and come to mean something like “selfishness” or “self-obsession”, thereby obscuring Freud’s more direct reference to the Greek myth: just as Narcissus” exclusively scopic pleasure in his own reflection led him to starve to death, so Freud refers to the megalomaniac dimensions of paraphrenia and the radical withdrawal of libido from the “external world”. Moreover, [...]
In order for something to exist in the full sense of the word, it must first be named and recognized. The unconscious certainly existed before Freud, but in the absence of a name, an elaboration, and a community of the faithful, it could not join, then sublate, the bacchanal of existence. Bearing this in mind, [...]
Two events that took place in New York City last spring and another in France last year suffice to illustrate the singularity of our respective national sensitivities when it comes to dealing with free speech. The first was the heated debate sparked off by a group of writers protesting in a letter about PEN America’s [...]
