Jung was interesting as he described how our systemic fears manifest as 'visionary rumours'. And the violence
that can emerge from these fears if misunderstood or exploited. Jung was far more interested in what myth and symbol said about the human mind than whether they themselves actually existed.
"Jung distinguished between "ordinary rumors" and "visionary rumors." The first type, with which we are most familiar, is nothing more than "popular curiosity" and "sensation mongering." In contrast, the basis for visionary rumors involves "unusual emotions" emotions that Jung related to the crises humankind experienced in the form of two world wars and the threat of totalitarianism"
https://jungpage.org/learn/articles/analytical-psychology/124-visionary-rumors-and-the-symbolism-of-the-psychoanalytic-movement
"If I were not so violent, would I need myth and symbol to escape from my complicity...could I get away with it any more?"
So, if my world needs saving and it truly is important to me, when will I become serious about it? That will be the acid test of my authenticity - how serious about it am I.
Today, I'm surrounded by armies of experts and artists telling me merely to "hope". None of them are asking if I'm really serious about it. Encouraging me instead to create images of the world - such as the idea of climate change, and then to escape into the idea I just created.
This expert teacher army then writes in high sounding tones wondering where all my violence comes from and how it proceeds so strongly. This is a most curious given the image I'm taught to create is a 'planet saving' one. Am I being taught to act seriously by them?
"I now have the right to cause violence with impunity, because I do the violence to save the world. It is for the greater good. Look at me!"
Clearly something more important is driving me unconsciously. My myths, the images, my visionary rumours, are helping me escape from my violence. To escape from being serious. I have allowed myself to be taught by others, to no longer be genuinely caring and have rendered my complicity into the unconscious behind this great, existential, salvific, mythical vision.
I have been scared into my violence, through fear.
Today, the visionary rumour of climate change has grown more powerful than the science. In spite of the science being true or not, the rumour is now far more powerful a force. I no longer require the science, the rumour is a cosier place to rest my head. It divides me from others and inevitably must make me more violent than without it.
Why is it more desirable to believe my world is under threat, than not?
No more mass war is possible. Even a first strike still would not be retaliated to by a tyrant. No tyrant would dare use the bomb as we've seen for 78 years. Isn't that interesting?
But would the planet saver use it, for the greater good, for emotion, for hope?
I think the planet saver is more likely to use the bomb than the worst tyrant. Because a myth has more power to drive the violence.
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