The Undiscovered Self — What we miss about ourselves

For about a whole week, a book by C.G.Jung has been percolating in my head. I read the “The Undiscovered Self” and inside my head, thoughts were wizzing past at a speed that I was not able to comprehend and before I could hang on to a thought and look at more closely, it was at risk of disappearing. And as I have observed from experience, writing out the spaghetti of thoughts snuggled tight in my cranium always makes for a better understanding of the same and simultaneously allows me to read as I write and make sense of what it is that I really think of it. It is therefore likely that in reading this you will be simply following me on my thought train. Feel free to get off where you like — no charge ;)

What the book is about -

The Undiscovered self is so blatantly simple in its premise and yet so profoundly impactful that any attempt made to rationally dissect it will be met with frustration. And this is more of a reminder to myself and those reading this and those that have read the actual work that reason can only go so far as to guide a seeker in his/her path. The rest must be met with understanding. What I am trying to lay across is that Science and the Statistical approach falls short when studying the self. The reason is that statistics tries to somehow lay across an “overall” sketch of the personality of a human. It would be a nightmare for Science to be able to sketch out or even pretend to sketch out the Invidual Self and the myriad of thoughts, feelings and perceptions that go with it — that is what Jung has termed as “Knowledge”. Our knowledge and the approach tied with it has reduced the Individual to nothing more than a cog in a gear system that is identical to the other gears. It has removed the effect of the extremeties, finding it satisfactory to live in the delusion that aggregations can do justice to the pursuit of understanding the Self. It has conveniently made the assumption that a generalization of human tendencies will do. However, we already know this to be un-true as our experiences as Indviduals and how we manifest ourselves means that there is more than just the Collective. And this is what Jung as termed as “Understanding”. Thus, any endeavour to decode psychological treatise has to be met with both knowledge (which is the backbone of the reality that we see and an aggregation of the various expressions of the individual’s experience ) and understanding (what we know to be our take as an individual, i.e. what we derive from a singular experience).

In so far as our pysche is able to understand there is a nuance and both are poles apart, we are able to see how this is helpful. But the thesis is that Modern Society has made it a zero sum game. And this has happened over time.

The Self -

In the book, Jung explores the idea of the Individual slowly losing his/her grip on the “Self” and succumbing to the collective. He talks about how 2 various tracts of history have exploited this — Religion and the State. Slowly but steadily, the identity of the Individual and the unconscious has been stripped off of its validity and the idea that statistics and averages can in some way determine the behaviour, personality and the idiosyncracies of the Individual has been perpetrated. Where Religion did this by organizing itself into a collective and ensuring those who seek refuge under its tutelage will find the answer to various difficulties that life throws at them, the State has done this by adopting a structure that is more than happy to homoegenize differences across various strata and absolving people of their duty to critically evaluate, indivdually assess and act accordingly. It is of no surprise then, that the much of the world remains so visibly confused between what their Individual selves think and feel and that what the Collective thinks and feels.

The first blow is the grouping of people based on a certain set of codes and principles that are to be mutually understood and followed in order to be part of the group. Both Religion and State perpetuate this simple pre-requisite. And as a consequence of years of structural mode of thinking, we have accepted the idea that what many think must be true, and what many strive for must be also worthy to strive for. Second, is robbing of the ability to think or function in a way that is commensurate with the pecularity that is fundamental to every human, the responsbility of thought, action (in the case of the State) and faith (in the case of religion) has been slowly shifted towards the structure itself. This renders the Individual a mere recepient of answers from the State and Religion. How is this harmful, one may ask.

The fallacy that precludes this behaviour is that Religion or the State is a living, breathing and thriving organism capable of conducting dialogue with the humans of society. We know, however, on cursory glance that this is foolhardy. Both are constructs of humans — the only real entity here being in the case of Religion — the people who carry the torch of dissemenating its contents and in the case of the State — the people who comprise it. In both cases an invite is made to the potential joinee in the form of answers and thoughts, and demanding in return the abandonment of the pecularity and indviduality of thought. This then leads to formation of collectives, all of which follow the intrisic belief that the problem lies outside the confines of the collective thereby also robbing the Individual the chance to figure out if this is indeed true. The question almost never points inwards or even suggests that it is the Indivudals who make up Society and not the other way round. In so far as the reader is naïve to believe that all an Individual is, is the reflection of their society, then I persuade them to take that thought further and ask themselves what is it then, that separates them from other inhabitants of the Collective. If the answer is that there is nothing to set them apart then the conclusion is rather stark and one of ghastly implication — every Individual is merely a reflection of society and there is nothing apart from the consciousness that results from the society to identify the inhabitants by. If the answer is that there is a collective consciousness at a certain level and still under it is the Individual’s identity, then it stands true that any sort of statistical representation of the Individual is not whole. The Collective therefore is no more a representation of each of its inhabitants and their idiosynracies but a statistical perversity that “ averages out” the Individual.

Where the Individual who has delved deeper falls short in front of the mass mentality is the sheer fervour and tenacity with which the latter pursues its goal. The Individual does not stand a chance because they do not have the backing of a Collective. Neither do they have the blind belief that the Collective has in what it deems to be the truth and the identity of the human. The sheer dichotomy of the Conscious and Unconsicous mind eliminates any “final conclusion”. Therefore, as Jung says

Resistance to the organized mass can be affected only by the man who is as well organized in his individuality as the mass itself.

Humankind has certainly received a boon and a bane. In so far as we are different from other animals where instinct is the primary driver of their behvaiour, we on the other hand are caught in a capricious dance between our instincts and what we can call our ability to reason and learn — our consciousness. However, this separation also means that inevitably, a choice has to be made when acting — instinctual or driven by reason. But, since our learning capacity is dependent on the surroundings and how it is shaped, an Individual tries to reconcile with the external world, trying to place themselves in the puzzle. In doing so, any instinctual nature is lost. However, nature has, and will always find its way. With the fervour that individuality and idiosyncracy has been squeezed out in order to achieve the averaged society, the conflicting nature of that with the Collective will appear with the same fervour.

My points of contention-

Time and again, we observe that purporting a certain theory has the effect on people that person presenting that view is only capable of supporting that view and thus, must be against any counter-view. In this case, I can already foresee that people who stay rooted in statistical and observable evidence will take offense with the theory that Science and Rationale alone cannot do the job — and might mistake it for me saying that Science and Rationale is pointless. It is actually quiet useful and here I must present certain logical loopholes in Jung’s assessment that I observed.

Collectives, though unable to reflect the true personality and beliefs of the Individual is not in vain. Statistical observance only lays out the fact that a majority of people belonging to a certain collective have certain statistically observed tendencies. What these tendencies mean and what their implications are, is in no way directly derived from the fact that these differences exist. The fallacy that often follows from this line of reasoning is that existence of differences directly co-relate to superiority and inferiority. This is the line of reasoning used by people and by organisations that are comprised of people who wish to use differences in collectives as reason for classification that is derogatory. It is also the same line of reasoning that is used in order to simply assign an Individual possessing certain characteristics of the Collective as a member of the collective. But these are the perverse uses of the evidence that differences exist and how logic and rationale are used to advance emotionally charged sentiment. In this regard I must admit Science and Rationale must exercise more rigour and delicateness in their observations so as to not expose such logical inferences to emotional derivation.

Therefore, the balance between the Indvidual and Collective is a delicate one. Though collectives do exist and have rationale behind the differentiation, Individual Selves also exist which are useful in determing for the Individual himself/herself how they view themselves in respect to the collective they belong to. For our own sake, that is the person reading this, we must recognize that our true Self is only recognized when we remove ourselves from ideologies that have defined our conscious behaviour. We must question our suppositions, not succumb to mass identity and refute ideologies from collectives that aim for us to follow certain rules and dogmas if we are to be part of the collective. In the same breath, we must understand that we have both collective and individual identities and presence of one does not negate the presence of the other.

Working towards my raison d’être,

Praveen Sridharan.