The spiral of plastic pollution: a compensatory urge from the collective unconscious for an ecological-psychological transformation of civilization.

Abstract

This article explores the symbolism of plastic pollution. Plastic and microplastic particles are now found everywhere - in the Arctic, in deep ocean trenches, in human organs - and plastic accumulates in our oceans forming gigantic spiral-shaped garbage patches. Both spiral symbolism and E.A. Poe's 'Maelström' are suggestive of a necessary fundamental ecological-psychological transformation of our one-sidedly logos-dominated civilization. Plastic, the author argues, has become a carrier of our longing for immortality: in plastic, humanity has synthesized an 'immortal', a virtually non-biodegradable substance. To avert what Jung called a 'catastrophic enantiodromia', humanity must relinquish its ecologically and psychologically detrimental consumerist mentality and jump into the unknown towards a less resource-intensive lifestyle. The author's dream about sea salt and spiral-shaped marine animals is interpreted as a compensatory urge from the collective unconscious for humanity to reconnect to inner and outer nature by cultivating the neglected eros principle - feeling-based relatedness - as a felt realization that we are part of nature on which we depend. Instead of succumbing to paralyzing fear or denial, the author argues for facing the abyss of our ecological-psychological crisis and acting, informed by science. For ecological-psychological transformation, Jungian psychology can play an important role.