Archetypes (compiled thread from posts at "Most common archetypes")
- Thread starter Grantywanty
- Start date
Fraggle Rocker
Staff member
Hello and welcome, Celestia.
I have always used the term to include learned elements that are common to a community. Jung's definition is very stringent and only contains elements that are truly universal in all humans. I think it's useful to add to those the rules that have been superimposed by community experience. For example, When on foot, I notice that Americans unconsciously walk to the right, because we have internalized the rules of the highway and made them part of our unconscious. I see British and Japanese people walking to the left because their driving rules are the opposite of ours. This is not an archetype because it is not a preprogrammed synapse inherited from our ancestors, yet it does become part of the collective unconscious.
Our dreams have also been infiltrated by metaphors that are learned rather than inherited. I'm not the only person who has dreamed of driving a car, pressing on the brake pedal, and discovering that the car does not slow down. This is a metaphor for a life that is out of control in some way, and it is one that is in the unconscious of the hundreds of millions of people who have been operating automobiles since they were in their formative years of adolescence. But not in the unconscious of a Bushman from the Kalahari. I see nothing wrong in calling this an extension of the collective unconscious so long as we recognize the source.
You speak of the personal unconscious and you include these elements in it. However, I believe that it is useful to recognize an intermediate, community level of collectivity. In fact, it can be helpful in debunking the claims of the religionists, whose archetypes have no basis in empirical reality. Many religious archetypes have long outlived their positive contribution to humanity and have become atavistic impulses that must now be overcome, such as the Abrahamic reinforcement of the pack-social or "tribal" instinct of our Mesolithic ancestors and their gorilla and chimpanzee cousins. So long as people continue to believe there is as much "truth" in the ten-million-year-old instinct to maintain a tribal order in society as there is in the need to maintain lane discipline on the highway, civilization will continue to emulate chimpanzee culture and erupt into warfare.
BTW, it would be a courtesy to stick to the standard font size and color except for accentuation, and cut back on the white space. Presumably, those of us who need corrective eyewear are already wearing it, and one should not have to press the scroll button too many times to read a single post.
My apologies, Fraggle Rock, for creating a post that was difficult to read. I thought that I was addressing this potential problem since it was so long—another drag on boards, I know—but I thought wrong. I’ll keep it in mind from now on. And since this isn’t a psychology board, I won’t beat this topic to death, but I do want to clarify a couple things.
Jung’s collective unconscious, what he also called the objective unconscious since it’s common to all, conceivably consists of biological givens and what is instinctual. True, no scientist has ever observed an archetype in the lab, but neither have other biological instincts been observed while their effects have. Often times, too, the terms archetype and archetypal image are misconsidered to be one and the same, the reason that I included both in my post, and how an archetypal image might be manifested in terms of metaphorical content is dependent on a given culture over time. Ultimately the idea of archetype, what Jung called “psychoid” in nature, is a handy way to conceptualize how psyche interfaces with body…thank you Descartes for gumming up the works. Intuition tells me that the Baldwin Effect might be in play at this level.
Jung’s personal unconscious is conceivably that level of unconsciousness readily accessible to consciousness, and not what I was addressing. Since the term came up in the Lexicon entry for collective unconscious, I was merely clarifying the term in contrast to Freud’s model of the psyche which most are more familiar with. This is the level of unconsciousness that you referred to, Fraggle Rock, when you mentioned the experience of “metaphors that are learned rather than inherited.” Dreams can include images that arise from both the collective and the personal unconscious, as well as from consciousness. A good deal of learning takes places at this level, too.
Socialization and most learning in this scheme take place at the level of consciousness. Consciousness can be personal or collective. The term collective or objective consciousness speaks for itself, I’d say, and is socially and culturally determined and conditioned, the “community level of collectivity” that you referred to, and what I believe is also highly dependent on language.
Anyway, I hear you when it comes to the split between science types and religious types, tribal mentalities, etc. Humankind is but a babe in the woods when it comes to this thing we call “consciousness,” and to my way of thinking, what we as a species are currently experiencing is those biological and social growing pains that reflect the ongoing evolution of mentality.
Take care,
Celestia
Jung’s collective unconscious, what he also called the objective unconscious since it’s common to all, conceivably consists of biological givens and what is instinctual. True, no scientist has ever observed an archetype in the lab, but neither have other biological instincts been observed while their effects have. Often times, too, the terms archetype and archetypal image are misconsidered to be one and the same, the reason that I included both in my post, and how an archetypal image might be manifested in terms of metaphorical content is dependent on a given culture over time. Ultimately the idea of archetype, what Jung called “psychoid” in nature, is a handy way to conceptualize how psyche interfaces with body…thank you Descartes for gumming up the works.
Intuition tells me that the Baldwin Effect might be in play at this level.Jung’s personal unconscious is conceivably that level of unconsciousness readily accessible to consciousness, and not what I was addressing. Since the term came up in the Lexicon entry for collective unconscious, I was merely clarifying the term in contrast to Freud’s model of the psyche which most are more familiar with. This is the level of unconsciousness that you referred to, Fraggle Rock, when you mentioned the experience of “metaphors that are learned rather than inherited.” Dreams can include images that arise from both the collective and the personal unconscious, as well as from consciousness. A good deal of learning takes places at this level, too.
Socialization and most learning in this scheme take place at the level of consciousness. Consciousness can be personal or collective. The term collective or objective consciousness speaks for itself, I’d say, and is socially and culturally determined and conditioned, the “community level of collectivity” that you referred to, and what I believe is also highly dependent on language.
Anyway, I hear you when it comes to the split between science types and religious types, tribal mentalities, etc. Humankind is but a babe in the woods when it comes to this thing we call “consciousness,” and to my way of thinking, what we as a species are currently experiencing is those biological and social growing pains that reflect the ongoing evolution of mentality.
Take care,
Celestia
The eventual conclusion will be - We are not seperate individual beings. There is, in reality, only one being in existence, which manifests in all the various forms we see around (including ourselves).