If you went “beyond the pleasure principle,” where would you be going, and with whom?
(a) the Italian Renaissance with Vasari
(b) the Spanish Inquisition with Loyola
(c) the French Revolution with Saint-Just
(d) the Trojan War with Ares or Poseidon
(e) the American century with Henry Ford
Extra credit:
1. Name the dudes above. Who is the third who sits always by their side?
II. Although the question just asked has no correct answer, Freud liked to ask it because
(1) By these means he would be able to tell the sheep from the wolf
(2) He felt that the only one thing that was inevitable besides death and taxes was history
(3) He felt that those who didn't know their history were doomed to repeat it.
(4) He believed that history to the defated may say Alas but cannot help or pardon.
(5) He and Wittgentstein spent hours analyzing the remark they overheard from a disgruntled student: "History is a waste of time." -- DL
robespierre, saint-just and couthon and i think to truly go to the place of terror one would have to abandon all historical principle and acknowledge that the guillotine
was actually invented in ireland....
as for the pleasure principle...isn't there something to be said for the A train by ellington?
Posted by: bill | June 28, 2011 at 06:35 PM
and actually, the words of the disgruntled student were, "his theory is a waste of time"...some have even attributed it to jung who was commenting on freud's having spent weeks dissecting eels in an unsuccessful search for their sex organs (the eels that is)...
Posted by: bill | June 28, 2011 at 07:47 PM
...and after the eel incident, there was talk that freud was writing a treatise on bird abuse...unfortunately all of those writings have been lost to time...
Posted by: bill | June 28, 2011 at 07:55 PM
Bill is right, as usual, and I'm all for the Duke and his theme song, the thought of which makes the shoving in a crowded train even at rush hour more bearable.
But how about Rilke? "Beauty is the beginning of terror that we can barely endure and why we love it is that it so serenely disdains to destroy us."
The guillotine at the Place de la Concorde was the perfect execution for the romantic era. DL
Posted by: The Best American Poetry | June 28, 2011 at 11:17 PM