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When a society turns sick, we look for a collective fix — but that very search, this lecture from Academy of Ideas argues, only feeds the mass-mindedness we are trying to escape. Drawing on Carl Jung, it offers a deeper answer: real change begins with the individual. The ‘achievement of personality’ — following your inner call of vocation and conscience — frees you from the herd and builds the strength of character a free world needs. Healing, in this view, is not top-down; it spreads from the inside out, one awakened person at a time. As Jung put it, the individual is the makeweight that tips the scales.
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members anxiously we look around for collective measures thereby reinforcing the very mass
mindedness we want to fight against there’s only one remedy for the leveling effect of
all collective measures and this is to emphasize and increase the value of the individual we live
in an age where two visions of the world are colliding. On the one hand, there is the vision
of freedom. In this vision we have the autonomy to shape our own life and to live in accordance
with our own goals. Where the vision of freedom reigns, the rule of law is not an arbitrary
expression of state power, but is shaped around the ideal that we may live as we wish so long
as we do not aggress against the person or property of another. Freedom is the right
to live as we wish, said Epictetus. Nothing else. The vision of freedom is clashing with
what the American economist Thomas Sowell has termed the vision of the anointed.
In this vision the global population is to be divided into two classes, the rulers and
the ruled.
The rulers consist of politicians, high-level bureaucrats, crony capitalists, select members
of the scientific community and the mainstream media.
These individuals conceive of themselves, in the words of Sowell, as an anointed elite,
a people with a mission to lead others in one way or another toward what they conceive
as better lives. The ruled, in this vision, are not to be granted the autonomy to control their
own lives, but are to be watched, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-ridden, regulated,
penned up, indoctrinated, preached at, checked, appraised, seized, censored, and commanded in
every realm of life, so that the anointed class can attempt to actualize their idea of a brave
new world. This video is written for those who still value freedom and who do not wish to be
pawns in the dark-twisted fantasy of a power-hungry ruling class.
Relying on the insights of Carl Jung, we are going to explore how positive social change,
in the direction of a freer world, can be effectuated by individuals striving for what
Jung called the achievement of personality.
For as Jung notes, when a world is hurtling toward authoritarian or totalitarian rule,
such problems are never solved by legislation or by tricks, they are solved only by a general
change of attitude. And the change does not begin with propaganda in mass meetings or
with violence. It begins with a change in individuals. It will continue as a transformation
of their personal likes and dislikes, of their outlook on life and of their values, and only
the accumulation of these individual changes will produce a collective solution.
This solution can ring hollow and feel disheartening. For if we must wait around for individuals
to change, will we not be waiting a lifetime? Is there not a quicker means to stop the rise
of authoritarianism? But when it is understood what Jung meant by the achievement of personality,
we will see that this solution is more powerful than at first it might appear and Jung was
not alone in this belief. For as Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote,
The antidote to this abuse of formal government is, the influence of private character, the
growth of the individual. So what is the growth of the individual or the achievement of personality?
According to Jung, it is the optimum development of the whole individual human being.
It is, in other words, to self-actualize, to realize one’s potential,
and to transcend one’s current limitations in pursuit of greater possibilities.
It is impossible to foresee the endless variety of conditions that have to be fulfilled, wrote Jung.
A whole lifetime, in all its biological, social, and spiritual aspects, is needed.
Personality is the supreme realization of the innate idiosyncrasy of a living being.
In the brevity of a human life, we can only ever approach the ideal of completely actualizing our potential.
But as Jung points out, unattainability is no argument against the ideal.
For ideals are only signposts, never the goal.
When we make progress toward this ideal, we cease being an ordinary member of the great mass of conformists
and become, in the words of Jung, extraordinary.
But what, asks Jung, induces a man to go his own way and to rise out of unconscious identity
with the mass?
What is it that tips the scales in favor of the extraordinary?
Achievement of personality is attained not merely by setting the goal to self-actualize.
Rather integral to this process is the possession of a vocation.
A vocation, as Jung explains, is the crucial factor that destines a man to emancipate himself
from the herd and from its well-worn paths. To be in possession of a vocation means to turn within
and listen to the call of conscience in order to discover our purpose or life’s mission. For as
Jung explains, our conscience is the inner voice that provides us with a special form of knowledge
or certainty about the emotional value of the ideas we have concerning the motives of our actions.
The call of conscience might direct us in the pursuit of a bold goal, the furtherance of a
cause or the defense of cherished values, and as Viktor Frankl writes, only to the extent to which
a man commits himself to the fulfillment of his life’s meaning, i.e. his vocation, to this extent
he also actualizes himself. In other words, self-actualization cannot be attained if it is
made an end in itself, but only as a side effect of the self-transcendence that is guided by a
vocation. If we discover our vocation and use it to guide us in the achievement of personality,
how does this help defeat the totalitarian aspirations of the anointed class and bring
freedom to an unfree world? How does going our own way and spurring conformity in favor of following
what Jung called the law of our own being help cure the sickness of our society? Or as Jung asks,
what has the individual personality to do with the plight of the many? Firstly, the state of a
society is dependent on the health or sickness and strength or weakness of the individuals that
compose it. If a society is composed of mainly weak, passive, neurotic, and cowardly individuals,
then it is easily manipulated and controlled by a ruling class. A society that is to be free,
and a society that is to flourish, must consist of more individuals, in the words of the historians
Will and Ariel Durant, with clarity of mind and energy of will, capable of effective responses
to new situations. Or as Nietzsche wrote, the self-reliant, independent, unprejudiced men
are the pillars of a strong civilization. These traits are promoted by the achievement of
personality. But with this increased strength of character comes an increased appetite for freedom,
for it is weak individuals with a little going in life who desire paternalistic or authoritarian
government. And as Jung wrote, it is perhaps a humiliating sign of spiritual immaturity that
modern man needs, and wants, a large measure of authority. Those in possession of a vocation
quickly discover that they are far better equipped to be the masters of their destinies
than is any bureaucrat or politician. In addition to creating the type of individuals needed for a
flourishing society, the achievement of personality can also spark an organic movement in defense of
freedom. To understand how this occurs, we will contrast how the call of conscience differs at
times when freedom reigns versus times when a society is flirting with authoritarian or
full-blown totalitarian rule. In a free society, the call of conscience will direct people down
many different paths. Some will be called to vocations in the arts, sciences, philosophy,
or politics. Others will build businesses. Some will gravitate in the direction of sports,
entertainment, or adventure, while still others will adopt more personal vocations such as
creating a strong family. This great variety of vocational pursuits increases the number of things
tried and so helps a culture develop and a civilization advance. But when freedom recedes
and with it life’s opportunities, the call of conscience can act as a harmonizing force,
directing people toward vocations that defend freedom, for we are not suited to live in the
sickness of total government control and so feel naturally averse to its emergence. So long as we
not been stripped of our desire to live, we instinctively will seek ways to escape from
this pathological form of rule. At first it is only an intrepid few who recognize the gravity
of the situation and so are called to vocations that defend freedom. These individuals, in the
words of Jung, are called awake by the summons of the voice of conscience, whereupon they are
at once set apart from the others, feeling themselves confronted with a problem about
which the others know nothing. As the distorted nature of the vision of the anointed becomes more
obvious, the call of conscience directing people toward vocations that can help freedom prevail
reaches a louder pitch. Deep down, below the surface of the average man’s conscience,
writes Jung, he hears a voice whispering, there is something not right. This call orients people
around what Soren Kierkegaard called a third, or what amounts to the shared vocation of healing
a sick world. In mutually committing ourselves to a shared vocation, transcending ourselves
in dedication toward it, we help to realize it in ourselves and each other. We form a team
devoted to a shared cause. The shared object of passion is the third in a relationship,
the idea that strongly binds two or more individuals. An organic movement composed
of men and women who are bound together by the idea or third of freedom is what is needed to
counteract the forward march of the vision of the anointed. For only power can thwart power,
and the vision of the anointed is backed by immense institutional and financial power.
But the vision of freedom can be backed by an even greater power, the power of individuals
possessed by a vocation and united in pursuit of a shared cause. For correcting the social
ills of our day will not come from the top down. It will not be done by government. It will come
from the choices that we make as individuals and the spontaneous orders that emerge as a result.
If our conscience is telling us something is not right, and that we need to take action
in defense of freedom, should we heed this call?
What is the alternative?
Wait around for a political savior to fix a thoroughly corrupt system?
Obey and conform in the deluded belief that the anointed class has our best interests
at heart?
Do nothing but criticize others and lament over the state of the world?
These alternatives are for the weak and the lazy.
So much is at stake, writes Jung, and so much depends on the psychological constitution of
modern man. Is he conscious of the path he is treading? And what the conclusions are that
must be drawn from the present world situation and his own psychic situation? Does he realize
what lies in store should this catastrophe ever befall him? Is he even capable of realizing that
this would in fact be a catastrophe? And finally, does the individual know that he is the makeweight
that tips the scales? Learn more about our membership,
Source: Academy of Ideas