AWAKE TO THE WORLD: Jung’s Ethical Stance

Despite volumes written on morality and ethics, how do we determine what’s right? Morals distilled over time by family, faith, and nation define and denounce wrong, but the effort to banish shadow only allows it to emerge as projection onto others. We decry in ‘them’ what we deny in ourselves. Jung says, “The shadow is a moral problem that challenges the whole ego-personality…for to become conscious of it involves recognizing the dark aspects…as present and real.” Despite “the apparent certitudes of a moral code which pretends to know precisely what is good and what evil, ethical decisions involve uncertainties, entail conflicts of duty, and are ultimately subjective. We must allow shadow to have its full say before making a moral decision or it will play its part unconsciously. We cannot avoid responsibility for our ethical choices, but we can endeavor to make them with consciousness and humility.   

 

Dream

I am at the entrance of a hospital in the U.S. There are two women, immigrants and cleaning ladies there, fixing the entrance with white cement. I look at how they are working with this kind of white clay on the floor. One woman is older than the other and more experienced. I enter the building. I have an appointment with a well-known psychologist. I go to the second floor and see him downstairs very worried, looking for his parrot. I see the parrot on the roof. It is beautiful, light blue. Its beak calls my attention. I shout at him, telling him it is there, I found it. Then I enter the psychologist’s office very quickly. I sit down on a chair. I close my eyes. After a couple of minutes he tells me, okay, why are you here? I’m surprised. I had not noticed he was there. I apologize. He tells me to do some relaxing exercise with my arms. I want to talk, but he interrupts me. He says that a psychiatric patient must be brought to the room for some special healing. Two nurses bring this woman lying in a bed. I’m afraid--she looks dangerous. They are going to put her in another room, but the doctor says she must be placed behind me. I’m scared. I think she might kill me. She’s crazy.