Archetypes Rant

[Rachelcat]

Disclaimer: I don’t have a lot of emotional investment in this and definitely don’t want to offend anyone at all. The following is just how this argument formed in my mind. I’m really just having fun with ideas!

We had a lovely tarot society presentation yesterday about archetypes. It was really very informative. But I’ve already given up on the concept. We had two members in attendance, the presenter and another, that are pretty well-versed and appreciative of Jung’s ideas, so I didn’t want to throw my monkey wrench into the works of the meeting.

Then this morning I watched a video about unpopular tarot opinions in which the presenter defended the concept of the fool’s journey (another pet peeve of mine) with the premise that it goes beyond tarot because it contains archetypes. So now I have to rant a bit! (Maybe I’ll have a fool’s journey rant, too, if you’d rather discuss that instead.)

Begin rant:

There are no such things as archetypes. There are words and ideas. That some people probably have in common. That’s it. I have news for Herr Jung and company: White male Victorian experience is not universal experience. Therefore not leading to universal psychological ideas.

Seems pretty simple, right? The easiest example: Everyone has different parents, with different personalities and different ways of relating to their children. And every person has a different experience of relating to their parents, even children in the same family with the same parents. Leading to different psychological ideas of what parents are or should be. Yet there are supposedly archetypes of Father and Mother. I mean, I can easily come up with an idea of what a white upper-middle class Victorian man thinks of as Father and Mother, but what difference does that make to my psychological makeup or mental health? And saying that that idea is normal, and the idea that I have is not normal doesn’t do much for me either, either in my personal development or general learning and understanding.

As I’m writing, I remember that I have another beef with Jungian interpretations. I haven’t studied Jung or archetypes in any detail at all, but I have read a couple of books of Jungian interpretations of tarot and alchemy. They seem very unclear and waffling (which may be because of my own ignorance of the broader Jungian ideas). But the books are also both condescending and uninformed about the subject they’re supposed to be about. If you’re writing a book about alchemical illustrations that include astrological figures, maybe you should read a basic book on astrology first, instead of going off on a tangent about them as if they’re dream symbols. They’re not. They have a set meaning, and the intended audience for the illustrations would have known the meaning instantly. The interpreter’s ignorance of an artwork’s context doesn’t make him/her more clever and insightful than the artist and his/her intended audience.

Back to archetypes: If “archetypes” is just a fancy way of saying “traditional concepts” or “societal ideas or ideals,” I’m fine with it. Just as I don’t believe I’m being watched 72 angels named in the book of Exodus, or that the cardinal virtues are the last word in morality, but I can work with them in a divinatory system, the concept of archetypes can be a tool in my tarot toolbox, but not one I’ll use very often. I’ll stick with “traditional concepts” or “societal expectations,” which come with more simplicity and less baggage, which make them more useful for me.

End rant.

What do you think of archetypes? (Or Jungian interpretation in general?) Does my argument have a leg to stand on? Or am I just picking a very unimportant battle here?

All replies are welcome!

[Joan Marie]

If “archetypes” is just a fancy way of saying “traditional concepts” or “societal ideas or ideals,” I’m fine with it. ... I’ll stick with “traditional concepts” or “societal expectations,” which come with more simplicity and less baggage, which make them more useful for me.

I love a good rant.

Not sure I can add anything useful here but I will try.

I have also had a hard time warming to the concept of archetypes. I've even tried reading Jung directly which had the surprising effect of dissuading me from his views. I read him to try and convince myself of his views because so many people (who I have great respect for) really do buy into it and find it useful.

When considering archetypes, which I don't very often, but when I do I have a view much like yours, that they are "suggestions" at best and not anything like a fixed concept. I just am not able to see life or people in such simplistic reductive terms.

Which is funny because I see we are looking at them the same but different. For you, all the baggage makes them too complex to deal with and you find calling it "traditional concepts" simpler. I see the archetypes as too simple and lacking the complexity of actual human life. But in a way, I think we are saying (and seeing) the same thing.

For me the bottom line is I find the concept dull and (maybe because of that) unhelpful to me for understanding people or Tarot.

One step further: I'm no fan of Briggs-Meyer categories for the same reasons. The "information" they provide tells me absolutely nothing useful or interesting about a person. I find it absurd to think that all people can be reduced to 16 personality types. If that were true, then what is the point of living?

I fully admit that it is entirely possible that the problem is I simply don't quite get it. But I have tried. It's just not working for me.

People's actions cannot always be explained away. I was reading a book recently where the author was saying the problem with modern literature is they are always explaining people's motivations, like the authors now are all therapists or something. And as a reader and writer of books, she found that really dull and flat, and way too easy.

Your example of "mother" is a good one. I come from a family of 6 kids. When our mom passed away, it became apparent that each of us had a really different picture of of our mom, a different experience of her. For example, she confided in me when I was young that she'd never wanted 6 kids. I understood what she meant. Totally. When I mentioned this to my siblings, my sisters were surprised and my brothers were shocked, in disbelief. It was there I realised I was the only one she'd ever talked about that to. I really thought they knew that about her. It was part of my fundamental understanding of her as a person. But she told me because she knew I would understand what she meant. I truly did, even as young as I was. Even then I understood that her feelings were complex, her relationship to motherhood was complex.

Most people want to think their mom is an archetype. I'm glad mine wasn't and more glad that she let me in on it.

I guess that makes me INFP or maybe it's NSFW.

[dust]

I completely agree, actually. There's nothing "universal" about Jungian archetypes. I feel like it makes sense to understand them in cases where a given deck was deeply influenced by the idea and where it might help you get where the creator was coming from. Otherwise, it's totally fine to disregard them and I personally never use it.

I see the Tarot as being mainly a tool, one that you can (and should) adapt to what makes sense to you. There's no reason to not take the meanings of the cards and adjust them to be something more connected to your culture or other experiences.

It's a bit like language. Two languages can have words for "mother" but things like how it's used, how words around it change the meaning, etc. can differ greatly. Likewise, beyond the basic meaning, people can have all sorts of feelings and impressions about what a mother is, what it means to be a mother, what "motherly" traits are, etc. based on their own life history and culture. And that's ok.

[Ciderwell]

What do you think of archetypes? (Or Jungian interpretation in general?) Does my argument have a leg to stand on? Or am I just picking a very unimportant battle here?

Jungian Archetypes are just the raw structure of the Collective Unconscious, like girders or columns holding up a building.
Jung wanted to use astrology to help explain his theories on the roots of thought, but was unable to because astrology cannot be explained using empirical measurements, or show how distant planets can effect the human psyche.
But just mentioning this was his way of saying he used astrology anyway.

I think his idea of what thoughts are made of are explained like the stars in the night sky, and the way they group together to make constellations. Two dimensional archetypes interacting with each other so as to create a three dimensional structure, the basic elements of a thought. Thoughts in turn group together to create an idea, and so on (like the growth of a crystal).

I wouldn't get too hung up on his archetypes, besides, Jung was a doctor not an astrologer. One reason I think his books on the subject were not taken very seriously.

[devin]

I think Jung viewed archetypes in a very different way to most modern Tarot readers, seeing them as unconscious, instinctual drives and primitive, even animalistic, states of mind, a collective unconscious that lies beneath the family and cultural content of one's personal unconscious. Here, the collective unconscious is seen as the real driver of human behaviour and manifests symbolically in myth, dreams, religion, etc.

Influenced by applying Gnostic theology to classical myth and alchemy, Jung then came up with the idea of individuation in which one brings to conscious attention and then integrates these animalistic drives and primitive modes of consciousness, becoming a whole, self-realized human being.

You see, this is a very different kettle of fish to anything your average Tarot Jungian might put across, right?

I have been informed that some European Jungian Tarot readers have a very different take on Jung's theories to those that predominate in the Anglo tarot world. In fact, I had one piece of writing passed my way where a Tarot reader links the guardian at the gate and the sphinx with bowel movements, which, in its way, is far closer to authentic Jung than, say, most takes on the Fool's journey.

That said, I am not a Jungian, nor am I an expert on such topics, far from it!

I hope someone will correct me if I've gotten the wrong end of the stick.

[TheLoracular]

Best rant ever!

I am not even going to try and express what I think of Jungian archetypes outside of tropes within literature. But that is what they are, literary tropes, "stock characters" in the stories we tell ourselves within, tell others without. They are NOT the be-all and end-all of personalities. Neither is the MBTI but gosh, I love associating those 16 personality types with the Court Cards. I don't go around and point at real people though and say "They are a Queen of Swords"


Totally borrowing from cool bits of what has been said?

I am sure that archetypes (not simply his, just as a broad concept) = "raw structure of the Collective Unconscious" given some kind of form because without form, all you have is "unconscious, instinctual drives and primitive, even animalistic, states of mind" that can't find expression.

So archetypes are kind of like atoms and molecules which create identifiable patterns that in turn both drive and explain human behavior and manifest symbolically in myth, dreams, religion, etc.

But even if the Collective Unconscious gives all of us that raw mess of energies and forces and concepts, regardless of when/where we are born? How each of us shapes them and identifies with them and expresses them has got to be based on 1001 unique things.

I totally want to hear a good rant about The Fool's Journey now!

[Ciderwell]

Influenced by applying Gnostic theology to classical myth and alchemy, Jung then came up with the idea of individuation in which one brings to conscious attention and then integrates these animalistic drives and primitive modes of consciousness, becoming a whole, self-realized human being.

Like saying be all you can be, though, easier said than done. Didn't Jung go off his trolley figuring that one out!
But I guess that's what happens when you look into the abyss; one might see a tarpit while an other a mountain tarn.