Military culture: Understanding deeper dynamics through the warrior archetype

Abstract

This paper proposes a new psycho-sociological approach to understanding military culture change, built on the notion of warrior archetype, in line with psychiatrist Carl Jung’s concept of archetype. It contends that military culture and its related institutional forms fundamentally seek to mobilize on an ongoing basis human energy produced through the activation of the warrior archetype. The archetype is built on enhancing feelings of strength in numbers, and empowerment through socially sanctioned actions and potential use of violence. It uses the example of the Canadian Armed Forces culture change effort to illustrate that any such planned organizational culture change will fail if it does not remain consistent with activating the warrior archetype, as its central dynamic and purpose.

Keywords

• Archetype
• Canadian Armed Forces
• Carl Jung
• military culture
• organizational behavior
• psychology