“The disease called man�--Nietzsche

Aristotle said that all men seek happiness. Freud said that the goal of the pleasure-principle is happiness. Man’s desire for happiness sets at odds to the reality-principle. It is the reality-principle that propels the world into tomorrow. Humans naturally seek what they wish but “reality imposes on human beings the necessity of renunciation of pleasures�.

Therein lay the rub an the rub is called repression.

Freud says that the whole edifice of psychoanalysis is constructed on the theory of repression—the essence of society is the repression of the individual--the essence of the individual is repression of him or her self—Freud’s theory is that the phenomena dreams, neurotic symptoms, and errors are caused—i.e. the principle of psychic determinism—they are meaningful because this means there is purpose or intention—“since the purport of these purposive expressions is generally unknown to the person whose purpose they express, Freud is driven to embrace the paradox that there are in a human being purposes of which he knows nothing, involuntary purpose�—i.e. unconscious ideas.

Neurosis is “the disease called man� Nietzsche. “Neurosis is an essential consequence of civilization or culture.� Brown

“Between “normality� and “abnormality� there is no qualitative but only a quantitative difference, based largely on the practical question of whether our neurosis is serious enough to incapacitate us for work.� The difference between “neurotic and healthy is only that the healthy have a socially useful form of neurosis.�

Freud defined psychoanalysis as “nothing more than discovery of the unconscious in mental life�—the other hypothesis is that “some unconscious ideas in a human being are incapable of becoming conscious to him in the ordinary way, because they are strenuously disowned and resisted by the conscious life�.

Norman Brown tells us that to comprehend Freud one must understand “repression�. “In the new Freudian perspective, the essence of society is repression of the individual, the essence of the individual is repression of the self.�

Freud discovered the importance of repression when he discovered the meaning of the “mad� symptoms of the mentally deranged, plus the meaning of dreams, and thirdly the everyday happenings regarded as slips of the tongue, errors, and random thoughts. He concludes that dreams, mental derangements, and common every day errors (Freudian slips) have meaningful causes that can be explained. Meaningful is the key word here.

Since these psychic phenomena are unconscious we must accept that we have motivation to action with a purpose for which we are unconscious (involuntary purposes). This inner nature of which we are completely unaware leads to Freud’s definition of psychoanalysis as “nothing more than the discovery of the unconscious in mental life.�

Freud discovered that sapiens have unconscious causes which are hidden from her because they are disowned and hidden by the conscious self. The dynamic relationship between the unconscious and conscious life is a constant battle and psychoanalysis is a science of this mental conflict.

The rejection of an idea which is one’s very own and remains so is repression. The essence of repression is in the fact that the individual refuses to recognize this reality of her very own nature. This nature becomes evident when it erupts into consciousness only in dreams or neurotic symptoms or by slips of the tongue.

The unconscious is illuminated only when it is being repressed by the conscious mind. It is a process of psychic conflict. “We obtain our theory of the unconscious from the theory of repression.� Freud’s hypothesis of the repressed unconscious results from the conclusion that it is common to all humans. This is a phenomenon of everyday life; neurosis is common to all humans.

Dreams are normal phenomena and being that the structure of dreams is common to neurotics and normal people the dream is also neurotic. “Between “normality� and “abnormality� there is no qualitative but only quantitative difference, based largely on the practical question of whether our neurosis is serious enough to incapacitate us for work…the doctrine of the universal neurosis of mankind is the psychoanalytical analogue of the theological doctrine of original sin.�

Quotes from “Life against Death: The Psychoanalytical Meaning of History� Norman O. Brown

If you do not perceive your self to be a cauldron of conflict does that mean that the science of psychology is just a bunch of baloney?

If you look and cannot see it does that mean it does not exist?

Must we prepare our self in order to see?

Ok, so let me see if I get what your saying. Aristotle says everyone is seeking happiness. This is mimicked by Freud, but modified by the addition of the "repression" concept.

So everyone seeks happiness, but the methods by which we seek them are changed by our respective societies, as well as our concepts of identity.

I think your splitting hairs with your "neurosis" comparison. Either were all mad here, or were all sane. Neurosis as you said is simply a conveinant label for those who aren't adjusted to social norms.

I think Nietzsche is better understood is one first studies the work of Alfred Korcybski. Nietzsche's real criticisms lie in what Korcybski defined as "time-binding." I can probably get everyone on this forum to agree that "God exists" if I am allowed to make the definition of God. Nietzsce did'nt agree with people seeking "happiness" because they were seeking a time-bound conceptualization through external circumstances, not an internalized state. If I own a Hummer dealership, it's in my best interest that you think happiness is owning a Hummer. Psychology is not baloney, but it's very goals (to normalize) are scary, because who gets to decide the definition of normal?

Beyond that, Aristotles primary method of thinking is empirical, or at the very least, naturalistic. He was describing what he observed. Nietzsche was speculating as to the patterns and interactions of men. Aristotle never explained why men seek happiness, only that they did.

I don't think humans are innately a "cauldron of conflict." I think that it's a condition that can be transcended if one frees themselves from the bounds of bifurcated thought.

cassox

My reading tells me that we are all neurotic and some of us are so neurotic that we cannot function satisfactorily in normal society and are then considered to be mentally ill.

All humans repress aspects of their life that might cause anxiety. This repression is called neurosis. It is the constant conflict wherein the ego constantly struggles to hold down thoughts that will cause anxiety. Freud discovered the unconscious in life and there exists a constant conflict between the unconscious and the ego. The ego keeps that in the unconscious that can cause anxiety from becoming conscious.

Humans are the only species to be self conscious. We dread death and repress that dread because we cannot live with a constant consciousness of our mortality.

How can we, the “man on the street�, Tom & Jane, gain an insight into the meaning of this dread of death? A dread so strong that we kill to prevent that death and that we are so dedicated to repressing that dread that many things we do is done in that behalf.

I suspect most of us have experienced the feeling we call ‘claustrophobia’. I have experienced that feeling and I am confident that I would do almost anything to stop that experience. I suspect that it was the dread of death that caused the inmates of the Nazi concentration camps to tolerate such terror as daily existence must have been for those imprisoned in those camps.

I suspect that dread of death is the reason that ‘water-boarding’ is such a popular form of torture. Torture is, I suspect, an effort to induce that same dread that we experience in a claustrophobic episode. I think that we might properly use the metaphor ‘dread of death is claustrophobia’ or perhaps ‘dread of death is water-boarding’.

Death is an abstract idea. It is an idea that grows and develops throughout our life. I am told that a child has no comprehension of death until the age of four or five.

Cognitive science informs us that an abstract idea is a product of past experiences combined by the imagination into one coherent package. Real experiences constantly mold and remodel this abstract idea unconscious to the self. Cognitive science also informs us that 95% of all thought is unconscious. Thought might be imagined to be somewhat like an iceberg with 95% of its substance below the surface of consciousness.

All animals have an instinctive drive to avoid death but humans add to this biological instinct a consciousness of self and a connection between mortality and the self that other animals do not have. This biological survival instinct to behind our fear of death but human’s biological fear is augmented by the way in which s/he perceives the world.

Humans create a world view filled with symbols and death is just one of them. We are anxious about many things and repression of the unconscious seems to be a primary manner in which we try to cope with these anxieties. Occasionally experiences shock our ability to repress our anxieties in such a manner that we cannot find the will or strength to continue this repression and such things as PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) occurs.

Ok. All fear (i.e. neurosis) stems from the fear of death. Do you feel this is the primary issue that man is troubled by/ facing?

One could argue that fear is the cause of
religion/ war/ hate/ suffering.

But then again, one could argue that curiosity and greed have caused these.

With the help of some eastern thought i realized that the only way to live a life relatively free of neurosis is to try to accept reality the way it is. It is to be bluntly honest with yourself about yourself and the otherness. My life served as my proof for existence of such tension between conscious and unconscious for i can recall trying to hide from many facts in life by either repression or irrational beliefs but deep inside i always knew the truth, thus the tension. When i finally surrendered to the truth, the neurosis disappeared, but new problems arose which to me opened a whole new level of being which is tackled in Existential philosophy.

In fact i think the first problem that arises once the repression process is stopped is what Camus called the problem of philosophical suicide. It is the to be or not to be question. Once that is solved and given that you choose life, a whole new way of being emerges. I don't know if there is another level after this but i guess i hope to find out.

I do not mean to say that all fear originates in the comprehension that I will die. I also fear losing my job, I fear the dark, I fear noises in the night, I fear that my son will wreck my car, etc. It is said that we kill others as a means to avoid the anixiety of our own death, I think this is called scapegoat.