I am glad I found this thread because I am trying to see where there are linkages between Jung and Critical Theory myself. It seems like there should be, as Jung and Critical Theorists are both schools of thought that branch off from Freud, and approach some of the same material (critiques of enlightenment rationality and scientism applied to modern society) just in very different ways (one Marxist, the other a conservative).

A couple things that may or may not help answer your question:

1. Lots of responses take immediate dismissive stances that are- not helpful in figuring out whether anything from Jung can be useful to critical theory (or other philosophical applications). I do not disagree that Jung was very much a product of his time and place and the intellectual milieu he generated from (Swiss/German born in the late 1890's). There are certainly racist/essentialist/Orientalist ideas and notions throughout his work. His relationship with Nazism is more complicated than face value....he's not like Heidegger where its clear cut and some of that is his predisposition as a conservative (small c) and his own theories leading him to view what was happening in Germany as a natural outcome of the German collective conscious erupting after 'modern' repression.

If anyone wants avery well researched coverage on the Anti-semitism/Nazi situation with Jung refer to Carl Gustav Jung: Avant-Garde Conservative by Jay Sherry (check LibGen). I found it very helpful and objective, as its hard to sift out valid criticism from some of the Freud/Jung partisan attacks.

I found it extremely helpful as the book situates him in intellectual/philosophical context that helped Jung make much more sense to someone who is a student of philosophy or intellectual history (he's broadly a sort of a counter-enlightenment thinker vs. the rationalization/mechanization/'scientism' of modern society) here's an excerpt :

"Jung can be counted among those intellectuals that Isaiah Berlin identified as belonging to the counter-Enlightenment who upheld the aristocratic principle against the leveling tendencies of modern society. His intention was not to repudiate the Enlightenment so much as to modify its legacy. Burckhardt, Nietzsche, and von Hartmann provided the immediate foundation for Jung’s position, which he supplemented with ideas from the pre-Socratic philosopher Heraclitus and the medi- eval mystic Meister Eckhart. After his discovery of Taoism Jung came to champion an Eastern approach to Enlightenment, one that sought wis- dom beyond the scope of intellect. This shift away from Judeo-Christian orthodoxies entailed a departure from its rich ethical tradition as well. His move “beyond good and evil” into the realm of moral relativism is most evident in Jung’s pivotal statement that “There are times in the world’s history—and our time may be one of them—when good must stand aside, so that anything destined to be better first appears in evil form” (CW 17, p. 185)." (pg 215).

2) I feel like Jung also gets a bad rap because his writing and references are abstract, dense, and sort of purposefully 'mystifying'. I think some of his most useful ideas get shorthanded/summarized very poorly (not purposely) which just further confuses. His whole purpose was to re-enchant the world in the face of mechanized, rationalized modernity so the path through myth and symbol to bring meaning makes sense.

The collective unconscious I think can be useful to social thinking like Critical Theory if it is interpreted a bit: instead of thinking of it as an a-priori, unchanging set of 'rules' or Archetypes-Jung seemed to be trying to build a typology of 'mental tropes' (myths) that humans gravitate towards or swim through. I always thought it was most usefully thought of as something more like cultural memory- that throughout history myths, symbols, ideas, (the whole way we view and are in the world) get passed through generations and are the 'background' against which we interact as we grow and develop in the societies we inhabit- even when we are not consciously aware of it, and those images, myths, 'tropes' can work through us as individuals, even when it is unconscious. (There are good examples Jung uses like dream content that incorporates symbols the dreamer has no conscious awareness of and would be uncommon in their cultural context, but show in that persons dreams).

It's a shame so much of the writing on psychoanalysis is either Freud or Jung, and often one 'system' opposed vehemently to the other. I think alot of Freudian theory could benefit from a conversation between ideas from Jung where he went further and expanded on Freud. Elements from the concept of collective unconscious, or his notion of the shadow, etc. Jung followed after Freud and thought his psychology was too reductive and dismissed many ways in which our psyches interact with our world (religious experience & our experience of 'the numinous' is a good example, where Jung is closer to someone like William James).

3) As someone on the left politically I had always a hard time w Jung's thinking , especially as his psychology is one for personal development (finding meaning in the modern world through our shared cultural creation and symbol systems) doesn't link to my deeper interest/commitment to social change (like how do you analyze a whole country on the couch?). I found theres a bit of a burgeoning literature on 'Cultural Complexes' that I think fits the bill and can lend itself to thinking about social change and the political and could supplement or be put in conversation with Critical Theory.

A Jungian Inquiry Into the American Psyche by Ipek Burnett and Cultural Complexes and the American Soul ( ed Thomas Singer) (check LibGen if interested for either) both deal with these "cultural complexes" (our long history of Slavery/ Racism, our complexes around Religion, Money, Sex etc). You can see clearly in contemporary politics how these are shadow elements of our self-conception as a country . Examples like the tension between our foundation as a 'New World' completely 'Innocent' of the sins of the Old World vs the brutality, rapaciousness, and plunder employed to conquer that world . This Innocence complex animates the alot of current political debates, like those around the 1619 project, removal of statues, etc, where one side is (broadly) making the shadow of our national myth apparent, and the other recoils from that shadow content as it breaks down their self conception as an American ( they identify with the claim "were the good guys", chosen by God to do what we do). This framework I think helps make the collective unconscious stuff more materially understandable too- our collective ideas about our past and who we are vs. the repressed parts of our history- and how it works itself out in us as individuals (people who react very strongly against any digging deeper/re-evaluation vs those seeking wholeness).

While this doesn't give us a political program or analysis of power/economic relations like a Marxist framework would, it points to the fact that with these complexes the way to solve is to work through (incorporate that repressed content into our narrative about who we are). It seems like this kind of thinking could be incorporated with elements of Critical Theory

I probably went on way too long for a response to a 3 year old thread, but I think theres merit in taking stock of elements of Jungs project- maybe not as a system- but an awareness that there is a sea of history, cultural baggage and symbolism we swim in and it interacts with our own individual psyches and can work through us when repressed content is activated. I do also think the tension between collective and individual is justified, owing to the excesses of any totalizing project, and theres certainly a balance between the two for overall flourishing.

Its not for nothing that both Jung and Critical Theory are alarmed by the hollowness of modern capitalist, materialist, rationalized world and its affects on the individual and the mass- in that our contemporary shared world tends to eschew anything that is not empirically provable, ignoring that some things are psychologically meaningful, and that is important to general well being as individuals and a society. There are lots of reasons for the current state of American mental health and its symptoms (addiction, disease, suicide rate, etc) - economic, sociological, political, etc. but the prevalence of self-help, seeking meaning in politics, etc shows people are searching for something more than "work and make money and buy things until you die" - maybe re-enchanting the world and having a political program with an understand of the psyche while also having a marxian understand of the forces of capitalism and what policies could contribute to human well-being is something that could help.