It is difficult for me to steer clear of idealizing Jung. Ironically, some balance can be found in his personal life which is riddled with questionable moral and ethical behavior. That aside, the question to depth psychologists: Where do you think Jung went wrong in his work? Where do you disagree with him? What argument might you have with him? (Please do not send hate mail!)
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I think it is easy to idealize Jung, because of his original genius. Perhaps it is the philosopher in me as much as the analyst-in-training who can nonetheless be both admiring but critical of Jung's approaches to many things. But that criticism is not usually a criticism of what he saw but a criticism of how he sometimes overstated -- or seemed to overstate -- the insights he had attained. That is to say: sometimes an insight is true but treated as more universal than it actually deserves. Jung I think is highly susceptible to this. For example, the idea that we need to maintain a "tension of opposites" is a very insightful point and also central, just by way of example, to Plato's philosophy. On the other hand, some things are not reducible to two opposites but require more options that just two. How do you maintain a tension then?
A different issue is how he sometimes confused depth and introversion. His introductions to Eastern philosophical texts are good examples. At times he seems to have conflated the introversion-extraversion distinction with a depth-superficiality distinction, as if interiority = depth and exteriority = superficiality. On that model, every navel-gazing, narcissistic introvert has to be assumed to be "deep" and every extravert, just by virtue of being extraverted has to be assumed to be superficial. That is of course not his intention, but if you read those texts, you can see he conflates the two.
I tend to think Jung was not a thinking type but an amazingly gifted intuitive who, when he tried to act or write as a thinking type, fell away from his original intuitive base, at least at times. I don't think the less of him for this, of course, because he is a human being, not a demigod. But I do think that recognizing these points also helps free us from the idealization that so easily enters into our sense of Jung.
Thanks you John for your insightful comments. I very much agree with you. Perhaps Jung's singular set of opposites derives from the Tao, but there yin/yang are not fixed poles but rather dynamic positions. I would also like to add, as Hillman points out, when opposites move toward one another and seemingly integrate, it is not to say that the new form is especially a positive result. This is the monstrum, the false coniunctio. I mention this because Jung seems to put a highly positive, even transcendent value on such integration; another example, if I am correct, of his tendency to inflate his concepts.
John,
Thanks for mentioning Jung's tendency to lean towards a dualistic perspective. This has also been a problem in some of his writing for me as well. However, the tension can still be there. Pardon the image but one can be drawn and quartered by four horses as well as two.
Ed
Ed,
Yes, certainly the tension can still be there. Often, however, when the terms are more multiple than two, it is not a single tension but a set or sets of tensions playing off of each other. The dualistic tendency, while trying to avoid reductionism, sometimes turns into that unwittingly. I don't consider this a major weakness in Jung, incidentally, largely because I think Jung introduces ways of resolving the aporias he himself produces.
John
Thanks David for your interesting response.While I appreciate your suggestion, it would not be very contrarian if I framed the question in the positive. Be that as it may, I too can appreciate the paradoxicality of Jung's psychologdy, how it, like a symbol, moves us to a transcendant position - something entirely unutterable. Yet, aren't we pushing the limits here between psychology and mysticism? Despite his continual assertion that he was a scientist, it is difficult to ignore his mystical pursuits. While recognizing his genius I don't think we should shy away from constructive criticism - that is not hubris, but something Jung embraced in his life. On that note, I would have liked a better conclusion to his relationship with Freud. What would a rapproachment might have looked like had they found a way to resolve their differences.I would like a better understanding of his personal view of women. Forcing his wife and Toni to appear with him must have been hell for these women. Playing his "shadow game" with his colleagues also seems a bit sadistic. (these last details can be found in Blaris biography.)
I guess my response was contrarian to your question and...... the ball is now rolling.
Jung's personality and authoritarian style may have reflected the hubris of the culture in which he lived. One of the gifts of the Jungian approach to life for me has been to feel comfortable with imperfection and incompleteness. I see myself as more of a mystic than scientist these days and often think that much criticism is best left unuttered as it nearly always points at my own inadequacies which keep me busy enough.
Both Freud and Jung were flawed human beings and what a debt we owe to them both. I agree that we should not shy away from constructive criticism yet I would see much of it as personal bias or at its best, new and valid possibilities to explore creatively.
Not wishing to stretch phenomenology to its breaking point (but doing it anyway), it seems that what is experienced by one person as a result of his/her psychology can be the same as another's mystical experience as long as the resulting consciousness of the event (if not the event itself) has altered the individual's on-going meaning-making. An example is Jung's handling of the concept soul as it becomes psyche or anima in his writings. I realize that Jung may have been working out his own complexes resulting from his family background and the context of the Christian religion of his time, but I find his use of the term soul quite confusing. Yet this has allowed me a window for my research.
As to considering his personal life in relation to his findings, I will not be first in line to have my personal life used as a primary means of evaluating what offerings, no matter how small, I have made or will make to society.
Ed
Ed, I couldn't agree more. In order not to get carried away by moralistic judgements here (and who's strong enough to resist the temptation?) we should constantly be drawing a fine line between Jung's work and his so-called "biography". As for the former, I've always been bothered by the way his 'individuation" concept can keep us both stuck in a delusion of "ongoing spiritual progress" as well as paralysed by the fear of deviating from "the right path"
I think you may have more responses if you ask "what is it that you appreciate most about Jung?" Then you could look more carefully at what areas of his work people choose not to mention. This could then serve as a field of enquiry for constructive criticism.
I would say Jung awakened me to a living experience of paradox and that I have not been the same since. I can't think of anyone who has had a more profound influence on my life. His fallibility makes him more accessible as a mentor for me.
When I try to find fault in his work I am paralysed by a sense of hubris. I have spent much of my life trying to climb out from under the massive presence of this one man.
I hope this gets the ball rolling.
David O'Rose