The Plight of the Individual by Kenneth Kovacs

Among C.G. Jung’s last works was an essay known in English as “The Undiscovered Self (Present and Future).” Jung wrote this extraordinary piece in spring 1956, and it was published the following year in Zürich as Gegenwart und Zukunft (Present and Future). At the time, Europe was still grappling with the collective trauma of the World War II, and anxiety was rising about humanity’s future in an age of nuclear proliferation. The Iron Curtain, which split Europe in half, symbolized the deep divisions within humanity, both collectively and in the soul. The new power given to the State (in both liberal and conservative governments) was slowly crushing the freedom and particularity of the individual. “What will become of our civilization,” Jung asked, “and man himself, if hydrogen bombs begin to go off, or if the spiritual and moral darkness of State absolutism should spread over Europe?”

Jung’s warning in “The Undiscovered Self” centers on the danger of being absorbed by the collective. Building from this, he strives to preserve a space for the individual amidst the forces of “mass man” or “mass-mindedness”— the influence of the masses and the collective. Written nearly 70 years ago, it is still striking how Jung’s themes and concerns remain just as relevant as the question of the dignity and distinctiveness of the individual continues to be challenged. Today, we increasingly grapple with what it means to be human and how, as theologian Paul Lehmann (1906-1994) urged in Ethics in a Christian Context, “to keep human life human.” How do we preserve a space for the individual?

Jung’s essay offers his own “counterbalances” to the powers at hand, providing a prescription for these persistent ills. This relevance is why, of all Jung’s writings, I find myself returning to this piece time and again. I’m particularly looking forward to taking a deep dive into this text and discussing it with others in my upcoming reading course hosted by the Jung Society of Washington.

When an individual conforms to the collective and relinquishes moral responsibility to the crowd, they enter a precarious and dangerous psychological state. In this state, self-knowledge weakens, and the individual becomes vulnerable to collective possession. As a result, the individual is exposed to the power and overwhelming influence of tyrannical ideologies and institutions, both political and religious, which undermine the individual’s foundation and dignity.

What is required, according to Jung, is for the individual to be differentiated from the collective, to have a sense and understanding of oneself, a “self-knowledge” that is apart from or transcendent to the collective. The problem, as Jung knew all too well, is this:

Most people confuse “self-knowledge” with knowledge of their conscious ego-personalities. Anyone who has any ego-consciousness at all takes it for granted that he knows himself. But the ego knows only its own contents, not the unconscious and its contents. People measure their self-knowledge by what the average person in their social environment knows of himself, but not the real psychic facts which are for the most part hidden from them (CW 10, par.491).

The kind of self-knowledge that Jung is talking about here, the kind required to counter the influence of mass-mindedness, is a connection and relationship to the deepest wisdom and knowledge of the psyche, to the Self, the Self manifesting itself in and through an individual.

In “The Undiscovered Self,” Jung reminds us that there are resources available to counterbalance the influence of the collective, namely, the psychological transformation that one experiences throughout life in the process of individuation.  One might be surprised to see, given the deep suspicions many have toward religion, including religious institutions (often for good reasons), that Jung suggests that religion (namely, religious experience) can be a vital and effective counterbalance to the influence of the collective. In fact, a significant portion of the essay is devoted to the importance of religion and to a particular understanding of the unique role and responsibility placed upon Christianity and the Church. One of his strongest claims in the essay is particularly striking, given Jung’s aversion to making dogmatic statements or confessions. “The individual who is not anchored in God,” Jung insists, “can offer no resistance on his own resources to the psychical and moral blandishments of the world. For this, he needs the evidence of inner, transcendent experience, which alone can protect from the otherwise inevitable submersion in the mass” (CW 10, par. 511).

According to Jung, psychology offers the strongest and healthiest counterforce to the collective. His central argument is that only the individuated person truly resists mass ideology. Individuation entails confronting one’s Shadow and developing inner moral awareness, rather than blind identification with external groups. While individuation can occur within social contexts, over-identification leads to the loss of soul and freedom. When the individual is differentiated from society, one can engage with society more freely and consciously.

Preserving one’s individuality and becoming an individual are enormously difficult in a society that emphasizes socialization and conformity. I am reminded of e.e. cummings’s (1894-1962) confession in E.E. Cummings: A Miscellany Revised: “To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best day and night to make you like everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight and never stop fighting.”

A particular challenge emerges when the collective is sacralized, that is, viewed as sacred, holy, or chosen. It’s been said: Vox populi, vox Dei. “The voice of the people is the voice of God.” The majority, the collective, thus, takes on divine status. To question the majority is to question God. For an individual to stand out or apart from the crowd might feel scandalous. Sometimes that is what is required. (Throughout history, however, there are many examples where God prefers to move through the minority.)

In an early reference to this aphorism, Alcuin of York (740-804) warns Charlemagne, emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, in 798 CE: “Those people should not be listened to who keep saying the voice of the people is the voice of God, since the riotousness of the crowd is always very close to madness.” The riotousness of the crowd may be near madness, but so too can the (self)righteousness of the crowd drift toward madness. Jung warns that this madness, or “psychic infection,” is always possible when the individual is lost in the crowd, underscoring the need for differentiation.

A deep suspicion of crowds was also shared by Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855), who, like Jung, doubted the collective’s wisdom. As I read “The Undiscovered Self,” many passages resonate strongly with Kierkegaard’s philosophy. “The crowd is untruth,” Kierkegaard said in The Single Individual: Two Notes Concerning Myself as an Author. In other words, “The crowd is a lie.” Throughout his life, Kierkegaard struggled to set himself apart from the crowd and suffered for doing so. To differentiate from the collective, to pursue and follow after the truth of one’s own existence is costly, and courage is required in the face of such forces.

Kierkegaard’s internal struggle is on full display in his journals. On August 1, 1835, Kierkegaard summed up his modus vivendi, the core theme of his life. He wrote: “The thing is to find a truth which is true for me, to find the idea for which I can live and die…and I would rather have it said of me on my gravestone: “That Individual” (Journals and Notebooks, Vol. 1). Nearly 12 years later, on April 19, 1848, Kierkegaard wrote, “Now, with God’s help, I shall become myself” (Journals and Notebooks, Vol. 5).  He remained committed to the process of becoming right to the end of his life.

Like Jung, Kierkegaard’s writings have been companions on my journey for decades. Last year, I visited Copenhagen for the first time and took not one, but two Kierkegaard walking tours. Before leaving the city, I was determined to make a pilgrimage to his grave at Assistens Kirkegård (Cemetery). (“Kierkegaard” means “churchyard” or “cemetery.”) Finding his resting place was straightforward. The grave, erected in 1877, is part of a family plot. Søren’s small, upright, white stone, which incorporates features he dictated in a note from 1846, bears a poem by Hans Brorson (1694-1764), a Lutheran priest and hymnwriter, that reflects the promise of victory after earthly struggle, along with grass and roses carved in the corners. It’s a conventional stone, in many respects. Missing, however, is his requested epitaph: “That Individual.” Its absence speaks volumes.

References:

C.G. Jung, “The Undiscovered Self (Present and Future), Collected Works, Vol. 10 (Princeton University Press, 1978).

Paul Lehmann, Ethics in a Christian Context (Harper & Row, 1963).

The Transfiguration of Politics (Harper & Row, 1975).

e.e. cummings, E.E. Cummings: A Miscellany Revised (Liverlight, 2018). First published posthumously in 1958.

Søren Kierkegaard, “The Single Individual”: Two “Notes” Concerning Myself as an Author (1846-1847; pub. 1859), The Point of View for My Work as an Author, trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton University Press, 1998).

Kierkegaard, Journals and Papers, Vol. 1 & 5, trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong. (Indiana University Press, 1975).