On a collective level, it seems that people blame commercial industry for market-making through advertising while abdicating responsibility for their own wasteful consumption. Industry will say they are giving the people what they want while abdicating responsibility for their own wasteful production. There is truth in both sides of the argument, but it seems that each side prefers to place total blame on the other. This allows both sides to continue enjoying their consumption and profits in some potentially unconscious collusion. Humanity seems to view cannibalism as unthinkable while expanding the idea of food farming to farming of wind and water. It seems it is all about how we can continue living exactly the same, truly unsustainable way while harnessing the rest of nature, assuaging our guilt under the guise of renewable resources.
But a Jungian perspective may be of great help. Moving through the process of individuation with conscious intent would address many of these issues. For example, identifying one’s shadow content and complexes and withdrawing projections is a beginning, but then the hard work must be done. The point at which one must mull the sacrifice of one’s current quality of life and relationships in favor of living more equitably and authentically must not be underestimated.
Our society has no real precedent for making such a move without looking weird, and we live in a culture that is obsessed with not looking weird. In contrast, the Amish manage to stay clear in their values; freezing a point in time technologically, they have made a conscious choice, giving careful consideration to their own values and knowledge they have gained from a continued connection with external communities. They have even made some changes in order to coexist with the modern world (e.g., reflective paint on their buggies keep them from being run over by cars). Like the Amish, perhaps we must learn to embrace being weird.
This paper addresses some key questions: With particular reference to the call to individuation and ethical relation to Other, how does a Jungian perspective help the situation of the earth in crisis? How would one work with this dilemma in the consulting room? How would one move between the inner work and activism in a Jungian vein? How might society be affected? How can we learn from the Amish example, literally or metaphorically?
The Importance of Being Amish: Developing Moral Consciousness and Struggling to Live Our Values in Hard Times
Sharon Wallace
Respect for the natural world, for our own natures, and for one another seems at an all-time low. These days, we seem to solve all problems by either throwing money at them or withholding it. Our hard-won appreciation for the dire world-wide ecological situation was all too easily tossed aside when the economy tanked. The current recession, brought on by society’s increasing lack of a moral compass, is being used as an excuse to relegate values and ethics to the status of unaffordable luxuries. With irresponsible land development run amok and political leaders peddling the faux ecologies of cap and trade and that brazen insult to the collective intelligence known as clean coal, it seems the global warming bandwagon has switched from biodiesel back to fully leaded gas.
