Society for U.S. Intellectual History (S-USIH) Rises Healthy From Dead Again? . . . . .ICONCLASTIC FREUD biography BY ICONOCLASTIC CONTEMPORARY FREUDIAN The idea of certain figures in history being protean screen upon which each generation projects its own primary needs is not new, but this reviewer think is some of the best senses what this leading contemporary Freudian does. He did not put it this way, but perhaps Freud chose to speak Chinese (to use the old vulgar code for outsiders to the higher realm of privileged communication; at the limit, even spiritual communication---or universally-based archetype synchronicity as Jung might have said). By speaking the language of the enormous multitudes --the underprivileged billions on the planet---he could simultaneously remain the (Jewish) outsider, and smuggle in his decoding of the elites highest secret languages, and, remarkably, do so in a way that even allowed them to speak of them. . . . Now that is not precisely what either the author or reviewer says, and one might review Frederick Crews (but perhaps he too is a bit dated now) after reflecting on its smattering of slightly pastiched, baby-of-post-modernisn personalism, but perhaps my reaction, in fraction, exemplifies part of what this most recent discussion is about, even if I am wondering if the new use of Freud is a bit too reductive and narcissistic. Although lets agree to leave that seemingly exhausted latter term out of the discussion, shall we? / Tom Southall newyorker/online/blogs/joshuarothman/2014/06/the-freud-we-wish-for.html
Posted on: Mon, 07 Jul 2014 12:29:35 +0000