So, in preparation for my moderation of the blog this week, I had come across an article that though has little to do with Freud's theories so to speak, has quite a few references to his actions. I'll post the article now, as I lay reference to it later.
Click Me.
So Freud's Doctor aided his death. Hastened, as the legal discipline would prefer. And, as I think I can say at a fairly liberal university, understandably. The man was miserable, terminal, missing half his jaw, and stank to high heaven. But were Freud's actions in the late stages of his life within the scope of his doctrine? As the article insinuates in the ending paragraph, Freud was a man that spent his entire life dedicated to making decisions about how and why people live their lives. How does he explain a desire to end it?
Now, there is a bit of Freud that I am drawing upon that isn't quite explained by just his Clark lectures. By practice, Freud was a determinist. That is, he quite truthfully believed that nothing happens by accident. The mere raising of an eyebrow, slips of the tongue, spinning around to get dizzy... All by this philosophy have reasons for their occurrence. In stride with this line of thinking is the notion that nothing happens because you want it to. For instance, you don't eat because you just want to eat, or shop because you're bored and that's just how you decided to spend an afternoon. They all have subconscious motives.
I wouldn't be the first to say that there's a good chance that Freud didn't hold himself to his crippling handicap of an inability to reference his subconscious. He considered himself a professional of the mind, and in many ways above the public that he addressed. But I would be interested to spark a discussion about why in the least, a man that celebrated the paramount pleasures of life would choose (if we can say it was indeed a cognitive choice) to end it.
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I thought this was a very interesting article, as I never knew that Freud died this way. I think the article brought up a lot of good points both for and against this practice--however, I think the most interesting point was brought up in the comments at the bottom of the page. "ian syms" wrote that, "Why the anguished debate? We already have the means to control birth so why should we have any qualms about seeking to control death?" I have never heard this particular point for the pro-choice side of this debate, and it got me thinking a lot about our moralities as humans.
ReplyDeleteI guess this point ultimately cycles back to how you feel about abortion, etc, and cannot really be viewed on as its own. I am not really 100% sure how I feel about either topic, as I think it depends on the situation and I can really entertain both sides of the argument. However, if Freud had cancer during this era, medicine was nowhere nearly as effective as it is today. He was clearly suffering and I suppose I see his side in that his suffering must end. I do think it is interesting, however, that he ultimately took his own fate in his hands--did he consider this a legitimate excuse as to why he took his life? Is this action Freud's last lesson to us all? I have to wonder what he was trying to teach us, what with his backward theory and how everything happens because of something else. What happend in his life to spark this action? Obviously it was because he was a victim of cancer, but according to his theories, it is likely that his childhood traumas sparked this in his later life.
I wish that, before he was injected with all this morphine, he wrote a final lecture. I wish that this lecture would explain his own theories on what made him succumb to this--kind of a psychoanalysis into his own life. Could it have anything to do with his first two wives dying, with his first wife dying when he was just seventeen years old?? (I found this interesting bit of intformation here: http://www.freudfile.org/childhood.html)
I also wonder why a man that was so empathetic to others' feelings would make two other people involved in this whole thing. Obviously killing another human would have damaging effects on most (healthy) people..so why would he put both his doctor and daughter throught this?! One can only hope that in years to come we will discover a diary of Freud's Last Lecture, and then all the questions would be answered!