Fight Club’s accomplishment is to elicit in us the instinctive fear, resistance, and embarrassment we all experience around the domain of our inferior function, whichever function that may be for us. The reward for sticking with the movie until the end is a catharsis that feels as if we have integrated our own inferior function.
Culture and Cultural Typology
I think many of us would be quick to put our inferior and embarrassing Anima on the pyre, and happily satiate our Heroes. But the Hero needs to sacrifice its preeminence and allow the Anima to experiment and thrive if we are to find ourselves truly committed to what we do, not to mention fulfilled by it.
Do you agree with Jungian analyst John Giannini, and others, that ESTJ is “the dominant typology of western culture?” Do you think this may be changing? Do you see major, typologically distinct subcultures? What do you see as the dominant typology of other cultures or countries?
The schizoid nature of western civilization gives credence to our emphasis on the necessity of using all of the functions (S, N, T, F), in both attitudes of Introversion (I) and Extraversion (E) … When civilizations emphasize only one part of psychological type, they diminish themselves and set themselves up to see the world through distorted lenses.
Was Shakespeare ultimately cautioning us about the potentially disastrous effects of unbridling the Trickster in psyche or society? …“To be, or not to be.” To trust one’s Self, or not. Therein lies the dilemma of the modern man. With a cacophony of internal archetypal, spiritual, and societal voices, to whom do we listen?