While the ego can be regarded as the center of selfishness (ego-ism), it is also the center of altruism. In and of itself, the ego, as Jung understood and described it, is morally neutral, not a « bad thing » as one hears it referred to in common parlance (« oh, he’s got such an ego! ») but a necessary part of human psychological life.
Much that passes for knowledge among human beings is actually, upon closer and more critical inspection, merely prejudice or belief based on distortion, bias, hearsay, speculation, or pure fantasy. Beliefs pass as knowledge and are clung to as reliable certainties.
What John Glenn and Neil Armstrong have meant to us as explorers of outer space, Jung signifies with regard to inner space, a courageous and intrepid voyager into the unknown.