[lit-ideas] Re: Violence as Destruction of Doubt
- From: "Andy Amago" <aamago@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2005 08:25:20 -0400
> [Original Message]
> From: John McCreery <mccreery@xxxxxxx>
> To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Date: 9/16/2005 8:31:07 PM
> Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Violence as Destruction of Doubt
>
>
> On 2005/09/16, at 15:01, Eric Yost wrote:
>
> > There you go. Another theory. Doesn't require the unconscious. Plus
> > it has some empirical backing.
>
>
> Good point. I wonder, though, if we shouldn't introduce a bit more
> rigor into the way we use terms like "the unconscious."
>
> In, for example, The New Essays on Human Understanding, Leibniz
> observes, contra Locke, that perception cannot be entirely a matter
> of conscious awareness. He cites, for example, being wakened from
> sleep. The perception of the stimulus that wakes us begins before we
> become conscious of it; else, we would not wake at all.
>
> This view has now, I believe, become quite widely accepted by
> cognitive scientists and neurophysiologists who point to the huge
> amount of information processing that goes on in simple acts like
> walking across a room of which we are rarely if ever aware.
>
> As I understand it, there is in Freudian thought a distinction
> between two types of unconscious, the preconscious (below the level
> of active awareness, the sort of thing that Leibniz and the cognitive
> scientists seem to be pointing) and the subconscious, conceived of in
> psychoanalytic theory as a body of material actively suppressed
> because it conflicts with the normative demands of the Superego, the
> embodiment of social norms learned through parental example and
> instruction.
A.A. My understanding of the unconscious is the processing that goes on
under the surface, and also the material that is suppressed. The Superego
I have a problem with because it's not always positive. Much of what
Marlena was talking about as self hate is the Superego; I believe, but
don't quote me, that today the Superego has been renamed introjected
messages (you're stupid, you're always losing things, etc.). We
internalize those messages and so learn to turn the hate against ourselves,
but, for splitting purposes, we also hate the person who's making us feel
bad. Later, we "see" that original person in others and that's when they
suddenly hate us. Bingo, paranoia and war, among other negative states.
In strictly Freudian psychoanalysis there is the further
> idea that subconscious materials largely have to do with sex and
> aggression. Jung goes off in another direction, envisioning the
> subconscious as composed of the Archetypes that make up the
> Collective Unconscious.
A.A. These to me are silly. I don't know enough about Piaget to say
anything meaningful except possibly to ask why people get stuck at stages
of development. Sounds like that would tie in somehow with suppressed
information (not wanting to believe the parent is bad) but I can't say.
I'm still wondering why the prejudice against unconsciously held material.
That's all I have time for now, I'm running out the door. See you all
later.
Andy Amago
>
> I am not advocating any of these specifically psychoanalytic notions
> or theories that build on them to "explain" religion. I am, however,
> suggesting that casually tossing around the word "unconscious" does
> little to advance understanding of religion or anything else.
>
> John mcCreery
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