| In Denial of Death it is noted that Freud, while conflicted, also did not arrive at faith for a number of reasons. He held to repression of the Oedipal conflict as the prime motivator of human behavior. Becker considers this to be a biological, instinctual, (i.e. materialistic) reductionism. At the end of his life Freud postulated the "death instinct" to account for the encroaching evidence that he was wrong. Becker says Kierkegaard's existentialism both anticipated and surpassed pshcyoanalytic data and proposed solutions. Freud says, "The whole of sexuality and not merely anal erotism is threatened with falling a victim to the organic repression consequent upon man's adoption of the erect posture and the lowering in value of the sense of smell.... All neurotics, and many others too, take exception to the fact that "inter urinas et faeces nascimur"....Thus we should find, as the deepest root of the sexual repression that marches with culture, the organic defense of the new form of life that began with the erect posture." Jung suspected a less than scientific bias in Freud's sexual theory. Freud asked him to 'make a dogma of it, a bulwark.' When asked against what, Freud replied "occultism," which is to say it was his religion vs. religion. It seems to me this comes as close as anything to reflecting the basic positions, and motivations behind them. Becker describes Freud as having two great reluctances regarding these issues 1)the idea of death, 2) yielding, either to the world, other men, or the supernatural. If the causa sui project is a lie that is too hard to admit because it plunges one back to the cradle, it is a lie that must take its toll as one tries to avoid reality. Most of that is taken from Becker and his analysis in Denial of Death. |
