This is a follow-up to the previous post, Carl Jung: persona and shadow.
Previously, I explained that the shadow is an aspect of our personality. It consists of socially unacceptable traits that would tend to make us unappealing to other people; therefore we keep our “shadows” hidden.
Indeed, the shadow is hidden even from the individual him- or herself, buried in the unconscious.
In this post, we’ll see how the idea of the shadow leads to another important Jungian concept, projection.
Although unconscious, the shadow does not cease to exist: it remains dynamically active. The rejected aspects of the developing ego continue to carry a sense of personal identity, and when, from time to time, they impinge on awareness, they are experienced as liabilities: they are tinged with feelings of guilt and unworthiness, and bring fears that one will suffer rejection should they be discovered or exposed.
To own one’s shadow is, therefore, a painful, and potentially terrifying, experience — so much so that we usually protect ourselves from such disturbing awareness by making use of ego-defence mechanisms: we deny the existence of our shadow and project it onto others.
This is done not as a conscious act of will but unconsciously as an act of ego-preservation. In this way we deny our own “badness” and project it onto others, whom we hold responsible for it. This act of unconscious cunning explains the ancient practice of “scapegoating”: it underlies all kinds of prejudice against those belonging to identifiable groups other than our own and it is at the botom of all massacres, pogroms and wars.
Anthony Stevens, On Jung, pp. 43-44
The key idea is expressed in the statement, “we deny our own ‘badness’ and project it onto others.” Think of the popular saying, “the pot calling the kettle black.”
Let’s illustrate how projection works. Here’s a public example, from this year’s presidential election.
It’s a quote from Rick Davis, who is John McCain’s campaign manager.
Character assassination has become the hallmark of the Obama campaign.
On the one hand, Davis seems to be unaware that his own candidate practices character assassination; on the other hand, he claims that character assassination is a defining attribute of the Obama campaign.
It’s a clear instance of projection — the pot calling the kettle black.
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