For some time psychoanalysts have tended to view Freud's cultural writings—concerning modernity, secularism, science, and religion—disparagingly, seeing them as the unscientific speculations of a misguided genius. But the questions Freud explored in those works are pressing topics that deserve serious attention. Just as fascism provided the historical context in which the critical theorists of the Frankfurt School developed a psychoanalytic social theory in the 1930s and 1940s, so the rise of fundamentalism demands a similar effort today. The “project of autonomy” conceptualized by the psychoanalyst-philosopher Castoriadis can be used to situate psychoanalysis in its broader historical context, as part of the emancipatory movement of modernity, and to elucidate fundamentalism as an attempt to turn back that project and reinstate the values of premodern traditional societies. Because the widespread aversion to secularism today is in no small degree the responsibility of secularists themselves— Freud's relatively crude and simplistic disregard of some of the deepest yearnings of humankind is a case in point—it is time to formulate, using the work of Hans Loewald, a more sensitive and sophisticated psychoanalytic view of religion. Yet psychoanalytic secularists must avoid overcompensating for past mistakes by giving too much ground to antisecularists. The legitimate desire to do justice to religion must not trump the need to advance the project of autonomy as a first priority.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Adorno, T.W. (1973). The Jargon of Authenticity. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.
2.
Arendt, H. (1983). Men in Dark Times. New York : Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
3.
Armstrong, R. (in press). Marooned Mandarins: Freud, classical education, and the Jews of Vienna. In Classics and National Culture, ed. S. Stephens & P. Vasunia.New York: Oxford University Press.
4.
Berger, P. (1999). The Desecularization of the World: Resurgent Religion and World Politics. Grand Rapids, MI: Ethics and Public Policy Center / Erdmans.
5.
Blumenberg, H. (1983). The Legitimacy of the Modern Age, transl. R.M. Wallace. Cambridge: MIT Press.
6.
Bohleber, W. (2003). Collective phantasms, destructiveness, and terrorism . In Violence or Dialogue? Psychoanalytic Insights on Terror and Terrorism, ed. S. Varvin & V.D. Volkan.London: IPA Publications, pp. 111-130.
7.
Casanova, J. (1994). Public Religions in the Modern World. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
8.
Castoriadis, C. (1984). Crossroads in the Labyrinth, transl. K. Soper & M.H. Ryle. Cambridge: MIT Press.
9.
--- ( 1987). The Imaginary Institution of Society, transl. K. Blamey . Cambridge: MIT Press.
10.
--- ( 1997). World in Fragments: Writings on Politics, Society, Psychoanalysis, and the Imagination, transl. D.A. Curtis. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
11.
Cavell, S. (1987). Freud and philosophy: A fragment. Critical Inquiry13:386-493.
12.
Chasseguet-Smirgel, J. (1984). The Ego Ideal: A Psychoanalytic Essay on the Malady of the Ideal, transl. P. Barrows. New York: Norton.
13.
Cooper, A.M. (1988). Our changing views of the therapeutic action of psychoanalysis: Comparing Strachey and Loewald. Psychoanalytic Quarterly57:15-27.
14.
Crapanzano, V. (2000). Serving the Word: Literalism in America from the Pulpit to the Bench. New York: New Press.
15.
Daston, L., & Galison, P. (2007). Objectivity. New York: Zone Press.
16.
Edmundson, M. (2007). The Death of Sigmund Freud: The Legacy of His Last Days. New York: Bloomsbury USA.
17.
Fogel, G.I., ED. (1991). The Work of Hans Loewald: An Introduction and Commentary. New York: Aronson.
18.
Forrester, J. (1980). Language and the Origins of Psychoanalysis. New York: Columbia University Press.
19.
Freud, S. (1910). Leonardo da Vinci and a memory of his childhood . Standard Edition11:63-137.
20.
--- ( 1912-1913). Totem and taboo: Some points of agreement between the mental lives of savages and neurotics. Standard Edition13:1-161.
21.
--- ( 1914). On narcissism: An introduction. Standard Edition14:73-102.
22.
--- ( 1915a). Thoughts for the time on love and war. Standard Edition14:275-300.
23.
--- ( 1915b). The unconscious. Standard Edition14:166-215.
24.
--- ( 1927). The future of an illusion. Standard Edition21:5-56.
25.
--- ( 1930). Civilization and its discontents. Standard Edition21:64-145.
26.
--- ( 1933). New introductory lectures on psycho-analysis. Standard Edition22:5-182.
27.
Habermas, J. (1971). Knowledge and Human Interests, transl. J.J. Shapiro . Boston: Beacon Press.
28.
Horkheimer, M., & Adorno, T. (1947). Dialectic of Enlightenment: Philosophical Fragments, transl. E. Jephcott. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002.
29.
Jay, M. ( 1973). The Dialectical Imagination: A History of the Frankfurt School and the Institute for Social Research, 1923-1950. Boston: Little, Brown.
30.
Jones, J.W. (1991). Contemporary Psychoanalysis and Religion: Transference and Transcendence. New Haven: Yale University Press.
31.
--- ( 2002). Terror and Transformation: The Ambiguity of Religion in Psychoanalytic Perspective. New York: Taylor & Francis.
32.
Juergensmeyer, M. (2000). Global Rebellion: Religious Challenges to the Secular State, from Christian Militias to al Qaeda. Berkeley : University of California Press.
33.
Kakar, S. (1996). The Colors of Violence: Cultural Identities, Religion and Conflict. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
34.
Kant, I. (1781). Critique of Pure Reason, transl. N.K. Smith. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1965 .
35.
Kernberg, O. (2003a). Sanctioned social violence: A psychoanalytic view (Part I). International Journal of Psychoanalysis84:683-698.
36.
--- ( 2003b). Sanctioned social violence: A psychoanalytic view (Part II). International Journal of Psychoanalysis84:953-968.
37.
La Barre, W. (1972). The Ghost Dance: The Origins of Religion. New York: Dell.
38.
Lear, J. (1998a). Inside and outside The Republic. In Open Minded. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, pp. 245-250.
39.
--- ( 1998b). The introduction of Eros: Reflections on the work of Hans Loewald. In Open Minded. Cambridge : Harvard University Press, pp. 123-147.
40.
--- ( 2000). Introduction. In The Essential Loewald: Collected Papers and Monographs, ed. N. Quist.Hagerstown, MD: University Publishing Group, pp. ix-xliii.
41.
Loewald, H. (1951). Ego and reality. In Papers on Psychoanalysis . New Haven: Yale University Press , 1980, pp. 3-20.
42.
--- ( 1952). The problem of defense and the neurotic interpretation of reality. In Papers on Psychoanalysis. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980, pp. 21-32.
43.
--- ( 1960). On the therapeutic action of psychoanalysis. In Papers on Psychoanalysis. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980, pp. 221-256.
44.
--- ( 1971). On motivation and instinct theory. In Papers on Psychoanalysis. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980, pp. 102-137.
45.
--- ( 1975). Psychoanalysis as an art and the fantasy character of the psychoanalytic situation. In Papers on Psychoanalysis. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980, pp. 352-371.
46.
--- ( 1977). Book review essay on The Freud/Jung Letters. In Papers on Psychoanalysis. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980, pp. 405-418.
47.
--- ( 1978a). Primary process, secondary process, and language. In Papers on Psychoanalysis. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980, pp. 178-206.
48.
--- ( 1978b). Psychoanalysis and the History of the Individual. New Haven: Yale University Press.
49.
--- ( 1979a). Psychoanalysis and the history of the individual. In The Essential Loewald: Collected Papers and Monographs, ed. N. Quist.Hagerstown, MD: University Publishing Group, 2000, pp. 532-579.
50.
--- ( 1979b). The waning of the Oedipus complex. In Papers on Psychoanalysis. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980, pp. 384-404.
51.
--- ( 1980). Papers on Psychoanalysis. New Haven : Yale University Press.
52.
Marcuse, H. (1966). Eros and Civilization: A Philosophical Inquiry into Freud. Boston: Beacon Press .
53.
Masson, J., ED. (1985). The Complete Letters of Sigmund Freud to Wilhelm Fliess 1887-1904. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
54.
Proudfoot, W. (1985). Religious Experience. Berkeley : University of California Press.
55.
Rabinbach, R. (1997). The cunning of reason: Mimesis and the construction of anti-Semitism in Horkheimer and Adorno's Dialectic of Enlightenment. In In the Shadow of Catastrophe: German Intellectuals between Apocalypse and Enlightenment. Berkeley: University of California Press, pp. 165-198.
56.
Scholem, G. (1976). On Jews and Judaism in Crisis: Selected Essays , ed. W.J. Dannhauser.New York: Schocken Books.
57.
Whitebook, J. (1995). Perversion and Utopia: A Study of Psychoanalysis and Critical Theory. Cambridge: MIT Press.
58.
--- ( 2004a). Hans Loewald: A radical conservative. International Journal of Psychoanalysis85:97-116.
59.
--- ( 2004b). The marriage of Marx and Freud: Critical theory and psychoanalysis. In The Cambridge Companion to Critical Theory , ed. F. Rush.New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 74-102.
60.
Wiggershhaus, R. (1994). The Frankfurt School: Its History, Theories and Political Significance, transl. M. Robertson. Cambridge : MIT Press.
61.
Winnicott, D.W. (1971). Transitional objects and transitional phenomena . In Playing and Reality. New York: Tavistock Publications, pp. 1-25.
62.
Wittgenstein, L. (1953). Philosophical Investigations, transl. G.E.M. Anscombe . New York: Blackwell.
63.
Yovel, Y. (1989). Spinoza and Other Heretics: The Adventures of Immanence. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
