Description:
Political theorist Laurie M. Johnson deals with Jung's analysis of the effects of modern secularism on the events of the 20th Century and beyond, particularly the development of mass movements of communism, fascism and Nazism.
Review Quotes:
"Johnson's book is an original and timely attempt to use resources from Karl Jung's psychological theories--especially his understanding of the collective unconscious--to make sense of the contemporary resurgence of far-right nationalism. In addition to its contributions to understanding current political reality, one major philosophical achievement of the book is to make Jung a potential participant in contemporary debates in critical theory concerning the concept of "social pathology." I highly recommend it." -- Frederick Neuhouser, Barnard College, Columbia University.
"Laurie Johnson provides a lucid introduction to Carl Jung's political thought and a powerful Jungian diagnosis for the political illnesses of our time. Drawing upon Charles Taylor's concepts of disenchantment and disembedding, Johnson elucidates Jung's account of modern man's predicament as a spiritual sickness: a pervasive psychological disharmony with the collective unconscious brought about by ideational, social, and economic displacement. Johnson's demonstration that the imbalanced psyche of modern man is a fertile ground for ideological possession is a must-read for anyone seeking to understand the identitarianism of the alt-right. The Jungian curative she offers--a recovery of a religious faith that is both sufficiently rich in rite and symbolism to generate genuine transcendent experience and supple enough to accommodate the doubts of the disenchanted--is timely and thoughtful." -- Kody Cooper, UC Foundation Assistant Professor, University of Tennessee Chattanooga