The Red Book (1914–1930) by Carl Gustav Jung: Individuation and discourse on ethics

This essay suggests an interpretation of the discourse on ethics in C. G. Jung’s Red Book, in relation to the idea of individuation. The earliest outlines of the individuation concept, fundamental to the psychologist’s writings, emerge in this unique work. An “individuated” person determines his life as function of a “new ethic” (which would also be analyzed by the Jungian Erich Neumann), breaking away from collective precepts. To explain this new ethic situated “beyond good and evil” (according to Nietzsche’s famed description), Jung cites the Christ figure, an element in several chapters of the discourse. Jung presents Christ as someone who broke away from the values of the community he was born into, to found new values: hence, the prototype of the individuated person. Thus, for Jung, individuation is related to a “christification” of each person. However, this could not be limited to a simple imitation of Christ. Another dimension of this ethic is the confrontation with evil, related to the idea of a “conflict of duties” (Pflichtenkollision). Jung developed this notion in a 1918 essay opposing adaptation to individuation.