Jung’s Typology of Dictators

DISCLAIMER: The following typology is obviously more archetypical than ‘seriously’ psychometric in any sense.

In the book C.G. Jung Speaks (Princeton University Press 1977), Jung offers a taxonomy of “Dictators” or “Tribal Leaders” which he divides as follows:

There are two kinds of dictators – the chieftain type and the medicine man type. (p. 93)

According to Jung, the chieftain type rules by force and has great “personal ambition” by which Jung means that they secure money, power, sex, fame etc. for themselves – that they rule their countries like an emperor or Russian Czar. (Jung also includes Franklin D. Roosevelt in his taxonomy [pp.92-93], characterizing FDR as “very much the stuff of a dictator.”)

The medicine man type of leader, on the other hand, rules “by magic” and by way of an “unconscious connection with his people” and also with less personal ambition than the chieftain type.

Finally, Jung hints that there is a third type of dictator, the “destructive wizard,” a category that is not elaborated further by Jung, but in which he places Lenin (p. 116).

Thus we get the following typology of dictators from Jung:

This typology is obviously more archetypical than ‘seriously’ psychometric in any sense. For the fun of it we try to complete Jung’s train of thought below. However, in order to do so, we introduce two new categories, one being the ‘conservator’, a category that is akin to the chieftain, but which stresses the importance of social stability and the continued protection of the nation’s heritage, the other being the “jester”, that is, the outwardly clownish type, who never the less says profound things from time to time.

* For example, Ahmadinejad will on the one hand say things like ‘there are no homosexuals in Iran’ and then turn around to expose the double standard with regards to free speech in Europe (i.e. that some European states allow Muhammed-cartoons but disallow Holocaust-cartoons).

** Both Gaddafi and Chavez started out attempting to rule like Jung’s medicine man type of leaders, but as people failed to buy into their ideological poses, they started to rely increasingly on force.