Advertising archetypes

It was Plato, rather than Jung, who first talked about archetypes. The Jungians have, however, cornered the market in these, which are thought to be part of the collective unconscious. In this sense they are supposedly universal, limited in number and recognizable everywhere. All stories, myths and legends celebrate one or other of these powerful prototypic models or specimens. For Jungians, archetypes are universal thought forms and emotions resulting from the “deposits of the constantly repeated experiences of humanity” and which predispose an individual to apprehend the world in particular ways. Everyone inherits a tendency to fear things that our ancestors found to be potentially dangerous (such as darkness), but an individual who grows up enjoying only pleasant encounters with the dark will develop mental images and behaviors that are quite different from the inherent archetype. Similarly, the child’s perception of its mother is influenced partly by her true characteristics and partly by the unconscious projection of such archetypal maternal qualities as solicitude, nurturance, fertility and secrecy. All a bit murky.