see function pronouncing itself and where does aesthetic seem to announce itself?  Examine the space for signs and signifiers of your individuated self and for signs of where your individuation is ensnared in its effort to emerge.

Compose a work of your own that reflects the house you have built.  If you feel so moved, please share those reflections with others in our community by posting a comment on this blog. If you are planning to attend the seminar on February 4, “Architecture of the Soul: Inner and Outer Structures of C. G. Jung”. then this exercise might be a useful preparation, like tilling the soil before the planting.

Len Cruz, MD

Global Politics, Obama and the Transcendent Function, A Jungian Perspective

n September the Asheville Jung Center has ambitious plans to host a conference titled “Symbols and Individuation in Global Politics”.  In preparation, I’ve been reading  Anyaten Sen’s “Identity and Violence”, Ortega y Gassett, and a panel discussion by Singer, Meador, and Samuels (Panel: The transcendent function in society) from the April 2010 issue of Journal of Analytical Psychology.  It is a thought provoking article.

Let me begin with a question.  Do Jungians and the field of Analytical Psychology  have something unique to offer in the arena of politics, political science, and political discourse?  Of course, Jungians are entitled, indeed obligated, to participate in the political process.  But is there a Jungian perspective on these matters?

Singer, Meador, and Samuels examined the transcendent function and specifically explore the proposition that certain individuals (for example, President Obama) carry the transcendent function in ways that may promote resolution of cultural complexes.  Such figures may help society unify apparent opposites.

The transcendent function is that psychological mechanism through which apparent opposites are unified.  Jung compared the transcendent function to its mathematical equivalent:

“There is nothing mysterious or metaphysical about the term “transcendent function.”  it means a psychological function comparable in it’s way to a mathematical function^[1] of the same name, which is a function of real and imaginary numbers.  The psychological “transcendent function” arises from the union of conscious and unconscious content.” (The Transcendent Function, Jung 1959)

Individuals tend to identify with one aspect of a polarity while relegating the other aspect to the unconscious.  The transcendent function is at work when the individual reconciles such opposing elements in their psyche.  There is a distinguished history of transcendent function within political theory.  Hegel’s dialectical approach proposed a such a motor of history and politics that consisted of an endless clash of opposites resolved by a synthesis.  His use of the word aufhebung, often translated as sublated, connotes abolished, preserved, and transcended in a single word.  Hegel may have intended to ambiguate the idea.  This is reminiscent of Jung’s characterization of symbol as “the best possible expression for a complex fact not yet clearly apprehended by consciousness.”

During the election cycle of 2008 there appeared to be a collective stirring of such dialectal tensions.  There seemed to be opposing forces marshaling everywhere.   There were rabid gun rights advocates who seemed to feel they were under siege and  liberal activists who vilified the previous administration as a reign of terror worth of epic tales like “Lord of the Rings” or “Star Wars”.  Countless other examples could be cited of seemingly deep rifts that were more evident during the 2008 election season.   An unlikely figure, Barack Obama, emerged from this milieu and galvanized people across the political spectrum.  Thomas Singer opined that President Obama “…has the potential to embody in his being a transcendent function that might point to real reconciliation and healing of the entrenched cultural complexes that divide Black and White communities in America… Some gifted individuals …actually carry the transcendent function for the group…” (Singer 2006, pp. 26-27)

There is little doubt that Barack Obama demonstrates the capacity to arouse strong passion.  He resonates with people from different countries and cultures.  People are drawn to him.  Celebrity accounts for some of this allure.  When President Obama visited Asheville earlier this year, even his ardent detractors were caught up in the excitement about sightings around town.  His celebrity seemed to dampen the usual fiery discourse seeming to unify opposing parties.  However, this should not be confused with reconciliation or the exercise of thetranscendent function.

There may something useful in considering leaders like President Obama as carriers of the transcendent function since this serves to remind us of the enormous value of transcending any opposites, whether intra-psychic or within the crucible of socio-cultural differences.  But there are other reasons for caution.

Displacing individual psychological functions onto persons like Obama are a form of infantile wish fulfillment of the sort Freud exposed in  “The Future of an Illusion”.  Individuation is personal, as is the transcendent function that supports it.  Extrapolating to the realm of politics imperils the individuation process.  Psychological contents that we project, especially upon charismatic leaders like Obama, are robbed of some of their energy.  This can reduce the chances that they will break through to consciousness.  Cultural complexes are not exempt from such obfuscating maneuvers. The individual is summoned to use the transcendent function as a vehicle for perpetual growth and adaptation.

Logicians might object to the idea of leaders carrying the transcendent function because it reflects an error of logical type.  A classic example of such an error may be helpful.

“This statement is false.”

(If the statement is true, it is false, and if it is false, then it is true, and so on.)

Such paradoxes are resolved by recognizing that the actual truth value of the statement is of a different logical type than the statement itself.

A similar disquiet emerges from the effort to extrapolate a function of the individual psyche (the transcendent function) to the sociopolitical arena.  The truth and explanatory power of thetranscendent function when applied to the individual is different than when it is applied to thepolis. The two are of different logical types. (see Russell & Whitehead or Bateson).

Whether or not President Obama carries the transcendent function for cultural complexes he clearly activates psychological elements for individuals and for the masses.  It is an intriguing idea to consider what role figures such as Obama play for society at large and individuals in their own political (& psychological) development

We are eager to generate discussion about the symbols and and other topics related to global politics as we approach the September conference.  What do you think about the proposition that President Obama carries the transcendent function for various cultural complexes?  We encourage you to share your thoughts concerning what (if anything) Jungians have to offer politics and political science.

Len Cruz, MD (first published at www.ashevillejungcenter.org/blog/ on July 11, 2010)

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^[1] For an infinite series a1 + a2 + a3 +⋯, a quantity sn = a1 + a2 +⋯+ an, which involves adding only the first n terms, is called a partial sum of the series. If sn approaches a fixed number S as n becomes larger and larger, the series is said to converge. In this case, S is called the sum of the series. An infinite series that does not converge is said to diverge. In the case of divergence, no value of a sum is assigned.  An example of a convergent series is 1 + ½ + ¼ + ⅛ … that converges upon the solution 2.