Wednesday, October 17, 2007
After reading about Psychoanalytic theory in the Barry book, I had a lot of questions.
First, Freud says our unconscious is in control of our minds. So, how can Freud accurately analyze and diagnose someone's unconscious behavior and thinking if his unconscious is in control of his mind? He would be attempting to analyze the unconscious with the unconscious, and that just doesn't seem possible. Or, rather, it seems possible, yet how could that be a validating diagnose or analysis?
I have a Spirituality and Mysticism class directly after Critical Theory and the Academy; polar opposite classes back to back. First I will be in class thinking about Derrida, and how if everything is a structure, and every structure can be decentered, resulting with universe that holds zero fixed and stable truths...where does that put God? Was Derrida an atheist? Then I'll go to my next class where we are discussing the journey of mysitics, whose goal is to be in union with God, that everything and everyone is part of God, and we must strengthen ourselves as spiritual beings.
Jesus' sacrament was love. Love those you fear. Every action you do in you life, do it with love. Derrida says that love is narcissistic. It is a relationship with the Self through the Other. That is a completely different message Jesus'.
I am not religious. I am curious, though, and I would like to know what others think of this juxtaposition of ideas.
In a sense, love is a structure. And by Derrida's definition, that is defining oneself and loving oneself through the lens of the Other. What I am is derived from you. By using Jesus' opposing "arguement," because I don't think Jesus would agree with Derrida, or maybe to a certain degree he would. But wouldn't this opposition create an instability among the structure of love? Or God? Wouldn't this structure then be decentered?
Yesterday in class we also talked about Descartes' words, "I think therefore I am."
The center is the Self...a free individual capable of self-awareness without the presence of the Other. If the Self is in itself a center, can the Self the be decentered, thus seen as flawed, thus having no absolute truth?
What is the identity of the Self?
Can the Self be decentered?
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2 comments:
Freud analyzing another person's unconscious with his un conscious is an interesting thought. Kind of mind boggling. Is it therefore impossible for Freud to understand another's unconscious unless he can tap into his own?
I feel the same way when I go from this class to religion directly afterwards. It is hard to think about abstract theories that hold some concrete truths, (this class) and then to go and think about concrete ideas that we have no idea if they can be true. (religion class) I think by having the two classes together it makes us think more about how religion might stand in critical theory. Does religion even have a place there? Also, it would be interesting to find out the religions of different people like Derrida and Freud.
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