Generational Attention: Remembering How to Be a People

Abstract

In the aftermath of World War I C. G. Jung responded to the destruction wrought by humankind by imagining humanity as a single, semi-conscious being. Jung imagines a naturalistic God capable of helping us remember how to be a people by using an awareness of all of human history to guide the species’ decision-making. As a psychologist I use Jung’s image to cultivate this “generational attention” in progressive political groups, particularly helping them cultivate the “public emotional intelligence” necessary to bind themselves to one another as a human community. Today the Jungian community can contribute to the articulation of a uniquely Jungian political psychology by following this image and by integrating a more differentiated feeling function in our organizations as we go.