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1. Sigmund Freud, section II and III, Three Essays
on the Theory of Sexuality
Stephanie K. Dalquist
-What "sexual imulses are already present in the new-born child?" He makes
an argument for breast-feeding, and thumb-sucking... Doesn't much of what
he qualifies as auto-eroticism simply involve exploring the body? (p42)
-Why will thumbsuckers turn into drinkers and smokers only if they're
men (p48). Were women *still* largely ignored in this age, or is there
some Freudian erotic connotation he's assigning to these actions? Does
Freud consider "pubertal recession" (p87) of females a given, or are there
other (even infrequent) results of this not occurring?
Adam Smith
-Freud mentions the concept of sublimation, or the redirection of sexual
drive for other purposes. He then goes on to describe the stages of infant
sexuality. Is sucking or anal fixation this redirectment or do children
gain some of their ability from a lack of sexual relief? Is this different
from adults?
Hilarie Claire Tomasiewicz
-(chap. II) "Cruelty is intimately related to the childish character,
since the inhibition which restrains the mastery impulse before it causes
pain to others - that is, the capacity for sympathy - develops comparatively
late." How late? Late enough that a jury should foremost attribute an
act of violence/murder by a 9 yr old as a failure to restrain/understand
his "mastery impulse?"
-(chap. III) Freud states, "The sexual instinct of childhood is objectless
or autoerotic." Then goes on to say, "When a once healthy person falls
sick after an unhappy love affair, the mechanism of the disease can be
distinctly explained as a return of his libido to the persons preferred
in his infancy." Sexually preferred in infancy? Doesn't this contradict
his theory of infant autoeroticism? When exactly, then, does Freud believe
infants defy being labeled as autoerotic beings? The reading never makes
this clear.
David Spitz
-Freud offers a useful corrective to those would overlook child sexuality,
but are there any aspects to children's culture that are not sexual in
nature? Conversely, in deeming almost everything sexually driven, does
Freud not deny the more explicit forms of child sexuality? More realistically,
what might we say distinguishes "sex play" from mere "muscular activity"?
Char DeCroos
-Freud states that perversion is like a negative to a neurosis, and goes
on to imply that symptoms of pervsion stem from a neurosis. If this is
true, why is so much of our culture's efforts focused upon the symptoms
of perversion instead of the actual neurosis? Personally I think it's
because for the majority excess perversion leads to the neurosis and not
the other way around.
Max Bajracharya
-Is the tension created by the pleasure of fore-pleasure really consistent
with an evolutionary model? How does something pleasurable create tension
that then creates even more pleasure?
Mike Ananny
-Freud says that "the sexuality of little girls is of a wholly masculine
character", that "libido is masculine in nature" and only in puberty does
Freud acknowledge a difference between men's and women's sexuality. Is
this an omission/error due to his extreme focus on male sexuality (penis
envy, etc.; i.e. his theory only supports making statements about male
sexuality so he simplifies and omits female sexuality from his discussion)
or is he really arguing for a unified, gender-neutral development of sexuality?
Walter Dan Stiehl
-How much weight does Freud really hold in light of the fact that his
studies were conducted on primarily white, cultured children of Europe?
It seems that such an approach to characterize all children from a distinct
group is dangerous.
Jeannie R. Ben-Hain
- Freud claims that "the child's sexual impulses towards his parents,
which are as a rule differentiated owing to the attraction of the opposite
sex"? Isn't this assuming way too much? On the one hand, he claims that
"higher animals" can be bisexual, but that the 'natural' tendency is heterosexual
sex. Isn't the only reason this is so natural because of the society we
are raised in?
Carlos Cantu
-I guess I'm still caught up with the whole "normal aim" thing but to
say suggest that any sexual activity other than coitus is considered to
be perverted just makes no sense to me. But, I was especially drawn to
the mental resistances such as shame, disgust and so on and how they help
restrain the sexual instinct to its normal expressions especially in how
this train of though differs so much from Malinowski's. With such little
bearing on any other family structure (apart from the mom, dad, kid model)
how exactly did he earn any validity?
Anindita Basu
-Why is sex considered to be such a bad thing that childhood must be conceived
of as asexual and therefore innocent? How do his notions of childhood
as sexual relate to child pornography? Does the idea of "penis envy" have
anything to do with women wanting to take on male roles because they have
more freedom and power? How prominent were alternative lifestyles in the
early 1900s? Is freud claiming that sexual activity is only acceptable
when it leads to penetration?
Girim Sung
-It was interesting how Freud was able to forge connections between children's
sexuality and their development. Yet, there were many times in the text,
I felt, where he seemed to be trying too hard to prove his theory. For
instance, he even connected "railway-travel and sexuality." He says that
those who experience "[exhaustion] by a railway journey" are sexually
repressed. How seriously are Freud's studies considered in the academic
world of psychology? Did parents in Freud's time actually consider his
conclusions in raising their children? Or were his theories considered
too abstract for practice like Rousseau's?
Adrienne DeWolfe
-What is the basis for Freud's theory of sexuality? Clinical observation,
firsthand experiences, conjecture...?
-Is Freud's misogyny a reflection of his own childhood? What do we know
of his family life?
Melanie Wong
-In the footnote on page 43, I found the "two puberties with an intermediate
phase" very interesting. "What has hitherto been described in a summary
way as puberty is probably only a second major phase of puberty which
sets in about the middle of the second decade of life..." Have there been
other findings that agree with this hypothesis?
Daniel Huecker
- I'm fascinated by Freud's use of the body in psychological and social
development. In his first essay he uses sexual (psychological) aberrations
to establish a developmental norm in the second and third essays. --Does
Freud, or any other, approach the question from the opposite direction:
how might physical aberration (such as chronic illness or paralysis from
the waist down) influence normal sexual development? How does a child
negotiate the anal phase is there is no sensory awareness of the anus?
2. Bronislaw Malinowski, section I, V, and VI, "The
Formation of a Complex"
Stephanie K. Dalquist
-Part I: In response to the two problems Malinowski raises: There are
surely other family structures besides the Nuclear Heterosexual American
Dream. Do these cultures indeed thrive on different myths and legends?
Or even within today's many subcultures where once existed the Nuclear
Heterosexual American Dream, has the shape of the family complex changed
these characteristics of the (sub)culture?
-Part V: Could any of the proposed alternative child-rearing techniques
proposed by Rousseau, etc., avert the curiosity in "shame-faced desires?"
Should this curiouity be averted? I'm glad to see he mentions a cross-cultural
difference in Melanesia, where he has "failed to find any traces of what
could be called infantile indecencies." Has any further investigation
occurred to explain why? Could it be in part related to the family complex?
Is the difference a function of the cultural taboos?
-Part VI: Do other familial relations play similar roles in other cultures?
If not, why does it happen in the cultures cited and not others?
Adam Smith
-Early in the article Malinowski points out that the "… family is not
the same in all human societies." How should childhood be studied cross
culturally when families differ so greatly?
Hilarie Claire Tomasiewicz
-(I) Given the very different nature of the constitution of families in
human society, is developing a single "appropriate formula" of psychoanalytic
theory somewhat unhelpful if it cannot be universally applied? What are
the common characteristics that all families share? Are there any?
-(V) Malinowski disagrees with Freud regarding the age of onset of sexual
rivalry between mother and daughter, and father and son, but doesn't it
seem likely that this rivalry may never manifest itself in most families,
but when it does, it is the exception and not the rule? Is sexual rivalry
really held to be a commonly documented dynamic of same-sex familial relationships?
-(VI) "This [the age of 5 through 7] is the time when play begins to pass
into more definite occupations and serious life interests." If adults
continue to use play as a recreational activity outside the stresses of
their "occupations and serious life interests," does it make sense that
children - at any age - would use their playtime to explore their career
possibilities and to look toward their "serious" futures? It seems to
me that Malinowski is associating play with everything but.
David Spitz
-Malinowksi suggests "savage" society has just one taboo, whereas Western
society has many. First, is this reality or an idyllic projection? Second,
is the one taboo sufficient to cause neurosis, sublimation and the like?
Third, although Malinowski at one point refers to Freud as an observer
of Western European culture, did Freud not consider his own work to be
universal? Fourth, *can* Malinowksi's expanded view of the family-social
unit be reconciled with Freudian analysis, which puts so much emphasis
on strict readings of biological relationships?
Char DeCroos
-Malinowski states that in some societies, "society relieves him (the
child) of a great deal of responsiblity by laying down rules of strict
morality." What exactly is the great deal of responsiblity that society
is kindly shouldering the burden of? Doens't every society set down some
set of standards and rules (not necessarily a strict morality) that when
broken have penalities, from guilt to ostracism? Where exactly is the
relief?
Max Bajracharya
- Is a child's authority figure (like the uncle) always well defined?
Or, in certain cultures, is it spread thin among people or even society
(the Inuit)? With single parents, where do characters like the authoratitive
uncle and playful father come from? Can they both be represented in a
single person (it doesn't seem like they can); or must they be created
by the child from something less concrete? How do these roles in society
evolve (why are they different across cultures)?
Joseph Kaye
-Do you feel you had an Oeidpus or Electra complex? (More importantly,
why is this an interesting question to ask?)
Mike Ananny
-The author discusses the "third stage" of childhood and how, there is
a correlation between the entrance into school, etc. around this time.
This raises a question: do children enter into stages of development independently
or do they do so because of societal constructs (like school, etc.)? I.e.
are a child's stages of development caused by society or are they reflected
in society? Can children's developmental stages be separated into those
that are the result of sociocultural changes in attitude toward the child
and those that are the result of internal psychological changes in the
child?
-I also have a question about the Melanesian part of the essay (more out
of a desire for clarification than class discussion)
-The Melanesians have separated the role of the father into 2: one who
is ore of a compatriot and companion (the father) and the other who is
more of the authority figure (the uncle). However, this doesn't seem to
be a good argument against the presence of the Oedipal complex in this
society (as Malinowski argues earlier) since the Oedipal complex seems
to be fundamentally based on competing for the mother's affection with
the father - how has this separation of father into 2 roles proven that
the Oedipal complex does not exist in Melanesian society?
Walter Dan Stiehl
-I find it incredibly interesting that the maternal brother has the ultimate
say and role of dominance in a family. It is interesting to analyze how
this separation of intimacy from leadership causes a more peaceful transition
to adulthood.
Carlos Cantu
-What brought about Malinowski's criticism towards the "Fruedian drama"
besides the obvious (the different "families" in each society and the
whole family conflict influence on social organization)? Was he envious,
perhaps? But seriously, are there always two types of intellectuals? The
one who thinks of the wierd, and off the wall theories (Freud) and those
who only work towards debunking the wierd guy? He(Malinoswki) is quick
to point out his role as "sociologist" so I guess his job is just different...hmmm.
Anindita Basu
-Malinowski at one point refers to the Trobriand clans as a matriarchal
society. How can he claim this when the women must move from their clans
to live with their husbands and are dominated by their brothers? He also
seems to be claiming that the simpler the relationship to the father,
the easier and more idyllic the childhood-- across class and culture.
How do differing relationships with mothers affect the transition from
childhood?
-Does he perceive less variation between mother-roles than father-roles?
David Mellis
-Justine talks a lot about standards for proof, and what qualifies s evidence
for the various people we read from. I think that question is especially
relevant here. Malinowski talks about the differences in attitudes towards
fathers in European versus another society (and the lack of an Oedipus
complex there). What evidence does he have for this? This seems especially
relevant in the case of one footnote. In the text, he says it is clear
that infants are sexually attracted to their mothers. Then, in the footnote,
he calls his own statement absurd. However, he gives little evidence for
either statement, making me wonder if his new opinion is any more valid
than his old one.
Christian Baekkelund
-The section that really intrested me is when Malinowski talked about
the formation in a child of "decent and indecent" and "pure and impure".
What other pairs of such words are frequently used, and why are these
pairs of words in particular used? I find the use of the terms decent,
pure, and such very bizarre. What secondary meanings could be found specifically
in the use of these words?-Additionally, I wondered through a lot of "Formation"
about Malinowski's facts...he seemed to do some research, but it was unclear
as to how much before claiming various things as more fact, rather than
his opinion. I found this somewhat odd
.-Finally, a lot of Malinowski's examples and references seemed exceedingly
outdated. Especially in his selection of different family structures and
what is considered to be "the norm". How has this changed specifically
since the writing of these papers, and how do this time shift effect various
points of reference Malinowski uses? Numerous statements were made about
what was "expected" of children at the numerous stages of development
that all seemed horribly dated.
Raffi Krikorian
-"chapter V states that the father is always treated with fear and reverance
in 'our type of society' -- no sexual matters are discussed with him.
however in the island society described in chapter VI, the father is treated
like a companion or a friend since all the familial power is concentrated
in the uncle. where in our society does the father figure become a friend
to the male son? this happens a lot when the father attempts to goad or
cheer the son on."
Girim Sung
-Malinowski writes of the family's influence on the development of the
child. As he says, "the family is not the same in all human societies."
Today, more and more, people are beginning to consider their group of
friends as their "family." How would Malinowski explain a child's development
with this contemporary definition of family?
Adrienne DeWolfe
-Malinowski sees in the society of Melanesia a very different development
of sexuality in children, one which replaces the latency period with infantile
independence and many other differences. What effect historically did
Malinowski's thesis have upon the credibility of the theories of Freud?
Melanie Wong
- If Malinowski has "observed" that these puberty stages/situations are
highly dependent on social class, culture, and racial differences...how
can we possibly propose a "normal" juvenile puberty? It seems like there
are too many corollaries to this hypothesis!
Daniel Huecker
-As Malinowski realizes, anthropology can provide an important diversity
of data sets with which to test psychoanalytic theories. Despite his "absurd"
conclusions, Malinowski points out considerable flaws in what is offered
as a universal theory of sexuality. Does Freud really claim a universal
theory and if so, how might the psychoanalyst explain the cultural variation
described by anthropologists?
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