> [!info] Reading notes — [[Collected Works of C.G. Jung, Volume 17]] (*The Development of Personality*). [284] Courtesy to Schiller, modern education is obsessed with the development of personality in the child, but disregards the contributions of the teacher. One who educates has to himself be educated. On another note, the emphasis on development during childhood disregards learning, creative activity, and personality formation as a lifelong activity. [286] Personality usually means “well-rounded psychic whole that is capable of resistance and abounding in energy.” Jung says this is an adult ideal. [288] “There is no personality without definiteness, wholeness, and ripeness.” These are qualities for adults. If children were to possess these they would be robbed of their childhood. Also, “Personality is a seed that can only develop by slow stages throughout life.” [289] To achieve personality spells the optimal development of the whole individual human being. [297] “I believe convention to be a collective necessity. It is a stopgap and not an ideal, either in the moral or in the religious sense, for submission to it always means renouncing one’s wholeness and running away from the final consequences of one’s own being.” [298] The reason why heroes are always endowed with God-like attributes is because such men have developed personalities of their own, thus their behavior deviate from convention so much that they are seen to act in ways unhumanly. People with personalities are always seen to be possessed with either a God or a daemon. “How could anyone but a god counterbalance the dead weight of humanity in the mass, with its everlasting convention and habit?” [299] What induces a man towards developing personality is not necessity, not moral decision, but vocation. [301] “to have a vocation” means “to be addressed by a voice” Snakes in mythology and history: Snake-eyed Nordic heroes, Snake-souled Greek heroes, Snake-souled medicine men. [302] The smaller the personality, the more muffled and unconscious the voice. The voice competes with the surrounding voice of the mass. But there is a not uncommon experience of being called upon by this voice to a unique problem that would seem insignificant or non existent to others. The Age of Enlightenment, which stripped nature and human institutions of gods, overlooked the God of Terror who dwells in the human soul. [309] Jesus’ temptation of gaining all the kingdoms of the world is objective psyche that plagues every Roman citizen. To succumb to that temptation is to become a Caesar. Where love reigns there can be no force, where force reigns there can be no love. Jesus confronted the temptation head on and “assimilated” it. I still have a hard time actually understanding what assimilate means here. [321] What is better is always first perceived as evil. Eventually what is good has to be sacrificed for what is better. This is the key to explaining the massacre of hero infants like Hercules, Apollo, Moses and Jesus. This also ties in with the idea that you have to be willing to lose your life to save it. --- **Related:** [[Tao]] · [[Peterson's Dimensions of Identity]]