Kristen sent out a good set of questions but we only had a chance to discuss the 1st one - and even then it was a topic that we could have discussed for an entire day:
- How do we determine what is right? What are the rights of the individual vs the rights of society?
Thoreau was a fan of less government. How do we make government more responsive to the needs to the people it governs? Decentralization of government is one way of having a more flexible government with potentially less oppression of individuals (or potentially oppression of fewer individuals). Switzerland would be one example of a country with a more decentralized government, with its various cantons.
It was an interesting discussion but we ran out of time to really dissect into what is conscience and how do we determine what someone's conscience is? It was time to move onto Civilization and its Discontents, as postulated by Freud.
Dr. Jerry Zaslove led the discussion on Freud's text Civilization and its Discontents. Dr. Zaslove has been studying Freud and the field of psychoanalysis for decades. He spoke a bit about Vienna, the birthplace of psychoanalysis, where Freud lived for most of his life. He had sent us a few texts including one containing Freud's views on capital punishment, and provided a handout on Ritual Psycho-Analytic Studies by Theodor Reik. Zaslove made the point that the word civilization in the context of this book is probably not the best word. Culture would have been more apt. Freud (and Thoreau) are trying to understand the institutions that mankind had developed and how they have come to create such problems for individuals.
Freud is a modern step along a long pathway we've been following from the time of Copernicus through the the Enlightenment (Rousseau, Darwin, Nietszche, Kant, Thoreau etc) to a more modern era, one in which we may not need a state but we do require a Social Contract. Freud's method involved psychoanalysis, and the cornerstone of psychoanalysis is repression and the unconscious. Freud saw psychoanalysis as a dynamic way of assessing the human mind rather than a static set of descriptors of symptoms. Yet language is the main tool of psychoanalysis. For someone new to the field, the jargon is a big barrier - not only to understanding but also because many of the words are sound cliched. Interestingly, Professor Zaslove has been working on an analysis of psychoanalysis and aesthetics: aesthetics as a way to alleviate the suffering that civilization or culture causes to individuals. Chapter II offers ways of coping with the unhappiness of life. 3 ways. Deflection, intoxication or .....
Freud was influenced by Darwin and the concept of development and some of Freud's totemic concepts.
Dr. Zaslove briefly defined some of the language associated with psychoanalysis:
- Neuroses - where the ego is divided against itself
- Psyche - from the german means soul or spirit - the inner location of the body
- repression - in the german means repulsion, pushing away
- sexual - phases of the development of the human animal i.e.: adolescence, having a love object, Eros
- cathexis - one part of the mind is occupied by another part of the mind - almost militarily
- civilization - group or mass psychology - the energy of a group
- Id - place of non-conscious drives
- Ego - the self or "i"
- Super-ego - the over 'I' or meta-'I' - stands above the "I"; free association
- transference
- obsession or compulsion - qualities of the human psyche
Zaslove described some of the influences at the time:
A time of revolutions and counter-revolutionsOne technique used in psychoanalysis is to try and understand emotions through memory and Zaslove briefly mentioned Mimesis in people. Neurosis is a key issue in individuals as well as in society. To Freud neurosis is not an illness, it's a consequence in the development of the mental life as a child, where it finds itself divided against itself. The child has all these undifferentiated drives. Each child will attach itself to an object (mother, father, grandparent or other caregiver). The neurosis is the coming into existence of consciousness. The human animal doesn't do this automatically, it does it via love and touch and by creating a picture . The healthy self, in an effort to keep itself together, creates an imago, of that which has been lost or that which can be attained in the future. The resistance or conflict arises when the child realizes that it won't achieve this image.
Archaeological investigation into ancient civilizations
Class system, industrialization - Freud was pessimistic whether these would change - persisent ruling class
City states such as Vienna are undergoing changes and stresses
Growing middle-classes - increased neuroses
Civilization and Its Discontents is an anti-platonic book. It's a book about where we are now (100 years ago) - about modernity. It's a developmental psychology, it assumes the individual is capable of development.
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