Sue Mehrtens is the author of this and all the other blog essays on this site. The opinions expressed in these essays are her own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of other Jungian Center faculty or Board members. Honesty, as well as professional courtesy, require that you give proper attribution to the author if you post this essay elsewhere.
Jung, Humanitas and Artificial Intelligence
“Analytical psychology tries to resolve the resultant conflict not by going “back to Nature” with Rousseau, but by holding on to the level of reason we have successfully reached, and by enriching consciousness with the knowledge of man’s psychic foundations.”
Jung (1927 )[1]
“We have the Christian prejudice against the animal in man, but an animal is not evil, just as it is not good. We are evil, man is necessarily evil because he is so good. … for us to kill the [animal] would be blasphemous, a sin, it would mean killing the natural thing in us, the thing that naturally serves God. That is our only hope—to get back to a condition where we are right with nature. We must fulfill our destiny, according to nature’s laws or we cannot become true servants of God….”
Jung (1984)[2]
“People who have got dirty through too much civilization take a walk in the woods, or a bath in the sea. They may rationalize it in this or that way, but they shake off the fetters and allow nature to touch them. It can be done within or without. Walking in the woods, lying on the grass, taking a bath in the sea, are from the outside; entering the unconscious, entering yourself through dreams, is touching nature from the inside and this is the same thing, things are put right again.”
Jung (1929)[3]
“… at the bottom of all these problems [the great problem of our time] lies the development of science and technology, which has destroyed man’s metaphysical foundation…. Technology and ‘social welfare’ provide nothing to overcome our spiritual stagnation, and they give us no answer to our spiritual dissatisfaction and restlessness, on account of which we are threatened from within as from without….”
Jung (1949)[4]
“… technology,… is based on a specifically rationalistic differentiation of consciousness which tends to repress all irrational psychic factors….”
Jung (1940/41)[5]
humanitas: “the qualities, feelings and inclinations of mankind; humane or gentle conduct toward others, humanity, philanthropy, gentleness, kindness, politeness; mental cultivation befitting a man, liberal education, good breeding, elegance of manners or language, refinement; good manners, polished language”[6]
A student recently asked me what Jung would think about ChatGPT, the form of artificial intelligence that is currently much in the news for its ability to write poetry, hold conversations, and perhaps do away with a lot of onerous chores (like writing term papers, crafting news articles and making difficult decisions).[7] I gave a quick reply: “I’m sure he would have many reservations,” but told the student I would give her question more attention. I made my snap reply mindful of four facets of Jung’s background and orientation: his heritage, educational background and professional training; his stress on individuality and spirituality; his valuation of Nature and natural living; and his dim opinion of modern technology. In this essay, I will discuss each of these in light of my student’s question.
Jung’s Heritage, Education and Training
On both sides of his family, Jung came from ancestors in the helping professions. Both his father and eight of his uncles were pastors in the Swiss Reformed Church,[8] while his paternal grandfather was a distinguished medical doctor.[9] Regular church attendance was a chore for the youthful Jung, especially as he grew older and could see that his father had no personal experience of the divine.[10] For our purposes here, it is important that we recognize the deep imprint those years in the church pews meant: While Jung moved away from organized religion as an adult, he never gave up a recognition of the transcendent and he developed great trust in the Self, i.e. “the god within.”[11]
Jung also was influenced in his early life by his mother’s highly intuitive personality,[12] which he also inherited. His cousins also had this psychic ability, and Jung drew on his familial experiences in his professional career.[13] He never discounted or disparaged the non-rational aspects of human life.
In terms of his education, Jung was four years old when his father taught him Latin,[14] and he grew up fluent in all the major Western languages. In the gymnasium (the 19th century term for what we would call high school), Jung was immersed in the cultural, historical, linguistic, mathematical and scientific traditions of the West–all of the disciplines that exposed young men to the “Humanities,” those subjects that foster humane attitudes, kind conduct toward others, and an appreciation for the classics and the ethos of Western civilization.[15]
As his years at the gymnasium came to a close, Jung chose to undertake training in the same profession as his grandfather.[16] In the early years of the 20th century, preparation to be a doctor involved far more focus on the patient than it does today. With our emphasis on medicine as a science, and the applications of sophisticated technologies, modern doctors often hardly look at their patients, and are trained to be “objective,” e.g. referring to patients not by name but by their ailment or problem.[17] In Jung’s day, doctors had little in the way of CAT scans, MRIs, or other hi-tech tools, and the focus was on a “dialectical relationship between doctor and patient.”[18] Particularly was this true in Jung’s choice of specialty: the new branch of medicine called psychotherapy.
As Jung practiced medicine, he saw it as
“…an encounter, a discussion between two psychic wholes, in which knowledge is used only as a tool. The goal is transformation—not one that is predetermined, but rather an indeterminable change, the only criterion of which is the disappearance of egohood. No efforts on the part of the doctor can compel this experience. The most he can do is to smooth the path for the patient and help him to attain an attitude which offers the least resistance to the decisive experience.”[19]
This role of the doctor is a far cry from our modern emphasis on technological sophistication, computer-based record-keeping, and making money.
Jung’s Emphasis on Individuality and Spirituality
Throughout his life Jung’s focus was on the individual. In his practice as a psychiatrist, he worked one-on-one with his patients, treating each one differently, based on the person’s unique personality and needs.[20] He decried mass movements which “destroy the means of the individual and of culture generally.”[21] He had little use for collectives or bigness:
“To worship collective ideals and work with the big organizations is spectacularly meritorious, but they nevertheless dig the grave for the individual….”[22]
because bigness makes it well nigh impossible in such situations for the individual to remain connected to his/her inner life. Jung felt large groups or masses of people gathered together would diminish the importance of the ego, causing it to be
“absorbed by the opinions and tendencies of collective consciousness, and the result of that is the mass man, the ever-ready victim of some wretched ‘ism.’…”[23]
Jung felt that people in large groups become “victims” because they lose their “link with psychic reality”[24] and become vulnerable to “herd psychology”[25] with its “witless brutality and hysterical emotionalism.”[26]
In contrast to our American worship of “need, greed and speed,”[27] Jung put a premium on the psyche, the inner life and a personal connection to the Self (aka “the god within.”[28]). Such an inward orientation fosters the development of a locus of security–what Jesus called “laying up treasures in Heaven,”[29] which relies on trust in divine wisdom rather than the host of externals like money, job, marriage, talents which are so prized in our society. Jung recognized that all the stuff we prize so much is “out there” and thus is vulnerable to loss.
Jung was not religious; he entered churches for weddings and some funerals,[30] and had little use for creeds, but he could state to John Freeman that he knew God,[31] from immersion for 80+ years in his dreams, visions and inner dialogues with the Self. In the face of our contemporary worship of all things material and technological, Jung would urge us to understand that
“A fundamental change of attitude (metanoia) is required, a real recognition of the whole man. This can only be the business of the individual and it must begin with the individual in order to be real.”[32]
Metanoia is Greek for a “change of consciousness,” or, in a spiritual sense, a “repentance.”[33] Only individuals can make such a shift.
Jung’s Appreciation for Nature and Natural Living
Jung knew that shifts as “fundamental” as transformations of attitudes can be fostered by contact with Nature. For his whole life Jung lived in contact with Nature–playing alone as a child in the fields of his father’s rural parish,[34] hiking and biking as an adult,[35] sailing his boat on the lake by his house.[36] From these decades being out in natural settings, Jung became aware of the healing energy Nature offers us:
“Whenever we touch nature we get clean. Savages are not dirty – only we are dirty. Domesticated animals are dirty, but never wild animals. Matter in the wrong place is dirt. People who have got dirty through too much civilization take a walk in the woods, or a bath in the sea. They may rationalize it in this or that way, but they shake off the fetters and allow nature to touch them. It can be done within or without. Walking in the woods, lying on the grass, taking a bath in the sea, are from the outside; entering the unconscious, entering yourself through dreams, is touching nature from the inside and this is the same thing, things are put right again.”[37]
These were literal prescriptions Jung wrote out for his patients, which he expected them to practice.
Jung knew that “Nature is an incomparable guide if you know how to follow her,”[38] but, for most people in our modern society, Nature holds no compass. Why? because, as Jung knew, the orientation of our world is not to follow Nature, but to control her.[39] We live with the conceit that we can control Nature, and the major means with which we attempt to do this is through our technologies.
Jung’s Ambivalence about Modern Technology
Jung’s misgivings rested on several points. First, techie types tend to be unbalanced, putting much more emphasis on logic and rationality while repressing “all irrational psychic factors…”.[40] This was not acceptable to Jung because he stressed living in balance, holding the tension of opposites–reason and emotion, soma and psyche, conscious and unconscious. A key principle in Jung’s psychology (reflecting his own psychic ability) is that the psyche is real,[41] so any discipline, profession or worldview that would dismiss or ignore psychic factors would not get Jung’s approbation.
Secondly, Jung took exception to the assumption (often unquestioned in our society) that we can control Nature. Jung called for the technocrat to be stripped “of the illusion of his power”[42] to manipulate Nature however he wishes. More broadly, Jung would have all of us be mindful of the fallacy in the statement “Where there’s a will, there’s a way.” No. Jung states flatly that we cannot do everything we want.[43] We are not in control of the planet, however much our techno-gurus would have us believe otherwise. In the multitude of dramatic changes in our global climate Nature is trying to get us to accept this fact.
A third reason Jung found technology problematic lies in the fact that “the development of science and technology has destroyed man’s metaphysical foundation.”[44] The result is “spiritual stagnation… our spiritual dissatisfaction and restlessness.”[45] Jung warns us that this has left us “threatened from within as from without….”.[46] In the sixty-two years since Jung’s death, this threat has only gotten worse–so bad now, with the advances in artificial intelligence, that even some tech types are offering warnings.[47]
The solution lies in humanitas. The Latin word is the obvious basis of our modern English “humanity,”[48] but it has many other meanings relevant here. The Roman statesman Cicero coined the word,[49] and it does relate to the many fine qualities of character mentioned in the opening section of this essay–humane conduct, politeness, good breeding and manner–but more to the point here, it speaks to “mental cultivation” and a “liberal education”[50]–precisely what most techie types lack in their concentration on math, coding, engineering and physics.
In his gymnasium studies Jung had a good dose of the “Humanities” (e.g. courses in languages, history, philosophy, literatures, the arts etc.), which left him aware of the need for caritas (humane benevolence for all beings),[51] prudentia (the holy virtue that reminds us of the need for deliberation and care in our interactions with others),[52] liberalitas (“a noble, kind or friendly disposition,”[53] a generosity of spirit, and a mindset open to sharing and caring for others) and most especially, in our context, humilitas (source of our English “humility,” but with a wider meaning, referring to the character trait that acknowledges limitations on our power as humans in the face of the Fates).[54]
Psychic as he was, Jung anticipated our current dilemma and nailed the source of the problem:
“The power of science and technics… is so enormous and indisputable that there is little point in reckoning up all that can be done and all that has been invented. One shudders at the stupendous possibilities. Quite another question begins to loom up: Who is applying this technical skill? in whose hands does this power lie?…”[55]
Answer: The technical skills lie in the hands of men lacking both knowledge of the liberal arts–the Humanities curriculum–and the character traits required to create a safe, viable, life-enhancing reality for humans, animals and natural systems. With no training or exposure to the features of humanitas–even worse, having a disparaging attitude toward such “soft” disciplines–the creators of modern technologies lack humility.
In their admission of ignorance about just where artificial intelligence will lead us, they lack prudence.[56] And in their concern to reap profits from their nefarious devices, they fall short in charity and liberality.
Jung should not be the only one shuddering “at the stupendous possibilities” we are facing with the development of artificial intelligence.
[1] Collected Works 8 ¶739. Hereafter Collected Works will be abbreviated CW.
[2] Jung (1984), 37.
[3] Ibid., 142.
[4] “Letter to DorothyThompson,” 23 September 1949; Letters I, 536-7.
[5] Collected Works 11, ¶443. Hereafter Collected Works will be abbreviated CW.
[6] Lewis & Short (1969), 869.
[7] Russell (2023), 12.
[8] Jung (1965), 42.
[9] Bair (2003), 12.
[10] Jung (1965), 45, 55.
[11] CW 7 ¶399.
[12] Bair (2003), 27.
[13] He wrote his doctoral dissertation on the psychic activities of his cousin. Bair (2003), 52.
[14] Ibid., 26.
[15] Ibid., 36.
[16] Ibid. 37.
[17] The goal here was to make medicine more scientific, a task given to Abraham
Flexner in 1910 by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching; see Stahnisch (2012).
[18] CW 11 ¶904.
[19] Ibid.
[20] Hannah (1976), 202.
[21] CW 8 ¶427.
[22] CW 10 ¶722.
[23] Ibid., ¶425.
[24] Ibid., ¶427.
[25] CW 16 ¶4.
[26] Ibid.
[27] Mipham (2003), 21.
[28] CW 7 ¶399.
[29] Matt. 6:19.
[30] He attended his wife Emma’s funeral, but not Toni Wolff’s. Bair (2003), 558.
[31] “The Face to Face Interview,” Jung (1977), 428.
[32] CW 10, ¶719.
[33] Liddell & Scott (1978), 503.
[34] Bair (2003), 22.
[35] Ibid. 251.
[36] Van der Post (1975), 41.
[37] Jung (1984), 142.
[38] “Letter to Mrs. N,” 20 May 1940; Letters, I, 283.
[39] CW 8 ¶750.
[40] CW 11 ¶443.
[41] Ibid. 757.
[42] CW 11 ¶869.
[43] CW 18 ¶555.
[44] “Letter to DorothyThompson,” 23 September 1949; Letters I, 536-7.
[45] Ibid.
[46] Ibid.
[47] E.g. the AI researcher Stuart Russell and Sam Altman, the CEO of Open AI, the company that created the AI chatbot ChatGPT; Russell (2023), 12, and Zakrzewski (2023), 32.
[48] World Book Encyclopedia Dictionary, I, 960.
[49] Lewis & Short (1969), 869.
[50] Ibid.
[51] Lewis & Short (1969), 252.
[52] Ibid., 1482.
[53] Ibid.,1058.
[54] Ibid., 870.
[55] CW 11 ¶869.
[56] Russell (2023), 12.
Bibliography
Bair, Deirdre (2003), Jung: A Biography. New York: Little, Brown & Co.
Jung, C.G. (1966), “Two Essays on Analytical Psychology,” CW 7. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
________ (1960), ”The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche,” CW 8. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
________ (1970), “Civilization in Transition,” CW 10. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
________ (1969), “Psychology and Religion: West and East,” CW 11. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
________ (1954), “The Practice of Psychotherapy,” CW 16, 2nd ed. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
________ (1976), ”The Symbolic Life,” CW 18. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
________ (1965), Memories, Dreams, Reflections. New York: Vintage Books.
________ (1975), Letters, ed. Gerhard Adler & Aniela Jaffé. 2 vols. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
________ (1977), C.G. Jung Speaking: Interviews and Encounters, ed. William McGuire & R.F.C. Hull. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
________ (1984), Seminar on Dream Analysis. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
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Liddell & Scott (1978), A Greek-English Lexicon. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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Stahnisch, Frank (2012),”The Flexner Report of 1910;https://www.hindawi.com/ journals/ecam/2012/647896/
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