Week 6
Civilization and its Discontents
Lecture One
I. Sigmund Freud (1856-1939): Reputation and Career
born in Freiberg (now Czech Republic);
moved to Vienna at age 4
1938: fled to Paris, then London as refugee from Nazis
Nazi dislike of Psychoanalysis: "The Jewish Science"
[ix-xxii, Peter Gay's biographical introduction]
II. Style
Freud as skilled RHETORICIAN
He needs to convince us of some startling things:
infantile sexuality
sexual basis for neurosis
penis envy, etc.
Ways in which he implicates us in his arguments
Reminding you of what you "already know"
How does he make HIS conclusions OUR conclusions?
1. Official assumption that he is appealing to similar minds with similar experiences
2. constructs a trustworthy narrative persona: the sincere scientist with much more experience in these matters.
3. Use of literary quotations--all from the German tradition, but quotes beloved authors to support his assertions.
What does not work? What is alienating about his arguments?
Callous dismissal of religious practices? Opinions on gender difference and family organization?
III. SUBSTANCE
What do you already know about Freud?
Why is Freud controversial?
"I don't hate my father and desire my mother, so Freud is wrong."
Oedipus Complex
Freud, who propagated the idea of infantile sexuality, theorized that young boys
had strong sexual feelings for their mothers and saw their fathers as rivals for the mother. Part of this rivalry was the boy's fear of castration by the father.
IV. MEN AND WOMEN
Early studies on hysteria
[p. 59. does it remind you of Hegel on Antigone?]
A Mistake: the Seduction Theory
All neuroses were the result of actual sexual abuse in childhood, mostly by the father.
This was not well-received and by 1897, Freud himself decided that it was improbable
and abandoned "the seduction theory."
Another mistake?
Freud generalized from the experience of his patients to more panoramic models
of mankind.
Despite mistakes, Freud did extraordinary, ground-breaking clinical and cultural work that has changed the ways that we think about humanity and what it means to be human.
Therefore Freud is very important for the Humanities.
Freud also changed the way that we think
about Associations/Dissociations and Family and State
He is also important for medicine
Psychoanalysis is a THERAPY that has soothed the anxieties and cured the neuroses of generations
of non-Viennese and non-European patients.
Some preliminary Freudian baggage:
Tripartite structure of consciousness
1. Id: [the it] contains all instincts and repressed material (unconscious)
2. Ego [the I] acts as an intermediary between the id and the external world. It controls
voluntary movements and its task is self-preservation. Decides whether the instincts will
be satisfied or inhibited. (partly conscious)
3. Superego [the higher or superior I] comes up in one of the chapters not assigned.
Civilization inhibits aggression; this is then internalized and used against the self as
superego or conscience. [ch. VII was not assigned describes the devel of superego]
Breakthrough works:
1895 Studies in Hysteria with Breuer
patient "Anna O." "the talking cure"
1899 Interpretation of Dreams: dream logic; dream grammar
dreams are the fulfillments of unconscious wishes
V. "You can't just smoke and play cards all day."
CIVILIZATION AND ITS DISCONTENTS
28 July 1929 Letter to Lou Andreas Salome
[My book] is about culture, guilt, happiness and similar lofty matters and seems to me...to be superfluous in contrast to my earlier works, that were always attended by a certain urgency. But what should I do? One can't just smoke and play cards all day. I can't really walk for long and most of what there is to read no longer interests me. I wrote and passed the time most pleasantly, and while writing this book, I have rediscovered the most banal truths.
The "oceanic feeling" [pp.10-11]
Boundaries of the ego and its relation with all that is external to it.
The past is preserved in mental life.
Threats from the external world:
The Pleasure Principle: Psychic life is devoted to seeking pleasure and avoiding unpleasure (life is easy so far)
The Reality Principle: (diminished expectations). External events may thwart our pursuit of pleasure or our flight from unpleasure, so we "moderate our claims to happiness."
Sublimation: displacement of libido as a means of fending off suffering
What are you doing here?
