(In the last post consciousness emerged from unconsciousness, defined itself according to this separation and began making moral claims about the world. “What is good is something that helps Me and what is bad is something that hinders Me.”)
Link to Map: Survival Complex Map on Miro
After awakening and dividing from unconsciousness, conscious matter begins to move through the world in the forms of animals consuming, killing and mating. The animals may be somewhat aware of themselves but they are mostly motivated by instinct and fear.
The animals’ unnamed fear is death. Before they can say it they know to avoid it and survive. Their world is torn into opportunities and threats; it is objectified and turned into implements and impediments. Death is the ultimate impediment and so it is considered bad and survival good.
In order to survive the animals must consume. Consumption is one of the main themes of the survival complex and its definition will broaden as the project goes on.
Consumption:
- To make away with, devour, swallow, eat up, drink up.
- To…use up destructively. Said chiefly of fire, or any similar 'devouring' agent.
- To engage the full attention or energy of, to engross.
- To spend, especially wastefully; to waste, squander.
- To waste away, decay, rot, parish.
- Oxford English Dictionary
Consumption is a natural part of survival. It begins as the taking in of water and food. As survival becomes more desperate consumption becomes more pathological. As its pathology increases the category of what can be consumed expands. Survival is so important that starvation can lead to choosing cannibalism over death.
“The most important job of the brain is to ensure our survival, even under the most miserable conditions. Everything else is secondary.” - Van Der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score
The awareness of death and the imperative to live cause the individual to be selfish. Selfishness is built into survival. Survival doesn’t care about anything but itself and subjugates everything to its own needs.
To temper the selfishness of the individual, the group subjugates the individual by teaching it to be selfless and to put itself into the service of the group. This begins the war of the group against the individual, the ego and the Self.
“In the community every man shall submit to others, so that the community is maintained, for you need it.” - Jung, The Red Book
The complex objectifies and consumes others to maintain itself. The survival of the species objectifies the group for its sake. The group then objectifies its children for its sake. It empties them of themselves and fills them with the group and the values of survival. The individual is either an implement or impediment for the group to be kept or destroyed.
The values of survival are the values of the group. Survival is the “god” of every successful Me/Not-Me moral system. Gods are the personifications of Survival and its values. The laws of the gods promote the survival of their believers.
“(Jung:) ...though there is only one truth it speaks in many tongues...” - Hunziker, Depth Typology
When the group subjugates the individual it diminishes the value of the individual’s self but fills it with the value of the group. The individual has value according to what they can do to help the group survive. The individual is objectified by the survival god, the species and the group. They then turn and objectify the world to collect implements and destroy impediments for the group.
Objectification flattens and empties. If there is nothing to fill the object then it remains flat and empty. When the group is surviving objectification makes sense and the individual is filled by helping the group achieve the objective of survival.
Objectification and its emptiness becomes a problem when survival is resolved and comfort is achieved.