Guest Editorial: Jung and Technology

One night in 1909, Jung dreamt of a historically layered house. The dream culminates in a cave where ‘in the dust were scattered bones and broken pottery, like remains of a primitive culture … [and] two human skulls, obviously very old and half disintegrated’ (Jung 1963, p. 155). It is widely accepted that the skulls represent the collective unconscious, but seldom acknowledged that techne is already there with them, evident in the broken pottery.

Technology in the broadest sense is as foundational of our humanness as the collective unconscious is said to be. Yet Jung's few references to technology construct an opposition of psyche and technology, Man and his machines (in contradistinction to the symbiosis implied in the catchphrase, Man and his symbols); e.g.: ‘Science and technology have indeed conquered the world, but whether the psyche has gained anything is another matter’ (Jung 1942, para. 163). In ‘The Effects of Technology on the Human Psyche,’ Jung avers that the danger of technology lies in its use: ‘Man … always runs the risk of discovering something that will destroy him if evilly used’ (Jung 1949, para. 1407). Ambivalence about technological innovations is hardly unique to Jung. ‘Technology’ often carries connotations of unnatural contrivance of modern civilization, something that not only alienates us from our own nature but also endangers life on Earth. Heidegger (1953/1993) laboured the distinction between pre-modern techne - craftsmanship prior to machine power, which brings forth natural properties - and modern technology, which exploits nature. Yet, he asserted elsewhere, the greatest danger is that fascination with technological ingenuity might breed indifference towards meditative thinking, and then ‘man would have denied and thrown away his own … essential nature’ (Heidegger 1959/1966, p. 56). Our essential nature is already compromised according to Jung, who proposed that ‘disunity with oneself is the hallmark of civilized man’ due to the ‘prog