Defending Freud (side B) | Why Theory

source : Defending Freud (side B) by Why Theory | Free Listening on SoundCloud

Notes

As before I’ll break out the arguments into their own headers.

Freud is a heteronormative thinker

It is indeed true that for much of the history of [[psychoanalysis]] analysts have been trying to “cure” gay people.

[[Freud]] however personally did not think of being gay as a problem, and believed that all humans are born bisexual.

[[Freud]] believed that humans don’t inherently have a drive to reproduce. He believed sexuality was tied to a fixation on something early in life.

Aside: the hosts believe that many of the criticisms levied against Freud are just ways to knock him down and not create an alternative theory or engage in his work. If you can say “Kanye West is a Trump supporter” then that gives you an excuse to not seriously engage with his work, and the same goes for intellectuals.

Freud was a misogynist

This claim seems to come from [[second wave feminism]]. Some issues that such thinkers have with him:

• The [[Phallus]]
• Penis envy
• [[Castration]]

Freud focuses on castration because that’s where loss is centered for the subject.

The hosts believe that people frequently misinterpret these ideas. The Phallus is external to someone, for example. It’s only about people who seem to have the Phallus. (“The Odd One In” is a good book about this.)

Psychoanalysis is about answering the question of how someone becomes a man or woman.

Freud took the complaints of women so seriously that it became a whole field of science.

To paraphrase a quote from Freud: “if you give ground on the words to describe something you’ve given ground on the thing itself” (the show does not cite this source, as much as I would like to know what the exact quote is).

Going on the offensive

[[Carl Jung]] was an avowed [[Nazi]] and a rapist but is more widely accepted than Freud.

Psychoanalysis often has to go on the defensive while other fields do not.