Collective Unconscious/Dreamtime

[wolven7]

All of human societal development is driven by the innate belief in the psychic interconnectedness of all beings.

Discuss.

Comments

[catvincent.livejournal.com]

Can't say I agree. Vast swathes of humanity seem to act on the assumption that either we are not at all connected, or that only certain elites are...

[wolven.livejournal.com]

Granted. But that belief is itself based in a belief that human beings can be linked psychically. That potential, then, rests across all human beings, IF any person can become a member of the elite.

Unless the potential psychic connection rests in "Being Elite." But I'd argue that that's just a perspectival state, and one which can be induced.

[prosewitch.livejournal.com]

I also completely disagree. Then again, I make a living studying regional variations in expressive culture. Yeah, there are a lot of basic human concerns at the center of even very different, say, folktales... but most of the commonalities, in my opinion, are there because the stories are all told by humans (so common themes like family, the search for food and love and integrity, and so on, emerge).

And there's no one universal genre, or universal story. They. Just. Don't. Exist.

That being said, I'm open to the idea that there exists some kind of interconnectedness of all beings... I just don't think it's something you can study or collect or prove empirically, so it has no place in the academy.

[wolven.livejournal.com]

I would agree that there isn't a universal story to be told, but I would disagree about the being able to find academic value in the potential interconnectedness of consciousness, even if it is only experiential/phenomenological and not empirical.

The reportage and intuitions of people experiencing it can give us insight into those things we do, and can help guide theories about why we do them-- though never, I think, what we "ought" to do.

[moonandserpent.livejournal.com]

There is a vast difference between the Jungian Universal Unconscious, an underlying psychic interconnectedness - say "Ideaspace/Superflow", and the interconnected nature of consciousness.

At least, there is in how they are explored and applied academically or in various systems of Knowing.

Honestly, most of these systems are touching on core things because of privileged - logically - their systems of Knowing. Jung has points, but his inclusion of Unverified Personal Gnosis and Eurocentrisim limits his academic or cross-disciplinary application. I can prove with Hoffstadtter-y math that consciousness is interconnected, but the Hoff doesn't want to push his theories too far into the realm of the numinous.

Jung is like Deluze in that what he's often used as an Academic example of is not the place where his work actually intersects with the Academy. Deluze and Guitari - HORRIBLE theorists to wield in the case of lit crit, yet so many people do it thus people thinking that their own poetic approach to Academia and Theory is completely worthless.

However take their attempts to illustrate and interface the Numinous with hard theory writing and apply it back to say social systems theory? You then get the sort of Hardt-style re-embracing of human numinous experience as an emergent part of the political structure. Or even better, take them over to theology and you have a stunning bridge between languages of the Academy. Plug Deluze into Process Theology or Eco Theology, and then their merging of poetry with theory in an attempt to create a feeling art in the machine of academic writing is immeasurably and seriously applicable with credible real-world theological and practical applications.

Jung's deeply flawed universal cosmology has a much place as Freud's deeply flawed universal cosmology - Jung's work isn't a rejection of Freud's modeling but the logical extension. (And arguably, a reconstruction and reintegration of some of Freud's own roots.)

Jung is flawed - especially for Folkloric or Psychological work - but his work Venn Diagrams with emergence theory, information theory, anthropology and theology really well and provides a common language for those disciplines to express ideas. Just like Frued's greatest legacy is not modern psychoanalysis, which has a love/hate relationship with him, but with marketing and PR which is a science built directly on applying Freudian models to the material world. His work is next to useless in a legitimate academic setting, save as a historical note, BUT his map, while not as universal to all people as he wished, DOES describe a nerochemically mediated process and how to influence that process via information. Its not an accident that the "father of Propaganda" was Freud's nephew.

So yeah, I personally reject the idea of "psychic connections" or the universal unconsciousness other than in metaphor, but that language IS academically useful... just not in some single-discipline views.

[moonandserpent.livejournal.com]

I'd say the inverse of that is true. The descent into history is the story of man's urge to prove that nothing is connected.

[wolven.livejournal.com]

I'd grant that, but I'd also say that, if true, it can still be seen as coming from a feeling of the oppressive weight of responsibility if all things Are connected.

Also, look at where that descent has gotten us.

[moonandserpent.livejournal.com]

Yes. If man is one with their brothers, then the barbaric actions driven by our baser natures and short-term planning and systems is unconscionable. So we flee into those selfsame systems.

If man - and its works - is not separate from nature, then there we would face horrible responsibility for our tools and our impact on the world.

Humankind never Fell. We *want* to have fallen, though, so as to not deal with the responsibility and ramifications of our choices.

[wolven.livejournal.com]

Wow. Very nice. Completely agree.