Carl Jung will live forever in a general obscurity, as the man who built one of the most natural and complete bridges between science and spirituality, between objectivity and subjectivity, in the abbreviated history of human civilization. Unfortunately, people ceased having widely public discourse on spirituality years ago. There was some false impression of unsolvable ambiguity (as if anything subjective can ever be unsolvable to the individual, or ever avoid being socially ambiguous). That, or perhaps a constant stream of other comforts pummeled us gently and inevitably into a shallower reality. After all, who cares about spirituality when all we have to do here is live and die, and hurry up while you're at it, right? More commonly, who cares about intelligent discussion when it produces better results by our shallow measures to relate to our neighbors through common acknowledgment of ignorance?
The idea that Sigmund Freud maintains some degree of cultural currency, while Jung enjoys relative anonymity, is an example of the power of memetic simplicity (the idea of Freud is an order of magnitude simpler than the idea of Jung; in fact, Jung - like many thinkers who systematically refuse the use of simplifying assumptions in their work and embrace the inevitable complexity of reality - almost completely defies memetic representation). He also provides a working example of society's inability to judge critical ideas as a whole, or to selectively disseminate ideas based on the credulity of the source. In personal experience:
I would consider myself well-educated on a handful of topics where there is a prevailing effect of knowledge isolation (a small educated population amidst a much larger, relatively uninformed population). But the suggested social dynamics beget the reality: remove a few of my close friends, and I fail when I attempt to recall a single occasion when someone uninformed has shown a desire for knowledge, even that being freely offered. Perhaps free knowledge portends deception: is the assumption that surely the disseminator must stand to gain? Not that simple, though. I suppose that a whole list of psychological predispositions is required to explain this; but, let that be a lesson. Simple psychological predispositions don't necessarily have a diffusive effect on each other; they may indeed have an amplifying effect.
I believe that the most identifiable change in humanity's recent priorities is the need to manage time. Then, should we be surprised that people are unwilling to learn lessons that may take a great deal of time, even when the payoff could be great? We are so great at managing risk in some ways and so astoundingly poor at it in others. We won't spend the time to teach ourselves things that may enrich us - because they may not, and why risk the time? But we are notoriously poor at managing the risks of our own health, for instance. Do people do it because they don't know, or they are skeptical, or they are lazy? Do people do it because they are too afraid, or too comfortable?
The issues are deeply psychological. Of course, Jung wasn't much interested in these simple predispositions; go read Adler. But Jung's body of ideas is both strikingly spiritual and reinforced by Jung's life spent psychoanalyzing thousands upon thousands of patients. His theories are also complex beings to mimic the workings of our complex minds. They're not easy for people to hold on to; certainly not to appreciate or relate to after a quick read. It may actually be an intuitive sense of their correctness that allows anyone short of an academician to respond to them at all.
I think it was Jung's idea of the Shadow that first resonated for me. It is one thing to understand that people see unlikeable figures in dreams; but to understand that the feelings behind those figures transcend people or even ideas is extraordinary. The shadow is a manifestation of repressed weaknesses. Perhaps more interestingly, Jung said: "in spite of its function as a reservoir for human darkness—or perhaps because of this—the shadow is the seat of creativity."
Perhaps modern life will twist our Shadows into something that desires a more spiritual connection to life. I doubt we would listen anyway, which is not an admonition; just an observance. But I do hope that Jung is remembered by our progeny.
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