The Tower and the Abyss

Erich Kahler

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Topic: Social Sciences
• eBook ISBN:
  9781351472654
• Subtopic: Existentialism in Philosophy
• Index: Social Sciences

This book shows the various evolutionary forces which have converged from different directions to effect human disintegration. It discusses the evidences of disintegration in all fields of contemporary experience, from social, political and economic processes to those in learning, art and poetry.

CHAPTER ONE

The Human Scene: INDIVIDUAL, COMMUNITY, COLLECTIVE

IN THE COURSE of this study we shall see the evidences of disintegration of the individual in all fields of contemporary experience, from social, political and economic processes to those in learning, art and poetry. They are but different aspects of one vast, comprehensive transformation that has come to affect the very inner structure of man and threatens the human values which were inherent in him as an individual.

Before detailing the various manifestations of this transformation, it will be helpful for us to delineate broadly the scene of human happenings, what we might call a social and psychic topography. This may serve as something of a working model for our investigation and reveal those vulnerable points in the human structure from which disintegration starts.

What, then, are the basic entities, the main human actors and factors involved in the happenings which we are going to contemplate. There is the individual and there are groups. The individual has two dimensions and aspects: his existence in relation to social groups and to that general social environment which we call society; and his existence and structure seen in itself, without regard to group relations, that is, as a person. Among the groups we distinguish two fundamentally different types: the community and the collective. Closer observation will show us the psychic implications of the interrelations between these various entities, the development of different layers of the unconscious and different modes of consciousness.

Man as Individual. The primary characteristic of the human structure as an individual is indivisibility, implying coherent unity, wholeness. In daily experience the individual is given as a compact unity. Because the individual unit is the only entity immediately evident to our senses, the positivistic view current in contemporary science regards it as the one unquestionably real thing. The individual is therefore the elementary empirical datum on which all general statements are to be based. Groups, in this view, are considered mere assemblages or associations of individuals, an interpretation clearly distinguished from former views which attributed separate reality to “universals,” spiritual and transindividual entities.

Our concept of individuality is confirmed by the etymological origin of the word. The word individuum was created by Cicero as a translation of the Greek átomon when he wanted to expound the atom theory of Democritus.¹ So “individual” and “atom” are actually the same word; the literal meaning of both is “indivisible.” (“Atomon” means more precisely the “uncuttable,” “unsplittable.”) The atom, as we all know, is no longer unsplittable; science has succeeded in splitting it. And the same is true of the individual; he is no longer indivisible either. A variety of interconnected developments, in which science also had its part, has effected his split. Both events took place in the same period, in our period.

Thus, when we speak of man as an individual, we are implying that to divide him is to destroy him as a human. As long as he remains human, he must maintain his indivisibility.

Man as Person. Indivisibility, solid unity, is only one of the basic characteristics of the individual. There are others which will come forth clearly when we consider the individual in his internal aspect, irrespective of group relations, that is, as a person. Commonly, “individual” and “person” are seen as identical. However, the term “person,” as used throughout the ages, shows a much greater complexity and reveals additional qualities of the individual which are just as essential as indivisibility.

The meaning of the word “person” runs the whole gamut between diametrical opposites, between the most outward and the most inward, the most superficial and the most intrinsic, the most physical and the most spiritual concepts of the individual.² Indeed the concept of “person” is capable of transcending that of “individual” in various respects, of assuming an entirely abstract character.³

The earliest known significance of the word persona was that designating the actor’s mask and from this meaning the most diverse concepts of “person” evolved. Even in ancient and medieval Latin and its derivative languages, persona indicated, on the one hand, the bodily, outward appearance of a man and, on the other, his psychic, most essential and innermost being (whether his most individual characteristic, his character itself, or the generic human quality as contrasted with the nature of the animal). It is easily seen how both of these diametrically opposite concepts arose from the actor’s mask. For the mask signifies the most external nature, the sheer appearance of a person, and at the same time the distinct character of the person represented, his psychic peculiarity.

This fluctuation of meaning has continued to our own time. While personality was seen as inner being by Locke and Kant, Goethe and Coleridge, Nietzsche and Bergson, others have adopted the interpretation of personality as outward appearance.⁴ C. G. Jung, for instance, explicitly referring to the actor’s mask, regards the persona as “a mask of the collective psyche, a mask that feigns individuality, that has others and oneself believe that one is an individual, while in reality it is only a stage part, spoken by the collective psyche…. It is a compromise between individual and society, a compromise regarding that ‘which one appears to be.’ ”⁵

One recent example will reveal adequately the attempt to account for the dualities I have mentioned and to stress additional qualities of the individual as they have come to the fore through man’s growing awareness of his development as a person. Gordon Allport explains personality in a way which combines most of the modern interpretations: “Personality is the dynamic organization within the individual of those psychophysical systems that determine his unique adjustment to his environment.”⁶ The essential points to note are “organization within the individual” and “unique.” “Adjustment to the environment” is a modern biological phrasing of the external interpretation of personality. Clearly, however, what the meaning of personality adds over and above the individual’s primary attribute of indivisibility is selfhood, or self-realization, and uniqueness.

ALTHOUGH the individual, in both aspects, is defined by wholeness and selfhood, he is constantly involved in interchange and interaction with other entities. There is not, therefore, and there never has been an integral individual. In particular, each individual is permanently and intrinsically connected with groups of various kinds, he participates in them and, conversely, the groups participate in the individual, they have a share in the individual. These groups are on their part not mere assemblages of individuals, but separate, distinct entities. Since the appearance of Gustave Le Bon’s Psychologie des foules (1895) and Georg Simmel’s Soziologie (1906), psychologists and sociologists have recognized that groups are not at all identical with the sum total of their members, but develop a character and a form of behavior entirely their own. A group as a whole reacts very differently from its single members.⁷ So too the behavior and the reactions of a person may vary greatly when he is confronted with a situation as an individual from when he acts as a member of a group.

An individual, accordingly, is not only an individual, he is at the same time more than an individual inasmuch as he participates in groups. And the kind of group which predominates in this participation has a momentous influence on his life and personality. Therefore it is crucial for an understanding of the modern crisis to distinguish the general types of groups in which the individual has a part.

The individual stands, indeed he is a junction, between two essentially different types of groups: community and collective.

The Community. Groups, such as the family, the tribe or the nation, which substantially as well as genealogically or historically precede their individual members and constitute the basic, unconscious layers of the personautles of their individuals, we call communities. These pre-individual or sub-individual groups are primordial, archaic social entities, out of which individuals are born or into which they have slowly and habitually grown. They transmit patterns of form and behavior—countenance, gesture, manners, language, style of life—and archetypes of representations and attitudes, which imperceptibly motivate individuals through generations. Communities form traditions; they are the soil, the constantly, silently shifting ground in which the individual is rooted. Indeed, everyone’s psyche reaches down to the very origins of life; it is at any moment as deep as life itself.

As C. G. Jung has shown, our unconscious is populated by archetypes stemming from various mythical group layers. They interact, intertwine, influence and assimilate personal experiences, the acquisitions of individual consciousness. The different layers of archaic group patterns together form what C. G. Jung calls the “collective unconscious”—to be distinguished from Freud’s individual unconscious or Jung’s “personal unconscious.” “Collective unconscious,” as used by Jung, seems to me a misleading term. I prefer to call the same psychic zone “generic unconscious” because the word “collective” presupposes a number of separate individuals who assemble together. Archaic groups, however, being sub-or pre-individual groups, did not form through collecting or being collected, through assemblage of pre-established individuals, but through spontaneous phylogeneration, as it were. This distinction is all the more important since in recent times, under the impact of modern collectives—political parties, unions, associations of all kinds—there has developed a truly collective unconscious which will have to be clearly set apart and considered in its own specific character.

In genuinely primitive clans or tribes, where the “tribal self”⁸ prevails over undeveloped or half-developed individuals, this generic unconscious may be observed in action. Dr. William Halse Rivers, the famous British psychologist and explorer, relates the following incidents: “When studying the warfare of the people of the Western Solomon Islands, I was unable to discover any evidence of definite leadership. When a boat reached the scene of a headhunting foray, there was no regulation as to who should lead the way. It seemed as if the first man who got out of the boat or chose to lead the way was followed without question. Again, in the councils of such people, there is no voting or other means of taking the opinion of the body. Those who have lived among savage or barbarous peoples in several parts of the world have related how they have attended native councils where matters in which they were interested were being discussed. When, after a time, the English observer found that the people were discussing some wholly different topic, and inquired when they were going to decide the question in which he was interested, he was told that it had already been decided and that they had passed on to other business…. The members of the council had become aware, at a certain point, that they were in agreement, and it was not necessary to bring the agreement explicitly to notice.”⁹

It is very important to realize that all archaic groups act upon the individual from within, through unconscious channels; if not in the quite primitive way of immediate action as exemplified above, they influence the individual through archetypes, rituals, traditions, constitutional habits or tastes. In this way archaic groups are embedded, indeed embodied, in the very individuality of the individual.

The influence of archaic groups is most powerful. There were periods in history when they were all-predominant, when they hampered and at times thwarted the individual in his formative period. But never did they disrupt the individual, for they do not shatter the substance of personality. An American, for example, cannot help following certain patterns of feeling and thinking, of living, dressing, eating and loving. His inclinations, predilections and prejudices are to a certain degree generically American and not merely his own as an individual. In no way does this prevent him, however, from being the complete individual he is; indeed it forms part of his very individuality. Being an American, of Irish or Italian stock, belonging to a certain family, being an instance of Homo Sapiens: all this is indissolubly interwoven in the texture of his personality. A person may become gradually aware of his ancestral traits, his national peculiarities and limitations; he may rationalize them, sublimate them. He may even be endowed with a mind strong and broad enough to raise himself beyond these limits and become what we would call a true personality; but he will never rid himself completely of those innate or habitually acquired generic ties.

Such archaic residues may be used and misused by groups of a different character, by political or economic power interests. National or religious or “racial” feelings may be whipped up to frantic emotion and mass hysteria and in this way become extremely dangerous. They may swamp everything that is actually individual in a person, sweep away his conscious ego, his clear thinking. Yet they do not by themselves alone break up the structure of personality. The damage is temporary; it may be repaired and the original condition restored, when emotions have ebbed away.

The Collective. Political parties, work organizations, economic, occupational or technical combines, corporations, cooperatives, unions, form a second type of group which we call collectives. These supra-individual or post-individual groups develop through the joining of pre-established individuals for some specific purpose. Collectives are established by common ends, communities derive from common origins.

Collectives have become particularly prevalent in more recent times. Their development has been hastened by the progress of industry and technology, the division of labor, the growing influence of scientific mechanization in trades and professions, specialization in the sciences and the extensive mass production and standardization of goods. Modern means of communication, too, have favored their development. Radio, television, movies, omnipresent advertising, mass slogans, the functional lingoes of business and the professions, have all produced and fostered those stereotypes of public opinion upon which a collective thrives. The modern state too, be it democratic or totalitarian, must be regarded as an accomplished collective. Through the vast scope of its tasks it has become overwhelmingly bureaucratic, a monstrous, rationalized and systematized organization of individuals.

Collectives are the only groups which function primarily as groups. To be sure, a family or a nation is a group as well, but its primary function is internal; it acts upon the individual through common feelings, dispositions and habits. Whenever a community acts as a group, this function is derivative; whenever a nation acts as a group, it becomes a state. Conversely, the influence of the collective is an external one; and its internal effects on the individual are derivative. Its standards and stereotypes intrude on the personality from without. Substantially alien to the personality, collectives may, if powerful enough, cause it to split. Collective influences are therefore much more dangerous than those exerted by genuine communities; they may break up the individual form. They invade the psyche of the individual from consciousness, in a rational or pseudo-rational way, through the innumerable abstractions of modern life. From consciousness, dim as it may be, these abstractions gradually sink into the unconscious, and in this manner they disrupt personality—for no crucial changes occur in a human being without the medium of the unconscious. The unconscious is the formative, the creative ground of the personality, and not until the unconscious has been affected, can any change take roots in a human disposition.

In this way a layer of the unconscious forms that can rightly be called collective unconscious. Here is stored up the residue of a host of mass stereotypes, slogans, conceptual simplifications, suggested or imposed attitudes, which by various means have sunk from consciousness into the unconscious.

We are all aware of instances of this process. Business advertising, for example, starts out from some very simple rational, quasi-argumentative appeal. “Live modern,” it tells you, and smoke L&M filter cigarettes which “taste richer, smoke cleaner”; Ballantine beer has “purity, body, flavor”; American Airlines “carries more passengers than any other airline in the world.” Once these motives for buying are established, compulsion through ubiquitous, noisy repetition sets in. Constant pound...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Acknowledgments
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Introduction to the Transaction Editon
• Introduction to the Original Edition
• Chapter 1. The Human Scene: Individual, Community, Collective
• Chapter 2. The Split from Without: I Collectivization
• Chapter 3. The Split from Without: II Totalization and Terror
• Chapter 4. The Split from Within: I Second Consciousness and Fractionized Universe
• Chapter 5. The Split from Within: II New Sensibility, Psychoanalysis and Existentialist Experience
• Chapter 6. Man Without Values
• Chapter 7. Possible Utopia
• Postscript
• Notes
• Index