[lit-ideas] Re: New Program in Psychoanalysis and Culture

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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