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. - C.G. Jung
In recent times, C.G. Jung has become recognized for his environmentalist views and the psychological preconditions for the relationship between humans and nature. His writings possess concern about the separation of this relationship he saw taking form during his lifetime and which has only gained momentum after his death. He saw that modern life and its technology-driven conveniences, quarterly growth and rise of the machine in the broader sense, have come to neglect the natural world at our own peril. The disconnection between man and nature is a prevalent theme throughout Jung’s writings, though his conception of nature is not always limited to the physical world. As Jung teaches us with most things, there is nature in its physical form, and there is Nature with capital N, the metaphor of nature. Yet in the effort to separate the two, much nuance is lost. Jung instead, regarded nature broadly and at multiple levels of abstraction. Nature as symbol, as creator and as oppressor. In spite of a changing climate and the critical challenges this brings forth for humanity, nature is predominantly considered with regard to its physical form. However, this neglects much of the breadth of our relationship with nature according to Jung, leading one to suspect that there is a missing psychological component of the solution to the climate crisis.
The delicate balance of our environmental systems on earth is threatened by day-to-day human activities, and according to the Global Tipping Points Report examining 26 environmental tipping points, the trajectory is grim. Furthermore, the tipping of one system may trigger others in unforeseen ways. The thawing of boreal permafrost in Siberia may trigger further melting of the Greenland ice sheet, which disrupts the West African monsoon, leading to the reversal of the Gulf Stream and so forth. In turn, these external changes may have implications for our societies, in terms of economic inequalities, political volatility and social unrest. Though scientists have warned against environmentally harmful procedures since the early 1900s, little has been done to mend our ways on the scale it would require. As students of Jung, we might then ask ourselves what our rationale is for doing so. If scientific evidence has failed to evoke necessary action, what else is informing our judgment in this matter? What are the psychological underpinnings that have led humanity to our current predicament? Is something in the unconscious pulling our strings? In order to form a path forward to solve these issues, we must first seek to understand our history.
The book Regenerative Leadership by Hutchins & Storm (2019), carefully outlines key cultural and psychological separations that have crippled our relationship with nature and our place in it. From a historical point of view, anthropologists believe that the union of man and nature has existed in egalitarian human cultures where the archetypes Sky God and Earth Goddess were worshipped as equals. In Jungian terms this can be considered a sacred marriage, that is the integration of the anima and the animus, and it tells the story of a time when Mother Earth was revered spiritually.
Furthermore, it was of vital importance as the lives of our hunter-gatherer ancestors depended on understanding and respecting nature’s boons, shaping our consciousness for millennia. According to anthropologist Steve Taylor, the journey of separation from nature coincides with the advent of a significant global temperature drop approximately 10,000 years ago. Harsh weather conditions and a sudden unpredictability of the environment are believed to have sowed discontent about the intentions of the Earth Goddess, turning her into a cruel mistress. As a response, we came to grow a stronger sense of self-identity, what Taylor calls an explosion of the ego, that created a rift between mankind and nature. And so, the Earth Goddess started to slowly kneel to the Sky God.
The agricultural revolution ensues with the taming of livestock and crops, as well as permanent settlements. Throughout the epochs and empires of Western history - spanning ancient Mediterranean cultures, medieval Europe, and the Renaissance - a connection to nature and its wisdom remained an integral part of life. But a seed has been planted, and by the 1500s, the rift expanded by all accounts in Europe, as what is referred to as the Little Ice Age, gripped the continent leading to bad harvests, widespread famine and disease. Pervasive suffering among people seems once again to be a catalyst for our growing skepticism towards Mother Nature. Christianity at this point in Medieval Europe capitalized on people’s general misfortune and fear, furthering the agenda of separation, preaching God as superior to the workings of nature. Nature became the scapegoat for general discontent, and so the church began to frame nature as a force of the Devil. This led to the “witch hunt” and prosecution of women who were seen as more in tune with nature and its now mysterious power.
In the aftermath of this commotion, several culturally significant phenomena would manifest themselves. Luther’s critique of catholicism led to church reform, reductionism and scientific discernment that came to characterize the following centuries. This was the scientific revolution, led by minds like Newton, Descartes, Leibniz, Hoppes, Voltaire and perhaps chief among them; Francis Bacon. Their collective body of work fundamentally redefined man’s relationship with nature. Bacon’s versatility made him excel not only as a scientist but also as a philosopher and representative of the law. He was instrumental in the witch trials and from a Jungian point of view, this is not hard to believe when examining his view of nature. In Bacon’s works The Masculine Birth of Time and Novum Organum, nature is akin to a woman hiding her secrets and “would have to be forcibly penetrated in order to make her give them up”. He describes rigorously experimenting on nature with scrutiny, “by the hand of men she is forced out of her natural state, and squeezed and moulded”. This is what Jung would refer to as the “torturing” of nature, to force her into submission. Jung expresses worry in his writings about what he saw as the dismissal of intangible realities, the “de-psychization” of nature. Furthermore, Bacon proclaims that nature itself is without purpose, its only purpose is achieved in service to humankind. It is ours to be mastered and controlled. Ours to be “forcibly penetrated” as we please. Thus, the separation from nature is phenomenologically also the separation of the masculine and the feminine. Woman perhaps may also be “forcibly penetrated”, as the wild, irrational and ill-tempered being she is. Just as nature must be dominated, so must women. Hence the scientific revolution and its still present cultural effects favoured typically masculine traits of assertiveness, rationality and competitiveness over feminine traits like receptiveness, intuition, and nurturing.
A prerequisite for the ensuing mechanistic logic was to declare nature as insentient, the idea of nature as a physical commodity, to be used and discarded, as the dead and soulless matter it is. Nature was not bestowed with a consciousness, and therefore not entitled to moral consideration. The perfect alibi for ignorance. Descartes conceived of nature as a coalition of deterministic equal and opposite reactions, no more sophisticated than a giant machine. A machine that could be taken apart into its smallest components, measured and calculated in isolation, and then reintroduced into the complex systems of the natural world. However, the authors argue that this worldview, which has permeated the Western world for centuries, is somewhat estranged from our humanity, our compassion and what we intuitively know to be true and good for us. A majestic eagle may be understood as a composition of feathers, talons and a beak, but until it soars in the sky it’s impossible to realize its full beauty. Mythologist Joseph Campbell, speaking on this subject, recognized that “the separation of matter and spirit, or the dynamism of life and the realm of the spirit, of natural grace and supernatural grace, has really castrated nature. And the European mind, the European life, has been, as it were, emasculated by this separation” (Campbell & Moyers, 2011). This signifies the third separation, that of inner/mind and outer/matter. A development, that has led us on a cultural trajectory to value external material gain over internal consciousness and health. Social ecologist Gregory Bateson sees this separation of mind from matter, and the decoupling of spirit and nature as a tragic path leading to our own extinction.
Alongside the separation from nature, the separation of masculine and feminine and the separation of the outer and the inner, there is also evidence that this has coincided with an overweight of left-hemispheric brain function. Neuroscientists have found that the roles of our left and right brain hemispheres differ from one another. The left is primarily responsible for the discernment of a problem's parts and is good at removing context, singling out certain phenomena in isolation, which is immensely useful in certain situations. The right, on the other hand, is concerned with interrelationships, creativity, and tends to be applied when dealing with broad and complex problems. The facets of the left hemisphere have served us well in creating a rational and tech-driven society, it has in a sense sheltered us from the elements and given us dominion over our world. At the same time, this imbalance has made us insensitive to its dynamics, its subjectivity and reading between the lines to understand the whole as one cohesive entity. So few of our problems exist in a vacuum, whether they are global crises or private matters.
Thus, we have now established the nature of our current predicament and the chain of events that have led to the rift in our relationship with nature. In Part 2, we will explore this further through Jungian psychology and discuss measures of dealing with this collective imbalance.
References
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Campbell, J., & Moyers, B. (2011). The Power of Myth. Anchor.
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T. M. Lenton, D.I. Armstrong McKay, S. Loriani, J.F. Abrams, S.J. Lade, J.F. Donges, M. Milkoreit, T. Powell, S.R. Smith, C. Zimm, J.E. Buxton, E. Bailey, L. Laybourn, A. Ghadiali, J.G. Dyke (2023), The Global Tipping Points Report 2023. University of Exeter, Exeter, UK.
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Taylor, S. (2018). The fall: The insanity of the ego in human history and the dawning of a new era. John Hunt Publishing.