Freud's legacy ... it's unsettling
I'm reading Freud, by Jonathan Lear, a book that explores the philosophical significance of Freud's work and the work of psychoanalysis more generally. Lear uses the word "legacy" to mean not only ideas and insights that someone (or some many) may have discovered or invented, but also the unanswered questions that are left behind. For Freud, the unanswered questions are about learning to live an examined life, clearly a activity of philosophy as well as practical action.
The book touches on many aspects of Freud's legacy, but the one key insight that Lear provides for me is the realization that as much as I'd like to believe that I'm fundamentally a rational being, that I behave reasonably, and that, in the right context, even weird, unexpected, and potentially dangerous behaviors are rational, and can be supported by reasons, it just ain't so.
It's a bit startling to take this in and Lear suggests that one reason is that, as a society and culture, we've adopted an intellectual "complacency" that's let us believe that in the right context anything is reasonable. He suggests that this kind of relativity isn't accurate, and, furthermore, it impedes my ability to really work on my own development. I find this unsettling, and, oddly, comforting. I'm not sure if this rational or not, but it keeps me inquiring.
Technorati Tags: culture, Moral Issues, psychoanalysis, Freud
posted by Bill Anderson at
9:01 AM
2 Comments:
The older I get, the more is see how little reason plays in my own life. Sometimes, I try to fool myself into thinking that my actions are rational, but anytime I really take a hard look at them, I realize that reason hardly factors into the decision making.
Zataod, I'm noticing this in my life also, but I find things more nuanced. So I do find many practical actions to be rational, and sensibly so. But I find that many important choices I've made are driven by other, less easily discernable, factors.
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