Collective Guilt and Our Shadow Selves
A modern component of our psychological lives
I received an unsigned email recently with a request for a specific seminar on “understanding collective guilt.” The writer was curious to know how Jung spoke about catastrophic events and the effect that they have on the individual. I felt an immediate kinship with this mystery writer. I have been thinking of preparing a seminar on this topic, if only because I feel a need to dive into the same themes again myself. Trying to make sense of collective guilt in a world of constant, human-caused catastrophe is much of the emotional hair shirt I wear on any given day. I can’t help but carry the overlapping crises around with me in empathy and worry, and my own implied complicity as a human and a citizen of a global superpower. Whether the crises are large and news-catching or chronic—like deficient mental health services and housing scarcity in my community—I’m conscious of a continuous, prickling discomfort. I can’t believe this is the world we all inhabit and that this suffering is considered normal. What should I be doing differently to make it change?
Feeling tossed about by overlapping global crises while living in a “wealthy” nation so lacking in proper social services is a persistent psychological weight. Things are not equal and the inequity lingers in the space between us all. Certainly, a component of many people’s depression and anxiety on any given day is linked to this collective experience, no matter their level of privilege. We would all be better off if we were all better off.
In a section entitled “Outrunning Our Shadows” of Naomi Klein’s recent masterpiece book, Doppelganger, she quotes several other authors as they explore the complex reality of living in a civilization that exists almost by default on the backs of others. Here, she shares the work of novelist, Daisy Hildyard:
“In Hildyard’s conception, our complicity in wars fought with our tax dollars to protect the oil and gas that likely warms our homes, cooks our food, and propels our vehicles, and in turn fuels extinction, is not separate from us; it’s an extension of our physical beings. ‘This second body,’ she writes, ‘is your own literal and physical biological existence—it is a version of you.’ A less visible dimension of our embodied selves.” (p. 244)
I’d argue that there are many attempts to acknowledge this “second body” in activism and politics. We protest wars, advocate for cleaner energy, support union organizing, and pressure companies to safeguard against using child labor or sweatshops in manufacturing the products we buy. We, meanwhile, adjust our lives and purchases to be more aligned with our values, and less harmful.
But far less discussed is how this awareness (or lack thereof) of the pain of others and our possible complicity is an aspect of our psychological lives.
Klein’s entire book is an exquisitely researched meditation on this modern shadow existence. She explores the idea of a doppelgänger as a shadow self, and the entire “Mirror World” within Western countries as something for which we could each potentially take responsibility and seek to understand. It forces the question: in the vast expanse of a globalized economy and globalized warfare, what is our responsibility for our shadow selves? And what might change within the collective if we knew them better?
Of course, these questions of “shadow” are core to Jung’s work. Exploring them in this context might be thought of as “collective shadow work.” The underlying value of this attention to the unconscious self is a huge reason why I was attracted to Jung’s psychology to begin with: I longed to get to the root of so much unnecessary global suffering and felt that by facing the reality of our shadows and seeking to integrate inner division, we might make a dent in our collective anguish. We might discover the potential for enduring change instead of what I think of as “Whac-A-Mole activism” in which new devastation always seems to be one step ahead of a solution: some horrific injustice always pops up somewhere just as progress is made elsewhere.
Around the time that that email arrived in my inbox, I also stumbled upon some poignant words of Jung’s from 1918. He was reflecting on the growing interest in the human psyche alongside the global catastrophe of World War I, what he referred to simply as “the World War.” He gave voice then to much of the particular introspection I’ve felt as an American and an activist since 9/11, and the subsequent wars we couldn’t stop.
“The spectacle of this catastrophe threw man back upon himself by making him feel his complete impotence; it turned his gaze inwards, and, with everything rocking about him, he [sought] something that guarantees him a hold. Too many still look outwards, some believing in the illusion of victory and of victorious power, others in treaties and laws, and others again in the overthrow of the existing order. But still too few look inwards, to their own selves, and still fewer ask themselves whether the ends of human society might not best be served if each man tried to abolish the old order in himself.” (Jung, CW7, p.5)
For Jung, inner work was activism. As yet another world war took hold, he was adamant that humans see—as he famously said in a BBC interview late in his life—that “the only real danger that exists is man himself.”
The full quote from that television interview is particularly striking. Some 65 years later, it sure seems spot-on.
“We need more understanding of human nature because the only real danger that exists is man himself. He is the great danger and we are pitifully unaware of it. We know nothing of man. Far too little. His psyche should be studied because we are the origin of all coming evil.”
It is the human psyche itself from which our mutual destruction is born. It is also there where the inner division can be mended, shadows can be integrated, and a return to balance can be found.
How do you experience collective guilt? How do you see personal healing as contributing to collective well-being?
New Year’s Eve Gathering: Sunday, 12/31 at 10am PST | 6pm GMT
New Year’s Eve is coming up soon and I’m gathering with paid subscribers of Self & Society to share one of my favorite rituals. For over twenty years, I’ve consulted the ancient Taoist text, The I Ching, to help me stay in balance and navigate the inner and outer worlds. It’s said that the great sage, Confucious, wished for another lifetime only so that he could continue to study the I Ching.
As we say goodbye to one year and welcome another, it feels like the perfect time to share this ritual with my community. Please join me and New York Times bestselling author,
, for a New Year’s Eve gathering & ritual at 10 am PST on Sunday, December 31st. We’ll meet for about 90min.You can read my recent interview with Elise on The I Ching here.
This New Year’s Eve gathering is free to all paid subscribers to this newsletter. If you see the Zoom link below, you’re all set! If you see a paywall, you can upgrade or start a trial subscription to join us.* Just click the button below. I plan to continue monthly gatherings for all paid subscribers, so this is just the start.
*If you’re unable to afford the $6/month or $60/year subscription, I’m happy to provide a comp subscription. Please send me a note.
UPDATE: Zoom link and paywall removed after the event to make this post fully available for comments.
Thank you, Satya. My own existence and my reaction to the world is all I can really affect. My Vedic training tells me that meditation, finding the peace and love of the Universe/God within my self raises the vibration of my being, and adds positive energy/awareness to the collective. Just as your Jung quote says, "...if human society might not best be served if each man tried to abolish the old order in himself.” Having found peace, I might go forth and help stop war, end world hunger, or just share some joy.
I feel the pain of the world. If I wasn't so relentlessly positive and upbeat, it would surely weight me down. I have guilt for being an American, esp. a white, male American, with all of our privilege and easy lifestyle, but mostly I have anger, frustration and rage toward the people in power who continually make the wrong decisions for the rest of us and for the world. Every time I hear someone on TV say that the USA is the "greatest country in the world," "the richest country in the world," "the most powerful country in the world," I cringe from the arrogance, ethnocentrism and ignorance of such statements. I wish I could do more in the world, contribute more, help more, both here in the US and overseas. I feel powerless in the face of the arrogance and ignorance of people in power. I can only do what is right in front of me, so I do that as best as I can.