Individuality, Persona & The Cultural Unconscious
“Fundamentally the persona is nothing real:
it is a compromise between individual and society…”
“Cultural” symbols . . . have gone through many transformations and even a process of more or less conscious elaboration, and in this way have become the representations collectives of civilised societies…”
One of these concepts is well known, the ‘persona’ (our social mask) and the other recognised the existence of a ‘cultural unconscious’ (what is culturally assumed but is not necessarily acknowledged or recognised at the cognitive level.)
This month’s lecture will explore these jungian concepts with some reference to Australian and European social history. It will throw light on the tension between individuals and their relationship to the Collective, and show how the persona and the cultural unconscious form. It will discuss/comment upon how these two aspects of our psychic life influence and have determined our social expectations and interactions with each other.