Tag Archives: Freud

Tony Perkins: “There’s a shared desire to come behind a candidate.”

Calling Dr. Freud. This is in The New York Times today: “There’s a shared desire to come behind a candidate,” said Tony Perkins, the President of the Family Research Council, a national lobbying group that opposes abortion and equal rights … Continue reading

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Tennis and Freud

After watching the men’s Wimbledon final today, I would say that tennis is sublimated sword fighting with the addition of ball control.

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Embrace Chance?

In a collection of art essays by Roger Kimball titled Art’s Prospect (Ivan R. Dee 2003) is an essay on a Matisse exhibit in which Kimball writes the following (151): [Matisse] arrived [in Morocco in 1912] in the rainy season, … Continue reading

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Persuasion Beneath the Radar

I find it interesting that the below video promotes manipulation of people as ethical. At no point is one advised to reason with vulnerability and openness; to provide people with more than one side of an argument; or to rely on … Continue reading

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An Angry, One-Eyed Monster

Sometimes an angry, one-eyed monster is just an angry, one-eyed monster, but what would Freud say?

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Jacob Wrestling the Irrational Animal: George Orwell on Critical Thinking

In London’s Tribune, George Orwell wrote an essay (“In Front of Your Nose,” March 22, 1946) with a number of great observations on critical thinking. The first is this:   In general, one is only right when either wish or fear coincides with … Continue reading

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The Reports of Freud’s Death are Greatly Exaggerated (but Not Osama bin Laden’s)

At The Daily Beast is the following rather arresting paragraph: “Interestingly and ironically,” says [University of North Carolina Chapel Hill religious studies professor Omid] Safi, “some of the Muslim societies that are the most repressive toward women or that have … Continue reading

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Do the universe’s most terrifying and nihilistic truths birth the gods as intoxicants?

University of Chicago biologist Jerry Coyne calls the below quote (from rabbi Eric Yoffi) “Abrahamic religion in a nutshell.” I’m inclined to agree with Professor Coyne. See if you do. Here’s the quote (the rabbi is speaking): All of this might be … Continue reading

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Three Ohio Bucks Locked in Life—and Death. Why Is This Poetic?

A distressing scene to contemplate was recently recounted (with photos) in Field & Stream: [T]hree Ohio bucks somehow locked antlers while battling near a small creek. When one deer slid into a shallow pool, it sealed the fate for all three, … Continue reading

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What Would Oedipus Say?

Freud’s Totem and Taboo in a nutshell (and with nuts). Amusing, but perhaps a minute too long.

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Critical Thinking Tip #5: Distinguish Between Conscious and Unconscious Rationality in Yourself and Others

The following are the opening five sentences to Bertrand Russell’s essay, “An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish”, which was first published in the midst of World War II, in 1943, but then broadly distributed after the war: Man is a rational animal—so at … Continue reading

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When Will the Word Become Flesh? The New Antisemitism, Ctd

Sigmund Freud, in the early 1930s, quipped that he was pleased to see that the German and Austrian antisemites appeared content to burn his books and not him. And, of course, within a few years, as things escalated, it wasn’t … Continue reading

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The Flying Spaghetti Monster Pancake?

Or is an octopus sometimes just an octopus? From Jim’s Pancakes:

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Quote of the Day

The theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, in Volume 1 of his The Nature and Destiny of Man  (1964 edition, pg. 43), critiques Freudianism and, by extension, naturalism generally: The whole of Freudian psychology, not in what it declares but in what it … Continue reading

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Freud’s Oceanic Feeling Associated with Brain Damage!

During meditation or prayer, have you ever had what Freud called (picking up the term from Romain Rolland) an “oceanic feeling“? In other words, have you felt your “little self” (the shrew of your ego) submerging harmoniously into the “Big Self”—the Atman—or the universe? Well, … Continue reading

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Are You a Bohemian?

This nineteenth century person was. She let herself be painted by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and he named the painting Lise the Bohemian (1868): This appears to be a young woman, amidst a languid summer, in the process of falling in on herself, almost … Continue reading

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Three Examples of 21st Century Anti-Semitism

The former Malaysian Prime Minister, Mahathir, at an Islamic conference in 2003: And Richard Williamson, a Catholic bishop: And the Drudge Report, using an anti-Semitic trope—the large and overshadowing Jew—in reporting on the Pope’s visit to Israel (May 12, 2009): … Continue reading

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Are You a Romantic or an Enlightenment Rationalist?

What, exactly, is being accessed by Todd here?:

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Jacques Derrida for Beginners

And a critique of phallocentrism: Jacques Derrida: [Differance ] governs nothing, reigns over nothing, and nowhere exercises any authority. It is not announced by any capital letter. Not only is there no kingdom of differance, but differance instigates the subversion of every … Continue reading

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The Higher Self and the Lower Self: Theseus and the Minotaur

An 1843 sculpture, by Antoine-Louis Barye, of Theseus slaying the Minotaur: Theseus’s entering the center of the Labyrinth at Knossos and slaying the Minotaur has sometimes been associated with Apollonian order and culture overcoming the bestial elements of body and psyche. And in … Continue reading

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