For several years I’ve been turning over in my mind an idea that initially struck me as far-fetched, but now strikes me as a distinct possibility. Could it be that people suffering from some degree of mental illness are now heavily influencing or even directing cultural, political, and economic affairs? To put it more bluntly, are we now being governed by lunatics?
I’d already been pondering this for some time when I stumbled across an essay that Carl Jung wrote in 1957 titled “The Plight of the Individual in Modern Society.” His opening reflections strike me as an apt description of the irrational and destabilizing phenomena we’ve witnessed in recent times….