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I have tried to employ gender-neutral language; however, I did not modify quotes that were originally gendered. At times “their” is used as an alternative to “his” and “her”; at other times singular masculine and feminine pronouns were used alternately. All the translations (of dreams and quotes) into English are my own, unless noted.
As a prologue to the oneiric theoretical and empirical discussions that follow, it seemed necessary to put forward just a few introductory remarks so as to generally situate the reader in relation to this present book, derived from my doctoral dissertation for the PhD program in Social Psychology at Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona. The proposal it offers may be most succinctly and broadly defined as an interdisciplinary outlook on the regime of capitalism-consumerism, and its psychological subject, through the dream —as a general idea or motif, a lens through which we shall look at our objects, but also as the empirical material for research. Historically, such proposal is not without some antecedents: the concept of “dream” already appeared as an important trope for analyses of capitalism in some classical social authors, like Marx and Althusser, for instance, who used it mainly as a negative metaphor for the ideological, unreal character of capitalism . 1 However, the main antecedent and inspiration for this work is Walter Benjamin (1999), in whose archeological, monumental, and unfinished study of capitalism , Passagen-Werk , the concept and language of dream have a central, pivotal role. Moreover, in it Benjamin put forward a proposal that came to define this enterprise: the idea of complementing a critique of capitalism-consumerism (as a collective dream) with the illumination and understanding of the night dreams of the individual (and their historical and collective character). Such idea appears in different loci within the Passagen-Werk but is most concisely put thusly: “(…) to shed light on the dreams of the individual with the help of the doctrine of the historical dreams of the collective” (Benjamin , 1999, p. 908). His heritage summarizes this work: “I want to tell you a dream before it fades away 2 ” (Benjamin , 1916/1982, p. 151).
In tandem with the leitmotif of dream, this work sees the ethos of the regime of capitalism-consumerism through the ample concept of imaginary . Before reaching such definition of a general conceptual approach to such regime, however, I endeavored to establish relations and build dialogs with many major authors who wrote about its spirit from different perspectives, especially authors from the tradition of sociology , such as Max Weber (1905/1958), Daniel Bell (1976), Richard Sennett (1998, 2006), and Boltanski and Chiapello (1999). They were indeed relevant for this work, yet ended up not appearing much in its final version. Analogously, the process of constructing this study involved a preoccupation with developing an interdisciplinary dialog with other authors from sociology , philosophy, anthropology, and psychology , ranging from classic authors to old, quasi-forgotten works, to well-known postmodern names.
Besides its interdisciplinary effort, there are two other distinct features that mark this work. The first regards its subjective character, or, put differently, the multifarious importance that subjectivity has for it. Having dream as its leitmotif and empirical material, it could not be otherwise: although it can also be perfectly objective, the dream is by definition a very subjective experience and phenomenon, of a peculiar qualitative and symbolic nature. Furthermore, a hermeneutic approach is required in order to reveal and comprehend such subjectivity contained in the dream; and its interpretation is always subjective to a certain extent. Moreover, the psychology that grounds this work, C. G. Jung’s analytical psychology , is also distinguished by the import it gives to acknowledging and understanding that which is subjective and individual—which includes recognizing and stating explicitly the inalienable role that subjectivity plays in psychology as a field of knowledge, which always includes the subjective viewpoint of the researcher, be it of a conscious or unconscious nature, viewpoint or horizon that must be considered and relativized in order to apprehend, interpret, and understand the other , the “object”, in its singularity. Indeed, Jung’s psychology may be characterized by a plea for full consideration and confession 3 of what William James (1890) called the personal equation . Taking all these factors into account, I have decided for writing in the first-person singular form and actually rendering very explicit my personal standpoint, or personal equation. Such decision is already apparent in the Introduction that follows these initial words, which interweaves my personal trajectory, motivations, and inquietudes with the more objective justifications, arguments for relevance, and rationales for this work, all of which were equally important for its making and constitute its background.
The second distinct feature of this study consists in the fact that, since its very inception, it was conceived as an attempt to innovate and offer something original, to present different points of view and theories, and to generate reflection. Such endeavor at originality demanded elaborating different concepts and theorizations, whose meanings and particular definitions may be hard for the reader to grasp at first. Also, my utilization of an interdisciplinary theoretical framework essentially based on two authors (Jung and Baudrillard ) whose conceptualizations may be deemed complex and “difficult” can present the same problems for the reader. In order to try to alleviate such possible difficulties, at the end of this work is a concise Glossary with brief definitions of a few of the main terms or concepts used here.
References
Althusser, L. (1971). Lenin and Philosophy (B. Brewster, Trans.). London: Monthly Review Press.
Bell, D. (1976). The cultural contradictions of capitalism . New York: Basic Books.
Benjamin, W. (1982). L’arcobaleno (1915–1916). In G. Agamben (Ed.), Metafisica della gioventù: Scritti 1910–1918 (D. Regenbogen, Trans., pp. 151–158). Torino, IT: Einaudi. (Original work written 1916).
Benjamin, W. (1999). The arcades project (H. Eiland & K. McLaughlin, Trans.). Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
Boltanski, L., & Chiapello, E. (1999). El nuevo espíritu del capitalismo . Madrid: Akal.
Cohen, M. (1995). Profane illumination: Walter Benjamin and the Paris of surrealist revolution . Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Eliot, T. S. (1925). Eliot’s poems: 1909–1925 . London: Faber & Gwyer.
James, W. (1890). Principles of Psychology . New York: Holt.
Maffesoli, M. (2008). Iconologías: Nuestras idolatrías postmodernas (J. Terré, Trans.). Barcelona: Península.
Pessoa, F. (1995). Poesias (15th ed.). Lisboa: Ática. (Original work published 1924).
Sennett, R. (1998). The corrosion of character: The personal consequences of work in the new capitalism . New York: W. W. Norton.
Sennett, R. (2006). The culture of the new capitalism . Yale: Yale University Press.
Weber, M. (1958). The Protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism . New York: Scribners. (Original work published 1905).
I would like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude and indebtedness to some people for their help, support, and encouragement, without which this work would not have come to fruition. My sincere agradecimientos must go first to Dr. Josep M. Blanch i Ribas, my dissertation director, for his patience and wisdom, for welcoming, teaching, criticizing, and motivating me, and for being the humane person that he is. My heartfelt thanks also to Dr. Patrícia Martins Goulart, for her friendship, joie de vivre, and incentive—and for making this Barcelona journey possible.
I must also express my deep gratefulness to all professors, workers, and colleagues at the Departamento de Psicología Social at UAB. Among them, I would like to thank particularly my colleagues and friends Adriano Beiras and David Castillo (in memoriam), Roberta Rodrigues, Domenico Hur, and Rafael Diehl, and express my sincere gratitude to Isabela de Melo Mussi, Antonio Stecher, and all from the coLABORando research group, for their friendship and manifold contributions; Diana Hermoso Lloret and Genís Cervantes deserve a special moltes gràcies! for their unswerving support and help.
Further acknowledgment and muchísimas gracias must also go to Dr. Miguel Sahagún, Dr. Enrique Santamaría, Dr. Félix Vázquez Sisto, and Dr. Lupicinio Íñiguez, for their advice, guidance, and support. Many thanks to Dr. Mark Davis, at the University of Leeds and the Bauman Institute, for his friendly welcome and stimulating thought. In Brazil, my deep gratitude to Professor Dr. Maria Lucia Tiellet Nunes, who has been helping me ever since my graduation course, for her unbound generosity.
My appreciation also to some friends who helped me in so many ways along the way: Fernandito Martín Yagüe, Francisco Netto da Costa, Ines Chacón, Victor Grosman, and Leticia F. Cestari who deserves special cheers for reviewing my manuscript and for her many insightful comments.
Finally, I would like to express my most profound gratitude to some people who are very special to me: first, my father Edgar, for his support and love, his ethics and courage, for being who he is, for everything; my mother Beatriz, who gave me life; and my aunts Ana and Mercedes, for the example and all the help. André Guirland Vieira—I am grateful to you for so, so many things.
Thank you.
Florianópolis
May 2018
Abbreviations
Works by C. G. Jung
- CW
The Collected Works of C. G. Jung , edited by Sir Herbert Read, Michael Fordham, Gerhard Adler; William McGuire, executive editor; trans. R. F. C. Hull (New York and Princeton, Bollingen Series 20 and London, 1953–1983), 21 vols. 5
- DAS
Jung, C. G. (1984). Dream Analysis: Notes of the Seminar Given in 1928–1930 by C. G. Jung (W. McGuire, Ed.). Princeton: Princeton University Press.
- MDR
Jung, C. G., & Jaffé, A. (1989). Memories, Dreams, Reflections . New York: Vintage Books. (Original work published 1963)
- MHS
Jung, C. G. (Ed.) (1964). Man and His Symbols . New York: Anchor Press/Doubleday.
- SCD
Jung, C. G. (2008). Children’s Dreams: Notes from the Seminar Given in 1936–1940 by C. G. Jung . Princeton: Princeton University Press.
- SNZ
Jung, C. G. (1988). Nietzsche’s Zarathustra: Notes of the Seminar Given in 1934–1939 . (J. L. Jarrett, Ed.). Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2 vols.
- SVI
Jung, C. G. (1997). Visions: Notes of the Seminar Given in 1930–1934 by C. G. Jung . Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2 vols.
Other Abbreviations
- e.a.
emphasis added. (When there already were emphases in the original, in order to distinguish them I have placed “[e.a.]” inside the quotation, immediately after the part emphasized by me).
- ImCon,
imaginary of consumption, or imaginary of consumerism (see Introduction and Glossary).