Freud

Whether or not you agree with Freud’s theories of psychoanalysis, you cannot argue that his influence was not staggering. At the time it was revolutionary and even today remains remarkable in its depth and oddness.

Freud and Plato:

Freud’s views were in line with Plato’s idea of the tripartite self; reason, spirit and desire.

However the beyond this their theories are the polar opposites, Plato believed that reason could rule spirit and desire. Freud however felt reason was the weakness of the three because human beings are irrational by nature.

He argued we are driven by desires that are outside of our control, beyond our conscious mind thus reason will never be dominant. 

Freud and Marx:

Freud didn’t care for Marx’s political views, rejecting Marx’s idea of a communist society as hopelessly idealistic given man’s nature to put desire above reason even without intent.

Freud and the Unconscious:

Freud believed our deepest need is aggression, the wilful desire to hurt others and ultimately destroy ourselves. He believed that through psychoanalysis he had discovered things about the unconscious that were never known before. 

Freud’s ideas were a challenge to the Enlightenment, an alternative to rationality which instead argues for innate impulses and overall lack of self control over ones cognitive faculties. 

Furthermore his theories presented a bleak vision of humanity; he saw the reality of human nature as pain and suffering arising out of his own psychic alienation and the painful interaction with other human beings.

Living between two major World Wars and suffering with cancer of the mouth for over decade, Freud had experience with this pain on both a global and personal level. Therefore it is unsurprising that this would manifest in his deeply pessimistic writings.

The deep pessimism seen in his theories is something he would readily admit to. He said that (to paraphrase): ‘When you think of my views, think of Rembrandt, a little light but a lot of darkness.’

The Freudian Personality:

Freud theorised the mind was divided into 3 distinct processes that are in a constant everlasting conflict with one another.

Id: This is the primal instinct to avoid pain and gain pleasure. The id is synonymous with sex and aggression and dominate the personality on a subconscious level allows wanting express these desires and doing so to varying degrees.

Ego: Represents rationality. It is our reasoning faculty and is the least powerful of the three. It dictates moderation and common sense and so must fight constantly against the primal urges of the id and repressive nature of the superego.

Superego: The internalised rules of parents of society. It develops after birth through socialisation. It punishes the ego with guilt as it holds it up to impossibly high standards of perfection. It also deals with morality in a way that supersedes the ego and is more akin fanatical belief. Hence why the superego can be substituted or strengthened by religion. 

Civilisation is a collective superego and whilst the religious teachings of peace may propagate the fundamental instincts that underlie human behaviour in the id will remain and so: ‘Man is wolf to man.’

Freud states that this conflict between the three can result in repression and defence mechanisms. These include:

Sublimation: This concerns releasing sexual energy and aggression in a way that is socially acceptable. For example relieving them by playing sports or doing work. 

Displacement: Turning shameful thoughts into something else.

Projection: Placing our negative thoughts on someone else.

Regression: Regressing to an earlier developmental stage.

Coping mechanisms include the chemical; intoxication or isolation but both are temporary. Sublimation is also a coping mechanism  but will never give one as much pleasure as ‘the real thing.’

Freud states the only way to actually solve the problem is through analysis which involves strengthening the ego so that a person might become a more rational creature. However this is not for everyone and so humanity overall will continue its self-destructive ways as primal instinct fights against societal restraints.

L'Age D'Or

L'Age D'Or was released in 1930 to a largely hostile audience. It was a surreal movie which concerned two lovers constantly thwarted by their families, church and society to fulfil their passionate desires. The film intended to send the message that sexual repression within society breeds violence. It is perhaps ironic then that during a screening, members of the Fascist League of Patriots threw ink at the screen and attacked members of the audience.

L'Age D'Or is a strange film which was shown to illustrate Freud’s ideas of sexual repression, id, ego and superego in practice. It shows a world where two lovers are without restraint i.e. controlled by their id completely. The ego isn’t anywhere to be found whilst the superego takes the place of the church, parents and society as it continually attempts to stop them. The film demonstrates what society could be without restraint where Freudian desires are realised full and completely with little regard to consequence, social or otherwise.

The History of the Daily Mirror

The history of the Daily Mirror is a long and turbulent one wrought with both failures and successes.

The Daily Mirror was the idea of Alfred Harmsworth. Harmsworth was born in 1865 into a comfortable environment. Whilst failing in his studies he successfully worked for a magazines until 1886 where at the age of 21 he stole some paper and launched his own magazine called Answers. This magazine was shamelessly modelled after the commercially successful Tit-bits.

Harmsworth skilfully used competitions and cash prizes to boost circulation and eventually after months of planning and testing the Daily Mail was launched in 1896.

The Daily Mail was created to capture a brand new audience, the young literate working class with little time and energy, the paper would have articles no more than 250 words. This was to allow it to be interesting yet sufficiently simple for the working man. On the first day of publication sales far exceeded expectations and immediately turned a substantial profit. The Daily Mail used such cash prizes and competitions like its predecessor but also innovated in other ways including a woman’s column. 

The woman’s section proved so popular that the Daily Mirror was created, to be written by and for women. In preparation to the launch of the new paper it was given a lavish advertising campaign which included large advertisements in the Daily Mail. The Mirror was launched with high hopes but sales quickly plummeted after the first day. The paper was an unmitigated disaster and what’s more; an embarrassment. 

The Daily Mirror sold so poorly that it ate into the profits of the Daily Mail and risked destroying both papers in the process. After so much capital had been invested, Northcliffe couldn’t simply ahandon the paper or shut it down lest it take his Emprie with it. He hired … who immediately fired the entire female writing staff.

The paper was renamed ‘The Illustrated Daily Mirror’ but in print simply ‘Illustrated Mirror.’ In 1904 the Mirror was relaunched as a picture paper, pictures of the royals tripled the paper’s circulation overnight and a year after relaunch the circulation was almost 300,000.

The new mirror was designed to be even easier to read than the Daily Mail, to entertain people on the way to work, ‘to prevent them from thinking.’

The Mirror was responsible for, at least in part for allowing cameras to become more portable and film that required less exposure time. Mirror photographers were encouraged into dangerous situations and as such were the first to accomplish many feats such as flying aboard a zeppelin airship.

The Mirror’s greatest scoop was King Edward VII’s deathbed pictures, these proved so incredibly popular that it broke circulation figures for the time selling over 2 million copies.

However despite commercial success, by 1905 was badly regarded. At this point photographers were thought of as ghouls as they would often appear at places of tradegy taking pictures. With the Mirror being a picture paper their image suffered.

Yet on the outbreak of World War 1 the paper’s circulation and reputation were given a massive boost. Circulation quickly rose to 500,000 within the first year of the war as the public enjoyed seeing a glimpse of the war whilst the soldiers on the front lines appreciated the escapist glimpses of home the paper provided. After the war the Mirror continued strongly with a newly earned reputation as a reliable paper with good circulation figures.

1922 was a n eventful year with the death of Lord Northcliffe and the Free Gift War. The Free Gift War was essentially as it sounds, each newspaper giving away items to entice buyers. It was a form of mutually assured destruction which sot the national papers £3 million a year, destroying the industry.

In 1931 the Mirror and the other two papers Rothermere had inherited were converted to fascism. The paper supported Hitler’s efforts overseas and the efforts of the growing British Fascists throughout the UK.

In 1933 in response to the efforts of the Mail and Mirror, Hitler a letter to Rothermere thanking him for all he has done.

In 1934 all of Rothermere’s papers quickly dropped their fascist slant. This was simply due to the loss of ad revenue by large Jewish run enterprises. This sudden drop of support was a severe blow to the British Fascists whose membership decreased by almost 90% within a year.

However Rothermere remained a fascists and anti-Semite at heart and firmly believed till the end of his life that Britain should have sided with Germany.

When Bart took over the Mirror, circulation had dropped from 2 million to 800,000 losing 100,000 readers annually.

Harry Guy Bartholomew or ‘Bart’ had joined the Mirror in 1904  as photographic technican. He created the Bartlane system with Captain McFarlane of New York’s ‘Daily News.’ This system allowed photos to be transmitted by radio in minutes or hours rather than days or weeks.

The Mirror underwent many changes as it strived to boost circulation. It changed to become like US tabloids with comics. This alone helped lead to a monthly increase in circulation. Under Bart, Cudlipp introduces readers letters and an agony aunt among other things all of which helped to reinvigorate reader interest in the paper and conintue to boost circulation.

The Mirror’s coverage of a child abuse case almost cuases a man to lynched as over 2,000 people assaulted his home. Sales increased sharply and the Mirror continued the stratedgy of bold, exaggerated articles.

After Bart fire King, Cudlipp betrays Bart by leaving with King. Bart is outraged but can do nothing to stop him leaving.

In 1938 with the outbreak of World War 2 fast approaching King and Cudlipp meet with Churchill to plan a political campaign against appeasement. Chuchhill is signed up as a columnist for both the Mirror and the Sunday Pictorial.

When war breaks out again Cudlipp is conscripted and ended up editing an army paper called the ‘Union Jack’ which served as propaganda and a morale boost.

Meanwhile in 1942 the Mirror is almost shut down after publishing a highly controversial cartoon, the paper barely survives.

After the war the Mirror successfully swings votes to Labour by targeting soldiers’ wives whom they expected would be voting for their husbands overseas.

Bart is eventually betrayed and forced out of the Mirror, he dies a few months later.

Citizen Kane

Citizen Kane was released in 1941 starring and directed by Orson Welles and twice topped the lists of best movies of all time in 1999 and 2007 respectively. The film narrates the rise and fall of media tycoon  Charles Foster Kane. The story is framed through a reporter trying to find out what his last word meant. The story itself is largely told through flashbacks as the reporter interviews crucial and important people in his life. This allows different time periods to be portrayed accurately by those who knew him at that time.

The character of Kane is largely based upon Hearst, however Welles admits other rich men were used and we can also draw parallels between the life of Kane and that of Welles himself. 

In the film we watch Kane start a newspaper, establish a list of principles and in due course completely ignore them in the drive for greater circulation and his own fame and fortune. In Citizen Kane, Kane argues the paper must be easy to read, to provide entertainment with big headlines and small paragraphs. Similarly the Daily Mail was created as the busy mans newspaper with have no articles over 250 words, a paper for a man to read on the train, to interest them in a sufficiently simple way.

Whilst parallels can be drawn to Lord Northclife and the Daily Mail and Mirror it is best analysed in comparison of Hearst’s life and accomplishments.

For example Hearst famously said ‘You furnish the pictures and I'll furnish the war.’ And as such is largely credited for pushing the US into war with Spain, this scene is mirrored in Citizen Kane almost exactly.

Hearst attempted to destroy the film both figuratively and literally. The film managed to become a moderate success before fading into obscurity until it’s brilliance was noticed by the French and once again in America. Hearst’s campaign to destroy the film would be his own end as now every reference to his own life, his accomplishments and his career are drawn in parallel to that of Charles Foster Kane.

Seminar Paper: Freud and the Philosophy of the Mind

Freud was born in 1856 to an Austrian family of non-observant Jews. Freud himself was an atheist which was reflected in his work but this did not stop him being assaulted due anti-Semitism.

Freud trained to become a doctor in Vienna and joined the staff of the General Hospital in 1882. He specialised in brain autonomy whilst collaborating with neurologist Joseph Breuer through treatment of hysterical patients using hypnosis. In 1885 he moved to Paris to study under neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot returning a year later whereupon he went into private medical practice.

In 1895, in conjunction with Breuer, Freud published a manuscript on hysteria which presented an original analysis on mental illness. Freud is credited to varying degrees with changing the moral attitude toward mental illness, i.e. behaviours seen as moral transgressions were now seen as symptoms of a disorder to be treated rather than a heinous act to be punished.

Eventually Freud ceased to use hypnosis, replacing it instead with psychoanalysis which consisted of nothing more than talking between patient and doctor.

Psychoanalysis was based on the theory that hysterical symptoms were the result of repressed psychological trauma that could be recovered by free association.

Free association is where the patient speaks about whatever comes to mind despite what these thoughts may be. The idea is that the patient can move past self censorship and say what is truly on their mind. The purpose of free association is to allow the patient to work freely through their own thoughts to allow personal insight with help from the analyst who can help make connections and identify central themes.

As a result of Freud’s many psychoanalytic sessions, he became convinced that psychological traumas originated from the patient’s infancy and had sexual content.

His theories of infantile sexuality were not without controversy and lead to a severing of ties with Breuer and isolation from his medical colleagues.

However Freud continued his work and eventually published his most important work in 1900 which was entitled: ‘The Interpretation of Dreams.’

In this he argued dreams essentially are all forms of wish fulfilment, the attempts of the unconscious to resolve internal conflict which results in the confusing nature of dreams which are in fact the coded expression of the unconscious which usually relates to repressed sexual desires.

This was the first in a series of books by Freud that with each new instalment modified and refined his psychoanalytic theories up until his death.

Freud was appointed to an extraordinary chair of neuropathy at Vienna University in 1902 where he acquired pupils and colleages, some of which such as Alfred Adler and Carl Jung eventually founded their own schools.

In his book: ‘Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis.’ Freud summed up his psychoanalytic theory in two main tenants:

One states that our unconscious forms the greater part of our mental life; i.e. most of our thoughts and feelings are unconscious in nature.

The unconscious itself encompasses beliefs, desires and sentiments that are censored by the conscious and Freud believed it manifests in 3 ways:

Through everyday trivial mistakes, sometimes known as ‘Freudian Slips’ but Freud called ‘parapraxes.’ These are the idea that; for example when you say something but meant to say something else, you are in fact revealing your true thoughts and as such parapraxes have motive to reveal unconscious thoughts without censorship by the conscious mind. Freud referred to this level of unconscious as ‘superficial’ or ‘the preconscious.’

Dreams are another manifestation of unconscious thought or desire coded in symbolism to cover their latent (usually sexual) content. However the only way the symbolism can be removed and the true content revealed is for the person to use free association Freud argues. Only this will work as only the dreamer can understand the context and thus meanings and links of the symbolison in their dreams.

The third instance of the unconscious is in neurotic symptoms, neuroses can include symptoms such as OCD, anxiety and hysteria which are exhibited in behaviours which fall outside the socially acceptable.  These seemingly random obsessive behaviours when analysed reveal our true motives.

The second tenant states that sexual impulses are the potential cause of mental illness (due to repression and sublimation) and are the catalyst for artistic creation. 

Freud’s theories of infantile sexuality place sexual development as key not only to infant development but in understanding sexual repression revealed in patients through the use of free association.

Infant psychosexual development according to Freud is split into 5 stages: Oral, Anal, Phallic, Latent and Genital.

At the phallic stage, the child focuses on their genitals and learns to distinguish between genders. This is arguably the most important stage as this is when the Oedipus Complex occurs and gender is fully established. The Oedipus Complex is where a boy is sexually attracted to their mother and so wants to kill their father due to his possession of her. His hostility of his father leads him to fear reprisal in the form of castration and so the boy abandons his desires and gradually identifies with his father.

Freud did believe a female equivalent to the Oedipus complex existed, yet despite his efforts was unable to credibly create it in his work.

Freud’s theory stated that people who have become fixated at one of these stages, become neurotic and thus only through psychoanalysis can their issues be resolved.

In 1923 Freud published ‘The Ego and the id’ which replaced his earlier theory of the conscious and unconscious with the Ego, id and Superego.

The id represents primal desire and impulse. It works on the pleasure principle in that it seeks pleasure but avoids pain. It does not obey logic and may even contradict itself because it cannot reason, only want.

The Ego however represents reason and rationality, the mediator of the id in the same way that the conscious censors our unconscious thoughts. The Ego develops after the id and becomes stronger over time, however the Ego’s control over the id is never absolute which can result in parapraxes.

The Superego is the only one of these three which is not innate. It first exists in the form of parental authority but as the child grows and matures the superego develops and takes over this role. The Superego observes the efforts of the Ego, providing goals for it to attain to and punishing it when it fails with guilt for example.

Freud argued that a fine balance between all three must be maintained for one to have a healthy mind free of mental disorders.

Mental disorders he argues stem from an imbalance between two of these three. Depression is the result of conflict between the id and superego, neuroses are of conflict between the ego and id and psychoses are of conflict between the ego and external world.

Freud regarded himself as a scientist however his theories, those pertaining to medical science such as psychoanalysis have lost much of their credibility as effective treatments or explanations. A large problem is that many over of his theories are unfalsifiable in nature and thus cannot be tested by the scientific method. Furthermore his theories lack a large amount of quantitative evidence and research and the case studies Freud used to support his theories have in some cases been denounced as fabrications.

Instead it is Freud’s theories of the unconscious, of sexual desire and repression that have gathered a large following in philosophy and culture with Freud becoming known more in lieu of innuendo and sublimation than his own contributions to medical science.

The Dreyfus Affair

After the crushing defeat in the Franco-Prussian war of 1871 and the end of the Second French Empire, the French military reorganised. This included the French Counter Intelligence Department known then as ‘Section de Statistique.’ Through their efforts of spying on the German Embassy they discovered that someone was leaking confidential military information since 1892 to the German Embassy.

The situation only worsened when in 1894 an anonymous letter was discovered that revealed sensitive military secrets about French field-artillery had also been leaked to the Germans.

Through subsequent investigation, it was decided that Officer Captian Dreyfus was the traitor responsible for the leaks. This conclusion was based in part due to the similar style of handwriting shared between Dreyfus and the anonymous letter and the fact Dreyfus was Jewish. Anti-Semitism was a huge problem in France and an issue that divided the country.

Dreyfus is Court-martialled in a closed session, when the judges don’t appear to be swayed by the evidence presented they are given a ‘dossier secret’, false evidence which helps secure a unanimous verdict of high treason. 

Dreyfus suffers public military degradation before eventually being transferred to Devil’s island and placed in solitary confinement.

New evidence comes to light that implicates Esterhazy as the true traitor. The new Chief of Intelligence Services, Lieutenant-Colonel Georges Picquart presents his suspicions to the Deputy Chief of the General Staff, General Gonse but is ignored and now considered a whistle-blower.

Picquart is transferred out of Paris allowing Major Henry to present tampered evidence which both incriminates Dreyfus and discredits Picquart.

New evidence comes to light implicating Esterhazy and results in the Mlitary Governor of Paris, General Saussier, to open an inquest. At the same time Zola’s campaign begins in favour of Dreyfus’s innocence.

Whilst the inquest and a subsequent inquest find Esterhazy not guilty, he is brought to trial after demanding a court-martial to clear his name. On January 10^th 1898 he is brought to trial in a closed session and is immediately acquitted whilst Picquart is arrested and sent to a military prison for revealing military secrets to civilians.

Zola had already written several letters at this point including the letter to youth and letter to France and his ‘Letter to the President of the Republic’ succeeds in bringing nationwide attention to the Dreyfus affair as well as dividing a nation. Zola is sued for libel by the three handwriting experts he denounced, he is trialled there is a retrial and the cycle repeats until he is eventually forced to flee to Britain to continue his efforts in the Dreyfus affair rather than face jail time.

By now what had originally been a military conspiracy behind closed doors was an affair in full view of the public incited for and against the innocence of Dreyfus. Prevalent anti-Semitism was the root of the anti-Dreyfus group and there were many riots and violent actions carried out by such people throughout and even after the closure of the affair.

However after several changes of government officials and growing concern for Dreyfus’s innocence he is brought back for a retrial but found guilty once again under extenuating circumstances meanwhile Picquart is released from prison

Eventually after another retrial, Dreyfus is found innocent and is reinstated to the army to the cries of ‘long live Dreyfus! To which he replied: ‘No gentlemen no, I beg of you, long live France!