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i’m sorry that this is getting tiresome, but – while largely agreeing
with every specific thing that andrew browne says -- i need to point out once
more that he’s talking about the BRAIN and freud was talking about the MIND . .
. asking a cognitive psychologist or, even worse, a pharmacologist to explain
guilt makes as much sense as asking a chemist to explain beauty
freud may be all wrong – and if he let’s say so – but the questions he
asked are not the ones that cognitivists are even trying to answer . . . and if
we think those questions worth asking [i do] then we have to look to the
analysis of the human mind and human consciousness for answers
From: Film-Philosophy
Salon [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of Andrew Browne
Sent: Wednesday, March 14, 2007
5:14 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Freud, let's move on
No-one
is trying to ‘trash’ Freud. If anything my
original e-mail was seeking to ‘trash’ film academics and their use of outdated
Freudian concepts (so there !).
Psychology is
advancing at an exponential rate. We all know the examples : Pharmacology has
shown that mood states are linked to neurotransmitters /hormones.
Neuro-scientists are able to map the brain and identify what happens during
thought identifying the locations of functions and the presence of neurons that
are linked to emotions such as guilt or empathy (the ‘mirror neuron’). At the
same time, DNA research has begun to show the importance of hereditary factors
and how cultural responses are inflected by evolution.
My point is
that film academics cling to Freudian theories, despite the fact that most
psychologists have long moved on and Freud’s theories have by and large been
shown to be at odds with reality. As indeed has the society that Freud knew.
Alone in the introspective world that is film studies is Freud still trotted
out to identify Oedipal relationships, superego conflicts, fetishism etc.
The
suggestion has been made that despite this dislocation from reality, Freudian
analysis is still useful as an analytical tool in film studies. Also some of
you feel that Freud had a significant impact on Hollywood films. Well of course
the folk in Hollywood were aware of Freud and one or two may even have read a
book of his. He was of course a cause celebre when he visited America. However,
most ‘Freudian influence’ is projected onto a film by academics. It is not ‘in’
the film - it is in the mind of the academic.
Polemically
yours,
Andrew Browne