[Buddha-l] Sabba Sutta

[Dan Lusthaus]

Richard wrote:

> The regret that Jung expressed was in a piece written in 1936. He had
> earlier written about the collective unconscious in 1902. It was that
> work that had been misunderstood. In 1954 we wrote pieces in which he
> presented refinements on his theory of archetypes. I see no hint of any
> intellectual dishonesty in any of this. On the contrary, I think that
> refining one's theories in the light of criticism and further research
> and reflection is a pretty good sign.

You sure you didn't work as Press Secretary for the Bush White House? This
is dervish-level spin.

We needn't rehash Jung's well-documented antisemitism (something blatantly
and disturbingly apparent to Freud on their first meeting, which he tried,
unsuccessfully, to encourage Jung to overcome). Nor that Jung was using his
own "racial" interpretation of the collective unconscious well after 1936.

> > After the war -- like many other Germans... Heidegger comes to mind

> Actually, I think a bit of research would uncover that Jung was Swiss,
> nor German. Switzerland, like all sensible nations, was neutral during
> the Second World War.

Yes, he was Swiss, or more precisely, Swiss-German (Schweizer-deutsch). He
functioned in the Germanic intellectual orbit. The myth of Swiss neutrality
during the war is another story. Which is why the Swiss-German Jung was
writing position papers for the Nazis in the 1930s; the Swiss forcibly
returning to Germany Jewish refugees attempting to flee from the Germans
(fascist Spain was a safer destination); the Swiss financial industry's
knowing complicity in stockpiling and hiding pilfered Jewish assets for the
Nazis, some of which are only starting to be accounted for (i.e., admitted)
in the last couple of years; etc. Very sensible... very neutral...

> For some reason, I have never been able to ascribe to the notion that a
> human being must be perfect in every respect before credence can be
> given to any of his ideas.

Perfection is one thing. Watching how someone deploys their own ideas, how
they themselves think those ideas should be applied in the real world (like
"collective unconscious" to racial theories) is another. The former is
immaterial, the latter often goes to the heart of the matter.

>Jung [...]improved dramatically
> on some of Freud's theories by showing just how bankrupt they were.

That's another myth, one very popular in New Agey pop-psych circles. That's
more of Jung's spin, since he was also dishonest about the causes and the
nature of the rift between himself and Freud. He pretended it was over
theories; Freud's diaries show, to the contrary, it was rooted in Jung's
antisemitism. My guess is -- whether because of taste or for some other
reason -- you have read more voraciously in Jung than Freud, and thus have
become predisposed to side with your hero. There is little that is bankrupt
in Freud. It was a vogue amongst the neurobiologists up to a few years ago
to declare Freud's theories obsolete and silly. The latest brain research,
however, is reversing those trends, and leading voices at the cutting edge
are now discovering that their research is providing a biological basis for
many of Freud's theories -- something, incidentally, Freud, early in the
20th century, predicted would eventually be the case.

>I also think very highly of
> Waldron's work.

Me, too. I've been a supported of Bill and his work since his Madison days,
before he could find employment. We disagree on some minor points about
Yogacara, but agree on much more. I'd like to see him develop the
comparisons with science even more -- the Lamarck-Darwin contrast contains
many parallels to Yogacara debates about the nature of the alaya-vijnana
(bijas vs vasanas, etc.), and some of the recent work in DNA studies also
seem like replays of 1500 year old Yogacara debates. Lots of potential
research there...

> If a person must be clueless about something, I think Yogācāra is a very
> good choice. The more I have learned about it, the more I have regretted
> the time wasted looking into it.

In part, that's because it doesn't seem to have sunk in that Dignaga and
Dharmakirti were Yogacaras. I would agree that whatever it is that you seem
to imagine Yogacara is would be a great waste of time to dwell on.

Dan