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Rieff, Triumph of the Therapeutic 4.2

14 Tuesday Jul 2020

Posted by memoirandremains in Freud, Psychology

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Freud, Jung, Psychology, Rieff

(In Defense of the Analytic Attitude)

In the remainder of the chapter, Rieff distinguishes Freud from what came after.  The distinction which Rieff draws is between Freudian “freedom” and a “cure.” Freud offers no solution, only a “technology” which will allow one to understand the working of their subconscious. The end game, as seemingly proposed by Rieff would be the freedom from the “residues of religious compulsion.” (79) This may be achievable with a combination of Freudian analysis and behavioral technique. (Ibid.)

Freudian analysis “is the aim of science – power; in this case a transformative technology of the inner life….This is ultimate technology.” (79)

The purpose of “faith” is to mitigate suffering: “all religions have a therapeutic function.” (76) Jung sought to scoop up all religions with his theory of archtypes. An interesting observation is how Rieff sees Jung and Freud as inversions of one another. Freud understood “erotic instinctual forces” sublimate themselves into the “highest ethical and religious interests of man.” While Jung saw the process going in the other direction. (77)

Freud’s aim of “freedom” comes at a cost:

“What men lose when they become as free as gods is precisely that sense of being chosen, which encourages them, in their gratitude, to take their subsequent choices seriously. Put in another way, this means: Freedom does not exist without responsibility.” (79)

This freedom is of course something which is at issue. It is taken by everyone that Freud’s theories of pscyho-social development and dream analysis and slips of the tongue – however interesting – are unquestionably not “scientific.” His technology is simply untrue. 

What is strange is that his basic proposition that your sensation of ethical constraint is a trick society has played upon, that restraint is what is holding you back, mixed with Rousseau and Hegel and whatnot and developed by his followers (some who – as we shall see – were criminally insane) has become a default argument over against the “illusion” of religion and God. It is a curious sort of position to occupy. 

But on the same ground, by what basis do Hegel’s thesis-antithesis, Rousseau’s sociology, Marx’s economic history still have currency? It seems that people pick bits and pieces of ideas without ever well-understanding either what they believe or why. They could never articulate their axioms much less their conclusions. 

We live too easily in cages built of the thought of others. Freud in his effort to bring a technology of freedom foisted insupportable conceits upon the world. When his conceits proved to be nonsense, the conceits remained.  

Philip Rieff, The Triumph of the Therapeutic, 4.1

09 Thursday Jul 2020

Posted by memoirandremains in Freud, Thomas Manton

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Analytic, Freedom, Manton, Rieff, Scalia, Triumph of the Therapeutic

Chapter 4: In Defense of the Analytic Attitude

This chapter concerns Freud’s defense of his analysis. To understand this, Rieff notes two distinct understanding of the “theory of theory”.  First, there was the understanding of theory bringing the human into conformity with reality: “They being what we know them to be, the intellectual and emotional task of life is to make our actions confirm to the right order, so that we too can be right.”  The model is the true paradigm. 

There is a natural inherent order which we seek to understand and then order life. The underlying order the “model” (as Rieff) calls it is the point. There is a final end, and that end is God. 

But there is another understanding of theory which sets out to destroy gods. This sort of theory “arms us with the weapons for transforming reality instead of forcing us to conform to it.” (73) There is no purpose, no final cause. Theory is merely a way of navigating an otherwise incomprehensible universe and mitigating the pain of life. “A good theory becomes the creator of power.” (Ibid.)

It is such a power creating, reality bending theory that produces Freud and Marx. 

At this point, Rieff distinguishes Adler and Jung from Freud. Freud sought merely to set forth a theory which would give on the power to choose to live any sort of life.  He would not “cure” anyone: cure was a “religious category.”  (74) “He merely wanted to give men more options than their raw experience of life permitted them.” (74)

Freud’s mechanism leaves one nowhere: you finally kill off the old gods but there is nothing with which to replace it. Rieff notes that Adler and Jung sought to construct a basis for establishing a new cure on the other-side of analysis despite their attempts. 

The end point was the Genesis 3 promise of the Serpent, “You shall be as gods knowing good and evil.” “Freud risked the correlative implication: that healthy men need no gods.” (76)

This second form of theory and its Freudian aim of a man who no longer needs the consolation of religion or the search of a pre-existing meaning and order in nature leaves man as a carver of his good.

Freud’s concept of a world freed of gods leaves every person the one who decides his own good, which has profound implications for law. In a series of cases, the courts have found this power to create one’s own “meaning” as the basis for constitutional rights: 

The Casey decision again confirmed that our laws and tradition afford constitutional protection to personal decisions relating to marriage, procreation, contraception, family relationships, child rearing, and education. Id., at 851. In explaining the respect the Constitution demands for the autonomy of the person in making these choices, we stated as follows: 

[“These matters, involving the most intimate and personal choices a person may make in a lifetime, choices central to personal dignity and autonomy, are central to the liberty protected by the Fourteenth Amendment.] [At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.] Beliefs about these matters could not define the attributes of personhood were they formed under compulsion of the State.” Ibid.

Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558, 573-74 (2003). In the dissent of Lawrence, Justice Scalia wrote:

And if the Court is referring not to the holding of Casey, but to the dictum of its famed sweet-mystery-of-life passage, ante, at 13 (“`At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life'”): That “casts some doubt” upon either the totality of our jurisprudence or else (presumably the right answer) nothing at all. I have never heard of a law that attempted to restrict one’s “right to define” certain concepts; and if the passage calls into question the government’s power to regulate actions based on one’s self-defined “concept of existence, etc.,” it is the passage that ate the rule of law. 

Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558, 588 (2003). Scalia’s point is that all law defines some sort of public character: it is a “theory” in the first sense referenced above. But in a series of decisions involving human sexuality and procreation, the courts have adopted a Freudian theory of law, in which freedom from the “gods” of any culture can be set aside. 

But such self-carving of happiness does remain a personal decision – however personally the decision is made:

Incorporating the “mystery of life” logic into these spheres deludes individuals into thinking that personal failures in socially important roles only have personal consequences. Society thus lacks the authority to explain how the personal choice of one hurts the wellbeing of others.

In other words, society cannot say whether marriage ensures that children have the benefit of a mother and a father—marriage is whatever a person wants it to be. Society cannot say whether a child suffers from no-fault divorce—divorce is a personal choice. Society cannot say whether a child is raised by parents in a relationship that society needs to survive—relationships are personal.

Should the detriments of a child’s upbringing become a social harm when he takes society’s reins as an adult, that new adult now also lacks the right moral framework to refine social standards for the benefit of his children.  Life’s “mystery” about what crafts and constitutes good conduct thus endures—even when harmful consequences counsel society to encourage some choices over others from reason and experience.

William Haun, “The “mystery of Life” Makes Law a Mystery,” The Public Discourse (July 26, 2013), https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2013/07/10091/.  The justification for Freud’s freeing men from deformed gods is that the culture simply no longer functions nor does it provide the ability to define character and human good. These commitment therapies are simply outdated. 

Now perhaps when an occasional person behaves along their on lines there is little communal effect. Indeed, even the most prolific murderer or robber will have only limited effect upon a society of any size. But when there is no communal standards for even the most basic means of living, then the results will profoundly damaging. Freud’s theory made constitutional right will not end well when extended to all. 

As Justice Scalia noted, the doctrine applied consistently means there can be no order, which is precisely the duty of law and culture. But, as Freud contends, there is no order to be had. 

I know that an utterly chaotic society would have been a horror to Freud. I have read nowhere that he was a anarchist. But the results of his analytic theory aim in only one direction. Indeed, he felt that Adler and Jung were wrong to try find a new basis for order. 

On the other side is the first understanding of theory, that human happiness and well-being are defined not by ourselves but by God:

Men would be happy with that kind of happiness which is true happiness, but not in the way which God propoundeth, being prepossessed with carnal fancies. It is counted a foolish thing to wait upon God in the midst of straits, conflicts, and temptations: 1 Cor. 2:14, ‘The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.’ More prejudices lie against the means than the end; therefore, out of despair, they sit down with a carnal choice, as persons disappointed in a match take the next offer. Since they cannot have God’s happiness, they resolve to be their own carvers, and to make themselves as happy as they can in the enjoyment of present things

Thomas Manton, The Complete Works of Thomas Manton, vol. 6 (London: James Nisbet & Co., 1872), 7.

Rieff, Triumph of the Therapeutic, 2.3 (Culture)

11 Thursday Jun 2020

Posted by memoirandremains in Culture, Freud

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Culture, Rieff, The Triumph of the Therapeutic, Therapy

Rieff ends the chapter “The Impoverishment of Western Culture” with a movement from the individual aspects to the way which these individual attitudes playout across a culture:

“Every culture is an institutionalized system of moral demands, elaborating the conduct of personal relations, a cosset of compelling symbols.” ( 52)

The system which surrounds the individual consists of a cultural wide system of both (1) moral demands, which is expressed by means of “compelling symbols.” Freud provided a mechanism to understand and resist those symbols.

Moreover, Freud’s system made it impossible for anyone to again try and resurrect and impose the fading moral order:

No moral demand system could ever again compel at least the educated classes to that inner obedience which bound men to rules they themselves could not change except at the expense of spirit, far beyond the usefulness of such rules to the continuance of cultural achievement.

Freud believed he had put human beings – at least educated human beings – beyond the power of some system to impose upon human beings moral demands which they did not personally find necessary. 

Rieff saw material comforts “rising expectations” as sufficient to stave off the ascetic strain of morality.  We can simply use “analysis and art” as a substitute for religion.

We were now in a place where only a “yielding demand system” could possibly hold sway (53). 

We keep seeing ourselves at the end of history, where this will just be the conclusion.

Rieff’s conclusion that Freud had created a stable place of yielding seems to fail with a vengeance. The moral demands may have changed (one must believe that biological sex is a social construct, and so on) from prior morality. That may make it appear to be “liberating”. But we are seeing moral demands as strict as anything which has been witnessed in any religion. People are keeping lists. Public displays of piety are mandatory. 

It seems that Freud may have provided a tool to go after a morality of one sort of sexual limitation, but he did not free humanity from any sort of exclusively personal moral freedom. 

Rieff, The Triumph of the Therapeutic, Chapter 2.1 (Discipleship and Therapy)

21 Tuesday Apr 2020

Posted by memoirandremains in Apologetics, Biblical Counseling, Freud, Theology of Biblical Counseling, Uncategorized

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Biblical Counseling, Freud, Integration, Presuppositional apologetics, Rieff, The Triumph of the Therapeutic, Theology of Biblical Counseling

Chapter Two

The Impoverishment of Western Culture

There is an implicit claim here that symbols function as a mechanism by which a culture gains ascent over the various individuals in the culture: the means by which the superego functions. A curious question which is left unanswered is “Why symbols?”

We could argue that symbols point to the transcendent, but a proposition of Freud must be that there is no real transcendent. Why then any sort of desire or inclination in that direction? That is left unanswered. We simply learn that Freud provides us a mechanism to strip out the symbols.

We then learn that essentially Western Culture developed by means of suppressing sexual desire. (40) The control over sexual desire was the high water mark of character.

Since there is no objective morality, only pragmatics, there is no particular need for such suppression except in and so far as it is functional for the culture.

On an aside, I have noticed that the treatment for “sexual addiction” is distinction amoral in this regard. The problem is not whatever inclination, but rather whether there are negative consequences for following such an inclination.

There is an unstated morality which is present in this: Desires are inherently good. That is a moral equation in the guise of amorality. But if it were truly amoral there would be nothing better about indulging or refraining. Moreover, personal happiness could not be relevant, because anyone else’s concern for your well-being is also irrelevant.  In short, the moral question is really not as absent as some pretend. It is always there; the difference is where does not draw a line?

But back to Freud: The “analytic attitude”, the aim of “therapy” is always at the distinct individual. There is no reason to “cure” any sort of desire; because what makes Mr. X happy is necessarily good.  “Well-being is a delicate personal achievement”. (41)

This is taken as an ethical demand upon “therapy”. We start with the idiosyncratic evaluation of the patient and seek to assist in achieving that end.

That is fundamentally antithetical to the Christian demand. In Matthew 28, Christ places a solitary command upon the Church: “make disciples”. The process of disciple making is “teach the to observe all that I have commanded.”

Now one can reject the proposition that Christ spoke or that Christ spoke these words. That is an honest position, and the position of Freud, for instance. But for one to claim to be a “Christian” and also take a position that Freud has a contribution on this issue is perplexing.

The position of the Scripture is not terribly confusing. Yes, there can be knotty issues, but those are not the main. The center of the road is abundantly clear.

What is confusing is when someone proposes that there is any sort of integration possible at this key point. No one is contesting the ability of anyone to make observations about the relative frequency of X behavior. But when it comes to this question of the fundamental presuppositions, What is a human being, What is the purpose of a human being, What is necessary for human beings to change: those issues are beyond compromise or “integration”. When we get to presuppositions, those are questions of grammar.

In the English and German language, the sound “gift” has a fundamentally different meaning. In English you get one at Christmas. In German, it is “poison”.

Discipleship and therapy are similar in that both involve words and directions and people who know something is wrong. “Gift” sounds the same in English and German. But O the difference!

As a final note, if you are at all curious about the matter of the importance of “presupposition”, I must direct you to my brothers at:

Domain for Truth: https://veritasdomain.wordpress.com

 

Philip Rieff: The Triumph of the Therapeutic.3 (Religion and Therapy)

14 Tuesday Apr 2020

Posted by memoirandremains in Culture, Freud, Psychology, Uncategorized

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Freud, Psychology, Rieff, The Triumph of the Therapeutic, Therapy

On page 27, Rieff interprets religion in terms of therapy. Religion creates mechanisms for “therapeutic” control and remission: it is a mechanism for responding to and dolling out “instinct.”  The distinctions between religions are largely uninteresting except in the efficacy of providing for a means of successful in providing for “continuity of mood.”

There really is no question concerning truth or falsity; there is no morally objective right: that is the analytic posture of Freud. What Freud has done is to strip out all of the accidents, the fungible elements and consider only the real effect of religion: what and how well it controls and expressions the instincts. Thus, “The analytic attitude is an alternative to all religious ones.” (29)

There is an interesting charting of the similarity and distinctive nature of therapy and religion:

Similarities: (1) the patient or adherent must be honest “in performance”. Gravity cares very little for my position; but for either religion or analysis to “work,” I must be honest in my presentation. As a corollary, I must be “receptive” for the process to work. In short, the process must be internalized to have effect.

The divergence in the ways in which the character can be transformed.

Rieff here makes an interesting observation: While Freud is often seen as revolutionary, he actually is not poised to create some new revolutionary culture. “Freud appears as a defender of high culture.” (29) In the remainder of the book, Rieff contrasts Freud which his disciples who set far more revolutionary goals.

Since Freud’s analysis works upon the character, the eventual effect is a work upon the culture. As such it is not set to remake the world at the level of official politics, but rather at the level of the “mind.”

Freud came about because the “inherited moral systems have failed us.” (30) Since the inherited systems no longer function at a cultural level, the world was ripe for Freud to provide some mechanisms to shore up the psyche and permit human beings to function.

“The religious question: How are we to be consoled for the misery of living?” (23) Christianity and Judaism did not seek to make us happy, but to console us in our misery (although not said, you will have heaven later). Freud did not promise happiness, either; rather, he simply sought “less misery”. (30)

As such, Freud birthed an as yet not fully developed “psychological man” who has a “durable sense of well-being”. (32) This man has the capacity to make some sense out of the chaos of his psyche and the world about him. Morality is “that which is conducive to increased activity.” (33)

Freud preserved “the very notion of tradition,” by preserving a mechanism for understanding what was taking place with humanity. The theologians will find Freud helpful, because they need – as Archbishop Temple said was needed, “a theology based on psychology.” (33)

Rieff proposes that Jung has provided that psychology upon which the theologians can begin to build.

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