ABSTRACT

Cultural Complexes and the Soul of America explores many of the cultural complexes that comprise the collective psychic-filtering system of emotions, ideas, and beliefs that possess the United States today. With chapters by an international selection of leading authors, the book covers ideas both broad and specific, and presents unique insight into the current state of the nation.

The voices included in this volume amplify contemporary concerns, linking them to themes which have existed in the American psyche for decades while also looking to the future. Part One examines meta themes, including history, purity, dominion, and democracy in the age of Trump. Part Two looks at key complexes including race, gender, the environment, immigration, national character, and medicine. The overall message is that it is in wrestling with these complexes that the soul of America is forged or undone.

This highly relevant book will be essential reading for academics and students of Jungian and post-Jungian ideas, politics, sociology, and American studies. It will also be of great interest to Jungian analysts in practice and in training, and anyone interested in the current state of the US.

chapter |10 pages

Preface

part I|99 pages

Meta Themes in American Cultural Complexes

chapter 1|22 pages

Here’s Johnny!

American Carnival in Modern Times

chapter 2|9 pages

The Purity Complex

chapter 3|9 pages

The Cultural Complex and Addiction to Dominion

Psychic Evolution Cannot Be Thwarted

chapter 4|36 pages

Wrestling with Our Angels

Inner and Outer Democracy in America Under the Shadow of Donald Trump

chapter 5|9 pages

America Exists!

Reflections on My American Cultural Complex

chapter 6|12 pages

The Second Goya

part II|177 pages

Specific Cultural Complexes

section |55 pages

Race

chapter 7|30 pages

Every Voice, Every Vote Counts

Challenges to a Multicultural Democracy in the Shadow of American Political Economy and American Cultural Complexes

chapter 8|7 pages

The Racial Complex

chapter 9|16 pages

Crime and Punishment in America

A Cultural Black Hole

section |28 pages

Gender

chapter 10|9 pages

The Body Blow of Trumpism

Shame and Fear as a Cultural Complex

chapter 11|17 pages

Walt Whitman on Religious Liberty

Marriage Equality and the American Cultural Complex

section |21 pages

Immigration

chapter 12|19 pages

An Immigrant’s Transit

From a Multicultural Complex to a Multicultural Mind

section |35 pages

National Character

chapter 13|18 pages

Our Divisible Nation

In the Grip of an Alpha Narcissistic Complex

section |20 pages

Environment

chapter 15|18 pages

A Tale of Two Cultures

Climate Change and American Complexes

section |13 pages

Healthcare

chapter 16|11 pages

Biomedicine

Its Cultural Complex and Its Dispiriting