Carl Jung: Behind Our Lowest Instincts and Impulses

Let's talk about sex and more.

Let’s talk about sex and more—what, according to Freud, lies behind all human behavior. Jung proposed a much broader view, yet Freud's concept of libido remains extremely important. That’s why this article may be very useful.

Definition of libido: Freud defined libido as the energy of sexual drives that fuels human behavior. Jung, on the other hand, understood it as general psychic energy that moves the individual toward self-realization, growth, and integration of personality—which of course includes sexuality.

Talking about sex is always engaging, but this article might not sit well with Nietzsche’s followers, since it presents a sharp critique of him. However, we’ve praised him plenty in this space—so it’s only fair to question him now.

Let’s say that Nietzsche, who is considered an anti-Christian philosopher, actually carries Christian values—as we’ll see, especially when he says:

“I love the forest. It is bad to live in cities: there, there are too many of the lustful”.¹

Carl Jung responds critically:

“Nietzsche never tires of speaking of ordinary men as if they were a kind of parasite whose only excellence is their remarkable fertility.
Practically the only quality he attributes to them is that they are many—a multitude of parasites. So he excludes himself and becomes a superman who has overcome that horrible man of the crowd.
This becomes even more apparent toward the end of Zarathustra, when he rejects ‘the ugliest man.’ The man who contributes to growth would be the ugliest of men—the inferior man, the instinctual collective being—which is precisely what he hates most
As you can see, distancing oneself from that layer of the collective human would mean reaching a superhuman summit—but how can a man rise above being human? As long as he is alive, he is still a man. So what comes next in such a case? We know for a fact that Nietzsche was haunted by sexual fantasies, as seen in some raw allusions in letters to friends. As always happens when a man floats away in a balloon, his anima inevitably falls into the shadow—his lower self. She is even married to that man; she is his shadow”².

The Instinctual Collective Being: A Key to Realization

Engraving of the Dionysian festivals, where the lowest aspects of the ancient people were expressed. Carl Jung would say the key to understanding these celebrations is this: They went to Hades before Hades came to them.

Nietzsche attacks lust with intensity—his struggle could even be called stoic. And it’s important to note that he’s not referring solely to sexual lust, but to the basest aspects of human nature—those we can easily observe in any major city. If the philosopher of the hammer had to live in the underworld of present-day New York, his battle would likely be far more difficult.

Yet he doesn’t explore the root of these lustful forces. Instead, he takes a Christian-like stance—rejecting them outright as if they were demonic. We can’t entirely blame him, since he suffered from advanced syphilis after frequenting brothels and low places... So he knew well what it meant to be overtaken by the base.

What we can hold against him is that he failed to recognize that lust was within himself—as it is in every other human being. He could see the speck in another’s eye but not the beam in his own. He lacked the inner awareness to see beyond his projections and instead chose to see himself as someone superior to his instincts.

Modern humans may be living through one of the most lust-driven eras in history: the pornography industry is more profitable than ever; we consume more drugs than ever before; and we are increasingly enslaved by immediate pleasures, by lust, greed, and the hunger for power.

The paradox is that beneath that lust lies a tremendous creative force capable of guiding us toward realization and helping us uncover our whole truth. That’s why we must harmonize with those forces. And our greatest mistake—Nietzsche’s mistake—would be this:

Dehumanizing ourselves by ignoring, denying, or neglecting our instinctual power.

The price for this is that the instinctual force overtakes us—and we become its slaves. Yet it’s a just price. Because just as a dog cannot stop being a dog, and a cat cannot stop being a cat, a human cannot cease being human.

That’s why Jung continues:

“Here is the inferior sexuality of his shadow, which is inferior only because he went up in a balloon. If he had stayed grounded, she wouldn’t be inferior. For sexuality is always what the person is—it is not something separate from man, not a thing-in-itself. It is an activity in man and always what the man is”.³

Why Is the Key to Our Realization Found in the Inferior?

Cave paintings depicting a female fertility dance (Rock art from the Cogull shelter in Lleida).

Since our most precious jewel—our greatest psychological achievement—is becoming truly ourselves, in the full human sense (individuation), we must become whole and reach our complete truth. But here lies the problem, one even most Jungians don’t fully grasp: by nature, we are blind to part of our truth—and that is what becomes our inferiority.

This point is crucial to avoid Nietzsche’s mistake. It shows us how to integrate our instinctual forces without being dominated by them. So I’ll do my best to explain it clearly:

Our personality type creates a lighted point ahead—and a shadow behind.

If you are a thinking type, your awareness shines toward logic, discernment, concreteness, and what is. That is your light. But what remains hidden is the opposite: the vast world of emotions, which gives everything meaning and value.

If you are a feeling type, your emotions are a powerful compass, guiding you through the intrinsic value of things. Yet in the shadows remains the thinking function—what defines and understands the world both inside and out. As we can see, a shadow forms naturally, because thought and feeling are opposing forces.

For intuitive types, everything comes alive through imagination. They perceive infinite possibilities in everything. But hidden in the shadows is the opposite: perception—the concrete reality of what actually is. Sensing types, by contrast, perceive everything in the external world and navigate it with mastery—but lack the imagination to make something truly meaningful with it.

This is why the thinking type can be haunted by low, irrational feelings, and the feeling type by overwhelming thoughts. The imaginative type may drift from reality and feel crushed by it, while the sensing type, despite mastering the outer world, lacks the inner creative fire to transform it.

This is how the “low” is born—because libido follows the natural disposition of our personality.

So instead of repressing the low, we must feel it. Let it manifest. See it in ourselves. Explore it by observing it deeply and honestly. We must come to know it well enough to integrate it. And that requires profound spiritual work (I recommend meditation and active imagination).

If we bring light to that darkness, we will access a profound and complete truth about ourselves. A place where we can walk our own path and meet our own destiny. A place of wholeness, where the reason for our presence in this world, in this time and place, becomes clear.

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Remember: I’ve committed myself to deeply studying all of Jung’s work and also to freely sharing what I learn, so my content will always be free. But if you’d like to support my project, I’d gladly accept a coffee:

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I also recommend that you read my following publications:

• Neither Israel nor Iran: All States Are Monsters According to Jung

• Carl Jung and the Nietzschean Morality That Could Transform the West

• War is necessary and without it we cannot live: Jung and Nietzsche

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Sources:

1. Thus Spake Zarathustra, Friedrich Nietzsche, Capítulo: XIII – Of Chastity

2, 3. Jung, Nietzsche’s Zarathustra: Notes of the Seminar Given in 1934–1939 (session II 23 october of 1935).