The Clare Spark Blog

Jung as Aryan Christ

This is the first of two posts on Jung’s relation to the moderate men or what I have called Conservative Enlightenment. The Henry A.  Murray excerpt from his confidential report to FDR is particularly bizarre. The actual denazification of Germany is a special field in itself. I have found the literature on Wilhelm Furtwängler’s rehabilitation to be helpful. Look for bureaucratic clumsiness and the need to align with the New Deal progressives against the Soviet Union for clues. [For a related blog, see https://clarespark.com/2012/11/03/the-social-work-of-progressives/.]

[Dr. C.G. Jung diagnoses wasteland maladies, 1946:] As I said before, the upheaval of mass instincts corresponds to a compensatory move of the unconscious.  Such a move became possible because the conscious state of the people had become estranged from the natural laws of human existence.  Because of industrialization, large parts of the population became uprooted, and they were herded together in large centres.  And because of this new form of existence–with its mass psychology and its social dependence upon the fluctuations of markets and wages, an individual was created who was unstable, insecure, and suggestible…Germany…is by no means the only nation threatened by this dangerous germ.  The influence of mass psychology has spread far and wide.  It was the individual’s feeling of weakness, and indeed of non-existence, which was compensated by the upheaval of hitherto unknown desires for power…Nothing but materialism was preached by the highest intellectual authority….Hitler…was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities.  He was a highly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic individual, full of empty childish fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or guttersnipe.  He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this is another reason why they fell for him.[1]

THE  SWITCH…? Interdisciplinary tolerance and more tolerance.

[Max Weinreich describes speech by Walter Gross, M.D., at reception for diplomats and newspapermen, Germany, 1935, their joint (interdisciplinary) project to synthesize applied biology, history and politics.  Weinreich’s assessment of their sole deficiency: no free speech, no checks and balances, no equal opportunity to express both sides of a controversy:]  ‘The National Socialist Rasse idea stands as an indivisible and undivided whole, above all compartmentalized learning of the former era.  Consequently, the idea of race cannot be taught by an old-fashioned specialist, he insisted, but only by a National Socialist who combines knowledge and material of the most different fields into a new insight and on its basis shapes the world picture of a new era….’ [Dr. Martin Staemmler:] ‘I believe and hope just after the events of the last years that German idealism, heroism, and spirit of sacrifice are still alive….Let us,therefore, free the Nordic soul from the fetters of materialism; then it will again attain its former bloom.  Then we will again recognize it as what we would like to set before our people as the breeding aim.’ ^[2]

[Hitler, Oct. 21, 1941:]  Nobody was more tolerant than the Romans. Every man could pray to the god of his choice, and a place was even reserved in the temples for the unknown god.  Moreover, every man prayed as he chose, and had the right to proclaim his preferences.

St. Paul knew how to exploit this state of affairs in order to conduct his struggle against the Roman State.  Nothing has changed; the method has remained sound.  Under cover of a pretended religious instruction, the priests continue to incite the faithful against the State.

The religious ideas of the Romans are common to all Aryan peoples.  The Jew, on the other hand, worshipped and continues to worship, then and now, nothing but the golden calf.  The Jewish religion is devoid of all metaphysics and has no foundation but the most repulsive materialism.  That’s proved even in the concrete representation they have of the Beyond–which for them is identified with Abraham’s bosom….(Table Talk, 77).

[Dr. Henry A. Murray, Director of the Harvard Psychological Clinic and a Jungian, advises FDR, October 1943, on the best ways to apply the lessons of (patrician) psychoanalysis to the postwar treatment of the German people (his emphasis through out:]

It can be predicted that we will find the German people profoundly humiliated, resentful, disenchanted, dejected, morose, despairing of the future.  Accustomed to obeying an arbitrary external authority, they will have no dependable inner guides to control behavior.  There will be a wave of crime and suicide.  Apathy will be wide-spread.  Having passed through a period of intense unanimity and cooperation, Germany as a social system will fall apart, each man to suffer pain and mortification in private.

Disorganization and confusion will be general, creating a breeding ground for cults of extreme individualism.  A considerable part of the population will be weighted down by a heavy sense of guilt, which should lead to a revival of religion.  The soil will be laid [sic] for a spiritual regeneration; and perhaps the Germans, not we, will inherit the future.

It is assumed that the Allies will demilitarize Germany, will insist on efficient guarantees against future conspiracies, will take steps to liquidate the Junker Class, will prevent rearmament and the misuse of raw materials.  As Dr. Foerster has said: a soft peace for Germany will be a very hard peace for the German people, delivering them to the Prussian caste who led them astray.

Nothing permanent, however, can be achieved by such measures alone.  What is required is a profound conversion of Germany’s attitude: abandonment of the idea (1) that they are innately superior; (2) that they are destined to govern the earth; (3) that there is no human law or authority higher than the good of the German State; (4) that power is to be admired above everything; and (5) that Might makes Right.

In treating the Germans psychologically we must realize that we are dealing with a nation suffering from paranoid trends: delusions of grandeur; delusions of persecution; profound hatred of strong opponents and contempt of weak opponents; arrogance, suspiciousness and envy–all of which has been built up as a reaction to an age-old inferiority complex and a desire to be appreciated.

Possibly the first four steps in the treatment of a single paranoid personality can be adapted to the conversion of Germany.  In attempting this we must not forget that the source of their psychic sickness is wounded pride.

3.(a) First Step.-The physician must gain the respect of the patient.  (i) Individual paranoid.– Paranoids cannot be treated successfully if they are not impressed (consciously or unconsciously) by the ability, knowledge, wisdom, or perhaps mere magnetic force, of the physician.  Special efforts must sometimes be made to achieve this end, since paranoids, being full of scorn, are not easy to impress.

(ii) Germany.  The regiments that occupy Germany should be the finest that the United Nations can assemble – regiments with a history of victories, composed of tall well-disciplined soldiers commanded by the best generals.  Rowdiness and drunkenness should not be permitted.  The Germans should be compelled to admit: “These are splendid men; not the weak degenerates (democratic soldiers) or barbarians (Russian soldiers) we were led to expect.”  The Germans admire orderliness, precision, efficiency.

3. (b) Second Step. The potential worth of the patient should be fully acknowledged. (i) Individual paranoid.-The indwelling burning hunger of the paranoid is for recognition, power and glory–praise from those he respects.  This hunger should be appeased as soon as possible, so that the paranoid thinks to himself: “The great man appreciates me.  Together we can face the world.”  It is as if he thought: “He is God the Father and I am his chosen son.”

(ii) Germany.– Germany’s countryside, its music, historic culture, and monuments of beauty should be appreciated and praised.  The army of occupation should manifest intense interest in the culture of Old Germany and complete indifference to all recent developments.  The troops should be instructed and coached by lectures and guide-books covering the district they will occupy.  They should be told that the war is not won until the heart of the German people has been won.

Germans of the old school should be hired to teach the German language, to guide the soldiers on tours of the country and of museums, to teach native arts and skills.  Concerts should be arranged, omitting pieces that have been specially favored by the Nazis.  Editions of books burned by the Nazis should be published and put on sale immediately.

All this will serve a double purpose.  It will provide education for our troops and occupy their time; thus helping to maintain morale.  Also the submerged inferiority feelings and resentments of the Germans will be alleviated.

3 (c) Third Step. – Insight should be tactfully provided, a little at a time. (i) Individual paranoid.– Very gradually, step by step, the patient is enlightened as to his own paranoid mechanisms.  Pride in being uncriticizable and always in the right must be gradually replaced by pride in being able to rise above his own mechanisms and criticize himself, pride in being strong enough to admit some weaknesses and erros [sic].  He should be made to understand that he has been victimized by unconscious forces which gained control over his proper self.  During the course of these talks the physician should freely confess his own weaknesses and errors, the patient being treated as an equal.

(ii) Germany. The last ten years of German history should be interpreted as a violent infectious fever, a possession of the spirit, which took hold of the people as soon as they gave ear to the false prophets of Fascism.

A series of articles, editorials, essays and short books should be written now by Germans in this country (Thomas Mann, Reinhold Niebuhr, Foerster, and others), aided possibly by suggestions from psychiatrists, to be published in German newspapers and distributed soon after the occupation.  They should be therapeutic essays essentially- perhaps signed by a nom de plume as if written by a minister, physician, or writer in Germany.

Not too much should be said in any one paper; but, in time, the lies, delusions, treacheries and crimes of the Nazis should be reviewed objectively and in historical sequence.  The German people should be made to understand that the world regards them as unwitting and unhappy victims of instinctual forces.  The Allies should be magnanimous enough to admit their own errors and misdeeds.

3. (d) Fourth Step. The patient should be insociated in a group.  (1) Individual paranoid.  Having attained a measure of satisfaction by winning the respect and friendship of his physician and then having gained some insight and control, the patient is ready for group therapy.  Later, he can be persuaded to join outside groups.  Gradually he must learn to take his place and cooperate on an equal basis with others.  The group he joins should have a goal.

(ii) Germany.  If Germany is to be converted, it is of the utmost importance that some strong and efficient super-government be established as soon as possible, providing a new world conscience, that her people can respect.  As said above, Germans must have something to look up to – a God, a Fuehrer, an Absolute, a national ideal.  It can not be a rival nation, or a temporary alliance of nations.  It must be a body – a strong body with a police force–which stands above any single state.  A supranational symbol would eventually attract the deference that is now focussed upon Hitler.  Lacking such a symbol, many Germans will certainly fall into a state of profound disillusionment and despair.  At the proper time Germany should be insociated as an equal in whatever league or federation of nations has been established.

From here on the therapy of a single paranoid personality fails as an analogy, principally because the German people will not be in the position of a patient who comes willingly to the physician’s office.  The Nazis will be in no mood to be educated by their enemies.  Furthermore it would be very presumptuous of us to try it.  The most that the Allies could do would be to close all schools and universities until new anti-fascist teachers and faculties had been recruited.  The greatest problem will be in dealing with a whole generation of brutalized and hardened young Nazis.  (Perhaps exhibition games of soccer, football, lacrosse and baseball between American and English regiments would serve to introduce ideas of fair play and sportsmanship; but much else must be done – by German educators).

For the conversion of Germany the most effective agency will be some form of world federation.  Without this the Allied victory will have no permanently important consequences.^[3]

[J.M. Broughton explains that “neutral” psychology and science (the Enlightenment) will kill us all; summons “theory” to the rescue:]  A psychology constructed upon such an epistemology, compelled solely by the empirical, has never been compatible with theory.  Yet, central to its approach is a highly theoretical precept that human beings are fully individuated, unifed [sic] rational subjects.  Such subjects are conceived after the Cartesian model, as radically distinct from and standing over against the world of objects that they do and can know.  Unified rational individuals are typically construed in the image of scientists: not only are they to be studied with objective methods, but they themselves experience only objectively.  Their subjective life is allowed no fictive, fabricative power; it is confined to cognitive categorization and decision-making; resulting in the formation of informational structures, attitudes and beliefs.  The “subjectivity” of such subjects is confined to their biases, defined in terms of the objective invalidity of their knowledge or literal inaccuracy of their beliefs and attitudes.  Such prejudices are subject to correction through sustained contact with external reality mediated by methodologically legitimate procedures of inquiry.  Subjects constituted in this way can only be connected outwardly, through mutually objectifying relationships.

” [Henry A.] Murray’s (1938) empirical studies identified this methodological objectivist tendency and termed it “extraceptiveness.”  A major deficit of the extraceptive individual is that “he may be confused by complex emotional situations…(and is) deficient in his interpretations of the more irrational phases of human experience.” Moreover, such a personality orientation, guided by a preoccupation with control, tends to social conformism and uncritical acquiescence to the group.  Nevitt Sanford (1966) and Adorno, et al (1950) went on to show that extraceptiveness actually served the defensive purpose of “anti-intraceptiveness,” self-deceptive disowning of any interior life other than rationally organized ideation.  Modern philosophy of science has indicated how the objectivist antipathy to subjectivity, and particularly to the dynamism of emotional life, is an epistemological opposition to interpretation, the latter being precisely that process most generally implicated in all the activities of human beings.

“The final link in our chain is provided by the cognitive psychologist, Dinnerstein (1976), who has demonstrated how the authoritarian stress on external reality and the anti-interpretive reduction of subjective life to objectifiable data are central to the etiology of the nuclear dilemma.  Rather than the more familiar view espoused by organizations of physicians and psychiatrists that nuclear threat has led to a disregard for internal life, she shows that it is the other way round.  Moreover, she points to the way in which the “external reality” favored by scientific psychology is more accurately described as an externalized reality, since the outer world of the self-deceiving agent is constructedchiefly by objectified forms of disowned inner experience.  There is an irony here: Precisely that discipline which denies to the subject any power of fabrication of “reality” is guilty of an elaborate fabrication of “reality” itself.

“In short, authoritarianism is endemic to scientific psychology, and contributes significantly to the very nuclear dilemma that it claims to be able to distance from itself as an object of democratically dispassionate observation and rational analysis. ^[4]

[1] C.G. Jung,”Individual and Mass Psychology,” Essays on Contemporary Events(London:Kegan Paul, 1946): xiii-xv. Originally broadcast on the BBC, Nov. 3, 1946.

[2] Max Weinreich, Hitler’s Professors: The Part of Scholarship in Germany’s Crimes Against the Jewish People (N.Y.: Yiddish Scientific Institute): 34, 35, 51-52, 80.

[3] Henry A. Murray, M.D., “Analysis of the Personality of Adolph [sic] Hitler with predictions of his future behavior and suggestions for dealing with him now and after Germany’s surrender,” 46-53.  Declassified confidential document, in J.F. Carter papers, FDR Library, Hyde Park, N.Y.  Cf. the antimodern films of Fritz Lang on the crazy scientist, Doctor Mabuse (1923) and Metropolis (1926).  Mabuse is the charismatic psychoanalyst with the evil eye, a money-mad chameleon who changes his form (he is “the player” like all artists?); he has chosen “the will to power” and “desire” over “love.”  Bored German aristocrats caught in his net have been previously weakened by their decadent affair with primitivism and expressionism (i.e., the body).  The group of film critics with whom I viewed Mabuse had no doubt that he was a prototype of Hitler.

[4] John M. Broughton, “Babes in Arms: Object Relations and Fantasies of Annihilation,” The Psychology of War and Peace: The Image of the Enemy, ed. Robert W. Rieber (N.Y.: Plenum Press, 1991): 88-89. Broughton describes Melanie Klein’s mind map with the same images deployed by “democratic pluralists” and Symbolic interactionists treated by me as proto-fascist/counter-Enlightenment: “[Klein sees] the mind as an inner world populated with a plurality of diverse, interacting objects, or, initially, object parts…Klein was an avid adherent to the notion of biologically based life and death instincts; her theory could be seen as a development of the concept of Thanatos suggestively formulated in Freud’s later work.(94)…she finds adult consciousness suffused with unconscious, fantastic, and barbarous distortions that tend to remove us systematically and dangerously from a realistic perception of the human situation and the social world.”(97)

I did not include all of Broughton’s citations in the passage I have quoted.  Dr. Henry A. Murray, head of personnel assessment for the OSS, recommended that Hitler’s uncanny ability to see into and manage the minds of “the average man” be appropriated by the U.S.  These numerous achievements were published without attribution in the Walter Langer report on Hitler’s mind (Basic Books, 1972).  Murray made his mark devising projective tests to identify latent radicalism in future leaders, an approach strongly endorsed by Harold Lasswell, another powerful corporatist liberal political scientist, and admired as a progressive figure by Blanche Wiesen Cook and Stanley Aronowitz, two New Left intellectuals.

Cf. editorial, The Nation, May 18, 1992, on the jury that acquitted the policemen who beat Rodney King: “Racial fears and prejudices are planted so firmly in their unconscious (not one of them was black) that nothing prejudicial need be said to produce the desired effect…The venue was moved from multicultural Los Angeles to the suburban Simi Valley in the far reaches of Ventura County, conveniently close to the Ronald Reagan Library in case anyone wanted to dash over during a break and see how racism was instituted in America on a truly grand scale (651-2).