The Spiritual Problem of Modern Man
The spiritual problem of modern man is one of those questions
which are so much a part of the age we live in that
we cannot see them in the proper perspective. Modern
man is an entirely new phenomenon; a modern problem is
one which has just arisen and whose answer still lies in the
future. In speaking of the spiritual problem of modern
man we can at most frame a question, and we should perhaps
frame it quite differently if we had but the faintest
inkling of the answer the future will give. The question,
moreover, seems rather vague; but the truth is that it has
to do with something so universal that it exceeds the grasp
of any single individual. We have reason enough, therefore,
to approach such a problem in all modesty and with
the greatest caution. This open avowal of our limitations
seems to me essential, because it is these problems more
1 From Civilization in Transition. Collected Works, Vol. 10, pars.
148-196. [First published as “Das Seelenproblem des modernen
Menschen,” Europäische Revue (Berlin), IV (1928), 700-715. Revised
and expanded in Seelenprobleme der Gegenwart (Zurich,
193O, PP. 401-35. Translated by W.S.Dell and Cary F. Baynes
in Modern Man in Search of a Soul (London and New York, 1933),
pp. 226-54. The latter version has been consulted.
—
Editors of
The Collected Works.]
456
The Spiritual Problem of Modem Man : 457
than any others which tempt us to the use of high-sounding
and empty words, and because I shall myseli be forced to
say certain things which may sound immoderate and incautious,
and could easily lead us astray. Too many of us
already have fallen victim to our own grandiloquence.
To begin at once with an example of such apparent lack
of caution, I must say that the man we call modern, the
man who is aware of the immediate present, is by no means
the average man. He is rather the man who stands upon a
peak, or at the very edge of the world, the abyss of the
future before him, above him the heavens, and below him
the whole of mankind with a history that disappears in
primeval mists. The modern man—or, let us say again, the
man of the immediate present—is rarely met with, for he
must be conscious to a superlative degree. Since to be
wholly of the present means to be fully conscious of one’s
existence as a man, it requires the most intensive and extensive
consciousness, with a minimum of unconsciousness. It
must be clearly understood that the mere fact of living in
the present does not make a man modern, for in that
everyone at present alive would be so. He alone is modern
who is fully conscious of the present.
The man who has attained consciousness of the present is
solitary. The “modern” man has at all times been so, for
every step towards fuller consciousness removes him further
from his original, purely animal participation mystique
with the herd, from submersion in a common unconsc
ness. Every step forward means tearing oneself loose from
the maternal womb of unconsciousness in which the mass
of men dwells. Even in a civilized community the people
who form, psychologically speaking, the lowest stratum
live in a state of unconsciousness little different from that
of primitives. Those of the succeeding strata live on a level
of consciousness which corresponds to the beginnin
human culture, while those of the high«
consciousness that reflects the life Ol the last |
Only the man who is modem in our meaning of th<
45$ •* Civilization in Transition
really lives in the present; he alone has a present-day consciousness,
and he alone finds that the ways of life on those
earlier levels have begun to pall upon him. The values and
strivings of those past worlds no longer interest him save
from the historical standpoint. Thus he has become “unhistorical”
in the deepest sense and has estranged himself
from the mass of men who live entirely within the bounds
of tradition. Indeed, he is completely modern only when he
has come to the very edge of the world, leaving behind
him all that has been discarded and outgrown, and acknowledging
that he stands before the Nothing out of which All
may grow. 2
This sounds so grand that it borders suspiciously on
bathos, for nothing is easier than to affect a consciousness
of the present. A great horde of worthless people do in
fact give themselves a deceptive air of modernity by skipping
the various stages of development and the tasks of life
they represent. Suddenly they appear by the side of the
truly modern man—uprooted wraiths, bloodsucking ghosts
whose emptiness casts discredit upon him in his unenviable
loneliness. Thus it is that the few present-day men are seen
by the undiscerning eyes of the masses only through the
dismal veil of those spectres, the pseudo-moderns, and
are confused with them. It cannot be helped; the “modern”
man is questionable and suspect, and has been so at all
times, beginning with Socrates and Jesus.
An honest admission of modernity means voluntarily declaring
oneself bankrupt, taking the vows of poverty and
chastity in a new sense, and—what is still more painful
—
renouncing the halo of sanctity which history bestows. To
be “unhistorical” is the Promethean sin, and in this sense
the modern man is sinful. A higher level of consciousness
is like a burden of guilt. But, as I have said, only the man
who has outgrown the stages of consciousness belonging
to the past, and has amply fulfilled the duties appointed
u [“In this, your Nothing, 1 may find my All!” Faust, Part II.
—
Translator.]
The Spiritual Problem of Modem Man : 45g
for him by his world, can achieve full consciousness of the
present. To do this he must be sound and proficient in the
best sense—a man who has achieved as much as other
people, and even a little more. It is these qualities which
enable him to gain the next highest level of consciousness.
I know that the idea of proficiency is especiall) repugnant
to the pseudo-moderns, for it reminds them unpleasant!) of
their trickery. This, however, should not prevent us from
taking it as our criterion of the modern man. We are even
forced to do so, for unless he is proficient, the man who
claims to be modern is nothing but a trickster. He must
be proficient in the highest degree, for unless he can atone
by creative ability for his break with tradition, he is merely
disloyal to the past. To deny the past for the sake of being
conscious only of the present would be sheer futility. Today
has meaning only if it stands between yesterday and tomorrow.
It is a process of transition that forms the link between
past and future. Only the man who is conscious of
the present in this sense may call himself modern.
Many people call themselves modern—especially the
pseudo-moderns. Therefore the really modern man is often
to be found among those who call themselves old-fashioned
They do this firstly in order to make amends for their
guilty break with tradition by laying all the more emphasis
on the past, and secondly in order to avoid the misfortune
of being taken for pseudo-moderns. Every good quality
its bad side, and nothing good can come into the world
without at once producing a corresponding evil. This painful
fact renders illusory the feeling of elation that SO
goes with consciousness of the present the feeling
we are the culmination of the whole histor) Ol mankind,
the fulfilment and end-product oi countless generatioi
best it should be a proud admission Ol our povert]
are also the disappointment oi the hopes and e\;
of the ages. Think ot nearly tWO thousand yeai
Idealism followed, not b) the return ot the V
the heavenly millennium, but by the World Wl
460 : Civilization in Transition
Christian nations with its barbed wire and poison gas. What
a catastrophe in heaven and on earth!
In the face of such a picture we may well grow humble
again. It is true that modern man is a culmination, but
tomorrow he will be surpassed. He is indeed the product
of an age-old development, but he is at the same time the
worst conceivable disappointment of the hopes of mankind.
The modern man is conscious of this. He has seen how
beneficent are science, technology, and organization, but
also how catastrophic they can be. He has likewise seen
how all well-meaning governments have so thoroughly
paved the way for peace on the principle “in time of peace
prepare for war” that Europe has nearly gone to rack and
ruin. And as for ideals, neither the Christian Church, nor
the brotherhood of man, nor international social democracy,
nor the solidarity of economic interests has stood up to the
acid test of reality. Today, ten years after the war,3 we
observe once more the same optimism, the same organizations,
the same political aspirations, the same phrases and
catchwords at work. How can we but fear that they will
inevitably lead to further catastrophes? Agreements to outlaw
war leave us sceptical, even while we wish them every
possible success. At bottom, behind every such palliative
measure there is a gnawing doubt. I believe I am not exaggerating
when I say that modern man has suffered an
almost fatal shock, psychologically speaking, and as a result
has fallen into profound uncertainty.
These statements make it clear enough that my views are
coloured by a professional bias. A doctor always spies out
diseases, and I cannot cease to be a doctor. But it is essential
to the physician’s art that he should not discover diseases
where none exists. I will therefore not make the
assertion that Western man, and the white man in particular,
is sick, or that the Western world is on the verge of
collapse. I am in no way competent to pass such a judgment. ~Carl Jung, The Portable Jung, Page 456-460
