This is Steadman’s take on our dear old Sigmund Freud and his book Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious. Even though this is by no means a scientific accurate book, you can still pick up some facts about Freud here and there – and if you are into psychoanalysis, you can probably learn a lot about Steadman through his drawings.

 

It is great to see some of Steadman’s art that is not Gonzo style and to really appreciate him as the superb artist he is. I could never take Freud seriously and I have been wondering for a long time if anyone in 2018 still does. Well, even back in 1981 Steadman obviously didn’t.

 

Btw, I bought this book for the art, not the text, because I simply adore Steadman’s work, therefore I was in no way disappointed. The text itself is okay and if you are seriously interested in Freud this is not the book you would pick up anyway.

The amazing Ralph Steadman and his book on Freud.

 

[The picture does not require any analysis. The artist rather does.] Indeed.

At one time it was wrongly believed that ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny (i.e. the embryonic stages mirrors the development stages of the species). Similarly Freud thinks the phases that an individual goes through mirror the same phases that civilizations have gone through. Freud uses that theme to explain his psychoanalysis in describing individuals and the societies in which they live as mirror images of each other.

Yes, Freud does believe some weird things and he restates them in this book such as the early infant's whole world is the mother's breast and thus we end up fetishizing the breast when we grow up, our time in the womb means we always are looking to return to an abode of some kind, something about the anal fixation and how it never leaves us and unrepressed sex desires lead to our anxieties and other such things that sound weird to our modern ears. But those distractions don't necessarily mean that this book is not highly engaging and worth reading. I'll challenge you to read any recent biography because you''ll almost always see the author slip into Freudian speak (e.g. I'm currently listening to "The Purple Diaries: Mary Astor", and the author says that her father was strict and controlling and that made Mary Astor not trusting of men and unwilling to share her feelings with others particularly men, a very Freudian interruption). It's not a bad way of seeing the world. It's how we understand our selves or others. Now days, we just don't add on the word neurosis or repression, but it's how we cope with the nature within ourselves and others.

I like this book for the same reason I liked Nietzsche's "The Genealogy of Morals". I don't agree with what they are saying, but they provide a narrative that is compelling. Matter of fact, you can tell that Freud is really influenced by Nietzsche within this book. Freud will say something such as the "conscience of the individual gets repudiated by the instinct leading to an anxiety that gives a person guilt" and that leads them to the wanting of taking away of the power of the father. (I don't have the quote exactly, but I think its fairly close to what he was getting at). Nietzsche's "will to power" at it's most basic cries out for how the community takes away our primal instincts, takes us away from "mans instinct to freedom". What Freud does within this book is argues Nietzsche's viewpoint with the emphasis slightly different. Freud states that our conscience gets perturb from within the family and by extension within the community leading away from our authentic (not a Freud word, but I feel comfortable using it here) selves.

As I was listening to this I had to pause to see what year he wrote this book. I noticed it came before Heidegger's "Being in Time". Heidegger had a long section on 'conscience', and seemed to conclude that the conscience is the cause of itself. Freud does a similar thing (if you take his complete statement on the topic within the book and you relate it to the father of the individual as he does or as he does latter on in the book to the sacrifice of the Messiah on the cross, he makes it a complete circle thus giving itself as its own ground (I think)). "Will" is defined as it's own cause by St. Thomas Aquinas thus giving our conscience its primal place in his theology and leading to free will such that God can judge us for our moral acts in a necessary universe but which was contingently created by God exercising His will. Freud is giving us our conscience as a thing in itself and thus we can be blamed for who we are or became (even if we are schizophrenic, autistic, or predisposed to alcoholism by genetics, or whatever).

The conscience leads to guilt because of our repressed neurosis (he'll say). Nietzsche will say the guilt is not real, Heidegger says it is because of the debt we owe to the future because of the one absolute truth we always know (our own impending death), and Freud says we have the guilt always but we repress it thus leading to our neurosis. (I love using that word 'neurosis'. It's totally void of meaning and I think the DSM V doesn't use it at all as a category for that reason). All three are trying to return to us our authenticity which has been taken away from us by civilization (and the family).

Freud in this book also lays out a defense for the importance of character, community, and science and aesthetics in the development of the individual and the functioning of civilization as a whole. He dismisses religion. The neurosis (there's that word again) that exist in the individual also exist within the civilization as a whole (he'll say). By character he is getting at blaming the victim. It's the values that the individual (and species) are not learning properly from their community and will later on allow for 'refrigerator mom's' to be blamed when their child is schizophrenic or have autism. He'll even say that civilization as a whole is currently (1920) suffering from neurosis.

Freud lays all of this stuff out in this book. Do I agree with any of it? Not at all. But, there is a narrative that Freud uses that is fun to follow. I liked this short book so much, I'll probably buy "The General Introduction to Psychoanalysis" by Freud that audible offers which I would guess will cover most of this stuff in deeper detail.

There should really be a Freudian party game. Name the first animal, vegetable, and sexual position that come to your mind. And....go! A duck, a ripe carrot, and a goose.

Until then we have a good deal of Freud's nonsense in the original, which never quite seemed nonsense until I finished reading this. I still admire the attempt, with so little historical detail to go on. It's just funny and gratifying to find that Freud sounds like a prude. Maybe he had his nose operated on so many times to really dig the id out of there.

First, Freud is lying to himself if he believes that da Vinci was strictly a celebate homosexual with all those "beautiful" apprentices he hired. Nevertheless, this leads Freud into some of the strangest contortions yet, wherein he analyzes some simple book keeping of expenses paid to demonstrate repressed expression of desire. You have to read it yourself, if you like comedy.

That brings us to the next major problem, which is Freud's claim that repression aided da Vinci's art. Freud even goes so far as to call this a common phenomenon. Aside from the fact that da Vinci was no monk, well, no monk has ever produced da Vinci's art. Assuming da Vinci was a monk and Freud's theory is right, well, it's Freud himself who points out that da Vinci gradually struggled to finish most of his art. Freud's answer might be that it was repression which made da Vinci a scientist. Poor Gregor Mendel.

Things you'll find interesting:
--da Vinci painted the Last Supper in oil, which he knew was wrong for wall art, which is why it's falling apart.
--the "Mona Lisa smile" shows up everywhere, including the art of his students. Seeing it on a very weird John the Baptist really makes you shudder.
--da Vinci's only recorded dream was of a vulture's tail feathers brushing his lips as an infant. Guess what this means. And...go!

Freud said:
"The desire to take the male member into the mouth and suck it, which is considered as one of the most disgusting of sexual perversions, is nevertheless a frequent occurrence among the women of our time...that disgusting sexual fantasy."

To be fair, it might be unclear whether he is referring to the fantasy of women or da Vinci's dream.

At least in this short work, which strangely enough, turned out to be repetitive, Freud's method is to make outrageous claims in quick succession, backtrack a little, then repeat them as a bland hodgepodge which we're now supposed to take for granted. I almost stopped reading, so thorough was the repetition, but I would have missed this choice sentence, suddenly added without explanation:

"Leonardo's physical beauty as well as his left-handedness furnish here some support." Support of what? I am physically beautiful and left-handed, but, frankly, I am no da Vinci.

دافنشي: دراسة تحليلية لذكريات طفل - Sigm... لايزال ثمة ثغرات مبهمة، اعني التحاليل النفسية لحلم طفولته وربطه مع رمزية لوحة سانتا آنا (العذراء والابنِ والقدّيسة آنا) كانت مقنعة الى حد الاذهال، ولكن ربط كل ذلك بمثليته الجنسيّة والكبت الجنسي الذي عاناه اعتقد انه احتوى على بعض الاسنادات الضعيفة شعرتُ من خلالها أن فرويد يتوسط بكل الحجج التي تساند نظريته و تثبت صحة كلامه رغم استبعادها احيانا.

سرد الدراسة كان مختصر وخفيف، حيث الانتقال من حلم مر في الطفولة، الى الرمزية في الديانة الفرعونية واللغة الهيروغليفية وربطها به، وآخيراً الوصول بذلك الى الاثبات ان دافنشي كان مثلي جنسياً بتحديدات طبيعية بسبب مشاكله العائلية وكان يعاني الكبت الجنسي واتضح ذلك في لوحاته (موناليزا) و(العذراء والابنِ والقدّيسة آنا) و(القديس يوحنا).

اكثر ما اعجبني في الكتاب هو انه فريد من نوعه، يعني بصراحة اتمنى لو احصل على المزيد من كتب السيرة الذاتية التي يتكون مضمونها -كهذا الكتاب- على التحليل النفسي للشخصية بدلا عن ذكر محاسنها و التغاضي عن مثالبها وتمجيدها وذكر انجازاتها لصنع منها شخصية وهمية بطولية "كون السبب لكتابة السيرة الذاتية أولاً هو حب تلك الشخصية"



لكن ما علاقة المثلث الذي يتوسط بفيتروفيان مان على الغلاف في الطبعة العربية ؟
رمزية سرية نهضوية تنويرية ماسونية وراء النسبة الذهبية لفيتروفيان مان مثلا؟ :P
وضع لغرض تجاري بحت .. تصميم جميل رغم ذلك