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Sigmund Freud and the Politics of Marginality

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 December 2008

Stanley Rothman  and
Phillip Isenberg
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Extract

Relying heavily upon Freud's greatest work, The Interpretation of Dreams, Professors Carl Schorske and William McGrath have attempted to increase our understanding of the origins of psychoanalysis. Both authors feel that the key to Freud's discoveries lies in his reaction to the sociopolitical realities of late nineteenth-century Vienna, and while the articles differ somewhat in emphasis their arguments are sufficiently similar so that they can be treated together. To Schorske and McGrath psychoanalysis had its origins in Freud's decision to give up his initial desire to mount a direct political (even revolutionary) attack on the inequities of the existing society for a “counter-political” psychology which enabled him to adjust to the existing political situation and even achieve a measure of scientific success. As a youth Freud had radical political aspirations and was even active in radical political organizations. However, the hopelessness of the liberal position in Vienna and the rise of anti-Semitic popular movements led Freud to believe that direct political action would not be successful. By reducing political conflict to father-son conflict Freud, like other liberals, would ignore the reality of the political and learn to live (albeit imperfectly) in a world which he could not influence. A career in science could bring recognition and at least partial acceptance, and thus a minimum of satisfaction at least.

Type
Articles
Information
Central European History , Volume 7 , Issue 1 , March 1974 , pp. 58 - 78
Copyright
Copyright © Conference Group for Central European History of the American Historical Association 1974

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References

1. ProfessorSchorske's, essay “Politics and Patricide in Freud's Interpretation of Dreams” appeared in the American Historical Review, vol. 78 (04 1973), pp. 328–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Hereafter it will be referred to simply as Schorske.

2. The recognition aspect is stressed by McGrath more than Schorske. McGrath also emphasizes Freud's anxieties about fratricidal conflict, i.e., civil war.

3. Rieff, Philip, “Toward a Theory of Culture: With Special Reference to the Psychoanalytic Case,” in Nossiter, T. J. et al. , Imagination and Precision in the Social Sciences (London, 1972), pp. 97–98.Google Scholar

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5. Freud, Sigmund, The Interpretation of Dreams, ed. and trans. Strachey, James, 3rd rev. Eng. ed. (London, 1954), p. 197.Google Scholar Hereafter cited as ID. As McGrath notes, Freud had misstated the name of Hannibal's father.

6. ID, p. 196.

7. Schorske (p. 338) argues that Freud had replaced an earlier identification with Hannibal with one with Winckelmann, who converted to Catholicism in order to get to Rome. There are signs that Freud was ambivalent here for reasons which will be treated later, but the main thrust of the evidence indicates that the Hannibal indentification was paramount.

8. He first succeeded in visiting Rome in 1901.

9. ID, p. 96. He deals with the same theme in several letters to Fliess, expressing his despair that he, like Hannibal, will never get to Rome. See Bonaparte, Marie et al. , eds., The Origins of Psycho-Analysis: Letters to Wilhelm Fliess, trans. Mosbacher, Eric and Strachey, James (New York, 1954), p. 236 and passim.Google Scholar Hereafter cited as Fliess.

10. Ernest Jones suggests that since Rome was the “mother of cities,” Freud's newfound ability to visit Rome stemmed from the facts both that he had worked through his relationship with his father and that he had conquered an enemy. The enemy, of course, was one with whom his father had not been able to cope. See Jones, Ernest, The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud (New York, 1955), vol. 2, p. 21.Google Scholar Hereafter cited as Jones, with volume number.

11. Fliess, pp. 335–36.

12. Indeed, he sometimes felt it was the very best thing he had ever written. See Jones, vol. 2, pp. 350, 353.

13. Jones, vol. 2, p. 353. Freud makes direct comparisons in Totem and Taboo between “primitive” and Christian religious practices.

14. Schorske, pp. 344–45.

15. ID, pp. 203–13.

16. ID, pp. 141–42.

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20. Schorske, pp. 340–42.

21. It also indicates Freud's belief (to be dealt with again below) that thinking and writing were more effective weapons, under the circumstances, than direct confrontation. The attitude of Freud toward his father vis-à-vis political authority was, of course, quite ambivalent. While Freud's aim was to conquer Rome and thus outdo his father, it is clear that symbolically his father and Christian authority (which he perceived as the dominant authority) were interwoven, so that conquering Rome also meant conquering his father. Thus, in associations to the Count Thun dream which refer to his father, he recalls a “strongly revolutionary play,” Oscar Panizza's The Love Council, in which (the Christian) God is treated as a paralytic old man. Grinstein, p. 151.

22. (New York, 1962), pp. 238–53. It should be remembered, through all of this discussion, that we are referring to a relatively small portion of the Jewish community in the countries involved.

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33. Given the Jewish foundations of Christianity one can destroy one's enemy very effectively by weakening the bases of Judaism. Both Freud's Totem and Taboo and his Moses and Monotheism involve just this task.

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39. Jones, vol. 2, pp. 170–71.

40. ID, pp. 440–41. It is now believed that the essay was acutally written by G. C. Tobler, a Swiss friend of Goethe's.

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43. An English translation of the essay will be found in Wittels, Fritz, Freud and His Time (New York, 1931), pp. 31–34.Google Scholar

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45. ID, p. 525. “In the case of two consecutive dreams it can often be observed that one takes as its central point something that is only on the periphery of the other.…

46. For a complete discussion see Grinstein, pp. 317–33.

47. Grinstein, pp. 322–23, 318–21.

48. Grinstein, loc.cit., makes a similar point, and given Freud's associations to the dream it seems a quite reasonable interpretation.

49. In Collected Papers, ed. Jones, Ernest, trans. Riviere, Joan, vol. 4, pp. 257–87.Google Scholar The original essay appeared in Imago in 1914. Puner, op. cit., pp. 245–49; Jones, vol. 2, pp. 364–66. Both argue this point. In the Count Thun dream, McGrath interprets Freud's antiaristocratic thought—“It is absurd to be proud of one's ancestors; it is better to be an ancestor oneself”—as reflecting his desire to become a great and famous scientist. Perhaps, but it is at least as plausible, given Freud's identification with Moses, to see it as reflecting his fantasies about liberating the Jews from the Christian yoke.

50. Collected Papers, vol. 4, p. 284.

51. Loewenstein op. cit., p. 173, notes that the “intellectuality” of Jews was a very adaptive response to minority status and a foe who was too strong to be confronted directly.

52. Schorske, p. 332.

53. Letters, p. 366.

54. SE, vol. 20, p. 253.

55. Letters, p. 379.

56. Autobiography, pp. 149–50.

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58. Letters, pp. 442–43.

59. Collected Papers, vol. 4, p. 321.

60. Reik, p. 231.

61. (New York, 1969).

62. Initial results of the study will be published sometime this year.

63. For general discussions of the emergence of psychoanalysis within the framework of European culture see Hughes, H. Stuart, Consciousness and Society (New York, 1958), pp. 105–52,Google Scholar and Weinstein, Fred and Platt, Gerald, The Wish to Be Free (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1969).Google Scholar

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65. We would, of course, say the same for the ideologies of Marx, Lenin, or Fidel Castro.

66. See Freud, Martin, Sigmund Freud, Man and Father (New York, 1958).Google Scholar

67. Jones, vol. 2, pp. 46–50 and passim. Other biographers of Freud have commented on this as well.

68. Loewenberg, Peter, “ ‘Sigmund Freud as a Jew’: A Study in Ambivalence and Courage,” Journal of the History of the Behavorial Sciences, vol. 7 (10 1971), pp. 363–69.3.0.CO;2-W>CrossRefGoogle Scholar

69. For a study of Trotsky as an example of a Jewish radical of this type, see Carmichael, Joel, “Trotsky's Agony,” Encounter, May 1972, pp. 31–41, and June 1972, pp. 28–36.Google Scholar