"The Great Encounter"

A Giant Ass Quote From Someone Who Said It Better Than I Ever Could

Every so often I come across a quote that just smacks me in the face. I could sum it up for you or use just a portion of it and surround it with my own thoughts. I don't mind using other people's brilliance to spearhead my agenda. What I'm going to do here is just reproduce an entire section for you. It is something I think should be read. This quote has inspired me, on more than one occasion it has roused me from my contented slumber.

Some time ago I picked up a book called "The Oedipus Plays of Sophocles". This is the entire trilogy: Oedipus The King, Oedipus at Colonus, and Antigone. The translation was done by a man named Paul Roche. This was published in 1958. The Foreword is the section I am leaving below. Everything in bold is as it appeared in the book.

I consider this to be a timely and timeless observation, holding relevance as long as human beings roam the earth.


THE GREAT ENCOUNTER

Sophocles, who died at the age of nearly ninety, two thousand three hundred and sixty-four years ago, was one of the world's greatest poets and dramatists, and he speaks to us today with a message no less necessary and elevating than it was to the Greeks of the fifth century B.C. We too need to be told that man is but a limited and contingent creature, subject to sudden disrupting forces. Success is not finally to be measured by fame or material prosperity. Human greatness consists ultimately in nobly accepting the responsibility of being what we are; human freedom, in the personal working out of our fate in terms appropriate to ourselves. Though we may be innocent, we are all potentially guilty, because of the germ of self-sufficiency and arrogance in our nature. We must remember always that we are only man and be modest in our own conceits. Our place in the total pattern of the cosmos is only finite. That is not to say that it may not be glorious. Whatever our circumstances, we can achieve and endure through to essential greatness. It is not what fate has in store for us that matters, but what we do with it when it comes. There may be suffering, but no abiding hopelessness. No power, no imposition, no catastrophe, can uproot the personal dignity of each human being. The seeming caprice and unfairness of life, striking some down and pampering others, is only the beginning of the Great Encounter. Both the choice and the destiny are ours.

Paul Roche
Smith College
Northampton
May 1, 1958

Freud's Somewhat Gentle Side You Never Read About

It Wasn't All Penises and Penis Stuff?

I recently attended a symposium at SFU. The link for this is here. This was a wonderful symposium. There were, of course, large parts where I had no idea what was going on. But I tried to keep up. I'm not sure I did so well but whatever.

It was nice to be in a room with people who had an admiration for Freud. A realistic respect for the man and his works. So often you find yourself surrounded by people who hate Freud. Often, those same people are the ones who have never read a single line of his work. A glance at introductory psychology texts does not do justice to the huge mind that Freud was. They all have agendas.

The jokes about Freud are numerous and quite funny. The memes out there with him or his quotes are always good for a laugh. The motherfucker remarks are cute and sometimes witty. The average person, or lay person as he would say, does not read him though. And this is really at their peril. They then become victim to specialized agendas who are nothing more than vultures picking the meat from bones, vultures and scavengers who will attack each other hoping for more scraps. Seems like a reliable source..

Christopher Fortune presented on Saturday morning. He presented on Russell Jacoby. He referred to a book called Social Amnesa. Of course, on the lunch break I found the book and last night I read it. Luckily for me a used copy was kicking around. This is a wonderful book. I am going to skip through a lot of good stuff and quote a few parts here to show a side of Freud you don't always see.

"Not in any beyond, but here on earth most men live in a hell: Schopenhauer has seen that very well. My knowledge, my theories and my methods have the goal of making men conscious of this hell so that they can free themselves from it." - Frued quoted at the beginning of chapter 6.

"I do not know if you have detected the secret link between The Question of Lay Analysis and The Future of an Illusion, in the former I wish to protect analysis from the doctors and in the latter from the priests. I should like to hand it over to a profession which does not yet exist, a profession of lay curers of souls who need not be doctors and should not be priests." - Freud in a letter.

"Given the vast amount of neurotic misery 'the quanitity we can do away with is almost negligible'. For this reason Frued backed the idea of state psychoanalytic clinics for the poor." - Freud's words in italics. Freud said that poor people "suffer from neuroses no less than the rich." Next time you pay for treatment remember that quote.

In this selection of quotes I don't see Freud talking about penises or mothers. Where are these quotes when people are pushing their anti-Freudian agendas? I don't care how arrogant or strange Freud was or was accused of being, he seems to be on our side. As much as someone in his shoes can be.

But then again asking people to read a text before forming an opinion hasn't worked so far. The path of least resistance has always been to go with the flow, don't make up your own mind. What happens when you are forced to make a decision all on your own? You get a taste of responsibility. Freedom doesn't taste so good when people have to own what they do. They would prefer to scapegoat something or someone, some idea, or globally entire countries, cultures...