Abstract

This chapter provides a Jungian psycho-social analysis of the tumultuous changes in university culture since the early 2000s. It employs a thematic analysis of the issues which constellate these strong feeling-tones. Hostility toward authority, limits, and moral commandments are all indicators of a negative father complex. The focus on protection, concern for the weak and oppressed, are strong indicators of a positive mother complex. The fevered attempt to emancipate students from tradition and redeem the future from a past which is seen as defective and unjust are strong indicators of a Prometheus complex. The emotional intensity surrounding these issues indicates not only complexes but one-sidedness. This imbalanced state creates conditions ripe for possession, wherein unconscious material behaves like an “animated foreign body.” In this sense, the modern academy is possessed by the repressed chthonic Mother within the positive mother complex; the judging, exacting Father within the negative father complex; and the furor paedogogicus within the Prometheus complex. These are the angry gods of the academy. The chapter assesses the negative consequences of this one-sidedness and proposes a concrete university reform plan to address them.