A society of animals

In this rather humorous way the unconscious took up the idea, namely that it is really a great problem, for as conscious beings we can contact each other, but in this inferior function, one person is a cat, another is a tortoise, and a third a hare – there are all those animals! Such social adaptations present a great difficulty. There are all the problems of having one’s own territory, one’s own ground, for every animal species has a tendency to have a few meters of homeland. Every bird and every animal defends its territory from intruders; one may not step on the other’s ground, and all these complicated rituals build up again as soon as human beings join together and discard the persona and try really to contact each other. Then one really feels as if one is moving in the jungle or the bush: one must not step on this snake or frighten that bird by making quick movement, and things become very complicated. This need for bush manners has even led to the belief that psychology causes social behavior to deteriorate, which to some extent is quite true. At the Jung Institute, too, we are in a way much nastier and more difficult a group to get along with than, say, a society for breeding dogs or hares, or a club for fishermen, for there the social contact is in general on a much better level. Such an accusation has often been made not only of the Psychology Club but also of the Institute. But the truth is simply that we tend not to cover up what is going on underneath. In all other societies or groups of people, that is covered up and plays under the table; underneath there are all these difficulties, but they are never brought up to the surface and discussed openly. But, in fact, naturally, facing the shadow and the inferior function has the effect that people become socially more difficult and less conventionally adapted, and that creates more friction. On the other hand, it also creates a greater liveliness: it is never boring, for there is always a storm in a teacup and excitement, and the group is very much alive instead of having a dull, conventional, correct surface. It has even gone so far that in the Psychology Club, the animal tendencies to have one’s own realm became so strong that people started reserving seats; there was So and So’s chair, and you couldn’t’ sit on it; that was a major insult, because So and So always sat there. I have noticed that there are also papers on certain chairs on which people write their names: this is my chair – in other words, there the dog or cat So and So sits! That is a very good sign, and I thought; “Well now, that is better, matters are improving!” It is a restoration of an original and natural situation. But it is amazing how deeply the inferior function can connect one down into the realm of animal nature within oneself.

Apart from the humorous way in which I have described it, it is a very important fact, for the inferior function is actually the connection with one’s deepest instincts, with one’s inner roots, and is, so to speak, that which connects us with the whole past of mankind.

Marie Louise von Franz, Psychotherapy