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20th Century Genius
HUM/102
September 17th,2002
I selected Carl Jung at the beginning of this course because I had done some general research on a few of the people that were on the list, which was supplied in our course module. When I came to Carl Jung I found that he was born in Switzerland just north of Geneva. At the time I was living in Geneva, and I felt it would be interesting to do research on someone who was from Switzerland. What I leaned about Carl Jung was fascinating, although there is so much more to lean about this individual and also his area of genius. Many of the concepts certainly would take more advanced study and research. However, I believe he is a good candidate for 20th century genius and he deserves that distinction.
Carl Jung, pronounced (Carl Young), is an intellectual genius and his field of genius is in the science of psychology. The science or field of psychology is truly left to those with intellectual prowess, however, from what I have learned about this man, is that he is not only a participant of this field, but he also has shaped and made significant contribution to this, the science of psychology. I believe it takes a genius no less to study psychology, but even more so to shape and lead in this field. Psychology is such a difficult, complex and advanced study because the human mind, emotions and human behavior is so very complex. The word, “Complex” is interesting because it was Carl Jung who coined that term in a book he published titled, “Studies in word association”, but more on that later. Psychologists have little more than their intellect as tools to rely on.
What is interesting about Carl Jung is that part of his life falls along the fringe of our studies over the past five weeks. For example, he was born in Switzerland and his father was a protestant priest. We also learned that Switzerland is where Calvinism really took hold. These things, the birth of Protestant and Calvinism began as a result of the Reformation, which we learned earlier in our studies. Also, one of his theories about the unconscious falls on the fringe of our recent studies in art. So, to study Carl Jung I felt really tied in nicely with our study of Humanities.
First, a little background on Carl Jung. Carl Jung was born in Switzerland on July 26, 1875. Although Carl Jung was a genius, as in many cases his genius was not really apparent in his childhood years. In fact, I believe he was sort of introverted. Introverted is also an interesting term, but I will save that thought for a little bit later. For now, after reading a little bit about his childhood years and learning how much he disliked competition and the horrible dreams he experienced I believe Carl Jung was a shy and introverted child who did not draw to much attention to himself.
After attempting studies in areas such as archaeology, biology, history, paleontology, philosophy, and zoology, Carl finally settled on Psychology. Carl published several works, which caused Carl to gain recognition and respect from his peers. The first work was a paper titled, “On the Psychology and Pathology of So-Called Occult Phenomena.” This was published two years after he began his study under Eugen Bleuler, the founder of schizophrenia.
Carls paper described his theory that, “he could see someones future personality by looking deeply into the persons current personality.” What fascinates me about these theories and intellectual contemplations is that they were developed in the very early years of the 1900s, before 1910. For example, Sigmund Freud had developed his own theory that,”all aspects of a persons personality developed from their own sexuality.” By the way, Carl Jung did not subscribe to this theory and as a consequence it