Twenty years ago I would have been confounded and dismayed by this statement of CG Jung.  Today I am in total agreement:

 “Society, by automatically stressing all the collective qualities in its individual representatives, puts a premium on mediocrity, and everything settles down to vegetate in an easy, irresponsible way. Individuality will inevitably be driven to the wall. This process begins in school, continues at the University, and rules all departments in which the state has a hand. In a small social body, the individuality of its members is better safeguarded; and the greater is their relative freedom and the possibility of conscious responsibility…. The man of today, who resembles more or less the collective ideal, has made his heart into a den of murderers … the greatest infamy on the part of his group will not disturb him, so long as the majority of his fellows steadfastly believe in the exalted morality of their social organization…..”

C.G. Jung, “The Assimilation Of The Unconscious,” in “The Relations Between The Ego And The Unconscious,”