Encountering the Other

Abstract

ABSTRACTIn spite of Jung’s encounter with the spirit of the depths that he describes in The Red Book and his reverence for other cultures, he remained, in some ways, very much a man held by the spirit of the times in which he lived. Eurocentrism, even unconscious patronizing racism, is evident in Jung’s writings. This article asks how, due to the impact of the spirit of the times on us, do we unconsciously express attitudes, writings, and actions that are offensive to the other? There are embedded forms of racism and thereby oppression that members of the dominant group learn not to see, to keep in the shadows. What forces keep unconscious racial bias alive and active in our societies? One answer lies in a culture’s shadow. This article utilizes writings of Jung and post-Jungians, such as Kimbles, Singer, and Brewster, as well as examples from philosophy, relational psychoanalysis, film, and literature that depict culture’s shadow. The relationship of culture’s shadow to Jung’s “geology” of the personality as diagrammed in one of his 1925 lectures is explored as is the connection of culture’s shadow to archetypal evil and to the formation of negative cultural complexes. These explorations are directed toward new ways of understanding the creation and maintenance of the sense of other in the psyche, furthering the work of bringing culture’s shadow into consciousness.