Interestingly enough, for a non - believer, Freud was proud of his Jewish roots; books have been written about this. In a larger sense though, Freud is a very mixed legacy. I immersed myself in his writings a generation or so ago. His prose is riveting. Harold Bloom, when he was in his mid - 30's and quite depressed, read for hours a day in Emerson and Freud. I began to realize long ago, though, that any validity in Freud was mostly metaphorical. Even Phillip Rief viewed him similarly, if I recall correctly. Freud was not scientific; he postulated drives and concepts without empirical evidence. Federick Crews makes a persuasive case that Freud, who might be called a strong poet, by dint of his authority, imposed his narratives on patients such that they internalized his theoretical interpretation of their symptons, thereby distorting or even subverting their actual conditions. In recent years, Charles Krauthammer - who used to practice psychiatry - wrote that nobody believes Freud's nonsense any more. Well, that of course is not true and it is too dismissive.

Surely Freud's development of the concepts of projection and sublimation are very useful.  I utilize the former notion frequently myself, as it is a ubiquitous phenomenon. Also, Freud got one big thing right. Much ofhat we are and do is subterranean, it flies beneath our radar. Now Timothy Wilson makes a very good case that Freud was wrong about why this is. It is not because of repression, it is simply that we take in and do so much each day that we only are - and only can be - aware of a miniscule amount, else we would be subjected to major sensory overload.

I recall an excellent piece in TNR in - I think - 1995 by Jonathan Lear defending Freud against the p.c. crowd, including Dr. Oliver Sacks, having to do (I believe) with a proposed exhibit at the Smithsonian on Freud. What stays in my mind about this article was the way numerous luminaries were judging Freud in the light of present - day attitudes and mores, something that I am fervently against. But hard - and legitimate - questions should be asked of Freud: was he scientific? - no largely not; is psychoanalysis effective - no probably not very much; is Freud's interpretation of dreams valid? - well, he certainly did creative readings but his notion that dreams are wish fulfillments is clearly absurd, as a universal proposition. Dreams and patients' maladies were canvases on which Freud could paint his vast learning and restlessly creative mind, thereby - in a quantuum entaglement - like fashion -  made him inseparable from his patients and their minds.

The best assesment of Freud ever? Phillip Roth, of course. He said that "Freud is our Sophocles, our tragic poet".

"Whoever wants to influence the masses must give them something rousing and inflammatory and my sober judgment of Zionism does not permit this….I concede with sorrow that the baseless fanaticism of our people is in part to be blamed for the awakening of Arab distrust. I can raise no sympathy at all for the misdirected piety which transforms a piece of a Herodian wall into a national relic, thereby offending the feelings of the natives. Now judge for yourself whether I, with such a critical point of view, am the right person to come forward as the solace of a people deluded by unjustified hope.”

Freud’s Letter to Dr. Chaim Koffler Keren HaYassod, Vienna, 26 February 1930.

Freud was conflicted about his Jewish identity, Marty.

On the one hand he wanted in the spirit of enlightenment to “liberate” himself from Jewish tradition which he regarded as a superstition (his treatment of his wife shows that), while on the other he emulated Jewish styles of learning as your quote shows.

He seems to have had a wish to substitute himself for Moses leading the modern Jewish masses to the chosen land of Freudiana.

He also emulated the Catholic hierarchical structures within his associations including the awarding and wearing of rings. He even spoke of apostolic like successions.  See “Freud : a life for our time” by  Peter Gay.

Add to this his utter contempt for American democracy and even for British liberal institutions and you get a sense that he didn’t leave Austria in the early 30’s because for his dislike of the hoi polloi.  

This may also explain his dislike of zionism which was too democratic a movement for his taste. The zionists (like the Americans or the British in the 30’s) didn’t have enough respect for Freudianism.  They offended Freud’s hierarchicalism.

This explains why he waited so long to leave Vienna and why he had to rely on Mussolini’s help to get out. His criminal stubbornness sent many family members of his to their death.  

He used his psychology the way many psychobabbler do, as a defense mechanism; thinking up, voodoo fashion, “diseases” which like needles he could stick in his imaginary little dolls.  

jacksondyer - you made an excellent point. Freud was no democrat. The dictatorship of Dolfuss in Austria did not bother him. As for the apostolic successions, that is a shocking point because it's true. Rationalism when you talk like a messiah? Please.

Not by accident, Freud supporters are weak on undersatdning and supporting empirical evidence. They also are strong on Freud personality cult.

"They also are strong on Freud personality cult."

Personality cult is right. What Stalin was to the Soviets, Freud was to his followers.

Jacksondyer: The Peter Gay book is excellent. Gay became a practicing psychoanalyst; I am now out of sympathy with Gay on Freud but I sure did enjoy reading him quite a while back.

Most of Freud's theories are, in the light of day, nonsense or semi-nonsense.  Much of his prose, even if well translated, is unreadable.  So what -- I suggest that anyone read a basic medical text from the 30's and determine how much of the discussion of disease is still valid.

But he did make one significant contribution which has completely altered the Western world's perception of the human mind:  the discovery -- or at least the popularization of the discovery -- of the "dynamic" unconscious mind.

In fact, it is something we take for granted.

For example, if you say "let me sleep on it and I'll give you an answer in the morning" really means that you anticipate that while you are sleeping your mind will work on the problem -- which frequently it does.

However dreams may be interpreted, they reflect some thought processes that are going on even though we are not conscious of them.

And the ability of advertisers and politicians to target our unarticulated thoughts is well known.

So ... after all is said and done, Freud was important and remains important.

The letter posted by the agent provocateur Ignoramus is something posted on every anti-Israel blog on the web.

Notice the date on the letter:

"Freud’s Letter to Dr. Chaim Koffler Keren HaYassod, Vienna, 26 February 1930."

A few years later, after Hitler took power in Germany his opposition to Zionism lessened considerably. Still given his personality he was unable to separate himself from his own chosen land which was Vienna.

Yes, liberal reformer Peter Gay's books are well worth reading.  He is one of the few scholars writing today who has done lots of research. He seems to have read everything having to do with 19th c European history.

I just bought "Modernism: The Lure of Heresy" which I’ll probably read this summer.

It's true that Freud is more likely to be on the syllabus in an English Dept than in a Psychology Dept today.  But at least two good reasons for this are (a) that Freud wrote very well on literature and drama, and although those essays are few, they are still worth reading today, and (b) that in many of his writings from "The Interpretation of Dreams" on down, the nature of the relationship between our unconscious imaginative capacities and our sense of reality is what is at issue -- and the modernist authors such as Kafka, Joyce, Mann, Woolf et al, who wanted to get at what was happening beneath the surface of our managed social existence, were exploring the same region.

Freud's more-or-less final work "Moses and Monotheism" is a strange and hypnotic piece of writing.

Yea, fair enough Jack. I Googled Freud and Zionism and dug that one out.

I agree with you that the chronology is important. He clearly warmed to the idea during those times. I don't begrudge Marty's cultural landgrab either. Israel can rightly claim Freud, much the same way we claim Wilde.

I do think his elegantly stated warning about a "misdirected piety" offending the natives rings true. A real stab against all nationalism, even patriotism - very Trotskyite.

And again, with this fantastic line: "I concede with sorrow that the baseless fanaticism of our people is in part to be blamed for the awakening of Arab distrust."

Maybe, there's enough "baseless fanaticism" to go around.

An agent provocateur? Cool, Jack, I like it. I've never been called that before. I'm Best Man at a wedding Friday and might well try it out with some of the cute bridesmaids, which will probably clear the bar.

"His criminal stubbornness sent many family members of his to their death. "

I don't know Jack, that is a little cold. His other family members couldn't get out because most jews had no way to get out, beyond that blaming the victim is a tad cruel. I watched biography not too long ago about him and they showed the pictures of his family that all died. Not for even a moment would I ever consider Freud even remotely responsible for Nazi insanity, and the thought that he thought himself in any way responsible saddens me for him.

"And again, with this fantastic line: "I concede with sorrow that the baseless fanaticism of our people is in part to be blamed for the awakening of Arab distrust.""

This is one of Freud's most ignorant comments about antisemitism.

A moment’s reflection would have told him that the "Arab mistrust" was not that different from the mistrust of Jews in his Vienna.

What did the Jews do in Vienna to arouse mistrust? What kind of fanaticism where they guilty of?

Antisemites who would otherwise condemn Freud like to quote him when he is says something critical of Jews.

Jewish fanaticism my foot; it was Arab fanaticism that was responsible for the Hebron massacres in 1929.

"I don't know Jack, that is a little cold. His other family members couldn't get out because most jews had no way to get out, beyond that blaming the victim is a tad cruel. I watched biography not too long ago about him and they showed the pictures of his family that all died. Not for even a moment would I ever consider Freud even remotely responsible for Nazi insanity, and the thought that he thought himself in any way responsible saddens me for him."

It was outrage over his failure to keep his family safe that made me put it in such strong terms.

And of course, he wasn't legally responsible. The nazi killers were. Still, many other Jews emigrated in the early 30's before the Nazis took over Austria and he of all people should have taken precaution. It was not as if he didn't know that the Nazis had a particularly strong loathing for his work. It was also no secret that Hitler an Austrian had wanted to unify the two countries.

PeteBeck: My take on Freud is I think your take, at least approximately. Well said. Jacksondyer: Thanks for the mention of the Modernism book by Peter Gay. I look forward to reading it. Your comments on Freud and the Arabs are incisive. The failures of most all of the Arab regimes are manifest but are not acknowledged by them and Israel is a convenient scapegoat. It is just madness to say that the key to peace and prosperity and stability in the Middle East is a Palestinian state or at least the diplomacy that attempts to move towards one. If the existence of Israel were suddenly negated, we would have Hamas ruling from the Mediterranean to the Negev to the Jordan River to Gesher Haziv. Some peace.

And sometimes a Cigar is just a Cigar.

Why does a (viable) Palestinian state mean the negation of Israel LR? I don't understand, can you elaborate?

Ignorant Populist: Your blogname surely befits you. I postulated the negation of Israel simply as a thought experiment and certainly not as the counterposition to a Palestinian state, which I dearly would love to see spring into existence if it simply would not be a staging area writ large from which to launch rockets at Tel Aviv, et. al., etc.

I really butchered the spelling of Philip Rieff's name above (one l, not two in the first name, two fs, not one in the surname.

It seems to me that Freud's definition of what constitutes sanity and good metal health was capricious and fully dependent upon his own disposition. Of course this has been said in various ways by other posters here. I think for the most part his historical mark is more akin to challenging the reserve clause of God which imputes a lifetime contract not subject to revocation. In his desire for free agency he accomplished constructing a prison of inflexible terms of his own dictation. By familiar definition I would suppose that his very fear of the subterranean helped bring it to light. Thus a public patient of his own accord. That these lower level structures (so defined) were regarded as the seat of all pathology is rather revealing in this regard. He had no tolerance for shadows, unaware of the many he lived with. ( again, as we all do) His ego and need for originality, the need to be his own creation, left him blind to the larger part of this directed inquiry. His thoughts were not particularly unique per se. Just dressed in the garb of officious capacity.

I suppose there is a kind of symmetry which might find Freud migrating home..... to Zion.

Boxofrox: Eloquent post. Freud indeed had no tolerance of shadows. And he lived in an hermetically sealed world of his own making.

LR. Thanks for your kind review.

That's more properly Ben Zakkai.

(Sakkai would be pronounced with a 'z' sound in normative German.

Otherwise, the "sakkai" spelling is a bit weird.)

He had no tolerance for shadows, unaware of the many he lived with. ( again, as we all do) His ego and need for originality, the need to be his own creation, left him blind to the larger part of this directed inquiry. His thoughts were not particularly unique per se. Just dressed in the garb of officious capacity."

I that that is the most breath-taking distortion of Freud and his work that I have ever read in two sentences.  It exudes exactly the kind of smug self-assurance that Freud shook up.  What exactly is/was "the garb of officious capacity?"  The phrase hovers on the edge of meaninglessness.

Perhaps the knowledge that I am sympathetic with Jungian inquiry will give you some insight into why I am so 'smug'. I'm really kind of flattered at the level of misplaced emphasis with which you ascribe these two/three sentences. I feel as if I've achieved something almost archetypal. Thanks.

No problem, boxo, but what on earth does the phrase "the garb of officious capacity" mean?  And did you mean "describe" or "ascribe to"?

Oh you overeducated rascal you.....I suppose describe or ascribe to is an either/or proposition. I wonder what kind of significance that might suggest.

the 'garb of officious capacity' is my somewhat pretentiously poetic way of saying that Freud's models suffered from a stringency unbecoming the phenomenon. This was due primarily as a reflection of his own insecurities. Such strict adherence is not only suffocating but is born of the hubris by which one might desire to rope the wind.

I respect Freud's efforting toward this end and will happily ascribe to him the credit for creating a structured impetus by which to negotiate sensible dialogue parameters for this kind of exploration. As I have pointed out previously, it is my belief that he was owned by his own ego and fears which kept him from getting to the promised land. So goes Moses.

Ironyroad: No doubt that Freud was immensely creative. Therein lies the problem - he employed his creativity reshaping "reality" along the lines of his theories, instead of investigating actual shadows. Might it be better to say that Freud tolerated certain shadows but only ones of his own making? Between Phillip Roth and Frederick Crews, there is a lot of territory. I think that Freud still belongs in the canon but a deconstructive (in a non - Frenchified sense) scientific critique should be offered up next to Interpretation of Dreams, etc. It is one thing to celebrate Freud as an exemplar of mythos, it is another matter to claim a scientific approach for him. Freud certainly thought that he was on a scientific path, that he was seeing things for what they were. But clearly he largely was not. That there are certain acute observations mixed in with the mythos, makes parsing Freud difficult. That plus the imprimatur of generations of intellectuals, though this phenomenon is abating now that we are more than two - thirds of a century from Freud's death.

Makes sense to me!  I'm always trying to negotiate sensible dialogue parameters myself . . .

“I that that is the most breath-taking distortion of Freud and his work that I have ever read in two sentences.  It exudes exactly the kind of smug self-assurance that Freud shook up.  What exactly is/was "the garb of officious capacity?"  The phrase hovers on the edge of meaninglessness.” ironyroad

Irony is correct, up to a point.

However, this is not the last word on Freud’s psychology either since it takes him at his word when he believed himself to have given us a kind of Copernican revolution of the human being (read soul).

Very briefly, the story goes something like this: Copernicus overthrew the earth centered notions of the universe; Darwin overthrew the hierarchical notion of nature with man at the top; and Freud overthrew the idea that man is master in his own domain, the domain of consciousness.  

Freudian psychology did attempt to challenge out “smug self assurance” but only on the individual level. He simultaneously offered us a technique for freeing ourselves from those unconscious forces which overwhelm the ego: psychoanalysis.

Psychoanalysis is above all a discipline. It isn’t just a set of random insights into the limits of human freedom. It is meant to push back the repressive forces that limit that freedom.  

Here is where he stumbles, freed from the self delusion of the sovereign ego Freudian psychoanalysis becomes an ally of social repressive forces which would redefine what human freedom (read sanity) is.

Jungian psychoanalysis is even more regressive that Freud’s since he tried to reconnect the individual ego into the so called collective ego and beyond it to mythological forces.

It is telling that both of these Psychologists found their defenders in the two great totalitarian movements of the 20c: Trotsky read and understood Freud and praised his work. (It’s no accident comrade that psychiatry was used by the Soviets to stifle descent.); Jung on the other hand served as president of the Nazi-dominated International General Medical Society for Psychotherapy, created by Matthias Goring.

His own putative antisemitism has been debated ad nauseam and there is well known.

I have no doubt that Freud offered many valuable insights into the human condition, but his psychoanalytic technique for liberating us from the forces of the Id, are a bit more complicated and double edged than most of us realized.

"That there are certain acute observations mixed in with the mythos, makes parsing Freud difficult."  LR

I agree.

I posted my reply to Irony before I saw LR's post.

Jacksondyer: Civilization and Its Discontents is still a book worth reading, do you not think? Freud cannot be easily discarded because his lines of inquiry pushed in the right direction, i.e., against an overly physiological and mechanistic approach to psychology. There are no regions of the brain corresponding to the id, the ego, and the superego but I still am not ready to discard this tripartite division of human consciousness even at this late date because it has a kind of utility. Even in my somewhat more Freudian phase a generation ago, I did not approach these concepts with the theoretical rigor that Freud did; rather I held them in an inchoate way. Even today, in a century where we have fMRI and Positron Emmision Tomography and all the rest, reductionism (though it has purchased us a huge amounts of knowledge) does not vouchsafe us the view from everywhere. We still need holistic attempts at understanding, employing reductionist approaches as well and weaving them into our uber narratives. It is wonderful to know that we are bundles of quarks but this datum does not give us the explanatory power to understand the neocortex of, say, Kim Jong Il. Or anyone else, as it happens.

"Jacksondyer: Civilization and Its Discontents is still a book worth reading, do you not think? "

Yes, and so is The Dora Case, etc.

As long as we don't think of him as a scientists his work is both delighful and insightful.

I read him the way I read Montaigne whom I also love to read.

Happy birthday ISRAEL:

"Thousands take to streets and parks as Israel celebrates 60 years of statehood:

By Roni Singer-Heruti, Haaretz Correspondent, and News  

"NASA astronaut Garrett Reisman, the first Jewish crew member on the International Space Station, on Wednesday sent a greeting from space to the people of Israel.

"Every time the Station flies over the State of Israel, I try to find a window, and it never fails to move me when I see the familiar outline of Israel coming toward us from over the horizon," he said."

www.haaretz.com/.../981680.html

Irony. Lest ye think that jackson and I are at odds, this is not the case. It is the scope and direction of inquiry which find contention. His definition of regressive is something I'll happily debate. I can easily see why jackson is disinclined toward anything which Jung might have to offer. Ain't it grand?

Jacksondyer: I too love Montaigne. He sometimes is said to have invented the essay form but though that was not the case, he certainly refined this genre. He was such a level head. What do you suppose he would have made of Obama's florid rhetoric? He was the mayor of Bourdeaux for a time and though not a systematic philospher, he was profoundly philosophical.

Boxofrox: Freud wasn't scientific but then Jung wasn't exactly, either. He was mired in mythology. He was right to oppose Freud on Freud's overemphasis on the libido but he trafficked in some pretty dotty notions. His archetypes have some metaphorical usefulness, as I suppose does the collective unconscious.

boxo, me lad, I wasn't presuming to define either you or JD in some intellectual location you find inappropriate, and certainly not in relation to each other.  All I really had in mind was to challenge your wild and imo completely off-target generalization about Freud and shadows.  Read the essay on "The Uncanny," to take just one example.

"What do you suppose he would have made of Obama's florid rhetoric? " liberal reformer

Methinks he would have written an essay with the title, "On Political Wooing."

" Read the essay on "The Uncanny," to take just one example." ironyroad

Great essay, ironyroad.

Irony. As per shadows, hoobie-doobie and uncanny things: Nice essay. First time at the trough. I have to say that it only confirms my convictions as to Freud''s hubris. Particularly in relationship to word ownership fantasies. As if descriptive apprehension contains within itself to totality of essence. I can't really even describe this as a fault as such. But in his capacities of sage I say he fails the requisite of knowing his own limitations thereby remaining unavailable to the farther reaches of his inquiry. I'll develop this further should you desire. For now I have this uncanny need for sleep..... and dream.

LR. Your complaints are valid to an extent IF indeed that were the extent. Jung was a diligent empiricist and qualified definitions to utter distraction. Many of his sub-categorical musings were, by my lights, a stretch. Many others and for the most part, by my lights, were dead on track and much more comprehensively relevant than anything Freud brought forth. Much is concentrated on his  sojourns into what could be considered occult tinged subject matter. These areas are easily dismissed by the ultra-rationalist and widely embraced by the wishfully gullible. As I said to the IronyMan I'll revisit this if desired but for now I must sleepytime. Ta-ta.

Boxofrox: You have piqued my desire to read Jung again. It has been a long time. I frequently think of Isaiah Berlin when it comes to, well, most anything. Berlin was the great philosopher of pluralism. Whereas with Freud, he was obstinate and unforgiving. A cult of Freud set in in the academys and in psychoanalysis. I don't care who you are, your ideas need to be vetted by a community of your peers. Jurgen Habermas' concept of "intersubjectivity" is a good one. Even - or sometimes especially - extremely bright people develop tunnel vision. And who best to lead them out of the tunnel than other people.