We are in trouble

We are in trouble!

When I say we I refer to the individual and society as a whole. (What is written here will hurt and be rejected by many because it hurts.)

In reading Jung, the bible, watching and really looking at what is in the news, I come to a stark and sobering observation.

In reading Jung and his works the concepts of the unconscious, collective unconscious, ego and mask are expounded in great detail. These being the major components composing the individual psyche. But he made a statement at one point and I quote:

"(The feeling of universal validity comes, of course from the universality of the collective psyche.) A collective attitude presupposes this same collective psyche in others. But this means a ruthless disregard not only of individual difference but also of differences of a more general kind within the collective psyche itself, as for an example the difference of race."

The above statement seems harmless at first glance, as it points out the intolerance we see in the world. (Which is self-evident.) Yet it is the statement of a broader problem with society.

That society being made up of individual cells (individuals), just as the individual is made up of cells, has it's psyche (mind), and therefore personality. This personality being an average of the personalities of the individuals that compose it. A society has a distinctive personality.

With the integration of the world societies this will ultimately lead to a single social entity. As opposed to the multiple personalities thus presented in the separate societies composed of countries and different cultures. Our information and media technologies are even now quickly becoming the web and nervous system of this creation. This may appear to be a good thing, but a close an objective analysis will show this is not.

We see in our world consequences of this, in the crushing and extinction of morality and spirituality in the individual.

Oh God! This is difficult to explain and its implications on one hand are horrendous! Not hopeless, but its solution at present I cannot clearly see. But I clearly perceive the critical mass condition of the growing problem.

As society becomes more uniform and one personality (so to speak) this will cause the same thing that we see in our individual psyches. The repression of that which we find objectionable in ourselves. For society this will mean more and more regulation of the individual and ultimately a ruthless disregard of individual differences from the norm represented by the societies collective psyche.

This disregard for individuality obviously means the repression (the suffocation) of the single individual, as a consequence of which the element of differentiation will be obliterated, from the community.

The element of differentiation is the individual. Ones individuality.

All the highest achievements of value of virtue, as well as the blackest villainies, are individual.

The larger the community is, and the more the sum total of its collective factors peculiar to it (to this large community) the conservative prejudices it rests upon will determine what it considers, individual and therefore objectionable, an this will be suppressed. Which will be detrimental to individuality, and therefore the more the individuals morality and spirituality will be crushed.

At the moment we are still various groups of individuality reflected by our country and culture. This forces us as individuals and societies to be tolerant and attempt understanding of these differences. Yet even in this the individual senses a threat to its individuality as ones society attempt to submerge the individual, currently this gives rise to expression in the form of blatant non-conformity. (Look at the young people of to day, and even more look at the older ones who in time rise out of non-conformity to express the individuality within them.)

But I see the eventual integration and then the social psyche will suppress that which is individual and different. And when this happen the result will be that, the one source of moral and spiritual progress (individuality) will be come choked. Then the only thing that will thrive in such an atmosphere will be sociality and what is collective in the individual.

To remain a part of this sociality the individual will have everything individual in him go under, i.e. become doomed to repression. If we were not human and could tolerate this, a hive mentality would exist as a final outcome. But this for us is not possible.

For the individual elements in us cannot disappear, these individual elements of or personal psyche will instead lapse into unconsciousness, where by the law of necessity, they will become transformed into something essentially baleful, destructive, and anarchical. (we see this already in our societies.)

Socially, this evil principle shows itself in the spectacular crimes seen today perpetrated by certain individuals, (this is an explosive eruption of that which was suppressed of individuality, having become baleful and given vent in a wholly disproportionate destructiveness); but in the great mass of the community it remains in the background (we see this and click our tongues, and go tisk, tisk how sad, and remain blind as to its root cause.), and the only manifestation most notable to us is the inexorable moral degeneration of society. Jung saw this and I quote:

"It is a notorious fact the morality of society as a whole is in inverse ratio to its size; for the greater the aggregation of individuals, the more the individual factors are blunted out, and with them morality, which rests entirely on the moral sense of the individual and the freedom necessary for this."

To this I will add that the morality of society as a whole is in inverse ratio also to it's internal uniformity of its members. For the more uniform its individuals, the less morally responsible they will be on an individual level. (Wanting to be like the Jones's next door is not a good thing.)

Because of this we the individual is, in a certain sense unconsciously worse when we are in society then when acting alone; for we as individuals become carried by society and to that extent lose our sense of individual responsibility.

To be sure this is not true of some individuals, or should I say less true of some individuals. For only by careful concerted conscious observation of our actions do we see this in ourselves, and then we must measure ourselves as an individual and responsible for our actions.

Yet many do not do this, they remain unconscious and as such, they then abdicate their sense of individual responsibility. (Look at the mindset of a mob.)

The bigger the organization, the more unavoidable is its immorality and blind stupidity. Society, by automatically stressing all the collective qualities in its individual representatives, put a premium on mediocrity, on everything that settles down to vegetate in an easy, irresponsible way.

Individuality will inevitably be driven to the wall. This process begins in school, No! Before that in the conditioning children receive in front of the TV, (well is it called a boob tube), this continues in the universities where the mind is treated as a vessel to be filled, to take that as gospel and inviolate truth that which is taught. Instead of what should be done, which is the questioning of thought, the kindling of the flame of consciousness, of independent thought and critical analysis.

(Boy am on my soap box now!)

This process also rules all departments in which the State has a hand. (Note: I am not advocating anarchy.)

In the small social body, the individuality of its members is better safeguarded, and greater is their relative freedom and the possibility of conscious responsibility. Without freedom there can be no morality.

Ones admiration for great organizations dwindles when we become aware of the other side of the wonder: the tremendous piling up and accumulation of all that is primitive and destructive in man, and the unavoidable destruction of his individuality in the interest of this monstrosity that every great organization in fact is. (I have and will with this statement made many angry, those who have a vested interest in some large organization. I can only say show me my error.)

The individual of today, who resembles more or less the collective ideal, has made in his or her heart a den of murderers, though they are not conscious of it. And in so far as one is adapted to ones environment, it is true that the greatest infamy on the part of ones group will not disturb its members. (Take a look at the attitude and morality of a gang.) As long as the majority of their fellows steadfastly believe in the exalted morality of their social organization they accept blindly the group morality.

(Even holy wars are fought, the infamies of inquisition, the decimation of a small group, justified.) Not on the basis of individual responsibility and morality, but on the morality (nonexistent) of the group or large organization.

A critical mass condition is building! And if it is not vented by the scattering of society to the stars or by a leap in consciousness of all the individuals of a society as a whole, then there remains one last outcome.

Eventually a point will be reached and human nature will take hand. In so much as that which is repressed in our nature will erupt in mass, in apocalyptic proportions, on the order described in the revelation of the bible. Tragically reducing society into small-scattered groups. At which point the individual will reclaim their individual morality and spirituality and take again the responsibility for their actions, to rebuild again, with the prayer that their very nature will some how change.

In the end the only hope is for society to become aware and conscious of the necessity of the individual, so that the individual which comprises the society are aware as individuals and responsible for their actions and hold that which is moral, spiritual and free. (We need a leap in the consciousness of society.)

The three possibilities I see:

(1) The explosive apocalyptic break down of society back to small scattered communities. (Which will only start the cycle again, if our very natures do not change.)
(2) The scattering of humanity to space again into small scattered communities (Yet they will carry with them the seed which will start the cycle over again, in now not one place, but the myriad they will inhabit.)
(3) Or that our very hearts and nature must change, (a leap to the heart), where all individuals and therefore the collective personality will come into an acceptance of the totality that is in us.
Society must grownup or else it will play out a tragedy again and again.

Mark

Realized and completed: 2 June 2001.