ABSTRACT
Despite Jung’s encounter with the spirit of the depths that he describes in The Red Book and his reverence for other cultures, he remained, in some ways, very much a man held by the spirit of the times in which he lived. Eurocentrism, even unconscious patronising racism, is evident in Jung’s writings. This chapter, ‘Encountering the Other: The White Shadow’, asks how do we unconsciously express attitudes, writings and actions that are offensive to the Other? There are embedded forms of racism and thereby oppression that members of the dominant group learn not to see, to keep in the shadows. What forces keep unconscious racial bias alive and active in our societies? One answer lies in a culture’s shadow. This chapter utilises writings of Jung and post-Jungians, such as Kimbles, Singer and Brewster, as well as examples from philosophy, relational psychoanalysis, film and literature that depict culture’s shadow. The relationship of culture’s shadow to Jung’s ‘geology’ of the personality is explored as is the connection of culture’s shadow to archetypal evil and the formation of negative cultural complexes. How can we find new ways of understanding the Other in the psyche, furthering the work of bringing culture’s shadow into consciousness.
