049 - Conscious & Unconscious Mind: the Shadow, Jung, and Hegel

"Who knows what evil lurks in the heart of men? . . . The Shadow knows" began a famous U.S. radio show from the 1930s and 40s.  The Shadow is also a psychological term used by Carl Jung to describe those parts of us  that we do not want to recognize in ourselves and in effect, bury.  While it is most associated with our baser instincts and unattractive parts of our personality, we can repress worthy aspects as well.  This can lead to projection of these traits on to others.  

The notion of the Shadow involves an unconscious part of our mind.  Jung held that a process of "individuation" would benefit individuals by bringing some of these unconscious elements to light and intergrating them in one's personality.  He felt this would allow personal growth of the individual psychologically.  

In a way this is similar to Hegel's account of sublation, where notions are negated, and then transformed by bringing the notion and its negation together on a higher level.  From a broader perspective, this is occurring in history, as conscious humans strive, within unconscious Nature, for greater freedom, consciousness, and rationality.  

This episode explores the Shadow from personality theory, the collective unconscious, projection, and Hegel's Lordship/Bondage dialectic.  

Transcript

Gregory Novak 0:01

Hello, this is Gregory Nowak. This is the cunning of Geist episode 49. Welcome back. The purpose of this podcast is to explore philosophy, psychology and science, with an emphasis on Hagle. With the aim of promoting the out of fashion idea that our mind is the greatest gift bestowed on us. And that it is free to find purpose in guiding our actions. Please like, and follow the podcast, Facebook page at cunning of Geist and follow me as well on Twitter also at cunning of Geist. In this episode, I will be discussing the great psychologist, Carl Young's theory of the shadow and how it relates to Hegel's philosophy. Specifically young saw an ongoing struggle between the conscious mind and the unconscious shadow. And this is actually a process. He called individuation. Which leads to greater psychological integration. Of an individual. And Which results in obviously greater overall consciousness and freedom for the individual. And in many ways, this is similar to Hegel's dialectical approach, which includes negation in a resolution on a higher level with the advancement of spirit within the world of nature. So to begin. Let me remind everyone that we focused on Carl Young, pretty extensively in episode 34. Back in 2021 last year. And then episode I covered Hume's background, his relationship with Freud and in particular, his notion of the collective unconscious spent a lot of time on that. I also discussed. The eternity of personality types that he developed. The rational, the emotional, the physical and the intuitive. Now in this episode. I want to focus on an important aspect of Young's psychological approach. And that is his concept of the shadow. When people hear the word shadow, many, think of something evil or the dark side of one's personality, sort of a doctor. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde situation. And there was a famous radio show that ran in the United States in the 1930s and forties called the shadow. And it's opening introduction became famous. It went something like this. Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men. The shadow knows. Anyway. a key aspect of the uni and shadow is that. It does not have to be only the negative side of one's personality. It can be positive as well. sometimes we do suppress our own better angels. So this, this is what we're going to be talking about. Young's shadow concept. And generally speaking, the shadow is a part of our mind that we are not conscious of. It is the part that we are unaware of. Now you may ask how can this be? And this brings up several legitimate questions and perhaps the biggest one is this. If there is indeed an unconscious mind, that's part of us. What part of the mind decides whether something is conscious? Or goes to the unconscious. Is there a third mind who decides whether something stays above ground or not? And they, and so on. Well, let's address this. The conscious mind and the unconscious mind are not two separate minds. That's the first thing to understand. And that's important. They're just two ends of the same stick. It's sort of a yin and yang type of thing. And also there's no solid boundary. It's a very fluid and continuous boundary between what's conscious. And what's unconscious. Now some may also as well. What evidence is there that this unconscious mind even exists? Well, there's a lot of evidence. Perhaps the biggest thing that we experienced is our own dreaming every night. Freud called dreams, the Royal road to the unconscious. And many believe that Sigmund Freud's interpretation of dreams was, was one of the most important books. Ever published. In the 20th century, it was published in 1900 and it was a game changer as far as psychology was concerned because it opened up the whole. issue of dreams that everybody experiences in and his, his, hypothesis was that you could learn a lot from studying one's dreams, uh, particularly unconscious motivations. Et cetera. He himself considered it, perhaps as big as breakthrough. that in analyzing dreams, one could go beyond just remembering the content of the dream. And seek to find meaning and motivation behind the content. This allowed a peak into the unconscious. And how it was subconsciously motivating us. And these, um, dreams, as you all know, can be very integrated involved. Sometimes it's like watching a very long movie with our cast of characters and all sorts of stuff's happening and all this is created by the unconscious mind. Now the point though, is that these dreams clearly established that there's some part of our mind. That's not under our direct conscious control. And this therefore proves the existence of the unconscious mind. And there are other examples. Do you ever suddenly remember that you left your cell phone and your desk when you're walking out the door? Uh, that was your unconscious mind reminding you. And on the, on the army and forgetting things can also be a way of your unconscious mind giving you a hint about something. and, you've all heard of Freudian slips. This is when the unconscious mind breaks through to the conscious mind. And in terms of saying something. Or something happening. Memories are indeed interesting things. And where memory is stored well in the unconscious mind. And sometimes we can call up certain memories that will, and other times They come to us from out of the blue all the times. We can't recall. A memory. The point is that there's clear evidence that there are things going on outside our conscious mind. And. As I said, it's important to understand though that the mind is one whole, if there's a conscious part and an unconscious part, Uh, you know, we've talked a lot about the left brain conscious part and the right brain conscious part. but in this episode, we're focusing on the unconscious part versus the conscious part of the one mind. Now there's one element that can help us determine what is conscious and unconscious. And that's our. Our core personality type. We discussed Young's four personality types back in episode 34. And a good way to look at this. For this example of how the shadow is created is to, is to look at these four personality types is portrayed on a cross or on a plus sign symbol. So I'm going to ask you to visualize this. Imagine a cross or a plus sign. There's one horizontal line. And it's divided by one vertical line. Now let's put intuition at the top of the vertical line and physical sensing at the bottom. So that's one dimension. And these two functions are opposite waves of perceiving things. We can perceive the outside world through census, our five senses. Or we can perceive the inside world to our intuitions. One is outer. One is inner. And we can favor one of these methods of perceiving. Some people are more intuitively inclined. Others are more essentially inclined. Now to complete the plus sign, let's put thinking rationality on the right side of the horizontal line and let's put our emotions, our feelings on the left side. And so we have now rounded out the fraternity. Thinking. On the right side is one way of making judgements. Uh, emotions or another. And they are opposite ways of making judgments. People tend to prefer one of these methods over the other. Some are more emotional in their outlook. Other people are more rational. And here comes the important part out of the four, a person tends to have one go-to approach. They tend to favor one of the four as their key, most important. way of dealing with the world. A thinker is more of a judger of things than a perceiver. Uh, and a thinker is more rational than emotional and emotional type of feeler is also more of a judger than a perceiver, but they are, they judge based on emotions rather than on rational thinking. And intuitive person on the other hand is more of a perceiver than a judger. And their go-to method of perception is intuition. Uh, sensor on the other hand. The opposite of the intuitive person is also a perceiver rather than a judge, but their go-to method of perception. Are the five senses rather than any internal intuition. So here's how the shadow comes into play. Let's say that my primary personality type is rationality and probably many philosophical types. Would be the same as well. Now. If I stand in the center of the plus sign and face my leading type, I would be facing rationality. That's my go-to position. However, this means that my back is turned toward the emotional side of me. Using that, that plus sign symbol. So to the right of me on my right hand are the physical senses and to the left, my intuition. And by focusing more on rationality means that I focus less on the emotions. And we know this to be true in life. Our most emotional friends and family members tend to worry less about logical analysis. And many of our rational friends are often guilty of burying their emotions. And it doesn't matter. In this. Example I was facing rationality, but you could face any one of the four types and you would have a different array. You'd have one thing you're focusing on one things in your shadow and you'd have something in your right hand, something in your left hand. Now of course. All these four helmets, are always present in an individual to varying degrees. However, the key point here is when I'm facing rationality. It's fair to say that my emotions tend to be in the shadow behind me. Now that's one example of how the shadow works. If we emphasize one thing we de emphasize another, but Young's notion of the shadow could incorporate much more. And just these four functions. Another area. Regarding the shadow that's very important to understand is our instincts. that the shadow contains many of our more primitive instincts and desires. Freud incorporated this in his notion of the ed. The ed is bottom level of this tripartite system of psychology. he has the ed, the ego and the superego. The ego often pushes our more privative instincts into the background underground. If you will. And it tries to focus more on aspirational as elements of the. of the, the superego. But we are still human animals and we have to deal with these primitive instincts. One of the biggest primitive instincts we have is our libido, our sex drive. And much of society is based on how we deal with this one instinct in terms of laws and customs. And certainly part of the civilizing, nature of human beings over the centuries over the millennia is learning to control these baser sexual urges. And in live with others accordingly. And the base instincts are usually about pure pleasure. Usually more immediate pleasure with little or no planning horizon. And of course one learns to cope with these urges in and how one learns to cope. It's critical in the formation of one's own distinct personality. And often when one's impulses are not dealt with correctly or in a healthy manner, this can lead to neuroses and sickness. But moving on. Because another important element. And that's the collective unconscious that we inherit. And we talked a lot about this in episode 34. And if you recall the collective unconscious, that is all the memories, it impulses that we share with others. Uh, there can be ethnic memories. Cultural memories. And, but if we go deeper, There are memories that include all of humanity and young demonstrated this very clearly. And they can certainly influence us through our dreams, through our symbols and our unexplained desires. So summarize the unconscious mind. We have parts of our personality. That exists in the unconscious mind. And a lot of these are more basic. Baser instincts. and, but we also have elements of the collective unconscious that exists there that we share with others. So. That lays out the background or the unconscious mind and the shadow. Now I'm going to deal more specifically with two immediate and important questions. First. W what is this conscious unconscious split have to do with leading our own lives. And secondly, I'm going to discuss how all this relates to Hegel's philosophy. First. What is important about all this is that it speaks to a therapeutic approach to psychological problems and psychological growth. Young felt that it was very important for an individual to integrate elements of the unconscious into their own conscious lives, as best they could. And he knew this would be a massive struggle. he put it clearly that the shadow represents everything about a person that they are keeping from themselves. And the individuation process is an attempt to bring these things to the surface. This is what uni and therapy sometimes called an analytic. Psychology is all about. Now it's interesting. There's a common belief among many therapists that. Once you have had three or four sessions with someone, you know, What the problem is that they're avoiding, but they're not coming to terms with. However it does no good. Just to tell them what the problem is. The person has to come to that realization themselves. And this often comes in the form of an aha moment. And sometimes this can take years of therapy. Th to recognize this. For others, that moment never comes. They never come to understand the chief problem that they have. George Gurdjieff who we discussed in episode 34 and other episodes. He called this one's chief weakness. And oftentimes we're totally unaware of what it is. Let me quote Gurdjieff on this quote. I man can not find his own. Chief feature is chief fault by himself. This is practically a law and quote. And this chief feature weaknesses, like a hub of wheel. All the other points of one's personality. I come from it. And discovering this feature, bringing it to light is the work of a lifetime to go Gurdjieff again, quote. The study of chief fault in the struggle against a constitute as, or each man's individual path and quote. And his whole, uh, approach to, the harmonious development of man as he called it was, was providing shocks and, and, efforts. Uh, to, to wake people up to their chief feature to the chief fault. Youngin psychologist, Marie Louise Von France stated at dusk quote, if and when an individual makes an attempt to see his shadow, he becomes aware of and often ashamed of those qualities and impulses he denies in himself. But complaints we see in others, such things as egotism, mental laziness and sloppiness, unreal fantasies, schemes, and plots. Carelessness and cowardice. Inordinate love of money and possessions and quote. So confronting the shadow can be a very painful process. But by recognizing these parts of ourselves by bringing them to light. It, it allows us to grow as individuals and by growing, we become more conscious. We become more free. We become more of a true individual. And this sounds very much like a ganglion ablation and it is. The piggy salients ablation is a perfect analogy to Young's individuation process. And I'll get to more of this in a moment. There's one more aspect of individuation and the shadow we needed to discuss. And that's projection. I believe projection is a huge psychological problem for many people, as well as groups of people. The way it works is simply as follows. What we refuse to see in ourselves. What we deny about us as we get rid of by putting it onto others. It's as simple as that. French philosopher, Jack fairity describes how this works. Quote. We retreat among the things that people we know, we cling to our certainties, to the values, which define us and which by contrast, defined that outsider who is held responsible for all the Hills in the world and quote. Young described this process as follows. Quote. The part of the psyche, which is less light and less capable of consciousness is thrown into the darkness to such an extent that sooner or later our rift occurs in the psychic system. At first, this is not recognized as such and is therefore projected and quote. Union analyst leg Humbert describes the shadow as follows quote. Those people in whom we find all the idiocy cruelty and cowardliness, which it would be tragic to see in ourselves and quote. So projection is usually always at work. And it is due to PR projecting our own shadow onto others. And another ego ploy is to cast guilt on, on others. So one can remain an innocent victim. It was so funny to see how this works in politics, where one party accuses the other of dirty tricks. And I'm doing more evil than they would ever do. And the other party does exactly the same thing. That is why forgiveness can be so helpful and therapeutic. By forgiving another. We are in fact, forgiving ourselves. Now under Hagle. One of Hegel's most famous passages is the Lordship bondage section of the phenomenology of spirit. Also known as the master slave dialectic. We did an entire episode of this in episode 13. Essentially when two self-consciousness is meet, one must submit to the other. The Lord becomes Lord by recognition as such by the bondsman. This is pure othering. The Lord only knows that he is the Lord by having the bondsman recognize this. He projects his own inferiority onto the other. And likewise, the bondsman projects is on mastery onto the Lord. However, this is essentially an unworkable situation for the longterm is Hagle demonstrates. It must be resolved in terms of mutual respect. Now. I believe othering groups of people has reached epidemic proportions today. The last episode. Number 48 dealt with this exclusively. So, how does this. All relate to Hagle system. Well, I believe Hagle system would view the entire world of nature as the unconscious. And of course, mind and rationality would correspond to the conscious part. And spirit is the evolution of this rationality within nature. So here we have a clear and direct correspondence to Young's individuation process. Of bringing the unconscious elements to light. And a key point here is that Henkel also believes in history and the process of history. His philosophy is not just airy fairy, thinking about thinking. It is actively taking place in the real world through real actions of conscious players. To bring greater rationality and freedom to humanity. And some aren't even aware that they're doing it. And that's, that's the cunning of Geist at work. So to summarize. We have shown that there is indeed a strong unconscious element to our minds and as such to our lives. Young called it the shadow. It can be different for different people, but what is the same is that it is the part that we do not want to acknowledge. And bringing these uncomfortable parts of us to like, and bring about a greater self-consciousness and awareness. And at the same time, reduce the need to project negative aspects onto others. Young side, this is a process, much like Hegel's processes, spirit manifesting itself in the world. Through the greater incorporation of the natural world of nature. Into our own rational expression. this is a process that's occurring. This is spirit coming to know itself. Through nature through bringing greater rationale to nature. And of course, this is a long, hard slog. It's an historical process, but it's what needs to be done day by day. By individuals, groups and nations. Well, that's a wrap for this episode. Thanks so much for listening, please like rate and review this podcast, wherever you get your podcasts. And feel free to share these episodes with your like-minded friends and social media and elsewhere. As always all references cited here will be posted the podcast Facebook page at cunning of Geist. And I certainly look forward to your comments, suggestions, and questions, which you can post there as well. If you're not already a member of the Hagle study group on Facebook, where I'm one of the administrators please consider joining. We've grown this group from a few hundred to over 25,000 over the last eight years in many fields, the best philosophy group on Facebook or anywhere. And finally just to close. I. This Jackie on a local radio show that I listened to growing up would always close his show with the following in the line. Be big, be a builder. This is Gregory Nowak. This is the cunning of Geist. See you next time.