Fucking Freud

[yerch]

I'm reading Ernest Becker's "Denial of Death" and so far a lot of it is wonderful. My highlighter has been going non-stop. But I've hit the point where he is trying to square his premises with Freud and I am about to jump out a window. Am I the only one that remembers my childhood

Comments

[gailg]

"Ever noticed that on virtually all animals the nose and the anus evolved on opposite ends? Why do you think that is? Because shit stinks and animals that didn't think so failed to evolve because they caught the multitude of diseases associated with our own feces."

Hmm...Cats lick their anuses and there are plenty of them around. Do you listen to "Not What I Meant". The whole thing is good, but if you're pressed for time, skip ahead to Act Two: Cat Got Your Tongue, a reading by David Sedaris.

[gailg]

I knew I should have previewed that before I posted it. Here's that paragraph again:

Hmm...Cats lick their anuses and there are plenty of them around. Do you listen to This American Life? If not (or if you missed last week's show), listen to it now: "Not What I Meant". The whole thing is good, but if you're pressed for time, skip ahead to Act Two: Cat Got Your Tongue, a reading by David Sedaris.

[y00ri]

“Am I the only one that remembers my childhood?”

Probably not, but I believe that most people don’t and for very good reason. Well, that’s what Freud taught me… LOL

“The world had boys, girls, dogs, cats, trees, birds, etc. when they were born and the child assimilated and accomodated accordingly. It is the way it is and we accept it - for a while. Then our childlike curiosity kicks in and we want to know why it is the way it is. At that point we ask the most powerful beings in the universe - our parents…We come into this world living on delegated power. Our parents are our models for god…and we were told that god worked in mysterious ways. "Why are boys and girls different?" Because god made them that way. It's simple.”
What I get from this is

[y00ri]

It is simple. No crisis. No crisis?
There may be a crisis that’s repressed in you. ;)
It may be very likely that you are still rolling around in your own feces wondering about that bloody-slash and weiner-dog without even being conscious of it - while it is apparent to others by the expression of your personality traits.
Let’s say that your own feces is pretty much the symbol of reality as your inner self. That bloody-slash is a symbol of the relationship you had with a mother figure and the weiner-dog a father figure. These symbols are the foundation of your own belief system and reactive strategy.

“The anal thing is also horseshit. There was never a time when we gladly smeared ourselves in our own shit and were taught by the mean others that this was wrong…We naturally dislike our own feces. That's evolution at work. We never had an anal phase where we loved our own shit and big bad society stamped it out of us and made us hateful about our mortal selves. It's a crock.”
Hahah! I’ve got a funny story on that! I was a child

Agreement

[yerch]

I agree with your insight in many ways. No doubt gender roles are imposed upon us from birth and that affects our individual psyches in untold ways. But the book I was reading, and Freud (largely), want to turn the gender difference into something it is not. The construction they offer is "Boys and girls are different. Why? Because I'm a mortal creature who will die! What great mental turmoil this causes me..." I disagree. While we may balk at certain roles and ultimately may all be round pegs being shoved into square holes, I frankly do not believe that toddlers are locked in the grip of some life or death struggle with themselves as a result