Dave Lenihan, a radio presenter in St Louis, Missouri, was fired for accidently using the word “coon” in relation to Condoleezza Rice.
He was actually arguing that she would be a great commissioner for the National Football League, apparently one of the most prestigious positions in American sport, when the ’slip of the tongue’ occured:
“She’s got the patent resumé of somebody that has serious skill. She loves football, she’s African-American, which would be kind of a big coon. Oh my God - I totally, totally, totally, totally am sorry for that. I didn’t mean that.”
According to the Guardian, he later told a local television news channel he had meant to say “coup”, and that he was distraught.
He admired Ms Rice, and had said on air that if she ran for president he would like to help her campaign. He had been at KTRS for only a fortnight. “It was my dream job,” he told the Associated Press news agency. “Ratings were going well. It kind of stinks.”
I realise that the radio station would want to do everything that it could to mediate any potential fall-out from what essentially amounted to a racist slur, but I have to say that I feel kind of bad for Mr Lenihan. It doesn’t sound as though he had any intention of insulting Dr Rice or of saying anything racist. I am not really sure why that kind of word would just slip out, but perhaps he has been exposed to that kind of language without actually agreeing with it.
What do others think?
On another point (and not to belittle in any way the serious impact of racism in the US or here), does anyone think that this kind of action would have been taken towards someone who let slip a sexist term?
Sounds like a freudian slip to me.
Still, he should not have been sacked. Even had he made a deliberate racial (or any other kind of) slur, the right way for the station to go about it would have been to stand him down, explain to him what he did wrong, and give him a chance to explain himself or make amends.
Employees shouldn’t live in constant fear of the sack if they slip up.
If it was freudian, would that mean that subconsciously he was thinking racist thoughts? Could you let that kind of a word slip out for other reasons?
He shouldn’t have been sacked for a mistake. It’s ridiculous.
I feel a bit of pity for him - it’s inconceivable that he could have consciously intended to say “coon” (though let’s not forget, Australian supermarkets continue to sell cheese branded with this revolting word.) Whether it’s a freudian slip or not seems a bit beside the point as I don’t know how it could ever be practicable to expect people to regulate their thoughts, or how that could be policed.
If it was a freudian slip - as opposed to a stumbling over consonants, something I am very much prey to - then it’s perhaps harder even to blame him, because by definition an unconscious slip is pathological & beyond the individual’s control.
On the other hand, “she’s African-American, which would be kind of a big COUP” does absolutely reek of patronising tokenism. Still not something a person should be sacked for, though.
And no, I have a very hard time believing that he’d be in the same boat if he’d said she was a big girlie-girl.
“And no, I have a very hard time believing that he’d be in the same boat if he’d said she was a big girlie-girl.”
… or ‘a bit of a babe’.
The big disaster here was the attempt to correct himself. If he’d just sailed straight on, it would have been hard to dispute that he had just mispronounced “coup”. I think a similar instance was mentioned on Crooked Timber a while back
Poltical corrrectness is to mentioning the awkward facts of socio-bio diversity in post-modern times as prudery was to the mentioning the awkward facts of sexuality in Victorian times. Discuss.
Each age must have its taboos, that is sacred mysteries which only the witchdoctors are privy to. Persons such as Dave Lenihan that violate the taboos must be subjected to ritualised sacrifice to appease the gods.
Of course outright racist or sexist hate-speak should be out of bounds. But the current mass of self-censoring ordinances that constrain straight talking about race, gender and sexuality has gone way beyond a joke.
In the end the taboo-mongerers will be anihilated by the tsunami of scientific knowledge which is now building up on the high seas of scientific discovery.
Dave Lenihan shouldn’t have been fired for a slip of the tongue but Jack, please explain how the fuck he was ‘mentioning the awkward facts of socio-bio diversity in post-modern times ‘.
‘Girlie-girl’ or ‘bit of a babe’ … Not really in the same ballpark as ‘coon’, are they? Sexism might be ugly, but I venture to suggest (at the risk of having my head shot off) that sexist language is nowhere near as loaded as racist language.
BTW Cristy, someone is bound to point out the benign origins of Coon cheese to you.
Another attempt to link sexism and racism. Impossible, one is funny and the other is racist.
Coon cheese is of course named after the estimable Edward Coon who invented a process for accelerated ripening of unprocessed cheese, nearly 100 years ago.
It’s actually named after a man called Coon.
Great minds think alike, Geoff!
Some tsunami. Turns out to be an anecdote from someone who admits he doesn’t understand the science about a talk he had with someone who allegedly does who’s got a bad case of the gung-ho young scientist’s paranoia.
And no, he shouldn’t have been sacked for a parapraxis. Just as a cigar is sometimes just a cigar, sometimes a slip of the tongue is just a slip of the tongue. Maybe he would have made a better recovery (and kept his job) if he’d corrected himself simply instead of going into totally panicked “Oh my God, I have so screwed up” mode.
Is Jack S speaking English??
Anyway, remember when AFL star, Jason Ackermanis (spelling?) was fired last year for referring to the management of his radio station as monkeys? Unfortunately for Jason, he was working for an Aboriginal radio station and his statement was seriously frowned upon.
Jason was obviously abbreviating the colloquial term for management - “Men in monkey suits”
Jason’s case was political correctness gone mad - as is Lenihan’s. Does anyone think that he would deliberately refer to the Secretary of State as a coon?
I can’t see why everyone is so certain that this was a ‘mistake’. Of course, it was a mistake in retrospect, since it got him sacked! If you can’t be sacked for a mistake, then you pretty much can’t be sacked full-stop, since by definition almost anything that gets you sacked is a mistake - unless you are trying to get sacked.
If it’s a slip of the tongue, it’s a Freudian slip - that’s the only way such a ’slip’ can occur, since your tongue doesn’t literally got stuck on some saliva and produce an extra consonant. He must either have thought Rice is a coon, or have been like thinking about the word coon or whatever.
On the other hand, what proof do you have that he didn’t mean to say it? Such a thing cannot be proven. If you let him off you basically allow anyone to make racist comments provided they go, “Shit! I didn’t mean to say that!” right afterwards. So it seems like the right decision to me.
I agree that neither of these expressions are in the same ballpark. However, I completely disagree with your second statement. Sexist language can be just as loaded and just as effective in denigrating someone or a group of people. It does, however, seem to have remained far more acceptable even in this age of political correctness (or are we in the ‘post-political correct’ age now?).
I think that you should be directing your comment to Laura. I didn’t even know about the brand - I don’t eat cheese, I am a vegan.
Interesting that yet another university lecturer has lost his job/received death threats/been censored for expressing an intellectual viewpoint on the subject of human bio-diversity.
No doubt there are any number of faults one could find with his conclusions. But it does seem a little silly to go to the expense of hiring all these academics to give us free and fearless advice and then put politically correct muzzles on them.
Do academics care about freedom of speech anymore or is that some kind of quaint old fashioned 19th century thing that went out with grandfather clocks, home recitals and Ethical Societies?
Just askin’.
Sorry, Cristy. I don’t think I’m the first to misattribute comments between you and Laura. Might be the gravatars - long-haired women in profile? Otherwise I take your point, but I maintain that racist terms are much more openly hostile and abusive, while sexist language tends to be non-inclusive or demeaning. That’s unpleasant (and whatever else you want to call it), but does not really compare with the well-known ‘taboo’ racist epithets.
Jack:
I put it to you that academics have never had absolute freedom of speech. And nor has anyone else, in any society, ever.
If it was freudian, would that mean that subconsciously he was thinking racist thoughts?
Yes.
Could you let that kind of a word slip out for other reasons?
No.
Well, he could have had an unconscious desire to ruin his career by racially villifying the Secretary of State! Of course, that less likely . . .
Jack
why are all your martrys almost always talking outside their areas of expertise?
A lecturer in Russian studies pontificating about statistics? pfft - does he even know how to count to 100?
Perhaps he was implying a paradigm shift.
Yes, I know that story about the origin of the cheese brand. Kraft made sure everyone heard it, in order to protect their ‘investment.’ It doesn’t make any difference. It’s exactly the same as if his name had been Edward N*gg*r.
Well I think he should have lost his job for that remark. Ms Rice would make a lousy National Football League commissioner - judged by her track record in her past two jobs.
“Yes it’s true I received a briefing paper, “Dallas Cowboys Determined To Break Salary Cap”, but who could have predicted that a football team would use large amounts of money to acquire star players?”
Actually that was a crap joke by me.
“If it was freudian, would that mean that subconsciously he was thinking racist thoughts?”
Oh no! We have a thought criminal!! The gubmit better weed out these subversives before it’s too late.
How are terms like whitebread any less racist?
Sure the negros are very sensitive to racism for understandable reasons and he should have not said it full stop but really who cares about that comment. He clearly said that he meant coup, so it is just much ado over nothing? Anyway since when are words banned? If he meant it seriously it reflects on him individually and noone else. Why are the anti-racists such fascists?
Why are the anti-racists such fascists?
Okay, Padraic, which one of us is stoned? It’s me again, isn’t it.
I think it is likely it was a mistake because it makes no grammatical sense to say coon in that sentence.
The mistake would indicate that he is either familiar with the term being used and/or uses it himself.
Maybe being sensitive to the power of words to offend does not mean that the word is in itself. What I mean is if you say “coon” around people who it does not offend then is it offensive?
I use foul language all the time and in fact one of my new years resolutions was to put a stop to it because I was becoming lazier and lazier and it started to appear in conversations where it was neither necessary or appropriate (which begs an obvious question). Racist/sexist/homophobic labels tumble from my lips often and my attempts to eliminate or greatly reduce this stems from manners and a desire for higher levels of self discipline. It is not coming from any new found desire to treat minorities better; I treat them OK.
Anthony, don’t be homophonic!
The word “coon” makes no sense in Mr Lenihan’s comment and he apologised immediately. Accordingly he should be given the benefit of the doubt.
Laura, are you seriously suggesting someone with the surname Coon shouldn’t have a product named after them? That is going too far. The surname Coon no doubt predates the use of that word as a racist term of abuse.
The term “nigger” is completely different since, as far as I am aware it isn’t a surname.
I note that some people still call Grass Trees “Blackboys” and Snake Plants “Mother-In Law’s Tongue”. Are these terms offensive and inappropriate? I would answer yes to that question. I can’t imagine telling a black guy that I just luv Blackboys and have a few in my garden!!
Another plant I have is black bamboo which has the scientific name Phyllostchys Nigra. When I pointed this out to my hardline politically correct sister she was mortified. I think Nigra is Latin for black and is therefore in my view acceptable.
Pav
fascist!
Steve Munn
Would you seriously suggest that Phillip K. Dick would have a cheese named after him?
Cristy, you asked:
Well, firstly you don’t let a word slip out. It slips out without your conscious agency.
I think we’re kidding ourselves if we’re not all implicated in racist discourse. I don’t mean that to say that we intend in a moral sense to be racist. But we all are part of a culture which associates those two words - ie African-American which is well known as a euphemistic coinage - probably a reaction to the reappropriation of the term “Black” by radical groups.
comicstriphero made a really good point about queer people avoiding a term like queer and preferring to use the “neutral” term “same sex attracted”.
(Incidentally, go comicstriphero, what a great blogger you are!)
Now, again, if you read this in context. Speaking as someone who’s American and has lived both there and here for almost equally long periods of time, you can’t underestimate the way that American culture is constitutively founded on the suppression of any thought of race at the same time that race lurks as a spectre that the conscious has to work very hard to repress.
I want to get all un-Donnellian and point to the post-structuralist insight that language speaks itself much of the time, and that associations between words and designations and values precede and are prior to our attempts to articulate them.
The point of all this is that I doubt that the guy is consciously a racist and that he’s to blame. None of us are innocent - we’re all part of cultures which devalue certain groups and value others and this is written into our words when we least expect it.
So, also, what Liam said.
Also, yay, Pavlov’s Cat, you rock too!
As does Kim. I am a racist. Sure. I defy anyone on this thread not to be. The issue is what I do about it.
Actually I think he was slipping something else. As a public supporter of Condoleeza Rice, he wants the society to go back into the past, when black people called white people massa and all was well with the world and those cheese people were grateful for their rations when they picked that cotton.
But they still shouldn’t sack him - it breeds grey, unspontaneous public figures.
Actually they should have sent him off the mow the lawns of African American families whose husbands and fathers have been killed in Iraq because of his hero(ine?)s policies.
Aussie Ford executive was fired in the early 90’s for making reference to a “nigger in the wood pile” at a press conference. He was a straight off the boat Aussie and didn’t know what a no no is in America. Poor bastard never had a chance.
Don’t even think he knew what nigger meant.
Kim says
Speaking as someone who’s American and has lived both there and here for almost equally long periods of time, you can’t underestimate the way that American culture is constitutively founded on the suppression of any thought of race at the same time that race lurks as a spectre that the conscious has to work very hard to repress.
Me
I’m not sure that applies so much, back East, Kim. Maybe it’s different on the West coast. I think social construction on the east coast is everything to do with race, almost down to what your white heritage hails from even if its 3-4 generations Italian, Polish or whatever. The white racial enclaves were what got me. Parts of Brooklyn have been Italian for 3 generations where the families wouldn’t move a block in case they went too far West.. And Brooklyn Jews?
Two things
My take is that the further west you go the less important this issue becomes. I also think that blacks are and continue to be the protected class in America for obvious reasons. If that dude had been talking about say Italians and the word guinea has slipped in he would still have his job.
I don’t know so much about the west coast but it seems to me that there are three racial groups there. Blacks, Latinos and whites. Whites are a group that stand out alone.
Well, I’m a Californian, JC, but who are whites? My mother was Portuguese and I have quite olive skin, dark hair and dark eyes. I could easily pass for a Latina. And I have Jewish ancestry too. America is a melting pot but we are too concerned with freezing the moulds.
Btw - I have no idea who James Waterton is but we have a rule here about not importing comments relating to angst or stoushes on other blogs. So I’m going to delete the comment since it seems only to be disparaging Deltoid.
Are your referencing that comment to me as I have know idea what you are taling about.
I would guess you’re white Kim. I know, it’s a rough stab in the dark and lot’s of people would take that as slur.
No, I’m not, JC, there was a comment a few up by someone called “James Waterton” who started banging on about Deltoid, apropos of nothing, so I trashed it.
Yeah, I guess I’m white, but my point is - how arbitrary but how loaded are some of these identity distinctions!
I thought Yanks used coon as a nickname for raccoon. Perhaps raccoons are looked upon in a derogatory way over there.
Anyhow, here’s a bloody great slip of a black tongue for you all to digest
http://www.taemag.com/issues/articleID.19044/article_detail.asp
Keeps slipping all through the interview too by the sounds of him. Boy, this is one masochistic public crucifixion candidate for sure.
A Freudian slip? Newsflash! Ain’t no such thing! Only critical theory takes Freudian psychoanalysis (via Lacan) seriously anymore.
Oh, gosh, OK andy, guess I better ditch everything I’ve written & most of what I’ve read over the last fifteen years. Thanks for the heads up, mate.
You’re right James, but both these sentences make grammatical sense:
Now try and say them both simultaneously. The last one makes slightly more sense, but if you’ve already started saying “coup” it is probably a little late to change your mind.
Yes, Laura, what would we do without the andys of the world to guide us? Volume upon volume of exploration and inspiration, on jokes, dreams, hysteria, neurosis, fantasy, creativity, sex, fear, family relations ad infinitum, all lumped under the word ‘Freud’ and consigned willy-nilly to the dustbin of history.
Andy, I defy you to get through a single day without using, thinking, reading or writing a single word that can be traced directly back to Freud’s thinking. I bet you can’t.
(And as though to prove my point, I originally typed ‘the Antonys of the world’ up there and have only just noticed it — how’s that for a cross-thread Freudian slip? And if the Antony joke has jumped the shark, has it also put a hex on the Saturday Salon?)
Stefan Zweig, in his eulogy at Freud’s funeral: “Each of us, people of the 20th century, would have been different in our manner of thinking and understanding without him; each of us would think, judge and feel more narrowly and less freely.”
Every single word that Andy (or anyone else for that matter) thinks, reads or uses can be traced directly back to Freud’s thinking???
So when during the course of a day Andy reads the word “Tokyo” that single word can be traced back directly to Freud? Is this also true for the word “boysenberry”?
Or are you saying the opposite. That not a single word that Andy thinks, reads or uses during the course of a day can be traced directly back to Freud?
So that if Andy reads the word “ego” or “id” neither of those words can be traced directly back to Freud?
However PC, your take on Andy’s point is quite correct.
Volume upon volume of exploration and inspiration, on jokes, dreams, hysteria, neurosis, fantasy, creativity, sex, fear, family relations ad infinitum, all lumped under the word ‘Freud’ should be consigned willy-nilly to the dustbin of history.
The man’s entire body of work leads to a dead-end and the fact that millions of people are silly enough to follow him into it doesn’t change that fact.
He should have stuck with cocaine.
Read it again, GregM. It says that at least once every day, andy will read or see at least one word, reference, concept or idea that is trackable back to something somehwere in Freud’s work. If you can’t interpret a simple sentence correctly, and manage instead come up with not just one misinterpretation but two different ones, I can’t help wondering how much of Freud’s work you ‘ve actually understood.
The grandiosity of a claim like ‘The man’s entire body of work leads to a dead-end’ makes me very curious about how you personally have arrived at that conclusion. I take it that you have, of course, read it all — in the original German.
I’ve read it again PC and no it doesn’t say that at least once every day, andy will read or see at least one word, reference, concept or idea that is trackable back to something somehwere in Freud’s work, although I accept that that’s what you wish it to have said.
Freud’s writings on psychology are nothing more than non-verifiable speculation. As such they have the function of forming the corpus of a secular religion. Freud attracts his true believers, and good luck to them if it makes them happy. Plenty of other people go through life doing silly things like following the teachings of Sun Myung Moon.
However, because nothing Freud writes is scientifically testable it is junk and his followers are a cult just like the Moonies.
“However, because nothing Freud writes is scientifically testable it is junk and his followers are a cult just like the Moonies.”
That is a wonderfully untestable ilne for someone who proclaims the necessity for statements to be testable.
Aha, a science nerd. That explains why you keep misreading the phrase ‘can be traced’ for ‘can’t be traced’.
Some big claims there, Mr Cat. Clearly Freud’s insights strike a chord with you, just as the insights in Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus appeal to others (so I’m told). And that’s where Dr Freud belongs, with Dr John Gray in the self-help section. If you find it inspirational, more power to you, but don’t pretend it’s anything more.
As for your breezy dismissal of “science nerdsâ€?, well, if not for those nerdy scientists two of my four kids wouldn’t have lived past infancy. Now they’re a couple of things I really couldn’t get through a single day without.
That’s Ms Cat, andy. (This error had nothing to do with Freud, of course.)
I’m always bemused by the passion with which people who demonstrate that they know little or nothing about Freud’s work nonetheless rush to heap buckets of scorn and other less attractive matter on his head while dismissing his entire body of work. I know it’s a fashionable opinion in some quarters, and presume it has something to do with Popper.
Freud-hating science nerds do tend not to be very interested in language (the basis of psychoanalysis, as of this thread) and therefore to be careless readers, or you would not have seen a ‘breezy dismissal’ in anything I said. My goddaughter the astrophysicist-in-training wouldn’t allow it, for a start.
Of course you love your kids. People do. Freud has quite a lot to say about it.
Actually, Pavolv’s Cat, Freudian theory is no longer taken seriouisly by the overwhelming majority of mental health professionals. It was already well and truly on the way out in the 1980s when I studied tertiary level psychology units in a social sciences course.
I recommend anyone who still takes Freud seriosly read Hans Eysenck’s “The Decline and Fall of the Freudian Empire”.
As Eysenck pointed out, Freud’s obsession with sex and bizarre theories such as the nasal-reflex neurosis were most probably products of a gargantuan cocaine habit.
In several experiments where one group of patients has had psychoanalysis and the other group (the control group) has had non-theory directed therapy, the results were identical. In other words, psychoanalysis is no better than tea and sympathy.
Mr Lenihan made a mistake, not a Freudian Slip.
p.s. Anyway Pavlov’s Cat- as a true believer perhaps you would like to explain to us how have you dealt with your Penis Envy?
Where did I say I was a true believer?
Where did I say anything about mental health?
And what is this apparent and bloody nonsensical conviction that there is some über-mindset called ‘Freud’, that it is a matter of ‘belief’, and that one must either accept or reject it whole? It’s a set of theories, a set of frameworks, a vocabulary for talking about the way the mind works, an analytical and/or interpretive framework. It’s not a religion, whatever anti-Freud crusaders might think. (Whoops, originally typed ‘crudaders’, and don’t tell me it was only a mistake …)
The underlying issue here is the conceptual difference between theory and practice and the resulatant clash between concrete thinkers and abstract thinkers. One aspect of that is that concrete thinkers think anything not ‘hard’ or ‘rigid’ must therefore and perforce be crap. (Freud would have something to say about that as well.)
Actually, some of us think Eysenck is a wanker, too. Sorry.
Penis envy? Are you mad? Why would anyone want to have such a thing, apart from the bladder convenience, which I agree is truly enviable?
What I object to is not people objecting to Freud as such, but to people styling themselves as advocates of scientific method who are nonetheless prepared to go on the public record with extreme opinions of things they clearly don’t know much, if anything, about. (Ie they have not done the research.)
I am fully aware of (some of) the “mental health professionals’” attitude to Freud, thanks. (The science-nerd goddaughter’s father is a psychoanalysis-hating psychologist, for a start, and even he doesn’t hate Freud as much as psychiatrists do.)
But I didn’t say anything about mental health. I was talking about the Freudian analysis of language use (again, the topic of this thread). It’s a common misconception among Freud-haters that Freudian theory is exclusively about actual pathology and ‘illness’.
In terms of Freud’s notion of a ‘talking cure’, there are apparently already stats to show that bloggers and chat group members find ‘talking’ online extremely effective in recovery from such things as PTSD and post-natal depression. Tea and sympathy, metaphorical or otherwise, are extremely effective. Most of Freud’s patients weren’t getting enough of either or they probably wouldn’t have needed him in the first place.
Du calme, mesdames et messieurs, du calme.
Pavlov’s Cat, I’m on your side. Freud is valuable, but of *course* his work is not up-to-the-minute science; his foundational study, “The Interpretation of Dreams,” was written over 100 years ago. (btw, all you Freud-haters: if you read nothing else by the F-man, read the “Interpretation.” It’s not entirely correct, because *almost nothing that’s over 100 years old in science is ever totally correct* — but it’s a fine piece of intellectual detective work, a fascinating piece of thought, and a prologue to serious thinking on this and other subjects. What more can you ask of an old dead guy?)
The big problem with Freud, as with many things, is that the man became fetishised and an object of worship, rather than simply a platform for further study. (And he did not discourage this; he had an ego the size of Montana –a grave character flaw for a scientist of his stature, and one which understandably mars his work and his legacy.) “Freudians” who treat Freud as scripture do a disservice to humanity; psychiatrists who study him to see what can be used, do us all a great benefit. It’s still a pretty new field, right? And lots of it remains poorly understood.
Much of Freud was and is useful; and still more has been shown to be mistaken, and/or nonsense. But so what? It’s like blaming Kepler for not understanding Einstein. Without Kepler, we might not have *had* Einstein. Give the man his due (but don’t worship him), and then move on. That would be the, well, scientific thing to do.
Sorry JPZ, but not one thing that Freud said that was original has withstood the test of time. I think you will find that modern day psychiatric training only mentions Freud as an historical footnote, an unproductive dead end. The same cannot be said of Einstein. The only to things these guys have in common is their Jewish origins.
I note both yourself and Pavlov have mentioned dreams as a field of study where Freud has made a useful contribution. What has Freud told us about dreams that is still useful to modern day researchers in that field?
Pavlov’s Cat also retorts to a previous post of mine “But I didn’t say anything about mental health.”. Yet she earlier wrote of Freud’s “Volume upon volume of exploration and inspiration, on … hysteria, neurosis … ad infinitum …”
You aren’t making any sense Pavlov. My advice- lay off both Freud and cocaine. Both are dead ends.
Denouncing Freud as a ‘dead end’ theorist from a ‘dead end’ in the philosophy of science (ie. 40 years ago based on political experiences in post-WWI Vienna). Heh.
Nice posts, PC.
JPZ — lovely try, but I think the conversation is too hopelessly at cross-purposes.
DK.AU — ta! Sad about the work I was supposed to do this morning, though.
Steve — Making no sense, eh? Well, I’m clearly not making any sense to you, at least. I guess Freud-haters are from Mars and Freud-tolerators are from the Starship Enterprise.
Beam me up, Scotty.
“I note that some people still call Grass Trees “Blackboysâ€? ”
My wife and I were doing a tour in Alice Springs a couple of year ago conducted by a young aboriginal woman, who in explaining what various plants were, called a xanthorea a “blackboy”. All the city people on the tour were horrified and immediately corrected her, telling her that that named was now banned and that they had to be called grass trees. She just looked puzzled and laughed. Aboriginals are blessed with a good deal more commonsense (and sense of humour) than a lot of white people. A racist remark, I know, but its a real observation. Anyway black people are proud of their colour. Why do we deem it racist to acknowledge their blackness?
Steve Munn — “modern-day psychiatric training only mentions Freud as an historical footnote…”
Well, if that’s the case, then I have to defer to your greater learning in the field. I’m just a casual amateur. So, my apologies. Still, psychiatry had to start somewhere, I guess — even if it was from ‘primitive’ or even ‘wrong’ theories like Freud’s.
“What has Freud told us about dreams that is still useful…?” Very good question. The “Interpretation” only *begins* with dreams. It’s really where Freud began exploring his theories of the structure of consciousness and the unconscious, which he came upon through his study of dreams. (Unlike many old classics, “Interpretation” is worth reading as a whole book, instead of from textbook summaries. Nobody has to read all of “Leviathan” to know what was bothering Hobbes, but “Interpretation” is worth reading whole, just for the stops along the trip.)
A short answer to your question might be: Freud asked a more interesting question than the old ones. Instead of asking “what do dreams mean?” he began to ask “what do dreams *do*? Why are we having them? What are they *for*?” This question led him to the theory of the unconscious, and so on. His model of consciousness may be incorrect (I wouldn’t know), but we might not be aware of that, if he hadn’t asked those questions.
btw, not that it matters terribly, but I was comparing Freud to Kepler, not to Einstein — in other words, one of the early primitives who began by looking at the data and asking new questions, instead of working off the old assumptions. In cosmology, 3 or 4 thousand years of human thought were simply wrong, a gigantic waste of time, because people had *assumed* that the earth was at the center of planetary orbits, and that orbital paths were circular instead of ellipsoidal, as they turned out to be. What did it mean that there were two focal points (ellipse) in an orbit, instead of only one (circle)? Answer: the theory of gravity.
As Yogi Berra said, You can observe a lot just by looking.
What Russ said.
Both the comment AND the context here does not suggest anything but a mistake. And his immediate recognition of mistake. And it seems his history and character indicate nothing more than a mistake.
For crying out loud.
Ha!
Loving your work, Ms Cat!
It looks like everyone had a nice weekend.
I’d have joined in to provide moral support for Pavlov, only this is one of those occasions where there really is zero point explaining. Nevertheless.
Andy, Steve, I am a literary critic and my practice is permeated with Freud’s thought, top to botttom & inside out. I have read just about all of the standard edition and I wrote my Masters’ on Freud’s use of nineteenth-century literature in some of his case histories. I’m not a “true believer” though.
All the things he wrote about feminine sexuality etc, I regard as obvious nonsense. His account of dreamwork and similar unconscious processes are lovely elegant constructions - extremely useful in lots of other contexts - but his actual dream analyses are hilariously improbable. I also think he misdescribed the structure of the psyche because his basic psychological model doesn’t really allow for the critical function other people play in the composition of the self.
I have loads of other objections to details, (most, like these, shared by lots of people interested in psychoanalysis) but I think that in its essentials, psychoanalysis is the best explanation available of why humans think and behave in the ways we do. Whether it has a continuing therapeutic application is kind of irrelevant to the question of whether it is a useful tool of cultural analysis. Since much in the modern world is largely the creation of Freud’s influence I suggest psychoanalytic theory is not only a helpful guide to it, but also an essential one. The quotation from Zweig that Pavlov wrote sums it up nicely.
For what it’s worth, I personally have moved well on from Freud while remaining interested in psychoanalytic theory. (There have been a few other psychoanalysts apart from freud and Lacan.) The analyst I find most useful in my own work traces everything (fanstasy, sport, religion, art, relationships, politics etc) back to the infant’s use of security blankets and other transitional objects.
I’m astonished that anyone would say Freud is a dead end. He was the first to come out and tell the truth, ie, sex motivates all human behaviour, and consequently (aside from organic damage) is the basis of mental illness. The hardest thing in treating the mentally ill is getting them to give up their secrets. Eventually they might, but only after hours at a time.
State institutions don’t use pyschoanalysis, because it takes so long, but it’s the most effective treatment of all. Talking to anyone, is effective. Blogging can be effective, as Miss Pavlov says. Because to get rid of demons you need to openly display them.
Some slips of the tongue are innocent, mechanical. Others (Freudian Slips) reveal attitudes you wouldn’t want known. And which in some cases are hidden from yourself, by yourself.
Before anyone can tell which is which, more evidence is needed.
Laura says: “Since much in the modern world is largely the creation of Freud’s influence…”
Now that’s a vast overstatement. I think Marx, Einstein, Adam Smith and Bill Gates have left/will leave a much vaster legacy.
In psychology you could name a dozen far more influential folk, like Bandura, Skinner and Eysenck. I would put it this way Freud- is to psychology what alchemy is to chemistry or homeopathy is to medicine.
By the way I have been unfairly categorised by Pavlov’s Cat as a Freud hater. I don’t hate him at all, I just think he was a balmy mega-cocaine addict and that the powerful side effects of this addiction, including vivid dreams, sexual obsessiveness and nasal problems explain much of his work.
I opened a new thread for Freud discussion in case people wanted to continue with this (or join in). http://larvatusprodeo.net/2006/03/27/freud-discussion/
Gummo Trotsky on 24 March 2006 at 3:51 pm
Gummo Trotsky should probably pick his targets at little more prudently, and get up to speed in biological disciplines that he seems to be badly out of touch with, before mouthing off.
John Derbyshire is a good enough science writer to have published a popular science book about the search for the solution of the Riemann hypothesis which turned into a reasonably good seller in this genre.
razib (or is it godless capitalist?), the anonymous subject of the article, are biological scientists whom I have occasionally corresponded with. Both are definitely brilliant, if prickly and arrogant, scientific polymaths who are working on the cutting edge of the most important part of the life sciences.
The claim that there is a tsumami of biological data that threatens to overwhelm practising scientist is not a “bad case of paranoia” debilitating the mind of the “gung-ho young scientist”. Not unless you think that Celera and IBM have made massive investments in compuational genomics just for the heck of it.
It is a reality which will make the sporadic counterblasts emanating from sociological chatter-boxers like this look increasingly feeble. Info-bio technology is one of the hot growth areas in science. Wired reports on a conference a few years back:
It is clear from recent reports that reserchers in this field are serious about their stated aim which is to crack the code of life. I hope, for the sake of his own peace of mind, that gummo trotsky is not pooh-poohing all this because he is bitter about missing the boat.