History, Paranoia, Fragmentation

In his book Aion, Jung describes something like a quasi-Hegelian progressive historical realization of the Self in a perspective similar to Fernand Braudel’s longue durée history. This article deals with a similar perspective, as it tries to focus on what we may call a “cultural complex” yet within its unfolding in historical time and belonging not to just one specific cultural group, but to a large cultural basin, which we may indicate as the “West”. This complex marks the birth and development of modernity. The depth, pervasiveness and duration of this cultural complex permeates the lives and psychologies of all of those that are part of it. Therefore, every analytical project must take into account the underlying emotional, epistemic and social field within which this complex constellates. One of the main features of this (trans)cultural complex, strictly connected with the progressive fragmentation of the self and the transformation of the numinosum with its meaning-giving force, is paranoia. This article analyses the historical and cultural features that produce paranoia and fragmentation and determine paranoid symptoms and attitudes.