|
 The
writings of all these analysts make up what is,
relatively speaking, an extremely interesting
intellectual tradition. But this acknowledgement of
the breadth and vitality of the work which Freud
has helped to inspire must immediately be
qualified. In the first place it is important to
bear in mind the larger cultural context in which
psychoanalysis grew up. For it might well be
claimed that the reasons for the 'success' of the
psychoanalytic tradition have been almost entirely
negative. If psychoanalysis has attracted some of
the most lively intellectuals of the twentieth
century it is not, I believe, because of the truth
which psychoanalytic theories contain, or their
explanatory value. It is perhaps because
psychoanalysis is, with the increasingly fragile
exception of literary criticism, the only branch of
the human sciences which even begins to recognise
the existence of the human imagination in all its
emotional complexity. In this respect it might well
be said that the incorrect theory elaborated by
Freud has been infinitely preferable to no theory
at all, and in the vast desert of twentieth-century
rationalism it is scarcely surprising that many
have seen, in the drop of imaginative water which
is contained in Freud's theories, a veritable oasis
of truth.
But
there is another reason why the vitality of the
psychoanalytic tradition should not be taken as
confirmation of the validity of Freud's theories.
This is because a great deal of it is owed not to
any intellectual factor but to Freud's own
remarkable and charismatic personality and to the
heroic myth which he spun around himself during his
own lifetime. Freud himself consciously identified
with Moses, and the prophetic and messianic
dimensions of his character have been noted again
and again even by those who have written
sympathetically about psychoanalysis. It would be
difficult to overestimate the extent to which
Freud's messianic personality has profoundly
distorted the perception of his theories.
One
of the most important roles of the messianic
personality has always been that of acting as the
fearless transgressor. The messiah is that person
who appears to have the inner strength openly to
attack established authorities or flout laws and
taboos in order to further his chosen cause. It is
by systematically transgressing taboos that he
relieves his followers of the burden of guilt and
anxiety they would otherwise feel as a result of
pitting themselves against their elders, or against
established orthodoxies.
It
was in just such a role that Freud cast himself
when he created the psychoanalytic movement at the
beginning of the twentieth century. The need which
he filled by doing this should be clear enough. For
in any intellectual culture which is oppressed by
rigorous taboos the most powerful though least
conscious desire of its members will be to
transgress these taboos and in this way seek relief
from what Chesterton, in an essay on Freud, called
'our monstrous burden of secrecy'.11
To suppose that such a transgression may be easily
made is to fail to appreciate both the power of
taboo and the extent to which intellectuals, simply
because they have been selected according to the
criterion of academic success, tend to be
conformist by nature. Ultimately it is only to
authority, whether or not this authority derives
from genuine explanatory power, that the majority
of intellectuals will defer. If what is at stake is
the transgression of some of the most sacred
principles of rationalism, then no ordinary
authority will suffice. What is needed is nothing
less than the authority of a messiah.
Perhaps
the most significant of Freud's achievements lay in
the way he intuitively perceived this need and went
on to use the aura and authority of scientific
rationalism in order to create around himself a
'church' whose doctrines sought to subvert the very
rationalism they invoked.
The
kind of need which was answered in this way is
conveyed well by some words of André Gide,
who speaks of having found in Freud 'rather an
authorisation than an awakening. Above all he
taught me to cease doubting myself, to cease
fearing my thoughts, and to let those thoughts lead
me to those lands which were not after all
uninhabitable since I found him already
there.'12
Gide's experience is one that reflects that of
countless other twentieth-century artists and
intellectuals. In Germany Thomas Mann spoke
admiringly of Freud's heroic achievement and of his
insight into human nature. In England W. H. Auden
greeted psychoanalysis enthusiastically, writing of
Freud:
To
us he is no more a person
Now but a whole climate of opinion.
In
France the novelist Romain Rolland emerged as one
of Freud's most enthusiastic admirers. Meanwhile,
in America, Freud gained an even wider following
both among writers and scholars. After reading some
of Freud's work the novelist Theodore Dreiser wrote
in the following terms of his achievement:
Every
paragraph came as a revelation to me -- a strong
revealing light thrown on some of the darkest
problems that haunted and troubled me and my work.
And reading him has helped me in my studies of life
and men ... [H]e reminded me of a conqueror
who has taken a city, entered its age-old, hoary
prisons and there generously proceeded to release
from their gloomy and rusted cells the prisoners of
formulae, faiths and illusions which have racked
and worn man for hundreds and thousands of years
... The light that he has thrown on the human mind!
Its vagaries and destructive delusions and their
cure! It is to me at once colossal and
beautiful!13
Again
and again Freud has been hailed, as he is here by
Dreiser, as the bringer of cultural and
intellectual liberation. Yet if Freud has indeed
established himself as one of the most significant
messianic figures in modern intellectual culture
this is perhaps itself a reason for preserving our
scepticism about his mission. For from the time of
Moses to the time of Marx it has been one of the
characteristics of messianic prophets that their
apparent willingness to attack established
authorities has concealed a deeper adherence to
orthodoxy than their followers have ever suspected.
Frequently, indeed, the movements of liberation
which they have led have actually ended by
redoubling the very forms of repression they have
ostensibly opposed.
If
Freud has not often been seen in this light it is
perhaps because the very success which he has
enjoyed by casting himself in the role of
intellectual liberator has brought with it the kind
of idealisations and projections to which all
messiahs are subject. One of the most fundamental
psychological transactions in all religious
movements stems directly from followers' feelings
of unworthiness in relation to their messiahs. As a
result of these feelings they frequently find
themselves inwardly compelled to disown not only
their own rebelliousness but also their own
generosity, their own intuitive sensitivity, their
richly humanistic social hope and even their own
intellectual originality. Unconsciously all these
qualities are denied or minimised and reattributed
to the messiah. The image of the messiah is in this
way enriched by gifts and talents which followers
are either too anxious or too submissive to
proclaim as their own.
This
kind of transaction may frequently be observed
within the psychoanalytic movement itself where
psychoanalytic theorists with genuine insights into
human behaviour have failed to develop them through
an inability to challenge Freud's authority.
Instead they have sometimes represented ideas which
are in fundamental conflict with classical
psychoanalytic theory as having been in some way
'derived' from Freud. In consequence their own
sensitivity to human motivation -- which is
sometimes incomparably greater than that shown by
Freud himself -- comes to be associated with
psychoanalysis and thus to increase still further
Freud's own authority and cultural status. This has
even been the case with some of the best-known
psychoanalytic writers, including Erich Fromm,
Karen Horney, Erik Erikson and Heinz Kohut, who are
regarded within the psychoanalytic movement as
highly original or even 'dissident' thinkers. For
because their theoretical rebellions against Freud
have been conducted within a larger pattern of
submission to Freud's authority, these thinkers
have never been able to bring about the
intellectual revolution which alone might have
rescued psychoanalysis from itself.14
As
a result Freud's own reputation has been preserved
and the status of his theories protected. There can
be no doubt at all that his work is shot through,
in a somewhat random manner, with real insights
into human nature. But Freud repeatedly shows that
he is unable to organise these insights
systematically. Frequently, indeed, his own
complex, and sometimes bizarre theories have the
effect of strangling the insights which are
scattered throughout his writings. Partly because
of these sporadic insights the pseudo-science which
Freud eventually succeeded in constructing is
highly plausible. But it remains a pseudo-science
for all that -- perhaps the most complex and
successful which history has seen.
If
the psychoanalytic movement were not important or
if it had made little intellectual impact, Freud's
pseudo-science could be ignored or briefly
rebutted. But Freud's influence on contemporary
intellectual life has been so large and his
psychological assumptions have proved so enduring
that it is difficult to re-examine human behaviour
-- or any other form of human behaviour -- without
finding that our very perception of this behaviour
is distorted by psychoanalysis.
It
is for this reason, I believe, that the task of
untangling sexual behaviour from the psychoanalytic
theories in which it has become enmeshed is such an
important one.
From
the introduction to Why Freud Was Wrong: Sin,
Science and Psychoanalysis.
11Chesterton, quoted
in Frank Cioffi (ed.), Freud: Modern
Judgments, Macmillan, 1973, p. 2
12Gide, quoted by Cioffi,
p. 23.
13Dreiser, quoted in
Ronald W. Clark, Freud: The Man and the
Cause, Paladin, 1982, p. 421.
14Although he makes no
such sweeping claim as I have made here, it is
interesting that Paul Roazen has written that
'whereas others have taken pains to differentiate
their work from Freud's, Erikson actually ascribed
his own ideas to Freud. Erikson does not always
seem to want to acknowledge his own originality'
(Freud and His Followers, Penguin, 1979, p.
500).
|
![Colloquia Topics Index [link]](../colloqui2.gif){kind=small}
