Freud,the Serpent and the Sexual Enlightenment of Children

Abstract

This paper examines Freud's interpretation of the myth of the Fall, which he sent to Jung in December of 1911. After a textual-historical exegesis of the Genesis narrative, I argue that many features of the myth, which Freud construed in Oedipal terms, are more intelligible in light of his theories of infantile sexual researches, which he abandoned in 1910. The etiological shift away from infantile sexual researches (and the consequent Oedipalization of analytic theory) were 1) not prompted solely by clinical considerations, and 2) heralded dramatic changes in attitudes toward children and the rejection of paternal authority in Freud and his circle, and 3) corresponding changes in the structure and organization of the psychoanalytic movement itself, creating an orthodoxy or “party line”.

The term “orthodoxy” means “uniformity of belief”, and is usually applied to religious groups, whose dogmatic emphasis on a specific body of doctrine serves to define the group's membership and boundaries, and to exclude “unbelievers” from its midst. In this sense, Freud's style of leadership was distinctly “religious”. Due to deep seated resistances in the analytic world, it is possible that disparities between Freud's earlier and later attitudes toward children will never be thematized and explored with the attention and seriousness they deserve. But the attempt must be made, and by exploring the Genesis narrative, we can grasp the personal and political motives that molded Freud's theory of religion, and glimpse the outlines of paths not taken in the clinical theory.     

Eve and the Serpent: A Rational Choice to Err

In dealing with inexplicable disaster, like the untimely death of a child in a hospital, we increasingly turn to the justice system for accountability and retribution. While seemingly sensible, criminalizing human error has a range of negative consequences. But it does offer “good” narratives of failure as the result of human fault—even at the cost of guilt. Such narratives allow us to pinpoint a cause: people made a rational choice to err and should be punished. This allows us to imagine ourselves in control over random, meaningless events. This paper traces Judeo–Christian roots of such regulative ideals in Western moral thinking, by examining the Genesis account of Eve and the Serpent, and St. Augustine’s interpretation of it. Sidney Dekker (Ph.D., The Ohio State University, 1996) is currently Professor of human factors and system safety at Lund University in Sweden, and specializes in human error and reactions to failure.     

Changing Views of Serpent Handling: A Quasi-Experimental Study

Knowledge about serpent handling sects (SHS) even among social scientists and legislators has been largely influenced by biased media reports. Our own field research suggests that factual knowledge about SHS is effective in changing stereotypes about serpent handling and in altering views as to the rights of believers to handle serpents in church. In a quasi-experimental study, participants were pretested with respect to both prejudicial and reasoned evaluative views about SHS. Participants saw either a video of contemporary SHS in which handlers demonstrated and explained their faith, or a control tape in which contemporary SHS were shown but serpent handling was neither demonstrated nor defended. As predicted, viewing the serpent handling video was effective in reducing stereotyping of SHS and in changing attitudes regarding the sincerity of the believers and the right of SHS to practice their faith without legal constraints. Appropriate controls indicated that changes were not simply a function of a pretest by treatment interaction. The relevance of these data for altering laws against the practice of serpent handling is discussed.     

The Malicious Serpent: Snakes as a prototypical stimulus for an evolved module of fear

As reptiles, snakes may have signified deadly threats in the environment of early mammals. We review findings suggesting that snakes remain special stimuli for humans. Intense snake fear is prevalent in both humans and other primates. Humans and monkeys learn snake fear more easily than fear of most other stimuli through direct or vicarious conditioning. Neither the elicitation nor the conditioning of snake fear in humans requires that snakes be consciously perceived; rather, both processes can occur with masked stimuli. Humans tend to perceive illusory correlations between snakes and aversive stimuli, and their attention is automatically captured by snakes in complex visual displays. Together, these and other findings delineate an evolved fear module in the brain. This module is selectively and automatically activated by once-threatening stimuli, is relatively encapsulated from cognition, and derives from specialized neural circuitry.     

Serpent versus surrogate and other determinants of runway fear differences

Avoidance behavior and fear ratings by snake-fearful college volunteers were studied as a function of live vs stuffed snake stimuli, order of presenting the snakes, accompanied (participant modeling format) or unaccompanied social context in the runway test, high or moderate initial fear level and sex of subject. The live snake sponsored more avoidance and rated fear than the specimen, and type of snake stimulus interacted with students' initial fear levels, thus raising questions about previous research using specimens instead of live phobic animal stimuli. Accompanied social context produced generally less fear and avoidance than unaccompanied approach. Numerous complex interactions were found among the type of snake, presentation sequence, social context, sex and fear level variables, raising methodological cautions for future research.     

论《易传》中的"道"

<易传>所谓"道",其存在形式为"形而上",其内在规定性为"阴阳",其主要功能为"变"与"生"."形而上",指<周易>古经中的卦爻画所蕴含的阴阳变易法则.<易传>透过卦爻符号的独特结构形式,将这一变易法则"演绎"为天地人三才统一的宇宙图式,同时又借助于这一符号系统,彰显出"生生不息"的宇宙本质.     

The Law of Christ All the Way Down

Abstract:  A reading of Paul and Matthew on Christian obedience suggests that the polemic against 'law' is not directed to all forms of religious practice, but instead only to a particular set of religious practices developed by Israel's sages. Law should not therefore be opposed to grace; instead the correct opposition is between the 'law' taught as the proper way of living before God by the majority of rabbis and the law of Christ, taught by Paul, Matthew and others.     

The Modal Third Way

International Journal for Philosophy of Religion -     

The Archetype of the Way: Part 2 The Ego-Self Relationship

相似文献   

《周易》哲学的"中道"观

本文认为<周易>哲学的"中道"法度有三个:"三才定中",发轫于天地,展现天地贞观的宇宙图式;"体用得中".思辨于筮法,萌发道器合一的本体架构;"时行成中",着跟于天下,诉说乐天知命的生存情怀.这三者各有特色,又相互关联,共同组建了<易>之生生之道.其影响也早已远远超出了易学范围.对其探讨,有助于我们把握<周易>哲学的底蕴,也有利于我们洞悉整个中国哲学的发展特质.     

Truth and Holiness: The Way of the Cross

The Unity We Have and the Unity We Seek: Ecumenical Prospects for the Third Millennium , Jeremy Morris and Nicholas Sagovsky (eds), T. & T. Clark 2003, A Continuum Imprint (Hb 0-567-8907-X, Pb 0-567-08879-0), pp. xix + 244, Pb £14.99
In One Body Through the Cross: The Princeton Proposal for Christian Unity , Carl E. Braaten and Robert W. Jenson (eds), Eerdmans 2003 (0-8028-2298-3), pp. 62, Pb £7.99/$10     

Ontology Downgraded All The Way

Willard Quine has recently defended his brand of scientific realism and naturalism (1992). He has expanded his defense (1993, 1996), utilizing observation sentences in their holophrastic guise. He also argues that the latter bear ... significantly on the epistemology of ontology and provide for the commensurability of theories. I argue that they fail in all these tasks. Further, Quine's long-standing commitment to a kind of scientific realism, on the one hand, and his frequent employment of proxy functions and the rejection of transcendental metaphysics, on the other, constitute an untenable position. A consistent Quinean must abandon scientific realism and ontology.     

腋窝肿物的诊断思路

腋窝肿物虽为外科临床常见病,但其来源及病因多样,部分患者很难确诊。本文就腋窝肿物及其诊断思路做一介绍,应详细询问病史、全面和重点查体、合理选择辅助检查,综合分析进行诊断。