[lit-ideas] Re: New Program in Psychoanalysis and Culture
- From: "Mike Geary" <atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- 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 Geary
Universe
----- Original Message -----
From: David Wright
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Tuesday, July 22, 2008 6:28 PM
Subject: [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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