Carl Jung “Each man has his telos and inasmuch as he tries to fulfil it he is a real citizen.

 

C.G. Jung Letters, Vol. 1: 1906-1950

To Oluf Berntsen

Dear Sir, 18 June 1947

Thank you very much for kindly sending me the interesting book by Paul Petitt which I didn’t know.

I have read it with the greatest interest.

I’m absolutely of the same conviction as he is, that there is a telos in each community.

But I should add that this telos is a summation of the individual tela.

Each man has his telos and inasmuch as he tries to fulfil it he is a real citizen.

The community is nothing without the individual and if a community consists of individuals that do not fulfil their individual telos, then the community has no telos or a very wrong one.

That is the reason why the ”confirmisme social se transforme en idolatrie, quant il devient fin en soi.”

Please give my best regards to Dr. Vischer if you see him.

Yours gratefully,

C.G. Jung ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. 1, Page 464.

Note: Quotation from Petit’s article “2o mars 1941” in the above-mentioned book. The article criticized Petain’s appeal to the French people to make a “redressement intellectuel et moral.”