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Aggrandized Ego, Alienated Soul: Contesting the Atrophy of Instinct in an Age of Anxiety
“Civilized man is in danger of losing all contact with the world of instinct –a danger that is still further increased by his living an urban existence in what seems to be a purely man-made environment. This loss of instinct is largely responsible for the pathological condition of our contemporary culture.” – Carl Jung
We are living in a time of great transition. But what are we transitioning from, and toward? It can be argued that we are transitioning from an ego-centric understanding of our place in the world toward a soul-centric understanding of our place in the world. The Ego is linear, individualistic, boundary-laden, and me-centered. The Soul is cyclical, holistic, horizon-open, and we-centered. We need a balance of both in order to be a healthy, progressive species.
But as it stands today, we are extremely imbalanced and the scales are grossly in the favor of the ego. Our experience of dislocation is the result of a culture out of joint. Our feeling of isolation and diminution is testimony to the unsustainable condition that we have gotten ourselves into. This has led to dissociation and alienation on an epic scale.
Linear ego-centrism doesn’t just alienate nature, it alienates individuals as well. Alienating nature is alienating the psyche. This is because nature (to include human nature) is cyclical, not linear. It seems linear because of our short lives and the cause-and-effect makeup of our brains, but it is irrevocably cyclical and any deviation from this cycle has enormous consequences. We are witnessing some of those consequences today.
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Source: http://www.riseearth.com/2014/02/aggrandized-ego-alienated-soul.html
