Tag Archives: Sigmund Freud

WWI: spirit of violence and hysteria

The malaise of the First World War. Even staunch humanists like Thomas Mann were caught up in the jingoistic fever, the pomp and ritual of nihilism. In 1914 he asked, “Is not war a purification, a liberation, an enormous hope?” … Continue reading

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erikson: going native on magic

In his work, Erik Erikson surpassed the Freudian focus on dysfunctional behaviour to evaluate the ways that the normal self is able to function successfully, through an integration of the effects of society and culture on psychological development which he … Continue reading

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lore of the cigar

The lore of the cigar that bespeaks a way of life. It is an interesting peculiarity of cigar smoking that, in a useful phrase: it escalates. A smoker accustomed to a cheaper cigar will one day pay for a better … Continue reading

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a tale of two tribes

Erik Erikson’s  vision of a universal identity, the one all-human outlook that would somehow bind us together and sublimate violence into peaceful behaviour. Whether this was a universality attained by repressing peculiarity, a kind of synthetic layer built on a … Continue reading

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erikson: indians and the organically fit

At one time, Erik Erikson was a pop-culture  intellectual hero of American culture today, in the same vein accorded “import” brains like Herbert Marcuse, Adorno and Arendt who dabbled in selective slices of Americana in the name of humanism.  He … Continue reading

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optimism of destiny

John Winthrop in 1630 on manifest destiny, the expression of an idea about America’s providential uniqueness and divinely ordained mission, in which if they are faithful,“we shall find that the God of Israel is among us, when tens of us … Continue reading

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the dog: throwing them a bone of intensity

…reconsider the story of man and his best friend… …There is another important point. Evolution, or rapid genetic change, happens fastest when a population is divided into small isolated groups that have occasional genetic contact with each other. Trading, war, … Continue reading

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the dog: our best friend

…It should come as a jolt to our belief in the recentness of things that all the main groups of dogs were created long before Christ had appeared; in fact, they already existed when written history was making its first … Continue reading

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human’s best friend: not some vague mongrel

…Man and his best friend? It is possible, even within the arrogance of the twenty first century, to be amazed at the capabilities of earlier generations of men. By and large we are ignorant of the workings of modern things, … Continue reading

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the traitor and spy: psychology

The psychology of the traitor and spy. Finance, ideology and of course ego condition the soul into becoming a terrible threat. And betrayal is a primary fear tapping into the reaches where in each of person, there is some at … Continue reading

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