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- Gateway to ideas
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Gateway to ideas.
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Gateway to ideas. A new series of conversations in which ideas are
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discussed in relation to reading. Today's program. Freud and 20th
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century literature is moderated by Virginia Petersen noted author and
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critic.
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Our guest today Professor Benjamin Nelson who is chairman of the Sociology
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Department of the State University of New York at Stony Brook. Dr. Nelson has written and
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edited numerous works in the fields of the social sciences cultural history and
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psychoanalysis among which he has been editor of the book called Freud and the
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twentieth century. Dr. Phillip Weisman a consulting analyst on the
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staff of The New York Psychoanalytic Treatment Center author of many articles
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on clinical subjects and on the theatre. Dr. Weissman has a forthcoming book on
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psychoanalysis and the theatre. The fairest definition
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I know gentleman of a classic is that nothing can ever be written after it
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without taking it into consideration. That certainly makes Freud's work a classic
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doesn't it. You would agree that it is impossible to write anything today about
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human beings and their relations without being at least aware of how
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Freud viewed them. Wouldn't you Dr Nelson.
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I think that's very well taken and it instantly
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suggests to me at least the need to distinguish
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between works of literature done before Freud. So
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through the 19th century and works done since 1900 the
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date of Freud's first major classic The Interpretation of
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Dreams. There are any number of writings of the
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19th century which illustrate the battle of the
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sexes or describe the
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rigors of childhood. But there are very few
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which have the distinctive Freudian character.
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When a modern writer looks around at the world or experiences
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himself in any set of actions he cannot be but be
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affected by the sense that Freud has
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so profoundly expressed. That is the immense awareness
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of the importance of the unconscious the power
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of unconscious conflict. The modeled character of
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motivation.
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What would you say would you say gentlemen the main
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influence of Freud apparent in post Freud and literature is the
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subjectivity of literature or the in a man rather than the out a man who
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was more characteristic of the 19th century. Or am I wrong Dr. Weissmann.
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Right influence is right of classic
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proportions has introduced a new element and
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made Freud's knowledge part of our universal language of communication
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to the degree that a certain amount of acceptability
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has taken place about the word of unconscious and conscious
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in a way that was never used as frequently as before and becomes a
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stamp of Freud's contribution so that
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it is almost unconsciously accepted into our language.
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I am not so sure that the literature of. The real that or a
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before and after Freud is so different when it is real but
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only with this distinction that some people make too much of a fuss about.
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You mean the critics the critics bring out symbols and point out for
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ID and things and haps when I use pseudo analytic fashion.
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To some degree.
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But you would say wouldn't you. Dr Nelson that there is a
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tendency all the same on the part of the modern novelist Let's say I did treat
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his hero more as a patient.
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I don't think I'm a modern writer. I can't think of a character without feeling
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that he was once a child who
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underwent critical and searing experiences that emphasis for
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example is one of the hallmarks of Freud's influence. I should say
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one never thinks any longer that a man of fifty is literally 50.
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We always know now that he is five or even two or three.
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Paul I got onto that phrase by saying the child is father of the man.
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I do think that Wordsworth did see that and
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understand it but I don't think he understood it in all its reach
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or in any thorough sense. He was
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not aware as Freud was of the obstacles run by the
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child in the course of his growth to maturity. The
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cost to the child and the growing man of the mishaps that
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occurred in that initial experience the immense importance of
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the repetition of. Occasions and even
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feelings and so forth.
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I doubt that there has been any very notable writer or philosopher who
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hasn't grasped the awareness that a child was the
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father of the man but I know of no one prior to Freud who documented that
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and actually spread before us an understanding of the chart of development.
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I suppose that Dickens was the only outstanding great writer of the 19th
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century whose protagonists never grew up who wrote whole books about
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childhood. But we certainly have a flock of them now and most of them
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based on the story of the loss of innocence are they not. There are nearly as many
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losses of innocence in literature now as there are writers to write it.
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Yes that brings up a very interesting point because if we would think of the
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possibility of Dickens writing and confining himself.
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To the life of a child are never going to be our No one could almost
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bet his last dollar that a modern man would think of Dickens
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writing about infancy as the thing that preceded
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childhood. In other words it is built in our thinking that there is a
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hierarchy of development and it is a naive to take a to make
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the. Subdivision of childhood and adult. We have become
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so tune to the idea of. Longitudinal
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development of the individual that a dickens of today if we were writing would have to
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deal with the cultural phenomenon that was part of his education that the child
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was a baby.
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It's all done across my mind that if one could reverse time and
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present the 19th century readers of Dickens with The Catcher In The Rye behind
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J.D. Salinger they might not understand what all the troubles were about after
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all that the troubles the percent the children of Dickens were concrete actual
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outside circumstances whereas the troubles of the Catcher In The Rye are
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all in tune all circumstances due to his own nature
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and his parental influence and it's a completely different set out about the
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19th century people would have thought Why is he so unhappy.
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You know my feeling is somewhat different about that. I'm not quite sure that it could be solved
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on the level that it wouldn't be understood. I think it would be and
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immediately understood on one level. But objected to
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as in comprehensible from the point of view of its newness. And it would
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repeat the error of Freud's discoveries in which there was
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a dichotomy in the world. Those who accepted and those who yell
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but even those who yelled knew there was an ultimate truth in what was being
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said and it would be hard to believe that a real truth would be met by. I
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don't understand. I would believe that would be met by. This is not
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true with more of a denial than and ability to
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respond to what was being said.
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In the meantime would you. Consider that Kaffir
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government instance who certainly wrote about the alienation of
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man from his whole society who his men were all
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completely confined within themselves and terrorized by the enmity of the world around
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them. Do you think he was influenced by fraud. I don't know Dr Nelson because
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I've never read anything about Kafka That said whether fraud influenced him or not he
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could have been chronologically.
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Yes I think we do know for a fact.
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God knew of Freud's work and was aware of what Freud was
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saying as it were to our century. I think
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Kafka illustrates something else. The surprising thing is that when you look
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at Kafka has led up to his father you would guess that he was
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saturated with Roy but Kafka to my way of thinking anyway illustrates something
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altogether different. I consider Kafka one of the first post Freudian
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thinkers and Post writers and I would
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like to suggest that nowadays in our own
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time our we are confronted by some writers who
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are profoundly perhaps excessively influenced by Freud who go about
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documenting him in their novels and in their plays I think you have that on Broadway
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to a great extent whereas I think that the vanguard of these days
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is post Freud and not Freud in what post writing that is they know of his
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existence aware of his meaning. And quite deliberately
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go beyond him and if I may I would like to say in response to your question
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about Kafka. What it means to be posed for ideas.
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Well.
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Freud is the culmination of 19th century
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developments. The great playwrights Ibsen's and
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others novelists of course dusty Esky who bring to the fore
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the tyranny of the
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so called super ego for the ego. And over the
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ID an effort to assist in the liberation
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impulse and reason as against convention and so on. And
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conventional morality. I think Freud summed that
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up. And in fact gave a kind of code he
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codified it so that other writers. Not of the same
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stamp as those I just mentioned could documented in great numbers of plays and
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books and on Broadway we have any number of plays which
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do document Freud's insights.
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Now when tin came from literature as yeah I'm sorry rank he admitted.
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Well I said that Floyd represents the culmination of that literary
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development. But I would if I may like to emphasize the fact that although
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there were any number of anticipations of Royd among literary people philosophers
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and psychologists. Freud remains the giant in the
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sense that he scientifically charted the unconscious and
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scientifically set down notions and doctrines which
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did organize as it were the whole area. None of the others did.
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I mean one may say that Shakespeare was aware of the Oedipus complex Well the answer is he was not.
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He wrote Hamlet but he was not aware of the upas complex and Freud did he didn't need to
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be. I would have to take issue with you on that if I may and say that it is of
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the utmost importance not for Shakespeare that he be aware but that for all
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of us that we become aware of this matter. But I will return to Kafka if you will
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right. All right. And say that in the case of coffee guy and writer subsequent to
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him who write in his manner.
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You see the efforts to
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depict and somehow to suggest away from
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it is out of what might be called the. Tyranny of
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conscience less reason. The assumption of the 19th century had been that if reason could
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supplant the conventional morality and could
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give guidance to an emotion an impulse that there would be genuine
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liberation for mankind that was the faith of the absent. And it was I believe
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even the face of Freud. But since the
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time of Kafka something else has come into the consciousness and that is that our
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everyday world is a very reasonable world thoroughly rationalized in a million
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ways.
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We use the word rationalization today for it. And what we look for is not
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to be liberated from emotion through reason but to be
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liberated from the fruits of conscience less reason. That is
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the lesson I think of Beckett and of Jenae and various other
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writers. They are intensely aware of Freud but they frankly think he's somewhat old
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hat. If I read them correctly.
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Well it has a new morality come up Dr. Weissmann and you
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called by which to live.
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Well before I answer that question directly to Dr. Nelson who said so
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many interesting things. That I both
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agree with and feel should be somewhat modified about the post Friday and right at
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documenting Freud. I think this is an extremely complex
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problem right as who had lived
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before Freud up. Also documented Freud in a
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given sense that might sound absurd but the
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documentation is merely at that they've been proven before
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and after it is true that the
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documentation occurs and that there are many conscious right
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is who in a sense mentally would
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have limited talent to the degree of only consciously documenting
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Freud Freud has been documented by many right as who are
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antagonistic to as I did then and then equally as beautiful a
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job I don't waste my money working for. Yes
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yes one might say yes and also one of the best examples
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and others. Someone who has made statements
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of his and tagging as him to fry would be Eugene O'Neill
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who claimed that he didn't like Freud's ideas
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too much snow had been too familiar with them and showed even more of an affinity
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towards the young. However a study of some of
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those great plays find that he makes a tremendous contribution to
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analytic knowledge for example of the process of mourning. In
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spite of his own untag and as and which many make the point that
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the problem of documentation is extremely complicated. The authors
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document in spite of his intent. And
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sometimes cannot document when he intends to if he is not.
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They are asleep even technically own used methods which
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might be called fraud and first place the situations were sickie hattrick
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situations and in the second place you remember how you used was it in the great god
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around the mask who says what he thinks of yourself and then says what
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he really thinks in that big gap between the two that was the first time the rack
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had run. But I was shown.
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I think O'Neill did not feel a contradiction in his untag Unism
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to Freud and his use of these things which would seem as if the man
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was split and which direction is he going. But truth of the matter is that
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I think O'Neill saw himself as a current man and that.
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Unconscious thinking unspoken thoughts are really part of humanity
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wherever it came from and that it was our clothing of today. And
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this is the way to dress a play of today.
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I was wondering if either of you would see any difference for instance that could
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be attributed to Freud between say Crime and Punishment the study of
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Raskolnikov guilt in the middle and calmly the
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fall which was also a study of the latent conscience.
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You don't either of you want to pick that up John. Yeah
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you.
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You have presented us with a theme for a large and
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comprehensive essay which reaches into almost every corner of the
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nineteenth and twentieth century I hesitate to make any statement about this.
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Join in the hesitation because I don't even think we have as yet add our
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ideas as to what the current writer
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represents in terms of the protean position and to take these two
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plays in an undiscussed way without these preliminaries would
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be.
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Rather wild treatment Well Dr Weizmann I don't want to be wild above all things
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in this company. Will you then please say what you and your
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self what you do think the for idea an effect on contemporary
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literature has been if you think we haven't said anything about it.
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Well I would twist that around and kind of
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remove my hesitation at this point and say something about what I can
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do and very ochre aren't writers who seem to be
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so far away from Freud. My impression is
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that the changes in our current world a so great that there
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must be a direction for their imprint. And my feeling is that it is
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not. Against fraud but in this sense it is
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beyond Freud and the world that we are all having a great deal of
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difficulty in contending with. Perhaps in an external
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way of living where this forward represented a solution to our internal way
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of living and that it should appear in the letters to and should exist is
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quite comprehensible and is really one of man's most
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urgent new problems.
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I should like to speak to that a file I mean I think maybe the best way of
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approaching that question would be by taking an example. The
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play the balcony by John and I is set in a
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brothel.
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And the opening scenes depict.
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The girls in the brothel with men who come for varied
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reasons and purposes and who for needs that
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are not understood.
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Ask to perform the roles of Bishop and
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General Dick and so forth.
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When one watches this play unfold I did
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once first senses that I was undertaking
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to provide a drama as a sheen of scenarios
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previously written maybe by the song or else he was taking pages out
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of craft a being but the feeling is that this will be a very
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extraordinary play and one anticipates that there will be a good bit of Royd here.
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Well the fact is that if you watch the play you discover.
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It really isn't about the sods and it really isn't about or it doesn't
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illustrate car to me and has awfully little to do with roid and for that matter it really
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isn't about a brothel. It's only said in a brothel or
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dramatists reasons. It's about something altogether different and I
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know that when I saw the play I needed to get
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to about the seventh scene before I fully realized what the
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author was doing. This ply more than any I know illustrates what I've
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called the post Freudian stress of contemporary
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drama in literature the entire theatre of the absurd is so called so called
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there is a post for writing in the same way for what is the theme
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of the balcony.
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It is the dilemma the terrible kind of
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paradox that life presents and that is that each of us is only
[22:21 - 22:26]
himself when he is closest to his feeling.
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But then feeling has no way ever of assuming shape or form or
[22:31 - 22:35]
conveying meaning or significance or crystallizing any kind of
[22:35 - 22:40]
identity until it becomes form. So that it's all the
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paradox of existence and role within a world
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composed as is ours which is the very center of this play. It isn't even a
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documentation of the notions of existentialism as somehow the set of the plight. It's
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post existentialist and I say the same thing exactly. For Beckett and
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for Nasco and so on take a plenty and ask Oh it is
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the most deliberately
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Dall documentation of the frightful
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tyranny of the every day in everyone's life which is very different from for and
[23:18 - 23:23]
I think Dr Wiseman has made a great contribution by implying that this
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way of looking at the world. Connects with the immense
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changes that have occurred and are occurring in our own day.
[23:33 - 23:38]
The accelerated pace changes of our existence and that the
[23:38 - 23:41]
playwright's are of course responding to the challenge of these changes.
[23:41 - 23:46]
But Dr. Weissmann wouldn't you agree at least so far as to
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say that Freud's influence is still very apparent his
[23:51 - 23:55]
hand lies heavy on contemporary literature in the sense that
[23:55 - 24:00]
nearly all contemporary literature of serious nature is
[24:00 - 24:05]
about the self referring to the self. There is a an
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in men's consciousness of of the ego in all
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of it and the self looms up as the main frame of reference rather
[24:14 - 24:19]
than something larger outside or beyond the self. Is that not an influence
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of Freud.
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I am very grateful to you Mr Peterson for asking me this question because this is
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exactly what I entertain. Trying to answer
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in some way I do believe though I made the statement that
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posed for ID and literature is embarking upon the external
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catastrophic and monumental changes that are going on there well
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I think the literature could not be existence without the
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fact that Freud an ism and not just fraud even as I'm in
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Rome but modern psychology was its
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precursor. It would seem to me without an
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orientation to man's psyche as Freud has described it
[25:06 - 25:11]
that any play by Jenette a or an Esco
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would would not be tolerated on the basis of the fact that it would have
[25:16 - 25:20]
been assumed to be psychotic. It is only the universal
[25:20 - 25:25]
understanding of man's inner life that permits the conditions for
[25:25 - 25:30]
this type of play to be written. And while the play moves away
[25:30 - 25:35]
from the problems that Freud was solving it moves away
[25:35 - 25:40]
with the sanction. Of Freud that things can be
[25:40 - 25:45]
expressed this way and other things that can be self Dr Nelson's
[25:45 - 25:50]
excellent example of the balcony is much to the point. A milkman who
[25:50 - 25:54]
wants to be a bishop. Imagined in the
[25:54 - 25:59]
18th or 19th century would have been considered absolutely
[25:59 - 26:02]
psychotic I guess it had some extraordinary logical
[26:02 - 26:08]
elaboration. But there's almost an assumption made that the man who is
[26:08 - 26:12]
writing this is not crazy and he is talking at
[26:12 - 26:17]
least again in a new closing of the Freudian era. That
[26:17 - 26:22]
man has fantasies. And while the fact is he do not say everything about man
[26:22 - 26:27]
and that one can to begin to approach. What it's all about what the
[26:27 - 26:31]
new world is about. From the basis of this
[26:31 - 26:36]
self understanding and I agree very much with you that in a very
[26:36 - 26:40]
large overall sense this is a great.
[26:40 - 26:45]
Occupation or preoccupation with self.
[26:45 - 26:50]
Which Freud has permitted and may well I say pride I mean
[26:50 - 26:54]
the Freudian era has made.
[26:54 - 26:58]
Legitimate. Dr Nelson we haven't said anything about most
[26:58 - 27:03]
outstanding promising young writers Malamud Roth and Saul
[27:03 - 27:06]
Bellow. Have you anything to say briefly about them.
[27:06 - 27:11]
Yes I should say that would constitute a wonderful subject for another meeting such as this
[27:11 - 27:16]
but briefly they are thoroughly aware of Freud and
[27:16 - 27:21]
seek in their own fashion to go beyond him through the use of his
[27:21 - 27:26]
insights. I should say that they don't go nearly as far as the
[27:26 - 27:26]
Europeans.
[27:26 - 27:31]
Thank you Dr Nelson. It would seem from this discussion that
[27:31 - 27:36]
Dr Weissman and Dr Nelson feel that the unconscious the
[27:36 - 27:41]
knowledge of the unconscious that came from Freud goes on and has become part of the
[27:41 - 27:46]
thinking of all of us. And I want to thank them for throwing their
[27:46 - 27:50]
shafts of light on what is after all rather an obscure subject thank you very much
[27:50 - 27:53]
Dr Nelson and Dr Wiseman.
[27:53 - 27:58]
You have been listening to gateway to ideas for a new series of conversations in
[27:58 - 28:03]
which ideas are discussed in relation to reading. Today's program
[28:03 - 28:08]
Freud and twentieth century literature has presented Dr. Benjamin Nelson
[28:08 - 28:13]
chairman of the sociology department at New York State University at Stony Brook Long
[28:13 - 28:17]
Island who is the author of Freud in the 20th century and Dr. Phillip
[28:17 - 28:22]
Weisman a member of the New York Psychoanalytic Society and author of a forthcoming
[28:22 - 28:27]
book on psychoanalysis and the theatre. The moderator was by Julia Peterson a
[28:27 - 28:32]
noted author and critic to extend the dimensions of
[28:32 - 28:37]
today's program for you a list of the books mentioned in the discussion as well as others
[28:37 - 28:42]
relevant to the subject has been prepared. You can obtain a copy from your local library
[28:42 - 28:47]
or by writing to a gateway to ideas post office box 6 for
[28:47 - 28:51]
1 Time Square Station New York. Please
[28:51 - 28:56]
enclose a stamp self-addressed envelope right to box 6 for 1
[28:56 - 29:01]
Time Square Station New York gateway to ideas is
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produced for national educational radio under a grant from the National Home Library Foundation.
[29:07 - 29:12]
The programs are prepared by the National Book Committee and the American Library Association
[29:12 - 29:16]
in cooperation with the National Association of educational broadcasters
[29:16 - 29:21]
technical production by Riverside radio WRVO in New York
[29:21 - 29:26]
City. This is the national educational radio network.
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