In many ways, Jung has aged worse than Papa Freud. His world now seems quaint and naïve in its lack of suspicion and irony, in its insistence on treating symbols as universal, in its belief that all peoples are telling the same stories and meaning much the same things, albeit with slightly different flourishes. And his view of the self part romantic, part enthusiastic humanist as the mediator between the everyday world and a trans-personal inner world of archetypes is foreign to us, with our unstable selves that are constantly emerging from, being reproduced by and disappearing into the particular contextual forces that surround us. And even the ultimate benevolence of the collective unconscious so that in the last instance the archetypes are leading us towards meaning and a more complete self can seem excessively optimistic to us, used to uncaring worlds and unconsciousnesses that are actively trying to strangle us.

And yet there is much grandeur and richness in his world. Few thinkers have given such a central place to creativity and the imaginative life. And his pantheon of symbols, at their best, allow us a polytheism of the world and of the self, allowing us to honor ambiguity, allowing a personality to speak through a multitude of voices and in a multitude of ways, and permitting a playful approach to symbols that enriches the world.

Read the entire article @ 3quarksdaily: Active Imagination.