Overview
His work is important for the media, Daily Mail yesterday – all Freudian.
We are defined by childhood, sexuality etc.
His work addresses a problem, the misery of the human
condition. We are alienated from ourselves. Same starting point as Marx – no
pleasure from work, relationships and don’t know what we need. We are miserable
and then die.
Freud’s entire career was about finding the answer to the
problem of misery, he found the answer –psychoanalysis. It has had a big
influence, whether you agree or disagree with it’s ideas. It is inescapable.
WH Auden said Freud is an outlook, not a person.
“We all speak Freudian now” – Freudian biographer.
We live in a Freudian world, whether we like it or not.
Huge amount of artefacts in a museum in London – believed
that he discovered in psychoanalysis (Freudian slips, dreams and neurotic
symptoms).
Dreams are the “royal road to unconscious” – Freud.
He is seen as a sexual renegade – damaged our ideas of
ourselves as noble creatures – “man is the measure of all things”. He
challenged the Enlightenment. (David statue etc...)
To Freud, sex is the centre of everything we do.
He was very pessimistic. He said when you think of my ideas
think of Rembrandt’s art – a little light and a lot of darkness. His theories
are a dark vision of humanity. Very fearful for humanity and according to him,
things were falling apart.
Attack on Plato
He followed Plato’s idea of the tripartite self – reason,
spirit, desire.
The crucial difference is that Plato thought that reason
could rule spirit and desire, but Freud believed reason was the weakest because
people are irrational. We don’t even know that we aren’t in control.
Attack on Marx
Marx thinks of the self also in via the tripartite self,
natural, alienated, species self. Marx believed that in a communist society the
needs of the species would finally become dominate. He believed in the power of
human nature, its ability to evolve.
Freud rejects this – too idealistic and our basic needs are
not benign.
Our deepest needs are aggression, the wilful desire to hurt
others and ultimately to seek out our own destruction in the ‘Death Wish’.
HOBBES. Freud takes Hobbes’ view of Machiavelli’s view in terms of human
nature. Where does he find the confidence to dismiss Plato and Marx.
THE FREUDIAN PERSONALITY
The reality of human nature is pain. We can’t find peace
with ourselves as we are always at war.
Freud’s tripartite system:
Id: the Id is our core from birth. “Reservoir of the
unconscious”. “A cauldron of seething excitations”. Spoilt child is the Id –
want everything and want it now.
Ego: the least powerful part of the personality – the voice
of reason. Moderation and common sense. It is turned towards reality. It is
hopelessly embattled and besieged. Never the winner, always the loser.
Superego: not present when born (unlike other two). The
superego comes from the outside e.g. police, teachers etc… It develops after
birth through socialisation. Impossible standards of
perfection. It punishes you with guilt of not fulfilling the superego’s wishes
e.g. your parents want you to do well in a test and then you fail. Morality principle – often uses religion as an
example.
Society is full of suffering because it is full of pain.
We are decaying in body and nature is too.
The external world – the slings and arrows of outrageous
fortune.
The greatest pain is the interaction with other people.
“Hell is other people” – JP Satre. People are out to get us and to hurt us, but
as irrational people we are inclined to hurt others.
Freud said that we don’t see family and friends as nice, but
as people out to hurt us and they think we are out to hurt them as well.
He thinks the answer is psychoanalysis – not open to
everyone (needed to strengthen the ego) and the masses will continue on their
destructive paths. We can contain our urges by intoxication (temporary),
isolation (only for a few people), religion (mass delusion), and sublimation
(finding socially acceptable releases for our aggression. These include sport
or work, too mild compared to the instinctive urges. Destroying an enemy, will
give us real satisfaction.
Civilisation is a collective superego – imposing moral
limits on the Id. “Love our neighbour as ourselves”. Man is a wolf to man.
Religion puts extreme demands on us.
Psychoanalysis
Freud claimed he had found a way to deal directly with the
unconscious, the Id.
Methods include hypnosis, pressure method, free association
and dreams (“royal road to unconscious”).
Not many accepted his methods as a way to heal you. He was
highly influential for society. Part of modernist movement, influential to
James Joyce (Ulysses) – no punctuation is his work, streams of consciousness.
Chapter on Cerci.
Books such as biographies and fiction obsess about childhood
and sexuality. Freud said we are defined by childhood.
Attacks on Freud
Popper: He said we are unable to check anything he did
(falsification principle). Has been found that research Freud did was faked.
Did he really discover unconscious? Many would say no.
Wilhelm Reich: He wanted people to get it out (screaming and
physical activity). Human beings would flourish if underlying sexuality was
released.
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