Synthesized answer
The subtitle of "Totem and Taboo," "Resemblances Between the Psychic Lives of Savages and Neurotics," published in 1919, inherently provoked controversy by comparing indigenous peoples ("savages") to individuals with mental illness ("neurotics"). This comparison suggests a belief that the "psychic life" of "savages" represents an "early stage of our own development" [2]. The work posits that these "savages" are "incapable of telling us" about the motivation behind their prohibitions, implying an "unconscious" drive akin to neurotics [3]. This framing could be seen as ethically problematic for potentially pathologizing and demeaning entire cultures by equating them with mental disorder.
Academically, the comparison challenged existing methods. Freud explicitly states his work contrasts with W. Wundt and the Zurich Psychoanalytic School, as his approach applies psychoanalytic viewpoints to "unexplained problems of racial psychology" [1, 5]. This integration of individual psychological analysis with the study of "primitive races" was a novel and potentially contentious methodology. The passages do not elaborate on specific ethical, social, or academic controversies beyond these…
Synthesized from the book passages below. Chat with the book on Feynman for follow-up.
From the book
RESEMBLANCES BETWEEN THE PSYCHIC LIVES OF SAVAGES AND NEUROTICS BY PROFESSOR SIGMUND FREUD, L<small>l</small>.D. Authorized English Translation, with Introduction by A. A. BRILL, Ph.B., M.D. Asst. Prof. of Psychiatry, N.Y. Post-Graduate Medical School; Lecturer in Psychoanalysis and Abnormal Psychology, New York University; former Chief of Clinic of Psychiatry, Columbia University [Illustration: colophon] LONDON GEORGE ROUTLEDGE & SONS, LIMITED 1919 _Printed in Great Britain by_ Butler & Tanner. _Frome and London_ AUTHOR’S PREFACE The essays…
uliar interest for us, for we can recognize in their psychic life a well-preserved, early stage of our own development. If this assumption is correct, a comparison of the ‘Psychology of Primitive Races’ as taught by folklore, with the psychology of the neurotic as it has become known through psychoanalysis will reveal numerous points of correspondence and throw new light on subjects that are more or less familiar to us. For outer as well as for inner reasons, I am choosing for this comparison those tribes which have been described by ethnographists as being most backward and wretched:…
ay now make the attempt to study taboo as if it were of the same nature as the compulsive prohibitions of our patients. It must naturally be clearly understood that many of the taboo prohibitions which we shall study are already secondary, displaced and distorted, so that we shall have to be satisfied if we can shed some light upon the earliest and most important taboo prohibitions. We must also remember that the differences in the situation of the savage and of the neurotic may be important enough to exclude complete correspondence and prevent a point by point transfer from one to…
r when the second was reached but continued in a state of greatly lowered esteem which gradually turned into contempt. It is a general law in mythology that a preceding stage, just because it has been overcome and pushed back by a higher stage, maintains itself next to it in a debased form so that the objects of its veneration become objects of aversion[39]. Wundt’s further elucidations refer to the relation of taboo to lustration and sacrifice. 2 He who approaches the problem of taboo from the field of psychoanalysis, which is concerned with the study of the unconscious part of…
cial psychology. In method this book contrasts with that of W. Wundt and the works of the Zurich Psychoanalytic School. The former tries to accomplish the same object through assumptions and procedures from non-analytic psychology, while the latter follow the opposite course and strive to settle problems of individual psychology by referring to material of racial psychology[1]. I am pleased to say that the first stimulus for my own works came from these two sources. I am fully aware of the shortcomings in these essays. I shall not touch upon those which are characteristic of first…
More questions about this book
- If you were to explain the central goal of "Totem and Taboo" to a curious friend who knows nothing about it, how would you articulate Freud's unique approach to "racial psychology" and the "resemblances" he seeks to explore?
- Freud distinguishes his method from W. Wundt and the Zurich Psychoanalytic School. Can you clearly explain the fundamental difference in approach for *each* of these three perspectives, particularly regarding how they relate individual and racial psychology?
- Freud states that his essays "can only be thoroughly understood and judged by those who are really acquainted with psychoanalysis as such." What specific foundational concepts or theoretical frameworks must a reader already grasp to fully engage with his arguments in "Totem and Taboo"?
- Freud hopes his work serves as a "bond" between ethnology, philology, folklore, and psychoanalysts. What unique contributions or new avenues of inquiry could a psychoanalytic lens offer to these allied sciences, and conversely, what might they offer to psychoanalysis?