(May 12, 2021 at 8:42 pm)John 6IX Breezy Wrote:(May 12, 2021 at 7:08 pm)vulcanlogician Wrote: I actually like Freud. (Although I recognize his methods are highly problematic.)
There was a certain depth to the early psychologists that has since been lost. They were philosophers of sorts; and viewed the mind rather like a cosmos. Psychology today is often dry and technical in comparison. And it has completely sacrificed the individual at the alter of statistical analysis.
Yes, Freud had a lot of ideas, especially early on, that I wouldn't recommend as therapy. But Civilization and Its Discontents and some others are great books.
Perhaps the main reason that he is out of fashion is the fact that he says we have internal contradictions in ourselves which preclude coming to any sort of happy resolution. That is, a happy life can't be purchased, it can't be prescribed with medicine, and it can't be achieved through therapeutic breakthroughs. It certainly can't be reached through any method that an insurance company can cover.
This is not something that optimistic and consumerist Americans want to hear.
Like Nietzsche, Freud takes his atheism to logical conclusions that famous modern atheists shy away from. The New Atheist types are often good pre-Freudian 19th century Progressives, who think that once we get rid of religion then science and technology will give us utopia. Freud explains why that's not possible, and his reasons are very hard to argue against.