jungian theory is very complex. it's hard to tell if jung knew what he was talking about, much less if anyone else understands him. since jung was essentially a pagan -- despite the attraction jungian theory has for the religious and vice versa -- his theory deals with matters quite removed from contemporary sociology. to generalize, he was looking for ways to communicate with the unconscious by understanding the symbols of myth and religion going back to earliest human records, and across all world societies. he established amazing intuitive insights and compiled great bodies of research into the esoteric. when reading him, he can be as opaque as midnight or as insightful and intuitively dead-on as the most enlightened, by turns. a lot depends on what the reader brings to the reading.
the concept of the collective unconscious, according to anthropologists i've studied under, has no relevance to any society that isn't western, despite the jungians dedicated efforts to make it universal. some jungians who've done field work with the intention of establishing proof of the universality of the collective unconscious became disillusioned when they discovered its lack of universality, and were quickly drummed out of the corp when they reported this observation to their various institutes. others saw what they wanted to see and published a great deal of misinformation, which is often the hallmark of research (and, incidentally, religion) not based on objective observation.
it takes a lot of time and experience to understand jung, the post and neo jungians, etc., if a full understanding is even possible. to graft their insights to sociology would be more than a life's work, with no end in sight. i don't believe the two mix successfully.
R
----- Original Message ----- From: "Carrol Cox" <cbcox at ilstu.edu> To: <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org> Sent: Friday, July 16, 2004 10:48 AM Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Capitalism & Psychoanalysis
:
:
: Darrin Kowitz wrote:
: >
: > I have one book, "Archetypal Explorations: Towards an
: > Archetypal Sociology" by David Gray, which relates Jungian psychology to
: > Marx, Durkheim, Mead, and the rest of the obligitory crowd. It's
shallow,
: > but good for a sufrace scratcher. Anyone else ever thought about this
or
: > have any input?
:
: In literary scholarship, while I have often found Freudian criticism
: annoying, Jungian criticism (or Jungian-influenced criticism) is simply
: appalling: something like eating a chocalate cake with ex-lax as the
: chocalate. Jungian interpretations of Paradise Lost are unbelievably
: grotesque.
:
: Carrol
:
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