ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the relationship between the individual and society, and between the trickster and authority, after the arrival of Ragnarok, the onset of industrial modernity in the West. Shame, control and autonomy form the psycho-anthropological basis of the relationship. The search for identity is often supported by psychotherapy and other therapeutic abstract systems, including spiritual movements and self-help guides. The civilising process involves the gradual 'framing' and shaping of the trickster's behaviour with the help of the most powerful psychological tool, shame. The bourgeois morality is trickster personified, totally shameless and announcing its shamelessness with stories of scatological, sexual and gluttonous adventures. The individuation process itself is an inherent part of the post-medieval world, and all subsequent literature continued to foreground the importance of the trickster, the importance of the individual and Ragnarok struggle for the independence from mass thinking or obedient behaviour.
