ause it accounts for an amalgam of experiences shared in evolutionary terms by animals, and most certainly all humans. “[E]volution and heredity provide the blueprints of the Psyche, just as they provide the blueprints of the body (Hall, 1973, p. 39). The Collective Unconscious is therefore the primordial, or the earliest in development, of the structures of the Psyche. It is however not the Collective Unconscious within itself that is so important to a blueprint of aggression, but rather its integral sub-structures, called the archetypes. The Shadow is key to the puzzle of human aggression for men in particular.The Shadow is the archetype that represents one own gender and that influences a person’s relationships with his own sex. Jung, according to Hall (1973), describes the Shadow as the portion of the psyche which contains more of man’s basic animal nature than any other archetype does: Because of its extremely deep roots in evolutionary history, it is probably the most powerful and potentially most dangerous of all the archetypes. It is the source of all that is best and worst in man, especially in his relations with others of the same sex.(p. 48)Because the majority of violent aggression in the Western world can be assumed to occur between members of the same sex (male-to-male), this is by far Jung’s most viable explanation as to the origins of human aggression. But what about the great deal of inter-sexual violence seen in the world today?Yet another archetype of the Collective unconscious may yield an answer as to the origins of human aggression, particularly aggression which transcends one’s own sex. The animus, possessed by females in accordance to men, and the anima, possessed by males in accordance to women, are the blueprints contained within the Psyche that determines ones thoughts, views, and potential relationships with members of the opposite sex. For example, it can hardly be argued that t...
