Actually, Freud developed a similar theory as a response to WWI.
AHC: Kill Freudian analysis and psychoanalysis
- Thread starter Morty Vicar
- Start date
I think we might ask, what might a world look like in which there was much less sexual abuse. For example, the Catholic church and a large number of other institutions handle the issue much, much better.
One thing, the abuser often preys upon the fact that the child goes along with not wanting to get the abuser into trouble. That is, the abuser kind of preys upon the fundamental humanity of the child. And like so many areas, I think we need to take a page from Jeremy Bentham, that punishment deters by its likelihood, not its severity. The fact that it's high stakes is all the more reason to get it right. Revenge is a luxury we just cannot afford. So, we're probably talking about a modest term in a decent prison followed by a long parole. This also allows us to handle the gray area cases, which is key. If this is really the way to best prevent future abuse, we should go this way. We might need to ask ourselves, are we primarily concerned with improving the future, or are we primarily concerned with revenge? And I think we've got to come down on the side of improving the future.
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I think psychiatrists in France often take a ridiculous psychoanalytic approach to autism essentially blaming the parents, when it's pretty clear the autism spectrum is a matter of biology and a person being wired up differently.
And instead of a psychiatrist of any stripe, the parents really need to be offered a variety of practical help: maybe speech therapy and/or help with sign language (probably positive transfer), maybe floor time play and exercises, maybe a better understanding of sensory issues, maybe a better understanding that stimming is a time and place consideration and is often quite functional, as well as just plain help with child care like all parents.
PS In an interview, Dan Aykroyd of 'Ghostbusters' fame said he had been diagnosed with Asperger's as a teenager. So the first thing to wrap your mind around with autism spectrum is that it really is a spectrum.
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Yeah, homosexuality might be a way to go for our POD.
While Freud considered homosexuality to be a perversion, and likely never pursued male partners, he wrote enough about the topic that it likely would have occured to some people(especially those inclined to take a dim view of psychoanalysis) that he was at least an occassional practitioner of same-sex relations.
And if the purported lover was young enough, the scandal might take on a pederastic ambience, which would likely prevent any revisionist defense of Freud by liberals later on. He'd basically be finished as a force on both the left and the right. (The alleged lover wouldn't even have to be an actual minor, just young and boyish enough for the public to blur distinctions).
I read somewhere that, during their rupture, Freud opined that Jung had some sort of crush on him(thus accounting for his hostility, natch). Maybe Jung gets back at Freud by going around spreading rumours that he was a homosexual. This leads the public to pay more attention to his writings, and how often he mentions homosexuality, and the rumours start flying. Even if there is no conviction or even trial, it could be enough to cook his goose for posterity.
And, in no particular order, some cultural aspects of a non-Freudian modern world...
I think psychology, which predated psychoanalysis, would still have gotten around to discovering talk-therapy, albeit with different focuses than Freud. The humanistic Carl Rogers/Bob Newhart type might be the stock image, rather than the half-mad central European with the couch and cigar.
I think the idea of an Oedipal complex would still exist in one form or another, as academics would notice the theme throughout art, literature, religion, etc. It might be something more confined to elite discourse, rather than the subject of popular reference.
People woud still talk about Freudian slips, though obviously under a different name. I can't imagine that Freud was the first person to notice that.
The phrase "anal retentive" would not be in everyday use, though a phobia of defecation(not neccessarily connected to childhood) would still be associated, here and there, with a certain type of personality. "Yeah, my boss, what an uptight WASP. Kinda guy who has to be forced at gunpoint to take a dump."
I think something very similar to Jungianism would still come into its own, though obviously under a different name. With the collapse of religious authority, there would likely be a longing for a religion-infused wordview, operating within at least partially scientific parameters.
I'm tempted to say that the thwarting of Freudianism butterflies away the surrealists, but I'm not so sure. The idea of taking dreams for artistic inspiration goes back before Freud, and would probably have been revived eventually.
But Hollywood output would be radically altered. The absence of Freud butterflies away much of Hitchcock, Kubrick, and Woody Allen, just for starters.
I think psychology, which predated psychoanalysis, would still have gotten around to discovering talk-therapy, albeit with different focuses than Freud. The humanistic Carl Rogers/Bob Newhart type might be the stock image, rather than the half-mad central European with the couch and cigar.
I think the idea of an Oedipal complex would still exist in one form or another, as academics would notice the theme throughout art, literature, religion, etc. It might be something more confined to elite discourse, rather than the subject of popular reference.
People woud still talk about Freudian slips, though obviously under a different name. I can't imagine that Freud was the first person to notice that.
The phrase "anal retentive" would not be in everyday use, though a phobia of defecation(not neccessarily connected to childhood) would still be associated, here and there, with a certain type of personality. "Yeah, my boss, what an uptight WASP. Kinda guy who has to be forced at gunpoint to take a dump."
I think something very similar to Jungianism would still come into its own, though obviously under a different name. With the collapse of religious authority, there would likely be a longing for a religion-infused wordview, operating within at least partially scientific parameters.
I'm tempted to say that the thwarting of Freudianism butterflies away the surrealists, but I'm not so sure. The idea of taking dreams for artistic inspiration goes back before Freud, and would probably have been revived eventually.
But Hollywood output would be radically altered. The absence of Freud butterflies away much of Hitchcock, Kubrick, and Woody Allen, just for starters.
Morty Vicar
Banned
I agree. I would also say that whilst abuse is a serious and pervasive problem in society, and in some cases is shamefully neglected, there is also another side that grossly overreacts to it. The idea that child abuse should be punished by death is one such example imo, whilst popular with the reactionary tabloid readership in reality this would simply lead to judges and juries being unwilling to convict child molesters out of fear of being wrong. It would also mean that child molesters may as well murder the child to prevent them from telling anybody, as they already face the harshest punishment available anyway.
Some people believe that Albert Einstein was Autistic too, something to bear in mind considering the largest Autistic 'charity' - Autism Speaks - which in reality far from Autism Speaking, has no Autistic members on their board (although Autism is one of the more high-functioning mental health issues) and does next to nothing to help Autistic people or their families. All their money is spent on research to diagnose autism in the womb, to allow parents to abort their unborn autistic children, which they call a 'cure' for autism, presumably how gas chambers are a cure for jewishness. Sorry if that language is emotive, but they use similar tactics - http://vimeo.com/20692567
As if that wasn't enough autism is also a pawn in the game of the crazy pseudoscience peddlers in the anti-Vax movement.
Ironically without Freud's assertion, and the lasting perception of homosexuality as mental illness, perhaps western society becomes slightly less homophobic, at least in scientific circles, although religious views don't differ much from OTL.
Total depravity does not mean people want to murder others all the time and so at every point people are balancing a desire for propagation and pleasure with that of its antithesis, and that there's a dialogue between the two (which seemed to be what Freud was arguing according to the wiki.) Rather, Total Depravity would be that behind every human action, even seemingly good ones, would be evil motives and an inability to ever rise above such.
For example, a great humanitarian would be, at his core, a narcissist looking for the approval of other men. A person that forgives easily would be spineless and simply afraid of conflict, not merciful. A totally depraved person, further, can never learn not to be evil either, as their motivations behind good actions would be at their core evil and selfish.
Thing is, nowadays even religious homophobes feel obligated to present their animosity with appeals to science(eg. calling it a mental illness, as you note), rather than simply quoting the Bible. Anti-gay religious literature abounds with references to supposedly empirical studies purporting to show that homosexuals are neurotic.
So yeah, it could be argued that it is pseudo-scientitific psychology, rooted in though likely departing from Freudianism, that has been keeping homophobia on life-support the past few decades
Homosexuality arguably owes much to Freud. Freud is the first, from what I was told anyway years ago in college, to classify people as "homosexuals" and come up with a theory of sexual orientation. I understand that even as far back as Greece there are words the classify the assertive and passive homosexual partners, but the way homosexual practice was done in those days was arguably different and not quite what one would consider an "orientation." I don't think space allows a long discussion on pederasty and the like.
Back to my point, homosexual activity existed since the beginning of time, but it was not until fairly recently people were coined "homosexuals." There were punishments within orders of Nuns (and I presume Monks) for homosexual activity, but it was a way for reconciling oneself to God for doing a sin. Hence, it was a sinful activity, not a part of one's personality.
We even can go into the 19th century and we have a homosexual President (Buchanan) and homosexual couples who live with one another. Yet, there was no huge uproar (even in the middle of the Second Great Awakening.) It is not until recently (i.e. now) that electing a homosexual President would even be something people can swallow.
Following is part of a letter from John Elder Robison, who is himself on the Asperger's-Autism Spectrum, when he resigned from 'Autism Speaks' in late 2013:
The actress and committed environmentalist Daryl Hannah (Splash and a whole bunch of other movies) has said that she is Aspie. Here is an interview with her and Dan Rather.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUuoq8CWeeU
And do a google search on: "Thomas Jefferson" autism . Yes, the Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence and the third president of the United States. A case of some strength to be made that Jefferson himself was on the autism spectrum, although of course it's hard to know for sure two centuries later. But wow, what a claim to be made! Yes indeed, the world is a strange and wonderful place.
And Miss Montana Alexis Wineman was diagnosed with autism in 7th grade (age 12 or 13) and her platform in the Miss America pageant was 'Normal is Just a Dryer Setting - Living with Autism.'
http://k96fm.com/alexis-wineman-to-compete-for-miss-montana-title/
*Yes, Robison is the correct spelling of the man's name.
The actress and committed environmentalist Daryl Hannah (Splash and a whole bunch of other movies) has said that she is Aspie. Here is an interview with her and Dan Rather.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUuoq8CWeeU
And do a google search on: "Thomas Jefferson" autism . Yes, the Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence and the third president of the United States. A case of some strength to be made that Jefferson himself was on the autism spectrum, although of course it's hard to know for sure two centuries later. But wow, what a claim to be made! Yes indeed, the world is a strange and wonderful place.
And Miss Montana Alexis Wineman was diagnosed with autism in 7th grade (age 12 or 13) and her platform in the Miss America pageant was 'Normal is Just a Dryer Setting - Living with Autism.'
http://k96fm.com/alexis-wineman-to-compete-for-miss-montana-title/
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But back to the long shadow of Sigmund Freud. I think these examples might be more of what you're looking for:
And it's actually used as a weapon to dominate another human being, with it being viewed as very important for this other person to agree with the theory.
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Bruno Bettelheim was a really bad guy in a number of ways. He was also a fraud. And in skillful con artist-like fashion, he simply made it easy for people to go ahead and believe what they were inclined to believe anyway.
So, it's the outlandish theory hugely believed.
And it's actually used as a weapon to dominate another human being, with it being viewed as very important for this other person to agree with the theory.
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Bruno Bettelheim was a really bad guy in a number of ways. He was also a fraud. And in skillful con artist-like fashion, he simply made it easy for people to go ahead and believe what they were inclined to believe anyway.
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Morty Vicar
Banned
Mental Illness has almost inevitably had a tragic history of neglect or abuse. I recently watched this documentary, unaware that it was put out by a front group for Scientology. It is obviously made with an agenda, and comes from a group notorious for lies and propaganda, but as far as I can tell the documentary is based on factual history, albeit a cherrypicked one. I can't ascribe all the abuses of the mentally ill to Freudian practises of course, in fact he may have drawn attention to many previously unrecognised disorders, and at least got people thinking about how to properly treat the mentally ill. But I do wonder how the future of neurobiology might change the fields of psychiatry and psychology forever, how neurobioliogical advances might confirm or refute their hypotheses.