“In the course of the millennia we have succeeded not only in conquering the wild nature all round us, but in subduing our own wildness”
“The growth of culture consists, as we know, in a progressive subjugation of the animal in man. It is a process of domestication which cannot be accomplished without rebelling on the part of the animal nature that thirsts for freedom…”
CG Jung often amplified ways of thinking about the systemic balance between ecological and psychological habitats. In many passages he leaves us with no doubt that ‘civilized’ man has trampled the wild. Domesticity, rationality and urbanity suppress the wildness within and without. Our psychic interiority has been disciplined, discoloured and dulled as our sensory perceptions become accustomed to rational and inanimate networks enveloping us. This inorganic environment leaves us disembodied and dislocated from our animal selves. Like outer ecosystems, inner habitats have become civilized, subduing our own wildness as Jung reminded us. All around us is evidence that we are disengaged from our natural world, including our psychic nature. This lecture reflects on this disconnection and the necessity for the restoration of outer and inner wildernesses.