Archetypes, in the Jungian sense, are deeply important, but they aren’t eternal. They are patterns in which long-standing social and cultural forms anchor themselves, and they gradually shift as society and culture shifts. We’re probably in the long process of transitioning to social forms very, very different from those which have characterised agricultural civilisation. The archetypes that have governed this recent phase probably can’t be jettisoned willy-nilly. At the same time, clinging to them is a brittle, ultimately weak and destructive defence against the difficult and necessary changes we face.