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  • Prof: Good morning.

  • I have to get started because there is, of course,

  • a lot to be said about Sigmund Freud.

  • Actually it's a shame I have only fifty minutes for it and

  • not two or three lectures.

  • Just before I get into Freud, I just want to tell you that I

  • did send the questions already; emailed it to you.

  • So if you check your email, you have the questions for next

  • Thursday.

  • And I strongly encourage you to attend the lectures and the

  • discussion sections.

  • Those questions are not necessarily very easy.

  • So you may want to get more exposure beyond the readings to

  • have a good handle on it.

  • And let me just very, very briefly come back to

  • Nietzsche, before we go on to Freud.

  • Though I have enough on Freud, more than enough for today.

  • But I would like to still kind of wrap it up and to say what

  • the bottom line is.

  • And the big question is, to start with,

  • what is genealogical method?

  • What is new in Nietzsche's approach?

  • And it should be clear from the writings and from the lecture,

  • and I think from the discussion sections--

  • right?--that what he's suggesting, that in the

  • genealogical method you will take an ideal and a moral

  • principle, what you think is the right

  • idea, and then he will show that one can think about this idea

  • differently; and historically they did think

  • differently.

  • And his major example is good.

  • You think an idea of what good is;

  • it's uncontestable, easy to agree?

  • Well I will show you that in history the notion of good--and

  • it's opposite, what is not good--has been

  • constructed differently.

  • So the point of departure, first of all:

  • well, there is the Judeo-Christian morality of good

  • and evil.

  • I will show--I will go back to time, I'll go back to the

  • antiquity--and I will show that the notion of good was

  • completely different.

  • Right?

  • That is the genealogical method.

  • But to do it consistently, he really should be claiming

  • that going back to the antiquity--

  • I'm not suggesting that the good in antiquity was the real

  • good.

  • Right?

  • It's just a comparative study, which relativizes the idea of

  • good in your mind today, to make you aware that good has

  • been thought about differently in different times.

  • And, in particular, of course, his main focus is on

  • the notion of morality in modern society.

  • And he said well there is something unique about this

  • modern society; namely that morality somehow is

  • internalized into us, and we kind of accept our own

  • subjugation and our oppression because these values are so

  • deeply invested into us.

  • So that is, in a way--right?--the genealogical

  • method; not to have,

  • as I said in the lecture, a critical vantage point.

  • Try to get a way that I will give you the real universal

  • definition of good, and I will criticize any

  • question of morality from a universal concept of morality.

  • That's not what he does. Right?

  • His major aim is to show that all moralities,

  • all conceptions of moralities--all conceptions what

  • is justice, what is fair,

  • what is humane--has been manufactured--

  • right?--in the workshop of ideals.

  • And this workshops of ideals is a dark place where actually

  • coercion, torture, is being used to manufacture

  • these seemingly great ideas.

  • It's all about control over humans.

  • That's in a nutshell--right?--what Nietzsche

  • is trying to do.

  • So let me just make a step back to Marx and foreshadow a step

  • forward to Freud.

  • So this Nietzsche has really little disagreement with Marx's

  • theory of alienation.

  • He said, "Well, as long as Marx is saying that

  • in the modern world we are alienated because we are not

  • masters of our own fate, I agree with him." Right?

  • We are alien in this world and we do not have power over our

  • life.

  • External conditions act like as if it were nature,

  • a thunderstorm, and determines our life.

  • He agrees with this diagnosis--right?--of modernity.

  • His problem with Marx is that Marx comes to a solution.

  • Right?

  • Marx says, "Well, I know what human emancipation

  • will be.

  • I know what good society will be, and I know who will get us

  • there." Right?

  • "The proletariat."

  • And he said, "This is churlish;

  • that's no good." Right?

  • "I won't do that.

  • I won't fall into this trap." Right?

  • "I will not manufacture another ideal,

  • because my workshop, where ideals would be

  • manufactured, would be also a workshop which

  • smells"-- right?--"and which is full

  • with coercion, and I would subject others to

  • torture-- mental or physical torture?

  • In the good old days it was physical torture.

  • Today it's worse: it is mental torture."

  • Right?

  • That's in a nutshell--right?--what he's

  • trying to achieve.

  • And, of course, there is no Freud,

  • there is no Weber, and there is no Michel

  • Foucault; there is really no modern and

  • post-modern social theory without Nietzsche's insight.

  • This is a radicalization of critical theory.

  • Right?

  • Critical theory--we talked about this, from Hegel to

  • Marx--was a critique of consciousness;

  • that what is in our mind is a distortion of the reality.

  • Right?

  • And therefore they were trying to subject human consciousness

  • to critical scrutiny.

  • Nietzsche does it the most radical way.

  • He said, "I am capable to show"--

  • right?--"the shortcomings of our consciousness,

  • without showing you what is the right consciousness."

  • Right?

  • That's the project.

  • Now Sigmund Freud has a lot of similarities with this.

  • Right?

  • He's also a critical theorist, and he says,

  • "Well, what is in our mind comes very deep down from the

  • repressed.

  • And I will show you"--right?--"how,

  • if this causes you neurotic responses, I can actually cure

  • you, by the way; just I let you understand what

  • has been repressed in your life experience, and then you can do

  • something about yourself."

  • So that's in a nutshell Sigmund Freud's contribution.

  • So it basically follows closely to Nietzsche's ideas.

  • And in the piece particularly what I asked you to read today--

  • one of the pieces, right?--Civilization and its

  • Discontents, he's struggling very much with

  • the problem Nietzsche is struggling with.

  • He shows modern civilization as repression.

  • Right?

  • At the same time he does not want to reject civilization.

  • Right?

  • And he's tormented--right?--how to evaluate civilization.

  • Right?

  • And well he probably is not going as far as Nietzsche,

  • Nietzsche does.

  • We will see that when it comes.

  • Okay, this is Sigmund Freud.

  • And it's good advertising: don't smoke.

  • You have his cigar.

  • He has actually oral cancer.

  • He was suffering from it during the last twenty years of his

  • life, and eventually committed suicide;

  • and the cancer obviously had something to do with his cigars.

  • So don't smoke. Right?

  • Well Freud was one of the giants of nineteenth and early

  • twentieth century thought.

  • Many people who would name the intellectual giants of this

  • time, nineteenth century,

  • would name three names: Charles Darwin,

  • Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud.

  • Right?

  • These are the three thinkers which made us rethink ourself--

  • who we are, where we come from, and what is the nature of the

  • society we live in?-- the most radical ways.

  • Okay, let me talk very briefly about Freud's life.

  • He</