Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
("The Second Coming" by William B. Yeats)
Since September 11, I have been struggling with and trying to make sense of the state of the world now in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. So many emotions and thoughts have swept over me that I have been unable before now to find the words for an article for this site. This most recent and most destructive of a long series of terrorist acts certainly has had a profound effect upon Americans, and I believe, people the world over. As Jung did before World War II, I look at the world and question what the current events are saying to us about our global consciousness. An individual's process toward greater consciousness can be looked at sometimes as a reflection of a greater process, that of our culture as a whole.
In his writing on the development of personality (CW 17, pars. 284-323), Jung discusses confrontation by evil as a necessary part of the growth process. We have to become aware of the potential of the opposites of good and evil within ourselves to develop fully our personalities. Jung says we have an inner voice that makes us aware of evil and if we have strong enough egos not to succumb to it, we become enlightened, more conscious, from the experience. He also says we tend to recognize our own virtues more than our vices, so being enlightened is a positive thing in the long run. If something doesn't jolt us into alertness, we might go through life living the routine of our outer actions and missing the inner voice that can enlighten us.
In the wake of the disaster of September 11, much has been said in the media about how tragedy seems to bring out the best in us. Some attention has been given also to incidences of the evil side coming out - for example, in cases where scam artists have tried to profit or for some unknown reason falsified information initially designed to help families of the missing. This makes us aware of the latent hero in us as a people, but it also shows us our dark side. Moreover, at present we can see a sort of polarization worldwide: a coalition against terrorism and the strident voices of those who are a part of or are associated with the terrorists. It seems here the work of Jung on personality is particularly pertinent. If we look at our global consciousness, personality, if you will, it seems we have been startled drastically awake to the potential of the opposites within our world culture. This is not a new awareness. In the last century world wars made it very apparent. But in the words of the great Irish poet, Yeats, sometimes we seem to fall into a "stony sleep" about our natures.
