Tea at Trianon: Freud, His Doctrine and Errors

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Wednesday, May 2, 2018

Freud, His Doctrine and Errors

From TFP:

A brief synthesis of psychoanalysis and its errors will show Freud’s true knowledge. The psychoanalyst’s doctrine is not entirely devoid of truth, nor are its correct principles original. Yet his doctrine is original in exaggerated applications and dangerous abstractions, and often falls into errors and contradictions. Fundamentally Freud’s doctrine is based on the existence of the subconscious and on its absorption of all psychic life. The first foundation is correct, the second, erroneous. In fact, the existence of the subconscious is indisputable. However, while not ceasing to influence consciousness, the subconscious is not the overwhelming factor of psychic life. In the subconscious, or rather in the unconscious, Freud discovers instincts and complexes—systems of tendencies grouped in a certain direction, in more or less close associations—that explain the whole dynamism of our activity. According to Freud, frustrated acts, unconscious acts, and dreams demonstrate the existence of the subconscious and constitute the elements of our psychic energy. (Read more.)