Freud is probably the most important 'western' theorist of the 20th century. We've barely even begun to read his work, let alone say something intelligent about it. Reading Freud out of the context of his dense web of ambivalence and tension is particularly unhelpful. The implications of his research methods for all forms of inquiry are staggering: not only is the object a posited reflection of the narcissistic subject, and simultaneously independent of this fact of apprehension and projection, the subject itself is a product of a convoluted struggle of muscular drives pushing against each other in multiple places, continually scythed by new experiences and interventions... The filtering of perception is extraordinary. All of which it would be best to forget since it does nothing more than cause trouble. This is unfortunately complicated by the psychical paradoxes that lend themselves to literary appropriation and philosophical amusement. The question "How do you know what you know?" is cast as being something clever, or deep - and then ridiculed once and for all by the laughing positivist with the half million dollar fellowship. This is coupled by the equally unfortunate jesters' gesture: where does the repressed go? and how do we know if it has returned? Does the unconscious exist? Imagine that it does not exist! (questions all relying upon the validity of Freud's metapsychology in order to make sense at all). It isn't hagiography that should draw us to Freud, but the sheer complexity he brings to all theoretical discussions. Psychoanalysis is not the gatekeeper of knowledge, nor should it be. But to ignore it is to participate in barbarism and destruction. There is a strong motive for letting Freud go and declaring psychoanalysis dead, and that motive speaks directly to the abandonment of our inner most urges toward satisfaction, an exhaustion of utopia. Psychoanalysis is a struggle towards enlightenment. Psychoanalysis recommends that things could be different, even if it is unsure of its results. Uncertainty is forbidden today, except when it comes to weapons of mass destruction. And, without a doubt, we must disagree on this. We can be faithful to the Freudian legacy not by re-interpreting his works, but by repeating them - treating Freud as a contemporary. This is the hallmark of the new, and the most productive form of dialectical criticism.
it was already broken when I borrowed it, ken