"...even at a time when psychoanalysis as a practice is moribund, Freudian ideas continue to exert considerable influence over the culture. "
Stuart Schneiderman: "In the end the American people bought an illusion, an illusion of competence and eptitude. They were wrong, and thus, they are getting screwed."
posted by Helen at 8:58 AM
17 Comments:
I really don't care much about Freud. Personally, I've long thought of him as a fraud. Among other things, how many women do you really think have "penis envy?"
From the linked article:
So says Nobel laureate Paul Krugman. When Krugman rails against the premature removal of economic stimulus, it is not too difficult to find a couple of sexual experiences that would be analogous to what he fears.
It's said that one definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over while expecting a different outcome. They've tried the stimulus to the tune of almost a trillion dollars and - other than enriching their cronies and paying off their union buddies - nothing came of it. Yet we're supposed to believe it'll be different this time.
At the expense of dating myself, I've seen this before.
Bullwinkle: "Hey Rocky, watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat."
Rocky: "Again? But that trick never works."
Bullwinkle pulls some monster out of the hat. "Time to get a bigger hat."
My new theme song: Won't Get Fooled Again
Trouble is, I didn't get fooled the first time; but I do hope it catches on.
(To answer Larry's question: Exactly as many as strap-ons have been sold.)
Freud is not used much anymore. Hardly at all outside of Manhattan.
But my goodness the man came up with a lot of important ideas, even if they turned out to be wrong.
My graduate training was in Contemporary Psychoanalysis, which is reseach and attachment based. But even in those circles that reject Freud, he is still admired as a powerful pioneer.
Trey
As long as you keep Freud's warning close to your heart - "sometimes a cigar is just a cigar" - his stuff is pretty interesting.
Camille Paglia (who I love and is discussed in Schneiderman's post) has described Freud not as a psychologist but an anthropologist. Her view is just about the only acceptable one, as there was little scientific about Freud's "research."
Freudian ideas probably "continue to exert considerable influence over the culture" because they get at something fundamentally human and make some sense over the course of history.
In today's world, with the destruction of the family and in particular the forceful emasculation of fatherhood today, it's not hard to see most of our social problems as large-scale results of an endless childhood. Very Freudian - mommy issues and daddy issues all over the place, not to mention some cocaine sprinkled around.
Albert Ellis' philosophies did more for me than Papa Freud.
I think they did more for humanity as a whole!
Trey
Stuart Schneiderman: "In the end the American people bought an illusion, an illusion of competence and eptitude. They were wrong, and thus, they are getting screwed."
I've argued this a thousand times elsewhere, I'll argue it again here: The American people did no such thing.
Roughly a third of the American voting public would have voted for a ham sandwich if it had happened to be the Democratic nominee for president, in '08 or any other year. And once the financial system melted down on a GOP president's watch, most nonaligned voters would have done the same.
Obama got lucky two years ago - nothing more, nothing less. He may have campaigned on "hope and change" but he really won on voters' fear and anger, and on simply being in the right place at the right time to capitalize on that fear and anger. His problem, and quite possibly his ultimate downfall, is that he too has misinterpreted his '08 victory as a ringing endorsement of what he campaigned on.
Joshua, I'd like to disagree. But I can't. So I won't. Because you're right.
Joshua wrote: "Obama got lucky two years ago"
Sure he did, but the Republican big spenders who believe in a large, intrusive, and centralized federal government manufactured a lot of that luck. Now Obama is returning the favor by advocating and creating an even more bloated, isolated, and expensive federal government.
Americans are not interested in this type of government. It is at its very essence un-American.
It is also the gift which keeps on giving to those who oppose it.
Trey
I flipped a coin myself.
This is interesting for Collective intelligence purposes and well done.
Could I have more background information on that project? Having worked at Yahoo!
Answers, Flickr and Community products out of Canada, I like to discover interesting projects like this. designer handbags
Just thinking out loud here. Help me with this.
Now, understand, I am not edumacated well in these matters. But it sounds like it is being implied that psychology might often actually BE a Freudian slip?
Cartoonist Bernie Kliban implied that Freud actually *wore* a slip.
Doom, that is high comedy! Wonderful.
Trey
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jungs ideas about the collective consciousness and the blinds spot society has toward the anima and the animus makes more sense that a lot of what freud (sickman fraud?) wrote....
...though penis envy just makes sense (strap-on hahahahahahahahah!)
i stick to nlp and transactional frames in my work though, i don`t have time for freud, my clients want to get better and go home.
Unfortunately, he's right. Psychologists, therapists, and other mental health professionals have moved on. In pop culture, however, Freud is alive and well. Writers - text and screen - still use his ideas to "explain" character motivations. (Watch a few episodes of Criminal Minds if you don't believe me.) And if you read enough political blogs - especially liberal ones - you'll find that people really enjoy "psychoanalyzing" their opponents in order to score political points.
The usual format is: If you're passionate about something on the surface, you must be unconsciously conflicted about it. Don't like gay lifestyles or against gay marriage? You're afraid of your own latent homosexual tendencies. On the Second Amendment bandwagon? You're secretly a coward who needs a gun to make him feel safe. And of course there's the big one: If you're against affirmative action or anything else liberal Democrats are for, you're a CLOSET RACIST!
It's a fixed game, really. "Smart" people can accuse you of anything because you're not consciously aware of any transgression. Only "smart" people whose mental arsenal includes some vague, pseudo-Freudian nonsense can "decode" what you're *really* feel, think, believe, etc. And we all know who the "smart" people are, don't we?
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