Repression

I'm afraid my journal will reveal all too plainly the paucity of time I've had to do the readings. But, I'll continue as best I can. Who knew that two 10 lb babies could absorb so much time and energy? That being said, I'm no longer sleep deprived, only reading-time-deprived and even that is getting better.

I enjoyed the readings in this weeks' theme. Especially Freud. I'd never read him and of course had many of the cliches about his work in my head, but was deeply impressed with what was more than just - although to say "just" about this is a little trite - a theorization of the human psyche. What I saw instead was a "system" for understanding the development of man and civilization. Unlike, say, Rousseau, who's philosophy was based on a romantic notion of the development of man, Freud builds a logical understanding not just of our minds and or social structures, but more importantly of the deep tensions that do and must exist between individual man and the society that he must live in.

Hume's writings come to mind in that he describes in very similar fashion the necessities of civil society and the benefits of their structure, but he doesn't explain the conflicts that arise inside them in a satisfactory way, most likely because he describes a fairly homogenous social grouping. Freud's notion that we must invariably be in conflict with ourselves and with society in order to stay within social structures, families, tribes, towns and cities, is more appealing to me.

Even his description of The Pleasure Principle describes the need for conflict:

"We are so made that we can derive intense enjoyment only from a contrast and very little from a state of things". (p.25)

This idea of living in a state of tension between opposing forces, the personal and the public, will come up again with Kant in a later entry. I quite like the more complex idea of how we must each individually negotiate the relationship between ourselves as individuals and the whole of our societies.

"Happiness, in the reduced sense in which we recognize it as possible, is a problem of the economics of the individual's libido. There is no golden rule which applies to everyone: every man must find out for himself in what particular fashion he can be saved." (p.34)

This pertains to Kant as well, but it seems that freedom lies not in the unfettered pursuit of individual happiness, but the choices we make in negotiating the space between personal desire and public necessity. Love and Necessity, the two poles of Freud's dialectic of civilization. However, Freud is very clear that this balance can be dangerously precarious.

"It is not easy to understand how it can become possible to deprive and instinct of satisfaction. Nor is doing so without danger. If the loss is not compensated for economically, one can be certain that serious disorders will ensue." (p.52)

There is, of course, more to be said... And I should talk about Conrad, as well. I liked Conrad. But really, it's up there with 1984 and Atlas Shrugged as "books that have been read too deeply by high-school students". But I don't dismiss it. Conrad's imagery and language is quite extraordinary and lush... part of the reason it has lasted so long as a masterwork. But I'd rather leave it alone for two reasons: firstly because I'm so far behind with everything else that I have to become more efficient if I'm going to catch up let alone get ahead; and secondly because like Freud, the book has so deeply informed me in unconscious ways, that reading them both seemed repetitive. Freud, Darwin... we still live in the world that they revolutionized and I have a harder time understanding myself outside the context they provide than inside.

Perhaps that's the best reason of all to be taking this degree: to see the forces that have built me, and possibly allow me to question the things that I presently assume as given. As my old therapist would have said, "awareness is the first step".