[lit-ideas] Re: New Program in Psychoanalysis and Culture
- From: "Torgeir Fjeld" <phatic@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 27 Jul 2008 21:47:56 +0100
Mike Geary commented:
How does that happen if we are nothing more than our culture? How
does an individual ever begin to stand outside her culture and act
contrary to it, even subversive to it if we are nothing more than our
culture -- which is a tenet or mine, btw.
let's say we're on a spaceship travelling through outer space. while we
fly around there are engineers working on the spaceship, repairing and
improving, as it were. that's culture andcultural change -- perhaps there
is an element of negation to repairing?
-tor
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mike Geary"
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: New Program in Psychoanalysis and Culture
Date: Tue, 22 Jul 2008 22:09:26 -0500
DW:>>Regarding culture, I remain unconvinced, to be polite, that anyone
stands outside of culture. I have as liitle respect for the most
agreeable Humanist that merely regurgitates the ideas of his guru as I do
for the autocrat that is capable of not a whit less.<< I agree with this
totally, wholly and completely. But then cultures do change, don't
they? How does that happen if we are nothing more than our culture? How
does an individual ever begin to stand outside her culture and act
contrary to it, even subversive to it if we are nothing more than our
culture -- which is a tenet or mine, btw. This is a question that has
long plagued me. Cultures, of course, are never monolithic. They are
invariably composed of disparate peoples with disparate needs thrown
together through historical events. But, given time, out of that
disparateness comes a way of living together which I would call
a culture. And I think this coming-together can and must happen
planetarily -- I like the term "planetarily", but that's probably just my
homeboy culture -- if we people types hope to progress into the next
millennium. Mike GearyUniverse ----- Original Message -----
From: David WrightTo: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx: Tuesday, July 22,
2008 6:28 PMSubject: [lit-ideas] Re: New Program in Psychoanalysis
and Culture
I'll concede that Freud was a reasonably talented essayist, if one
accepts that his supportiing arguments are valid. Fundamentally
though, he tends to cite himself...hardly reasonable argumentation.
And, while I appreciate Bloom, his kabbalistic writing must,
perforce, be God-centric. I could analyse writing from an
astrological perspective with just as much authority, not that either
produces reasonable analyses...unless faerie tales compose an
essential part of your mythos.
Regarding culture, I remain unconvinced, to be polite, that anyone
stands outside of culture. I have as liitle respect for the most
agreeable Humanist that merely regurgitates the ideas of his guru as
I do for the autocrat that is capable of not a whit less.
Nonetheless, even if we accept that Siggie was a decent, or divine,
wordsmith, it does not logically follow that his ideas possess much
worth. I ignore, of course, the fact that if one believes in
Psychoanalysis or God, it is likely that shamanistic practice based
upon those beliefs will likely result in a successful amelioration of
any perceived problem.
Opium, Religion, Marx,
d.
Eric Yost:
David Wright wrote: Is Freud still read as anything more than an
amachronistic, literary writer exploring the human condition? Not
that literature has failed to explore the aforementioned problem,
but Freud possessed only moderate literary skills, and abandoned
logical inquiry altogether.
Harold Bloom expresses an opposing opinion in his kabbalistic
survey, _Genius_. He considers Freud the greatest contemporary
essayist after Emerson.
That people would glom Freud's theories and adapt them to their
political agendas -- as Koenigsberg does -- probably would not
have
surprised him. Freud's "hermeneutics of suspicion" allows anyone
to
start a cottage industry on the lecture circuit. You get to
pretend
to be an outsider with superior knowledge of a culture, standing
above it, and able to supply cures to all ills.
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