medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Richard Landes <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>i'm at something of a loss to see how Jung's relationship to the nazis --or
even, in and of itself, the supposed "origins" of his archetypical theory in
"occultist" [meaning what, eggsactly, alchemy?]
> theosophy, primarily. a sort of modern restoration of the spiritual via
spiritual science, much of it culled from indian philosophies.
still don't see how it
> > --has much at all to do with either the validity or the utility of his
ideas.
> these were the ideas that made him susceptible to the call of a racial movt
based on a racial collective uncs.
o.k.
accepting that, for the moment, my question is : what does it have to do with
either the validity or the utility of his ideas?
> > surely they must stand or fall on their own legs, just as Heidigger's
phenomenology --or Spengler's "Morphology of Cultures" idea-- does/do/did.
> what stands or doesn't is, acc to us pomos,
speak for yourself.
>in significant part a function of the hegemonic discourse.
whatever.
> many people avoided jung because it [sic] was tarred by the association with
nazis.
and what does *that* have to do with either the validity or the utility of his
ideas?
seems like we're getting farther from the Center, here, in our hegemonic
discourse.
>does that mean that his ideas are useless? i personally don't think so at
all. i prefer to tell people to use with caution rather than forbid.
certainly caution is called for, as with any broadly "synthetic" conceptual
system of thought.
i'd council the same thing re Spengler's.
or, with Heidigger, if i knew the slightest thing about his ideas.
but, not because it may have been created by a guy who may have been a
hard-core, card-carrying, jew-gassing, 1927-Putsching,
Intellectually-Nazi-Justifying moron.
which characterisation does not, i assume we can agree, apply to Jung.
the validity of Jung's ideas on Alchemy, Mythology, Gnosticism, Flying
Saucers, or whatever, have no more to do with his pro-Nazi sympathies than
does the color of his hair.
>but this is surely worth knowing about. if any ideas need to be
contextualized in the personal experience and behavior of the thinker, i wd
have thought psychological ones deserved that treatment above all.
totally disagree.
his ideas about the fundamental nature of Alchemy, etc. have no thing at all
to do with whatever the Theosophical origins of them might --or might not--
have been.
Madame Blavatsky could have been a scatter-brained Victorian, but that informs
us not in the slightest reguarding either the validity or the utility of
Jung's ideas.
any more --or less-- than his National Socialist sympathies.
it's rather like accepting the theory of the racial (and intellectual)
inferiority of the Jews and then saying that we have to take that into
consideration when we are considering either the validity or the utility of
Einstein's ideas.
or, tossing out all of Genetic Theory because the Nazis dreadfully abused it.
>"standing or falling on their own legs" is a rather positivist formulation
whatever.
what does *that* have to do with either the validity or the utility of his
ideas?
>for ideas, as if they were autonomous, and not part of a conversation.
i thought it was a "hegemonic discourse", not a "conversation".
> >lots of otherwise seemingly sane folks were "seduced by the power of
national socialism", especially in the beginning, and, while this may say
something about their naiveté --or even their morality-- it does not
*necessarily* tell us much about the value or validity of their theories,
especially in fields other than politics, as far as i can see.
> i disagree. the deeper and higher you go (and jung certainly went very
high, at least in his pretensions), the more responsible you are for not
perceiving the problem.
not a question of his "responsibility for not perceiving the problem".
what does *that* have to do with either the validity or the utility of his
ideas?
i guess i'm not phrasing that question in a sufficiently hegemonically
discursive fashion.
or something.
>anyone with jung's immense self-awareness and awareness of the motivations of
others, who cd be fooled by hitler deserves the egg on his beard.
as an ad hominem judgement, i would probably agree, if i knew a bit more about
his pro-N.S. sympathies.
but, what does *that* have to do with either the validity or the utility of
his ideas?
>jung was capable ex post defectu of immensely perceptive remarks about
hitler's megalomania. not to have seen it at the time says volumes on his
ability for self-indulgent self-deception..
o.k., he was self-indulgently self-deceptive.
unlike any of us.
but, what does *that* have to do with either the validity or the utility of
his ideas?
>but hey, as dennis miller says, that's just my take. i may be wrong.
well, the *old* Dennis Miller would say that, but the *new*, "conservative"
D.M. certainly wouldn't.
how could he be wrong?
that would make him an EvilDooer, wouldn't it?
> > >but generally, western positivists feel uncomfortable when people start
talking about the contents of the psyche as objectively real.
is it necessary to treat "the contents of the psyche" in the same way as a
middlevil Realist treated Universals? (i assume that we may say that they
thought that U.s were "objectively real".)
> no. but it might be interesting to compare jung's work with that of the
realists.
seems like you get to mucking around with concepts like "archetypes" and
you're already pretty far down the Slippery Slope to Realism.
however, what *that* has to do with either the validity or the utility of his
ideas is for you, not i, to say.
>someone's probably already done that.
that, or perished in the akademical whirled.
>i find jung's work much more grounded in dreams than the realist
philosophers.
?
certainly he didn't *start* from a Philosophical Realism and then apply that
to, say, dreams.
or, did he.
but, what does *that* have to do with either the validity or the utility of
his ideas?
>nonetheless, there's something platonic about jung,
absolutely.
>something that slides over to a kind of gnosticism.
certainly one of his major interests.
> >i'm not up on my Jung in any detail at all, but does *he* speak of "the
contents of the psyche as objectively real"?
> yes. in his discussion of his conversations with a psychic guru whom he
meets in dreams in Memories Dreams and Reflections, which i just read, but
can't find right now.
missed that part.
liked the bit about his surviving his heart attack --at the expense of his
doctor.
which i took him to suggest was a "real" experience: leaving his body on the
operating table, floating up above it and looking down upon the scene, his doc
(as "an Avatar of Kos" --i love it) comming to him and convincing him that it
wasn't time for him to go, yet, convincing him to come back into his body.
then his doc getting sicker and dying as he himself got well...
>the "big lesson" of this experience is "the objective reality of the psychic
experience", a central insight of jungian psychology and the bedrock of claims
about the collective uncs.
butbut, does he *really* mean it?
i have always considered that he meant the heart attack experience i mentioned
to have been an "objectively real" one.
to go from that to the "objective reality" of, say, The Anima --independent of
any particular physical manifestion of it/her on this plane-- is something of
a leap.
and, i submit, not particularly relevant to the burning question of what
*that* has to do with either the validity or the utility of his ideas.
> >well, some might say that the "post-modernists" deserve to be given the
same "F-word" treatment as my illustrious Vice Prezziedint used on the floor
of the Senate of the United States of America last week.
> cute, but i prefer my criticisms to be useful.
it needed to be said, and i'm glad i said it.
Post-Modernism Sucks.
take it to the Bank.
Bogus B.S.
>>does Noll suggest that Jung's ideas about archetypes are invalidated by his
"seduction by the power of national socialism" ?
> i'd put it differently. did his ideas on archetypes make him suggestible to
a kind of Nietzshcean reading of xnty (into which judaism is subsumed) that
characterized hitler's prophetic discourse? yes, he does think that,
o.k., but, what does *that* have to do with either the validity or the utility
of his ideas?
> and so do i.
whatever.
> >best from here, and waiting to hear,
> >
> >christopher
still.
c
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