New Interpretations of the Mind: Psychoanalysis in Fin-de-Siècle Vienna
According to Carl E. Schorske, the liberal values of reason and law did not stem the re-emergence of racial prejudice and national hatred in turn-of-the-century Vienna.” The growing prominence of new social groups based along religious, ideological, and ethnic divisions eroded classical liberal values and challenged its political authority. This evolved into a psychological defeat for its adherents. Birthed in this deteriorating environment of fin-de-siècle Vienna, Sigmund Freud’s project of psychoanalysis, created new means to make sense of the crisis of liberal polity and generational change in Vienna.
In the nineteenth century, man was thought of as a rational being, …show more content…
Civilisation began when the young men of a tribe banded to murder the father figure, the tribal leader who had appropriated all the women for his own sexual use. In the same vein, Freud appropriated the Oedipus myth to bring out its sexual dimensions, and used it to explain how sexual impulses drive our neuroses. In the Interpretation of Dreams, Freud uses his Revolutionary Dream as an example of the Oedipus complex – where a child sees his father as a rival – in the context of Vienna’s political paralysis. In August 1898, multiple political incidents weighed heavily on Freud’s mind. On the day of his dream, Freud had been waiting on a train platform when he saw the Austrian Prime Minister, Count Franz Thun enter a luxury compartment without a ticket. Schorske suggests that this triggered Freud’s resentment of the aristocracy, which then merged with his previous political experiences in his dream, where he imagined himself back at a university gathering and angrily refuting a deprecating remark on German nationalism made by a Thun-like …show more content…
Freud’s father had previously sought to impress upon young Freud that liberalism had improved the prospects of Jews. Subsequently, Freud was disgusted to discover that his father had once remained passive in the face of abuse by an anti-Semitic ruffian. Hence, Schorske suggests that that Freud’s victory over his father was really a personal fulfilment of the generational uprising amongst his intellectual peers against patriarchal traditions. While they sought to dismantle and reject their father’s liberal creeds, Freud wished to accomplish what his father had failed to adequately defend. Moreover, Freud proposed that childhood experiences were fundamental to the person’s self. By linking the individual experience to society, Freud suggests that societal constructs originated from a primal conflict, and the past continues to manifest as crises. Hence, we may extrapolate that the liberals’ discontent with their inherited traditions stemmed from the “death-wish against parents [that] dates back to earliest childhood”. Overall, Freud suggests that his personal Oedipal victory over his father could be seen as a victory over politics; in his dream, psychology overcomes
According to Carl E. Schorske, the liberal values of reason and law did not stem the re-emergence of racial prejudice and national hatred in turn-of-the-century Vienna.” The growing prominence of new social groups based along religious, ideological, and ethnic divisions eroded classical liberal values and challenged its political authority. This evolved into a psychological defeat for its adherents. Birthed in this deteriorating environment of fin-de-siècle Vienna, Sigmund Freud’s project of psychoanalysis, created new means to make sense of the crisis of liberal polity and generational change in Vienna.
In the nineteenth century, man was thought of as a rational being, …show more content…
Civilisation began when the young men of a tribe banded to murder the father figure, the tribal leader who had appropriated all the women for his own sexual use. In the same vein, Freud appropriated the Oedipus myth to bring out its sexual dimensions, and used it to explain how sexual impulses drive our neuroses. In the Interpretation of Dreams, Freud uses his Revolutionary Dream as an example of the Oedipus complex – where a child sees his father as a rival – in the context of Vienna’s political paralysis. In August 1898, multiple political incidents weighed heavily on Freud’s mind. On the day of his dream, Freud had been waiting on a train platform when he saw the Austrian Prime Minister, Count Franz Thun enter a luxury compartment without a ticket. Schorske suggests that this triggered Freud’s resentment of the aristocracy, which then merged with his previous political experiences in his dream, where he imagined himself back at a university gathering and angrily refuting a deprecating remark on German nationalism made by a Thun-like …show more content…
Freud’s father had previously sought to impress upon young Freud that liberalism had improved the prospects of Jews. Subsequently, Freud was disgusted to discover that his father had once remained passive in the face of abuse by an anti-Semitic ruffian. Hence, Schorske suggests that that Freud’s victory over his father was really a personal fulfilment of the generational uprising amongst his intellectual peers against patriarchal traditions. While they sought to dismantle and reject their father’s liberal creeds, Freud wished to accomplish what his father had failed to adequately defend. Moreover, Freud proposed that childhood experiences were fundamental to the person’s self. By linking the individual experience to society, Freud suggests that societal constructs originated from a primal conflict, and the past continues to manifest as crises. Hence, we may extrapolate that the liberals’ discontent with their inherited traditions stemmed from the “death-wish against parents [that] dates back to earliest childhood”. Overall, Freud suggests that his personal Oedipal victory over his father could be seen as a victory over politics; in his dream, psychology overcomes