Laura B

English 272D
Fall 1998
Wollaeger
The Battle of Cultural Voices: Freud for the Universal Consciousness versus Sartre for Individual Freedom Laura DeVilbiss

Born nearly half a century apart, Sigmund Freud and Jean-Paul Sartre lived strikingly parallel existences. Both were well educated and are still considered two of the most brilliant minds of this millennium. Both were acquainted with some degree of Jewish influence but rejected religion on scientific and philosophical grounds. Both were influenced by both of the World Wars, as they lived them. They each produced extraordinary amounts of work that have permeated contemporary society beyond the point of escape. Each addressed issues of existence, psychology and philosophy�directly or indirectly. And both of these great minds struggle with the same concern: the existence of manspecifically the operation of his mindin the modern era. Each presents a resounding voice of modern culture; but, these voices are not in unison. They are two strong voices sounding contradictory melodies of the modern era.
Sigmund Freud, as the father and founder of psychoanalysis, gives society a set of tools with which to examine humanitys beliefs, patterns, and tendencies. His system of analysis involves collecting and gathering data and observations. Freudian subjects include anything from his own patients to the historical cannon of literature to anthropological studies. The result of his technique is to draw conclusions and make generalizations from the patterns he identifies in this data. Similar to Ovid, Freud seeks to tell the story and explain all the behavior of humankind through generalizations based upon a collection of observations.
Contrary to Freuds method of operation, Jean-Paul Sartre begins with a different agenda. Sartres psychoanalytic aims originate in his existential philosophy. Sartre addresses the individual as an individual and not an anonymous repetition of man. He begins with his famous belief that "existence precedes essence" and that man continually defines man with every moment of his life and every decision that he makes. He seeks to identify ontological issues as the foundation of human motivation and behavior. Sartre argues against Freud and his psychoanalysis, stating that merely a collection of observations will neither identify nor lead to the solutions of the irreducible psychoanalytic problems that plague man.
The contradictory voices of Freud and Sartre suggest the means to identify, examine, and solve mans ontological problems of existence. The foundations of these systems, however, differ greatly, as do their aims and practices. Examining the authors of these ideas, the foundations and techniques of these systems and the results of implementation shed light on different issues and beliefs of the modern era. In this paper I intend to examine and compare the psychoanalytic theories of two prominent voices of the modern era. First I will consider Freuds texts: Totem and Taboo and Civilization and Its Discontents, specifically addressing his ideas of the divided consciousness and cultural consciousness. Next I will explore the major beliefs of existentialism, specifically highlighting Sartres contribution. Finally, I will do a close reading of Sartres psychoanalytic text Existential Psychoanalysis in order to compare and contrast the methods of empirical and existential psychoanalysis.
Freud produced a significant amount of work, including Totem and Taboo and Civilization and Its Discontents. In Totem and Taboo he "specified the moment of that savages, in some dim, remote past, entered culture by murdering their father and acquiring guilt feelings" (Gay, xviii). These feelings and tendencies of humanitys primitive ancestors have been passed down to modern man through a variety of means that result in a collective cultural consciousness. Freud opens Totem and Taboo with a description of the primitive man and states that by studying the history of mankind modern man may gain insight into contemporary psychoanalytic problems. He says:
Prehistoric man, in the various stages of his development, is know to us through the inanimate monuments and implements which he has left behind, through the information about his art, his religion and his attitude towards life which has come to us either directly or by way of tradition handed down in legends, myths, and fairy tales, and through the relics of his mode of thought which survive in our own manners and customs (Totem and Taboo, 3). Freuds use of the term "directly" is somewhat ambiguous, but could indicate the phenomenon he later describes as the passing of primitive behaviors and feelings throughout the ages to modern man. It is clear, however, that Freud thinks that much of the content, especially psychological, of modern society relies on what has happened from the beginning of time. Freuds view of man consists of a being and a species that is the living form of things past. That is, human progress is held back somewhat by the primitive tendencies Freud identifies. In this book Freud uses significant anthropological evidence to demonstrate the evolution of totems in ancient civilizations. He goes on to argue that the presence of the taboos still exists in society even now. He also writes about the primal hoard, in which the sons kill the father and guilt is born, and the creation of civilization stemming from such causes as the guilt of the primal hoard and the Oedipal complex.
Freud also tries to gain practical insight into modern mental illness from the tendencies of the primitive cultures. For example, he says, "The similarity between taboo and obsessional sickness may be no more than a matter of externals; it may apply only to the forms in which they are manifested and not extend to their essential character" (Totem and Taboo, 34). This example shows how Freud tries to draw analogies and apply knowledge from history to current psychoanalytic problems.
In Civilization and Its Discontents Freud offers "a disillusioned look at modern civilization on the verge of catastrophe" (Gay, xxi). In this book Freud deals primarily with the structure of the human consciousness and the concept of a cultural consciousness that he deems similar to that of the individual. This book elaborates on Freuds "structural theory" of the mind that he first described in The Ego and the Id. . Freud gives a simple, preliminary account of the divided consciousness:
Normally, there is nothing of which we are more certain than the feeling of our self, of our own ego. This ego appears to us as something autonomous and unitary, marked off distinctly from everything else. That such an appearance is deceptive, and that on the contrary the ego is continued inwards, without any sharp delimitation, into an unconscious mental entity which we designate s the id and for which it serves as a kind of facade (Civilization, 12). This division of the consciousness is something that Sartre argues against and uses as a implement against Freuds empirical psychoanalysis. But, to Freud, the structure of the divided consciousness answers many questions regarding human behavior, especially in the cases of obsessive and neurotic people.
Freuds idea of the cultural consciousness creates another issue of contention for Sartre. Freud believed in the collective remnants of history in the human consciousness. He says, "We can only hold fast to the fact that it is rather the rule than the exception for the past to be preserved in mental life" (Civilization, 20). This applies to civilization in general, but also to individual pasts, such as all experience from childhood on. Later in Cuvilization and Its Discontents, Freud makes the argument that civilization develops a cultural consciousness analogous to the individual consciousness. He states:
The analogy between the process of civilization and the path of individual development may be e extended in an important respect. It can be asserted that the community, too, evolves a super-ego under whose influence cultural development proceeds. It would be a tempting task for anyone who has a knowledge of human civilizations to follow out this analogy in detail.The super-ego of an epoch of civilization has an origin similar to that of an individual. It is based on the impression left behind by the personalities of great leadersmen of overwhelming force of mind or men in whom one of the human impulsions has found its strongest and purest, and therefore often its most one-sided, expression (Civilization, 106-7). That is to say, not only do humans live according to the structure of their own individual consciousness, but according to that of society as well. Given the presence of a cultural consciousness, however, it seems Freud continues to indicate that certain tendencies, beliefs, behaviors, etcare passed through the ages. All of humankind is succeptible to the predetermined state of human being. It seems that man has no freedom with which to escape ancient traits that have accumulated and been passed on, such as the primordial guilt and the Oedipal complex.
In Civilization and Its Discontents Freud does not take a favorable attitude toward the human state of affairs. He says, "The fateful question for the human species seems to me to be whether and to what extent their cultural development will succeed in mastering the disturbance of their communal life by the human instinct of aggression and self-destruction" (Civilization, 111). That is, Freud views civilization itself as the cause of human misery. Given that humanity cannot escape the consequences begun with the murder of the first father and the birth of civilizatoin, he offers a despondant attitude towards the human capacity for happiness.
Jean-Paul Sartre offers a modern philosophy entirely different from Freud. Sartre develops existentialism and considers it a liberating and empowering philosophy. Existentialism rejects the notion that there is a predetermined idea of man that humans must live up to. Without any expectation placed on him, man is free to define himself as he lives lifewith every choice he makes. The result of his life consists of his actions and accomplishments. Sartres existentialism centers on the individual as they are thrown out into the world and must actively define himself.
The primary existential issue that Sartre grapples with is that of existence and essence. That is, if essence, or a preconceived notion of man, precedes existence, there is no existence in and of itself, only a living to meet the predetermined definition of man. However, if existence precedes essence, "man turns up, appears on the scene, and, only afterwards, defines himself" (Sartre, 15). Sartre goes on to say:
For we mean that man first exists, that is, that man first of all is the being who hurls himself toward a future and who is conscious of imagining himself as being in the future. Man is at the start of a plan which is aware of itself.man will be what he will have planned to be. Not what he will want to be" (Sartre, 16). This concept of man throwing himself, or being thrown, out into the world is a common trope of existential writers. The struggle of these characters is to define themselves as they live: they exist and as they exist they must define who they will be. The important move that Sartre makes in the above passage concerns mans consciousness of his existence. Sartre says that the plan is aware of "itself" because all humanity faces this obstacle of defining essence. Sartre elaborates on mans self-consciousness by saying: existentialisms first move is to make every man aware of what he is and to make the full responsibility of his existence rest on him. And when we say that a man is responsible for himself, we do not mean that he is responsible for his own individuality, but that he is responsible for all men (Sartre, 16). Here Sartre makes the move of expanding an individuals responsibility to include all of humanity. Sartre says this of the existential man, "I am creating a certain image of man of my own choosing. In choosing myself, I choose man" (Sartre, 18). This idea of ones individual existence formally resembles Kants categorical imperative. Kant proposes an ethical system in which an individual establishes a maxim and then universalizes it to apply it to all mankind. Although existentialism does not propose such universalization, the idea is the same. An existentialist lives only for himself, yet he cannot ignore the fact that when he chooses for himself he cannot transcend his individuality. He must allow that in some way his decisions will first be a part of the choices of humanity and secondly effect humanity. Sartre says, "Through his choice, he involves all mankind, and he cannot avoid making a choice" (Sartre, 41).
Another important aspect of Sartres existentialism concerns the evaluation of a mans life in the end. Upon his death, the moment of ultimate actualization for an existentialist, who is this person who has been existing and creating himself for all these years? Sartre says, "reality alone is what counts, that dreams, expectations, and hopes do warrant no more than to define man as a disappointed dream, as miscarried hopes, as vain expectations. In other words, to define him negatively and not positively" (Sartre, 33). For an existentialist, a man who dreams accomplishes nothing more than dreaming. His hopes and aspirations may only be considered as actions in and of themselves, not as means to another end. They become significant only once they are actualized. Sartre goes on to say, "What we mean is that man is nothing else than a series of undertakings, that he is the sum, the organization, the ensemble of the relationships which make up these "undertakings" (Sartre, 33). Upon his death, a man leaves behind only his actions, only those dreams he has actualized.
Finally, Soren Kierkegaard was one of Sartres existential influences. He best articulates insight into the existentialists view of the interaction between the individual and society. He says, "For a "crowd" is the untruth" (Keirkegaard, 809).
A crowdnot this crowd or that, the crowd now living or the crowd long deceased, a crowd of humble people or of superior people, of rich or of poor, &c.a crowd in its very concept is the untruth, by reason of the fact that it renders the individual impenitent and irresponsible, or at least weakens his sense of responsibility by reducing it to a fraction (Kierkegaard, 810). Kierkegaard argues that an individuals association with society, community, or a faction renders him individually impotent. Without accountability for his own actions, he may deny any and all responsibility for malice or error because of his alignment with a group. Kierkegaard goes on to say, "For every individual who flees for refuge into the crowd, and so flees in cowardice from being an individualsuch a man contributes his share of cowardliness to the cowardliness which we know as the "crowd"" (Kierkegaard, 810). This statement carries Kierkegaards argument further. Individual participation in a group, because it frees the individual from responsibility, undermines the integrity of personal action. Each and every individual may retreat to the structure and beliefs of the group, regardless of the poor judgment these beliefs may demonstrate. Each person may deny any claim to the actions of the group because they are only a part, and the "crowd" to which one consequently attributes responsibility is only an abstraction..
Looking at the starting places of both Freud and Sartre it is clear exactly how different they are from one another from the very beginning. Freud basis his empirical psychoanalysis on his own principles of the primal hoard as the critical moment of culture, the one in which mans inescapable essence is defined. Without ever really explaining how, Freud asserts that there is a cultural conscious that each human inheritsa tradition beginning with the first instance of guilt feelings but as human life goes on, it seems to include the developments within the presence of this cultural conscious. Freud also posits and relies on the concept of the divided human conscious. His empirical method involves a broad scale, sweeping collection of data and observations of humanity. In his practice of psychoanalysis there is no sense of the individual as such; more accurately Freud gives a sense of each person as a single additional unit of the human race. And, as an anonymous unit a persons choices indicate little about them individually but only serve to contribute to the collective of decisions made by humanity. For Freud, only from the generalizations based on the collective of observations can he turn back to the individual and provide a prognosis.
Contrary to Freuds self-created and self-dependent system of psychoanalysis, Sartre is the pivotal modern voice coming from a long tradition of existentialism. Specifically, Soren Kierkegaard and Martin Heidegger and Hegel, the first modern existentialist, seem to be Sartres existential predecessors. Others classified in or related to the tradition of existentialism are Nietzshce, Marcel, and Jaspers. Albert Camus and Simone de Beauvoir were Sartres significant contemporary Influences and colleagues, as fiction and philosophical existentialists.
Sartre begins in an entirely different mode from Freud. He begins with the modern, philosophical singular individual as the primary focus. Given that existence precedes essence (antithetical to Freuds cultural conscious), each and every decision a man makes is a defining moment, for him. Sartre poses ontological problems as the ultimate foundation to get down to. He says one must not make generalizations but get down to the irreducible truth of each individual act and choice of an individual. Sartre writes in direct response to Freuds empirical psychoanalysis in Existential Psychoanalysis, a large excerpt form Being and Nothingness. In this text he outlines the similarities and differences between empirical and existential psychoanalysis, both in aims and practices.
The first step Sartre makes in Existential Psychoanalysis is to deny the existence of the unconscious altogether. Responding to empirical psychoanalysiss tendency to define man according to his desires Sartre says, "Let us beware then of considering these desires as little psychic entities dwelling in consciousness; they are consciousness itself in its projective transcendent structure, for consciousness is on principle consciousness of something" (EP, 20). That is, desires do not indicate anything about man that he is not aware of.
Sartre goes on to criticize what he identifies as a lack of depth in empirical psychoanalysis. He states: "The other errorconsists in considering psychological research as terminated as soon as the investigator has reached the concrete ensemble of empirical desires. Thus a man would be defined by the bundle of drives or tendencies which empirical observation could establish" (EP, 20). Sartre elaborates on this criticism after giving an example. He says, "Doubtless one could invoke a thousand circumstances, know to us and unknown, which have shaped this need to feel into the need to act. But this is to give up at the start all attempt to explain and refers the question to the undiscoverable. In addition this method rejects the pure individual" (EP, 22). Sartre expands upon his criticism of the empirical collection of characteristics by identifying systematic consequences of such a method: failure to dig deep enough to discover the real issues and failure to address individual concerns. Sartre defines what he suggests as an alternative:
What we are demanding thenand what nobody ever attempts to give usis a veritable irreducible; that is, an irreducible of which irreducibility would be self-evident, which would not be presented as the postulate of the psychologist and the result of his refusal or his incapacity to go further, but which when established would produce in us an accompanying feeling of satisfactionIt isa demand based on a preontological comprehension of human reality and on the related refusal to consider man as capable of being analyzed ad reduced to original data, to determined desires (or "drives"), supported by the subject as properties by an object (EP, 27). In Existential Psychoanalysis Sartre systematically outlines a comparison and contrast between empirical and existential psychoanalysis. First, he lists what he sees as the similarities between the two methods. The fist similarity he mentions relates to active manifestations of the psyche as symbols. He says, "Both kinds of psychoanalysis consider all objectively discernible manifestations of "psychic life" as maintaining the relation of symbolization and symbol to the fundamental, total structures which constitute the individual person" (EP, 46). He goes on to outline other common premises such as the shared disbelief in original data contributing to a person, consideration of the individual as an integral part of history, and acknowledgment of an individual in the contest of the world. Sartre says that both methods of psychoanalysis seek the fundamental attitudes of humanity but that the empirical looks for the complex while the existential looks for the original choice. Both aspire to objective methodology but the existential rejects the notion of the unconscious that the empirical embraces. Finally, Sartre address the issue of the patient as objective inquirer of himself. He says that while the patient may offer insightful reflection, he may never be a fully objective judge of himself. This extensive list of similarities shows how parallel the two methods of psychoanalysis are.
Because Sartre offers his existential psychoanalysis in response to, and seems to create it based upon, empirical psychoanalysis the two methods are inextricably linked to a certain degree. With empirical psychoanalysis as a precursor, existential psychoanalysis may never have had a reason to be, so to speak.
While Sartre offers many similarities between the two methods, he raises significant differences between the two as well, the differences being the reason for offering an alternative. Sartre states the primary differences between them:
They differ fundamentally in that empirical psychoanalysis had decided upon its own irreducible instead of allowing this to make itself known in a self-evident intuition. The libido or the will to power in actuality constitutes a psychobiological residue which is not clear in itself and which does not appear to us as being beforehand the irreducible limit of the investigation" (EP, 51-2). That is to say, Sartre argues that empirical psychoanalysis enters into its investigation with a cause of the problems already in mind. Freud offers the divided consciousness as existing with the causes of psychological problems integrated into its very nature. Sartre does not think that this allows for the most through examination into these problems. He thinks that the irreducible fact of existence will be self-evident given adequate and accurate examination, but that the structure set in place by Freud already accounts for the problems and is not self-evident. In a matter of speaking, empirical psychoanalysis offers an additional layer on which to lay the cause of psychological problems without fully addressing them.
To oppose this empirical flaw, Sartre offers the element of choice in existential psychoanalysis. He says that "the choice to which existential psychoanalysis will lead us, precisely because it is a choice, accounts for its original contingency, for the contingency of the choice is the obverse of its freedom" (EP, 52). He goes on to discuss what will be gained from the absolute examination of choices. He says:
it will be a choice which remains unique and which is from the start absolute concreteness.the choice is nothing other than the being of each human reality; this amounts to saying that a particular partial behavior is or expresses the original choice of this human reality since for human reality there is no difference between existing and choosing for itself (EP, 53). Sartres emphasis on choice directly links to the existential premise of man defining himself as he chooses in life.
Sartre goes on later in his discussion of differences in the two psychological methods to raise the important issue of individuality. He says, "Our concern here is to understand what is individual and often even instantaneous. The method which has served for one subject will not necessarily be suitable to use for another subject or for the same subject at a later period" (EP, 55-6). His point speaks to his view of the totality of humans. By denying the collection of characteristics, and viewing each person as an individual, Sartre examines people in an entirely different light. There is no standard of measure, no yard stick or flea feet, or mental scale with which to rank psychoanalytic issues. Therefore, according to Sartres existential psychoanalysis, each person must be viewed as particular individual. And, even more acutely, each individual decision of a person must be viewed as such. Each moment then becomes a defining moment, possibly with entirely different psychological issues at hand. Sartre surely sees a more complex individual than Freud does, despite Freuds intricacies of civilization and society weighing down on people.
Finally, in contrasting the differences in psychoanalytic methods, Sartre raises the issue of consciousness. He first introduces this concept in the section by asking the questions: "If the complex is really unconsciousthat is, if there is a barrier separating the sign from the thing signifiedhow could the subject recognize it?What is understanding if not to be conscious of what is understood?" (EP, 56-7). Here he really destroys the validity of Freuds divided conscious by questioning how one can hide things from oneself, if one does not know what they are hiding, how to hide it, and why they are hiding it. He says, "the traditional psychoanalytic interpretation does not cause him to assume consciousness of what he is; it causes him to assume knowledge of what he is" (EP, 58). The difference being that for Sartre consciousness implies choice and acknowledged intent, whereas knowledge simply means awareness of what already is.
While Freuds position as founder of modern psychology and the indisputable volume of work he produced earn him worthy contemporary consideration, his beliefs are not without flaws. His theories on humanity and civilization are not entirely without basis; however, his use of literature and other less valid sources are cause for skepticism. However, even giving his arguments full credibility, what does he offer modern society? A cynical view of the modern. A theory of cultural consciousness that binds modern man to all of humanitys ills. One must resign himself to oppression by the entropy of evil in the world without hope for redemption. Perhaps it is Freuds dark and mysterious divided consciousness that offers man a way out. Perhaps linkage to and participation in human evil and distress by default is more comforting than overcoming his humanity.
Sartres existentialism and his method of psychoanalysis provide modern man the means to transcend past ills and evils of humanity. By acknowledging individuals and individual choice in life, Sartre acknowledges mans ability to overcome that which he is not responsible for. Sartre offers a psychoanalysis that allows man to be an individual and choose life for himself. By placing responsibility in humanitys hands, Sartre frees man. Sartres existentialism is philosophical capitalism: only by having the opportunity to fail does one gain the opportunity to live successfully. Sartres interest in identifying ontological problems as a means to solving psychological ones aids modern man in his attempt to overcome his humanity rather than providing an excuse for it.

WORKS CITED

Freud, Sigmund. Civilization and Its Discontents. New York, NY. W.W. Norton and
Company. 1961.
Freud, Sigmund. Totem and Taboo. New York, NY: W.W. Norton and Company. 1950
Sartre, Jean-Paul. Existentialism and Human Emotions. Secaucus, NJ: Carol Publishing
Group. 1998.
Sartre, Jean-Paul. Existential Psychoanalysis. Washington D.C.: Regnery Publishing,
Inc. 1981.