Jung on the morality of the Self

[David Guyatt]

The question of morality:

Jung on the moral Self

Jung and the moral self


NEIL PEMBROKE


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All of us have a dark side'. It is that area of our personality that is characterised by morally inadequate traits and tendencies. Jung calls this side the shadow, and he is very aware of the importance of facing it. That which gets repressed has a way of being projected onto others. When this happens, our moral inadequacies appear on the face of the other. The shadow is made up primarily of what Jung calls inferiorities'. These inferiorities', Jung (1978) says, have an emotional nature, a kind of autonomy, and accordingly an obsessive or, better, possessive quality' (p. 8). Here, then, is the danger associated with the shadow. A person can become a passive victim of his unconscious emotional life. Salvation' comes through self-awareness. But of course this dark self is exceedingly difficult to get in touch with. To acknowledge our inferiorities is to experience a heavy assault on our self-esteem.


Consequently, the shadow self is very often disowned. And when it is disowned, it is projected onto others. Projections change the world into the replica of one's unknown face' (Jung, 1978, p. 9). In times gone by, the projection was aimed at the person of the Devil, but when most people became happy to consign him to the realm of mythology, human targets were established. Jung (1971) puts it this way:


The meeting with ourselves is one of the more unpleasant things that may be avoided as long as we possess living symbolic figures into which everything unknown in ourselves is projected. The figure of the devil, in particular, is a most valuable possession and a great convenience, for as long as he goes about outside in the form of a roaring lion we know where the evil lurks: in that incarnate Old Harry where it has been in this or that form since primeval times. With the rise of consciousness since the Middle Ages he has been considerably reduced in stature, but in his stead there are human beings to whom we gratefully surrender our shadows. With what pleasure, for instance, we read newspaper reports of crime! A bona fide criminal becomes a popular figure because he unburdens in no small degree the conscience of his fellow men, for now they know once more where the evil is to be found (pp. 238-239).

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