In Which Jung prewrites AtD's epigraph

[Bled Welder]

Yes archetypes do seem to be a more sopisticated civilized artistic palatable fancypants terminology for instincts.

Id like to hear some greater distinctions between archetypes and instincts than any ive made to myself of recent, other than to dream of them as more human than a mouses instincts.

Isnt it the amygdila where our archetypes lie? And wouldnt Jung be proud to learn this? Surely any sprit he spoke of was physical--

-----Original Message-----

From: David Morris
Sent: 14 Mar 2012 19:45:43 GMT
To: Ian Livingston
Cc: Mark Kohut,pynchon -l
Subject: Re: In Which Jung prewrites AtD's epigraph

Jung's biggest liability was/is his acceptance of a realm that most
would call "spiritual," which immediately denied him (in some eyes)
the right to claim anything he "observed" as scientific.  Freud
couched his theories as based on scientific observation, and Jung
threatened to taint Freud as a quack by association.

I bought my wife (& myself) Jung's Red Book when it was published.
Jung was a great visual artist also.  Again, his family kept the Red
Book hidden for many years for fear that it would discredit his work.

If nothing else, Jung was bold.  And his search into archetypes that
cut across all cultures looking for a universal language of the
subconscious was bound to bear rich artistic paydirt, useful for the
ages.

For me it is easy to reconcile science with Jung's theory of
archetypes.  Everybody, including infants and animals dream.  I think
of human archetypes as the equivalent of animals' insticnts.  Some of
us forget that we are animals.  We should have instincts at least as
rich as those of other animals.

David Morris

On Wed, Mar 14, 2012 at 10:44 AM, Ian Livingston
<igrlivingston at gmail.com> wrote:
> Jung plays prominently throughout Pynchon's opus. Think especially of
> all the varieties of light in M&D. Some like to minimize his influence
> on P., but the multitudinous allusions to J's work render dismissal
> petty. It's easy to dislike Jung not only based on the overblown
> industry of psychoanalysis in the last half of the 20th C (and Freud
> on the same account), but also because of New Agers popularization of
> a few of his more accessible ideas. That's just unfortunate. Some of
> P's most generous metaphors find their lights in Jung.
>
> But the literary Everybody seems to love Freud. Maybe that's because
> he was so wrong about people, maybe it's because he smoked big cigars
> and suffered sexual obsessions. "No one is smart enough to be wrong
> all the time," so especially the most verbose may accidentally present
> a useful idea. That certainly fits both Freud and Jung. Maybe Jung
> just gets more readily dismissed because of his role in pop culture,
> but that's precisely why I think P both embraces and lampoons both of
> the analysis biggies.
>
> Btw, while Freud's ideas are mostly absent from current trends in
> psychology, a number of the tools Jung developed remain in play,
> evolving as more information comes to light.
>
> Just settling into a read of Spinoza. I've already begun to suspect
> links there, too.