“the individual combines with the mass”
According to C. G. Jung, individuals store attitudes, beliefs and values below the level of their conscious mind. Not only that but these individual thoughts and images influence others in a collective unconscious. By “others” we mean the entire human race, but also your community, family, the group you hang out with, etc.
We are unaware of our unconscious material, although it is revealed in our worldview, identity and behavior. Without self-examination we remain ignorant. But when you finally notice that everyone else in your “group” has the same identity, and claims their way is “right” while everyone else is “wrong,” then you can bet you have been influenced in the collective unconscious.
Here is an example of the collective unconscious of the affluent which reveals their unconscious belief that they deserve a good education and job, healthcare and a nice home, but others don’t. In Tightrope (2020) journalist Nicholas Kristof and his wife write about homelessness and drug abuse. They ponder why we have created such “a corrupt and uniquely cruel economy in which millions of underpaid or underemployed Americans cannot afford education, health care or housing. Familiar statistics on these dismal trends take on fresh urgency when juxtaposed with photos of Kristof’s schoolmates who are now homeless or dead.”[i]
Insight # 58 comes to us from C. G. Jung (1875-1961). He was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology. Jung’s work was influential in the fields of psychiatry, anthropology, archaeology, literature, philosophy and religion.
“This sequence of events is inevitable once the individual combines with the mass and suppresses the development of selfhood or individual uniqueness.”[ii]
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Additional Reading:
- The Collective Unconscious, The ABC’s of Simple Reality, Vol 1
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#58 The Collective Unconscious
[i] Kristof, Nicholas and Sheryl WuDunn. “Hard Times.” The New York Times Book Review. January 12, 2019, p. 17.
[ii] Jung, C. G. Abstracts of the Collected Works of C. G. Jung. Rockville, Maryland: NIMH, 1978, p. 65.
