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Comment by Ellen Lee on June 1, 2009 at 12:59pm

Hi, Phil,

You ask some great questions about Jung, but I've not had time to go through an investigate to find the answers. There are several Jung websites on the internet that do have a ton of information. I'll try to go through my bookmarks and find some of them.

But yes, I'm pretty sure that in developing his concepts of personalities and his idea of archetypes (two different things) he referenced fairy tales and other aural mythological traiditons. I find it so very interesting that almost every culture in the world has it's own "creation myth", a story that explains how the universe came to be, how the earth formed, and how humans came to reside on it. Gods are archetypical. We find always the mother god, the father god, the rain god, and so on. This is where I think the idea of archetypes comes from. I think Jung's theory of personality is something that developed out of his psychiatry practice rather than from his research into mythology. He also investigated psychic and "supernatural" practices; not that he believed in them, but rather that he thought they shed more light on the archetypes. He's pretty deep, and I find that with my lack of scholarship his ideas are hard for me to discuss clearly.

Yes, your analogy of our relationship with Earth with dancing partners is right on. Thanks for passing that on.

Thanks again for the correspondence; it appears that you and I are the only ones involved in this domain. There are still only four members. Is this worth continuing, do you think? I still don't received notices when anything is posted here.

Ellen

Comment by Phil Henshaw on May 31, 2009 at 7:51am

Well, it's not just our "flagrant violations" of her rules, but our just not recognizing when her rules are changing, or how accumulative causes sometimes express themselves by unleashing original whole system effects. Nature is alive herself in lots of ways, with lots of living parts. We seem just unaware that paying attention to what your partner is doing is part of the dance. So many things have their own reactions, it pays to notice.

Does Jung draw significance from fairy tales and other aural traditions in deducing the archetypes of personality and life issues he notices? Greek myths and religious traditions are full of them too, as well as both traditional and new age "relationship knowledge" generally. They're all full of references to the way the world around us seems to respond as if a living thing itself. Isn't that a major theme? I think the physical evidence is that such things are indeed reactions of whole systems one might as well call living things for the way they work as a whole and make their own original responses.

I'd entirely agree that the behavior of the remaining neo-Republicans is a mystery, almost mythological!! ;-)

Comment by Ellen Lee on May 22, 2009 at 9:47am

Hi, Phil,

For some reason I'm not getting an email alert when people respond to my posts here. I have to remember to check myself, and with my fibromyalgia I have a memory like a black hole! Things go in and are then irretrievable!

You know, I'll have to do some research to find out if Jung has any archetypes that speak to this struggle to cognitively recognize and intellectually realize how important nature is to us. I imagine there probably isn't an archetype exactly, but I will bet that Jung has something to say about nature and failure of Western civilization to get that critical connection between us and nature; I agree with you that this failure to recognize our dependence on nature, and thus accounts for our flagrant violations of her rules.

I do admire Obama for what he's trying to do to change the way this country prioritizes it's interests. Personally, I'm quite tired of the Republicans' constant disagreement just to disagree; they don't seem to wish Obama to succeed in fixing any of the problems this country suffers from now. I live in South Carolina, and would you believe that our "governor" just vetoed the bill passed by Congress that would have allowed the state to accept the funds the government is giving to states? And this knowing that $2 million of that money would be for education?? In the meantime, the school district here is laying off all first-year teachers, getting rid of "special" teachers, such as those who teach music, art, etc., and closing schools, which will force students to go to huge schools that have 1000 students or more! So much for concern for education here. Now we know why South Carolina is at the bottom of the 50 states in education.

But that's off-topic. I'll check regarding Jung and get back to you.

Thanks,
Ellen

Comment by Phil Henshaw on May 20, 2009 at 6:08am

Ellen, Well, you ask good questions.

I agree God is probably not the one speaking in the bible... ;-) but the Bible is the road map of God's plan that underlies our culture and our attempted "dominion over the earth". It is also quite well displayed in how our leaders tend to "see nothing wrong with growth" as our otherwise highly enlightened President Obama says. His whole heartedly pursuit of restoring growth, along with the strong consensus of the other developed countries, is really impressive global consensus it seems to me. Growth is physically a process of taking control of ever more things at a continually doubling rates of increasing speed and scale, though, and I’m quite sure there would not be such global consensus for that! So, I don't think it's so much a moral question, but a cognitive one. I trust a world leadership consensus to be largely in harmony with the moral beliefs of the world's people. What we don’t yet see is the trouble it gets us in. We don't yet seem to see that the world is full of independently learning and changing systems that can't be controlled, and would not serve us but cause major trouble to try. So I think that’s partly why we miss the signals as to when that trouble begins. Everyone sees some part of the trouble we’er in, but not what it’s coming from.

I have a whole thing about how to tell when that kind of trouble is becoming visible and predictable. I wouldn't be surprised if it would mostly match what you'd think, or most anyone else who has only personal experience to go by. I just think people in our culture don't ask that question. What do you think are the signs of attempting to take control of things that need to remain uncontrolled are? Does Jung have an archetype for the struggle to connect the clues of nature v. living in our clueless minds?

Comment by Ellen Lee on May 17, 2009 at 5:03pm

Had to log off earlier, and you all have, of course, moved forward. I'll try to catch up.

First, Ken, thanks for the information about June Singer. I'll follow up and look for her books and the books you've mentioned. I really enjoy studying Jung and other psychologies as well. DF mentioned "questioning everything", which I try to do, because I tended before to take everything that sounded good as "truth" without digging under the surface. It has amazed me that questions are arising regarding the validity of Einstein's theories; however, physics has gone past him and moved on to such ideas as string theory and more. I remember Einstein questioning quantum mechanics as legitimate, and his saying "God does not play dice with the universe" or something resembling that. I find it attractive to associate quantum mechanics, particularly such ideas as vector theory, with philosophy. Once my choice is made, all other choices are closed off, which is similar to once a particle is observed it is set - no longer has the option of being a wave. But that kind of thinking becomes complicated.

And Phil, speaking of God (whatever or whoever that is) no, I don't think that God would grant man "dominion over" anything actually. Doing so makes man God! That, I believe, is a root cause of our current problems with Gaia - thinking that we're in charge. Western people, perhaps even all people, are self-centered beings: if it's good for us, it's good. Unlike the American Indian ideas we were speaking of earlier in this discussion, we have no respect for the planet or any other beings that live here. Sad. And I agree that the Cartesian viewpoint has seriously damaged the way humans think, creating duality rather than unity. Quantum theory presented a great challenge to DesCartes dualism by implying such strong interdependence between entities and Heisenberg's Uncertainty Theory also had an impact on our acceptance of this idea of duality. So I think we're moving away from this worldview on to a more integrated and unifying concept. I like that!

Thanks, all, for a fascinating discussion. I've not had this much intellectual stimulation in a long time. I certainly don't have these high-level discussions with most people around me.

Comment by Phil Henshaw on May 17, 2009 at 10:57am

Ken.
You bring out the question of "aliveness". That's one of the main faults of the scientific model of the universe, as the present scientific model is of deterministic, and so has none. This has been pointed out by a number of highly respected systems scientists, for example, but how to respond to the problem and change the scientific method so science can recognize and help us learn how to interact with the "aliveness" parts of the world is still very much in the "general confusion" phase of scientific study for all the disciplines I know. It could go somewhere, but it upsets so many beliefs it seems that it can't.

I approach the question by taking a diagnostic approach to things that are "self-animating". With a diagnostic rather than representational approach "self-organization" and "self-adaptation" in systems are learning processes of the system itself, rather than mysterious rules that philosophers argue about the systems following. Things that grow, for example, exhibit so much creative organizational development within their bounds, not comparable to anything outside their bounds, it can't possibly be controlled from outside. So things that grow must be in a sense "alive". If you're studying things that are not controlled by their environments, but are instead actively using their environments, you just ask different questions. Then it's not just "what's the formula", which is purely a question about control, but "where's it headed", for example.

Comment by Phil Henshaw on May 17, 2009 at 10:41am

Ellen,
Your description of Jung's way of approaching archetypes coincides with my understanding of his approach. I just think he was seeing these things through the lens of human culture, but looking at parts of our indellible natural experience. So I think these "persistent characters and struggles" may be either culture dependent or part of our evolutionary experience.

How we perceive features of nature is like distortions in our ability to fabricate everything I think. The control of the image by the camera lens is generally invisible so part of our "unconscious". I think the big difficulty with human perception is opposite of the way we design a camera, for the lens to have as little effect as possible. We seem to design the lens of our mind's eye to have as much effect as possible, changing the information when the reality doesn't suite us. Persistent things we can't control, like archetypes, can help us look through the distortions of our own imposed imagery. With people, because we are so culture bound, most of the image is created by the camera, and very little of the our living world gets through.

Your example of that is our culture's struggle to have "dominion over" an increasingly uncooperative planet can be used that way. It's a persistent historical struggle, looking more and more like an aspect of greed actually. After a few recent generations of seeming to be an every greater success, it now looks more like a needless and very dangerous addiction. Doesn't it seem quite odd that God would approve of us having "dominion" over anything?? Having a right to dominion over all the earth would mean approving of our having dominion over other people too?? It seems like a perfect formula for creating unresolvable conflict with co-habitants of a living place, and trouble with others you really need to treat as partners. Is it possible that God didn't know he created a living world?? Very odd, indeed.

The question is whether we are the generations that will crack the code and shake the habit. That still seem very much in doubt to me. Whether the world consensus growth plan should be to have ever increasing dominion over each other and the earth or not isn't even up for discussion yet, I don't think.

Comment by Discovery Fuel on May 17, 2009 at 9:13am

Passion for a subject overrides anyone's feeling of a lack or excess of knowledge in any area. (This is one of the principles in changing normal's charter.) Although Jung is incredible, I personally wish to be cautious and question EVERYTHING. Einstein's models of the Universe are now proving imperfect; I believe the same will be true with Jung. For models and concepts become true based on a collective consciousness's desire to make it so. In the new myth, all of these masters (including us?) will play into something even more grand as we 'consciously' choose what concepts will guide manifestation of our world(s) - knowing even that has a life span before something else must/will take its place as an understanding of our existence. It's a bit soon to answer this question, but I want to pose it in the name of an 'ecology of design': How does/will our dialog here in this domain influence other domains?

Comment by Ken Homer on May 17, 2009 at 8:24am

Ellen,

You may want to take a look at the work of June Singer - Boundaries of the Soul and Seeing Through The Visible World in particular. She was an amazing Jungian psychologist and the first one to systematize Jung's thinking.

Also, Harry Wilmer's books: Practical Jung and Understanding Jung offer clear accessible non-academic explanations of the good doctor's work.

One shift that comes out of certain indigenous people's thinking is the idea that "everything is filled with the energy of aliveness." This kind of grounding produces behavior that is quite different from everything is random or everything is there for you to use as you see fit.

Thomas Berry, in The Dream of The Earth, points out that the Earth is "a one-time endowment" and failing to recognize that produces behavior that is antithetic to our continued existence as healthy beings.

Comment by Ellen Lee on May 17, 2009 at 7:29am

Hi, again,

I was just following links in the Changing Normal website, and followed this one:

http://resonance.to/welcome.html

This is very apropos to our discussion about the relationship between the human race and the earth. I think we may be able to find discussion points related to what we're talking about now.

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