Also by Lionel Trilling EYOND CULTURE

ESSA YS

THE OPPOSING SELF

Essays on

A GATHERING OF FUGITIVES

THE LIBERAL IMAGINATION

Literature and Learning

BIOGRAPHY

MATTHEW ARNOLD

E. M. FORSTER

NOVEL

THE MIDDLE OF THE JOURNEY

Edited by Lionel Trilling

LIONEL TRILLING

THE PORTABLE MATTHEW ARNOLD

SELECTED LETTERS OF JOHN KEATS

The Viking Press, New York

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Freud:

Within and Beyond Culture

«1»

T HE profession of psychoanalysis is unique among mod­

em professions in that it looks back to one man as its
originator and founder. It has been said that this constitutes
an intellectual disadvantage to the profession, that the great
personality of Sigmund Freud is too much present and too de­
cisive in the minds of those who come after him and thus
stands in the way of their intellectual independence. My own
sense of the matter is quite otherwise. I take it to be a clear ad­
vantage to any profession to have, as psychoanalysis does have,
its whole history before its eyes, to be always conscious of the
point in time at which it had its beginning, and of how its
doctrines were devised, revised, and developed. To have this
history in mind, made actual and dramatic in the person of
Freud himself, must give the members of the profession a
lively belief in intellectual possibility, and in the personal
nature of cultural achievement, a wondering happy aware-
The Freud Anniversary Lecture of the New York Psychoanalytical Society
and the New York Psychoanalytical Institute, 1955.
89
90 Beyond Culture
Freud: Within and Beyond Culture 91
ness of what a person can do toward the renovation of a cuI·
and we know what part Goethe's famous essay on Nature
ture.
played not only in the life of Freud but also in the lives of
In previous years the speakers on this anniversary have many other scientists of the century. Goethe, of course, was in
been psychoanalysts. This year you have interrupted that tra­ the tradition of the philosophes and the Encyclopedists, who
dition and have invited your speaker from the profession of were preponderantly men of letters: the science of the late
letters. He does not feel alien among you. Nowadays there is seventeenth century and the eighteenth century moved on a
scarcely a humanistic discipline or a social science that has tide of literary enthusiasm and literary formulation.
not been touched by Freud's ideas, and even theology feels Yet by the middle of the nineteenth century the separation
the necessity of taking these ideas into account. Had you in­ between science and literature becomes complete, and an an­
vited a philosopher as your speaker on this anniversary, or a tagonism develops between them, and while it is indeed true
historian, or an anthropologist, or a SOCIologist, or even a the­ that Freud based his scientific interests on the humanities, he
ologian, you would have acted with entire appropriateness was, above all else, a scientist. He was reared in the ethos of the
and your guest would have had sufficient reason to feel at nineteenth-century physical sciences, which was as rigorous
home among you. But of course no other profession has had and as jealous as a professional ethos can possibly be, and he
so long or so intimate a connection with psychoanalysis as the found in that ethos the heroism which he always looked for
profession of literature. in men, in groups, and in himself. He did not set out with the
The important place that literature had in Freud's men­ intention of becoming a humanist or of finding support for
tal life and the strength of the feeling with which he regarded his scientific ideas in whatever atlthority humanism might
literature are well known. Dr. Ernst Kris, in his introduction have. And if, when we have examined his achievement, we
to the letters which Freud wrote to Wilhelm Fliess, speaks of cannot fail to pronounce him one of the very greatest of
Freud's scientific interest as being "based on a firm founda­ humanistic minds, we yet cannot say of him that he was in
tion of the humanities." This is of course true, and it is one the least a literary mind.
of the remarkable things about Freud. It is the more remark­ A generation ago, literary men claimed Freud for their
able when we consider the nature of his scientific training, own, for reasons that are obvious enough, but nowadays it is
which was uncompromising in its materialism, and the force not the tendency of literary men to continue this claim. The
of the scientific ethos of his day, to which Freud himself en­ belief, which is now to be observed in some literary quarters,
thusiastically subscribed. that Freud's science is hostile to the spirit of literature is as
We must, however, keep it in mind that only a relatively unconsidered a notion as the former belief that psychoanaly­
few years earlier in the nineteenth century it had not been at sis was a sort of literary invention. Yet it is certainly true that,
all remarkable to base one's scientific interests on the hu­ whatever natural affinity we see between Freud and litera­
manities. This earlier attitude is represented to us in a con­ ture, however great a contribution to the understanding of
venient and accurate way by the figure of Goethe. We all literature we judge him to have made, it must seem to a liter­
know what store Goethe set by his own scientific researches, ary man that Freud sees literature not from within but from
 9 :: Beyond Culture Freud: Within and Beyond Culture 93
without. The great contribution he has made to our under­ lessly crude and summary in an attempt to suggest the con­
standing of literature does not arise from what he says about nection between the two. Literature is not a unitary thing,
literature itself but from what he says about the nature of the and there is probably no such single entity as the literary
human mind: he showed us that poetry is indigenous to the mind. But I shall assume that literature is what it actually is
very constitution of the mind; he saw the mind as being, in not, a unity, and I shall deal with it in those of its aspects in
the greater part of its tendency. exactly a poetry-making fac­ which that assumption does not immediately appear to be ab­
ulty. When he speaks about literature itself, he is sometimes surd, in which it is not wholly impossible to say that litera­
right and sometimes wrong. And sometimes, when he is ture "is" or "does" this or that.
wrong, his mistakes are more useful than literary men are The first thing that occurs to me to say about literature, as
willing to perceive. But he is always. I think, outside the I consider it in the relation in which Freud stands to it, is
process of literature. Much as he responds to the product, he that literature is dedicated to the conception of the self. This
does not really imagine the process. He does not have what is a very simple thing to say, perhaps to the point of dull­
we call the feel of the thing. ness. But it becomes more complicated when we perceive
Freud was a scientist-this was the name he cherished and how much of an achievement this conception is, how far it
sought to deserve. Nowadays some of us have fallen into the may be in advance of what society, or the general culture,can
habit of saying that there is no real difference between the conceive. T olstoi tells the story of the countess who wept
mind of the scientist and the mind of the artist. We are all buckets at a play while her coachman sat on the box of her
dismayed at the separateness and specialness of the disciplines waiting carriage, perishing of the cold through the long
of the mind, and when we meet together at conferences and hours of the performance. This may stand for the discrepancy
round-tables designed to overcome this bad situation, we find between what literature conceives of the self and what society,
it in our hearts to say to each other that we have everything or the general culture, conceives. At the behest of literature,
in common, very little in difference. This is laudable in its and with its help, the countess is able to imagine the selfhood
motive, and no doubt it is true enough under some suffi­ of others, no doubt through the process of identification; she
ciently large aspect. Yet in practical fact the difference is real is not able, of herself, to imagine the selfhood of her own servo
and important, as of course we know. The reason I am insist­ ant. What the Iliad conceives in the way of selfhood is far be­
ing on the difference between the mind of the scientist and yond what could be conceived by the culture in which it was
the mind of the literary man, and on Freud's being a scien­ written. The Trojan Women of Euripides must sometimes
tist, is, obviously, that the recognition of this makes so much seem unendurable, so intense is the recognition of the self­
more interesting and significant the relation of Freud to hood of others in pain that it forces upon us. Yet it is possible
humane letters. that The Trojan Women was being composed at the very
The canon of Freud's work is large and complex, and the moment that Athens was infamously carrying out its reprisal
tradition of humane letters is patently not to be encompassed against the city of Melos for wishing to remain neutral in the
in any formulation of its nature. I must therefore be hope- Peloponnesian War, slaughtering the men of the city and en­
 Beyond Culture Freud: Within and Beyond Culture 95
94
slaving the women and children, doing this not in the passion rewarded his credulity-scarcely any of them were telling the
of battle but, like the Greek princes of The Trojan Women, truth. They had betrayed Freud into constructing a hypothe­
in the horrible deliberateness of policy. Thucydides un­ sis on the basis of their stories. Hypotheses are precious things
and this one now had to be abandoned, and so Freud had rea­
derstood the hideousness of the deed, and it is thought by
son to think very harshly of his patients if he wished to. But he
some modem scholars that he conceived his History in the
did not blame them, he did not say they were lying-he
form of a tragedy in which the downfall of Athens is the con­
willingly suspended his disbelief in their fantasies, which
sequence of her sin at Melos; but Thucydides does not record
they themselves believed, and taught himself how to find the
any party of opposition to the Melian decision or any revul­
truth that was really in them.
sion among his fellow countrymen. In almost every developed
It is hard to know whether to describe this incident as a tri­
society, literature is able to conceive of the self, and the self­
umph of the scientific imagination and its method or as the
hood of others, far more intensely than the general culture
moral triumph of an impatient and even censorious man
ever can.
in whom the intention of therapy and discovery was stronger
One of the best-known tags of literary criticism is Coler­
than the impulse to blame. But in whatever terms we choose
idge's phrase, "the willing suspension of disbelief." Coleridge
to praise it, it has been established in the system of psycho­
says that the willing suspension of disbelief constitutes
analytical therapy. From it followed the willing suspension of
"poetic faith." I suppose that we might say that it constitutes
disbelief in the semantic value of dreams, and the willing sus­
scientific faith too, or scientific method. Once we get beyond
pension of disbelief in the concept of mind, which all well­
the notion that science is, as we used to be told it was, "or­
trained neurologists and psychiatrists of Vienna knew to be
ganized common sense," and have come to understand that
but a chimera. Freud's acceptance of the fantasies of his early
science is organized improbability, or organized fantasy, we
patients, his conclusion that their untruths had a meaning, a
begin to see that the willing suspension of disbelief is an essen­
purpose, and even a value, was the suspension of disbelief in
tial part of scientific thought. And certainly the willing sus­
the selfhood of these patients. Its analogue is not, I think, the
pension of disbelief constitutes moral faith-the essence of the
religious virtue of charity, but something in which the intel­
moral life would seem to consist in doing that most difficult
ligence plays a greater part. We must be reminded of that
thing in the world, making a willing suspension of disbelief
particular kind of understanding, that particular exercise of
in the selfhood of someone else. This Freud was able to do in
the literary intelligence by which we judge adversely the
a most extraordinary way, and not by the mere impulse of his
deeds of Achilles, but not Achilles himself, by which we do
temperament, but systematically, as an element of his science.
not blame Macbeth, nor even, to mention the hero and hero­
We recall, for instance, that dramatic moment in the develop­
ine of Freud's favorite English poem, Adam and Eve, who,
ment of psychoanalysis when Freud accepted as literally true
because they are the primal parents, we naturally want to
the stories told him by so many of his early patients, of their
blame for everything.
having been, as children, sexually seduced or assaulted by
If we go on with our gross summary comparison of litera­
adults, often by their own parents. We know how his patients
 Beyond Culture Freud: Within and Beyond Culture 97
96 cepted the opposition. They accept the commission to repre­
ture and psychoanalysis, we can say that they are also similar
sent something called reality, which lies outside of literature,
in this respect, that it is of the essence of both to represent
and which they think of as either antagonistic to the dream
the opposition between two principles, those which Freud
of pleasure, or as standing beyond pleasure. Wordsworth
called the reality principle and the pleasure principle. When~
blamed himself for having "lived in a dream," for having
ever Freud goes wrong in his dealings with literature, it is be­
failed to represent to himself the painful adversity of the
cause he judges literature by too limited an application of
world. Keats denounced himself for his membership in the
these principles. When he praises literature, it is chiefly be~
"tribe" of mere dreaming poets, who are so much less than
cause of its powers of factual representation, its powers of
"those to whom the miseries of the world/ Are misery, and
discovery-"Not I but the poets," he said, "discovered the un­
will not let them rest."
conscious." When he denigrates literature (by implication),

it is by speaking of its mere hedonism, of its being an escape What benefit canst thou do, or all thy tribe,

from reality, a substitute-gratification, a daydream, an an~ To the great world? Thou art a dreaming thing,

dyne. Some years ago I dealt as sternly as I could with the A fever of thyself-think of the Earth . . .

errors of these formulations of Freud's,l and so now perhaps I

Yet with the dream of pleasure, or with the actuality of pleas­
am privileged to lighten the burden of reprobation they have ure, the poets, at least of an earlier time than ours, always kept
had to bear and to take note of a certain rightness and useful- in touch. Keats's whole mental life was an effort to demon­
ness they have. strate the continuity between pleasure and reality. Words­
Freud is scarcely unique in conceiving of literature in worth speaks of the principle of pleasure-the phrase is his­
terms of the opposition between reality and pleasure. This as constituting the "naked and native dignity of man." He
conception is endemic in literary criticism itself since at least says. moreover, that it is the principle by which man not only
the time of Plato, and often in a very simple form. It was usu­ "feels, and lives, and moves," but also "knows": the principle
ally in a very simple form indeed that the opposition was of pleasure was for Wordsworth the very ground of the princi­
made in the nineteenth century. We have but to read the ple of reality, and so of course it is for Freud, even though he
young Yeats and to observe his passion against fact and the seems to maintain the irreconcilability of the two principles.
literature of fact, and his avowed preference for the literature And the mature Yeats, in that famous sentence of his, which
of dream, to see how established in the thought of the time is as Freudian in its tendency as it is Wordsworthian, tells
was the opposition between the pleasure principle and the us that, "In dreams begins responsibility." He bases the devel­
principle of reality. oped moral life on the autonomy of the youthful hedonistic
Nowadays literary criticism tends to be restive under the fantasies.

opposition, which it takes to be a covert denial of the auton­

"Beauty is truth, truth beauty," said Keats, and genera­
omy of literature, a way of judging literature by the cate­ tions of critics have been at pains to tell us that the equations
gories of science. But the poets themselves have always ac­ are false. They forget what meaning we are required to assign
'In "Freud and Uterature." The Liberal Imagination, 19So.
98 Beyond Culture
Freud: Within and Beyond Culture 99
to the two predications by reason of the fact that Keats utters
men, the man in whom the energy of will and intellect was
them in the context of a passionate meditation on four great greatest, the man, too, who at the moment of his desire for
facts of human existence-love, death, art, and the relation
death speaks of his extraordinary power of love. It is possible
that exists among these. When Keats said that beauty is truth,
to argue that Oedipus does not in fact go to his death but to his
he was saying that the pleasure principle is at the root of exist­ apotheosis. It is possible, too, to say that when the poets speak
ence, and of knowledge, and of the moral life. When he said
of the desire for death or the happy acquiescence in death,
that truth is beauty, he was putting in two words his enor­ they do not really mean death at all but apotheosis, or
mously complex belief that the self can so develop that it may,
Nirvana, or what Yeats imagined, the existence "out of na­
in the intensity of art or meditation, perceive even very pain­ ture," in the "artifice of eternity." It is possible to say that
ful facts with a kind of pleasure, for it is one of the striking
something of this sort is really what Freud meant. But the
things about Keats that he represents so boldly and accurately
poets call it death; it has much of the aspect of death; and
the development of the self, and that, when he speaks of
when we take into account the age-old impulse of highly de­
pleasure, he may mean-to use a language not his-sometimes
veloped spirits to incorporate the idea of death into the expe­
the pleasure of the id, sometimes of the ego, and sometimes of
rience of life, even to make death the criterion of life, we are
the superego.
drawn to the belief that the assertion of the death instinct is
Keats's mind was profoundly engaged by the paradox of
the effort of finely tempered minds to affirm the self in an ul­
the literary genre of tragedy, which must always puzzle us be­ timate confrontation of reality.
cause it seems to propose to the self a gratification in regard­
There is yet another theme with which literature and Freud
ing its own extinction. Very eminent psychoanalysts, contin­
have an equal preoccupation. It is again a theme of oppo­
uators of Freud's science who would perhaps differ with him
sition, cognate with the opposition between pleasure and
on no other point, do differ with him on the matter of his hav­
reality-the theme of the opposition between love and power.
ing conceived a tendency of the self to acquiesce in and
That literature does conceive love and power as being in op­
even to desire its own end. Whether or not Freud's formu­
position is obvious enough from the frequency with which it
lations of the death instinct stand up under scientific inquiry,
presents the hero as both lover and warrior, the interest of his
I of course cannot venture to say. But certainly they confirm
situation being that he finds it very hard to reconcile his de­
our sense of Freud's oneness with the tradition of literature.
sire for love and his desire for power. The theme has engaged
For literature has always recorded an impulse of the self to
not only the dramatic poets and the novelists but the lyric
find affirmation even in its own extinction, even by its own
poets too-it was a lyric poet who put so large a part of
extinction. When we read the great scene of the death of Oedi­
the matter in a nutshell: "I could not love thee (Deare) so
pus at Colonus, we have little trouble, I think, in at least sus­
much,/ Lov'd I not Honour more," for the power I speak of
pending our disbelief in Freud's idea. We do so the more is not gross, cruel power (although, in the context, this can­
willingly because the impulse to death is, in this magnificent not be far from our minds) but rather, in its ideal concep­
moment, expressed and exemplified by the most passionate of tion, what is represented by the word honor: it is the power
 Freud: Within and Beyond Culture 1 0 1
10 0 Beyond Culture the very heart of experience, saying of himself, as Yeats trans­
of cultuTal achievement, or of cultural commitment. As such, lates the speech, "No living man has loved as I have loved,"
it was seen by Freud as pre-eminently a masculine issue. becomes the guardian genius of the Athenian civic life. Wil­
"The masculine chaTacter, the ability to dare and endure, to liam Blake, who envisaged life in a way that Freud would
know and not to fear reality, to look the world in the face and have easily understood, calls in a great voice, "Bring me my
take it for what it is, . . . this is what I want to preserve." It bow of burning goldl/ Bring me my arrows of desire./
is not Freud I am quoting but one of Henry James's heroes, Bring me my spearl .•." What does he want this libidinal
an American; but Basil Ransom of The Bostonians says very armament for? Why, that he "may build Jerusalem/ In Eng­
well what Freud meant. And Freud's concern for the preser­ land's green and pleasant land." And in his fine poem on the
vation of what James calls "the masculine character," which, death of Freud, W. H. Auden speaks of the grief both of
like James, Freud conceived to be under attack, has been "anarchic Aphrodite" and of "Eros, builder of cities."
made a point in the reproach directed at Freud that he dis­ Freud was much concerned with his own cultural commit­
played a masculine chauvinism, and, what is more, that, for ment and achievement. And he loved fame. To some it may
all his overt preoccupation with love, he was yet more pre­ be surprising and even dismaying that this should be said of
occupied with power, with aggression and personal force, or, him; they will suppose that it does him no credit. In our cul­
at the best, with achievement. This contributes to a tendency ture the love of fame is not considered a virtue, or even an at­
which is to be observed of recent years, the tendency to repre­ tTactive trait of the personality. We are likely to confuse it
sent Freud as really anesthetic to love and as in some way an­ with the love of publicity, and thus to be confirmed in our
tagonistic to it. We all know how it has been said of Freud feeling that it is not a worthy motive of intellectual ambition.
that he has made out love to be nothing but a reaction­ It is, I believe, considered particularly unbecoming in a scien­
formation against the most selfish and hostile impulses. And tist. But it is a trait which confirms our sense of Freud's per­
so strange are the surprises of the movement of thought that sonal connection with the tradition of literature, and my men­
Freud, once attacked for the extravagance of his sexual em­ tion of it is meant as praise. Traditionally the love of fame has
phasis, is now, by people of no little seriousness, said to be characterized two highly regarded professions, that of arms
puritanical in his view of sexuality, surrendering to civiliza­ and that of letters. The soldier, however, is no longer supposed
tion and to achievement in civilization far more of impulse to desire fame. And even the poet, although I think we license
than there was any need to surrender. him to entertain the fantasy of his immortal renown, no longer
This is not a matter that can be argued here. I should like pnises fame or says he wants it, as once he thought it very
only to turn again to literature and to observe that the tend­ proper to do. Dante desired above all earthly things to be
ency of liteTature, when once it has represented the opposi­ famous as a poet. Shakespeare believed implicitly in the per­
tion between love and power, is to conceive of love as a prin· ;manence of his fame. Milton calls the love of fame "that last
ciple of order for the self, even as a discipline, and as itself a :infirmity of noble mind," but he thus connects it with mind;
power, a civic and civilizing power. Oedipus, that angry and he speaks of it as an ally of the reality principle:
violent man who pauses in his dying to set the word love at
102 Beyond Culture Freud: Within and Beyond Culture 103

Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise about the conditions of its existence, its survival, its develop­
To scorn delights and live laborious days. ment. For literature, as for Freud, the self is the first object
There can be no doubt that fame was the spur to Freud's of attention and solicitude. The culture in which the self
clear spirit, to his desire to make clear what was darkly has its existence is a matter of the liveliest curiosity, but in
seen. As a student he stood in the great Aula of the U ni­ a secondary way, as an essential condition of the self, as a
versity of Vienna, where were set up the busts of the famous chief object of the self's energies, or as representing the ag­
men of the University, and he dreamed of the day when gregation of selves. For literature, as for Freud, the test of the
he should be similarly honored. He knew exactly what in­ culture is always the individual self, not the other way
scription he wanted on the pedestal, a line from Oedipus around. The function of literature, through all its mutations,
TyrannusJ "Who divined the riddle of the Sphinx and was a has been to make us aware of the particularity of selves, and
man most mighty"-the story is told by his biographer that he the high authority of the self in its quarrel with its society
turned pale, as if he had seen a ghost, when, on his fiftieth and its culture. Literature is in that sense subversive. This is
birthday, he was presented by his friends and admirers with a not to say that the general culture does not have its own kind
medallion on which these very words were inscribed. of awareness of the self. It does; it must-and when we judge
And if we ask what moves the poets to their love of fame, a culture we inevitably adduce the way it conceives of the
what made the dying Keats say in despair, "Here lies one self, the value and honor it gives to the self. But it can some­
whose name is writ in water," and then again in hope, "I times happen that a culture intent upon giving the very
think I shall be among the English poets," the answer is not so highest value and honor to the selves that comprise it can
very difficult to come by. The poets' idea of fame is the intense proceed on its generous enterprise without an accurate
expression of the sense of the self, of the self defined by the awareness of what the self is, or what it might become. Such a
thing it makes, which is conceived to be everlasting precisely loss of accurate knowledge about the self it is possible to ob­
because it was once a new thing, a thing added to the spirit of serve in our own culture at this time. It is, I believe, a very
generous culture, and in its conscious thought it sets great
man.
store by the conditions of life which are manifestly appropri­
ate to the self, the conditions of freedom and respect. Yet it
would seem that this generosity of intention does not pre­
«2»
clude a misapprehension of the nature of the self, and of the
Literature offers itself to our understanding in many ways. right relation of the self to the culture. What I take to be a
Of these not the least important is that which takes literature progressive deterioration of accurate knowledge of the self
to be an intellectual discipline having to do with appearance and of the right relation between the self and the culture is
and reality, with truth. The truth we especially expect litera­ rationalized by theories and formulas to which Freud's
ture to convey to us by its multifarious modes of communica­ thought about the self and the culture stands as a challenge
tion is the truth of the self, and also the truth about the self, and a controversion.
10 4- Beyond Culture Freud: Within and Beyond Culture 105

The idea of culture, in the modem sense of the word, is a sincerity, and simplicity of the Highland clans had not the
relatively new idea. It represents a way of thinking about our world learned to think of life in terms of culture. had it not
life in society which developed concomitantly with certain learned to wonder whether some inscrutable bad principle
new ways of conceiving of the self. Indeed. our modem idea in its present culture was not making it impossible for all men
of culture may be thought of as a new sort of selfhood be­ to be as loyal and sincere and simple as they should be.
stowed upon the whole of society. The idea of society as a In the dissemination of the idea of culture, Freud has no
person is not new, but there is much that is new about the doubt had a chief part. The status of Freud's actual formula­
kind of personalization of society which began to be made tions about culture is now somewhat ambiguous. We often
some two hundred years ago. Society, in this new selfhood, hear it said that Freud's theories of culture are inadequate. It
is thought of as having a certain organic unity, an autonomous seems to me that this is often said by writers on the subject just
character and personality which it expresses in everything it before they make use of some one of Freud's ideas about cul­
does; it is conceived to have a style, which is manifest not ture. But whatever we may conclude about the intellectual
only in its conscious, intentional activities, in its archi­ value of Freud's formulations, we cannot fail to know that it
tecture, its philosophy, and so on, but also in its uncon­ was Freud who made the idea of culture real for a great many
scious activities, in its unexpressed assumptions--the un­ of us. Whatever he may mean to the people who deal pro­
conscious of society may be said to have been imagined before fessionally with the idea of culture-and in point of fact he
the unconscious of the individual. And in the degree that so­ means a great deal-for the layman Freud is likely to be the
ciety was personalized by the concept of culture, the individ­ chief proponent of the whole cultural concept. It was he who
ual was seen to be far more deeply implicated in society than made it apparent to us how entirely implicated in culture we
ever before. This is not an idea which is confined to the his­ all are. By what he said or suggested of the depth and subtlety
wrian or to the social scientist; it is an idea which is at work of the influence of the family upon the individual, he made
in the mind of every literate and conscious person as he plain how the culture suffuses the remotest parts of the indi­
thinks of his life and estimates the chances of his living well vidual mind. being taken in almost literally with the moth­
in the world. At some point in the history of the West-let us er's milk. His psychology involves culture in its very essence
say, for convenience. at the time of Rousseau-men began to -it tells us that the surrogates of culture are established in
think of their fates as being lived out in relation not to God, the mind itself. that the development of the individual mind
or to the individual persons who are their neighbors, or to recapitulates the development of culture.
material circumstance, but to the ideas and assumptions and Generally speaking. the word culture is used in a sense which
manners of a large social totality. The evidence of this is to be approaches the honorific. When we look at a people in the
found in our literature, in its preoccupation with newly dis­ degree of abstraction which the idea of culture implies, we
covered alien cultures which, in one regard or another, serve cannot but be touched and impressed by what we see, we can­
to criticize our own. Walter Scott could not have delighted not help being awed by something mysterious at work, some
the world with his representation in Waverley of the loyalty, creative power which seems to transcend any particular act or
 Beyond Culture Freud: Within and Beyond Culture 10 7
106
habit or quality that may be observed. To make a coherent support to the idea of community) for what we respond to in
life, to confront the terrors of the outer and the inner world, a folk culture is what we see, or seem to see, of the unity and
to establish the ritual and art, the pieties and duties which coherence of its individual members, the absence of conflict,
the sense of the wholeness of the group.
make possible the life of the group and the individual-these
are culture, and to contemplate these various enterprises which But Freud's attitude to culture is different from this. For
him, too, there is an honorific accent in the use of the
constitute a culture is inevitably moving. And, indeed, with­
word, but at the same time, as we cannot fail to hear, there is
out this sympathy and admiration a culture is a closed book
in what he says about culture an unfailing note of exaspera­
to the student, for the scientific attitude requisite for the
study of cultures is based on a very lively subjectivity. It is tion and resistance. Freud's relation to culture must be de­
scribed as an ambivalent one.
not merely that the student of culture must make a willing
suspension of disbelief in the assumptions of cultures other Recently, in another connection, I spoke of the modern self
than his own; he must go even further and feel that the cul­ as characterized by its intense and adverse imagination of the
ture he has under examination is somehow justified, that it is culture in which it had its being, and by certain powers of in­
dignant perception which, turned upon the unconscious por­
as it should be.
This methodological sympathy, as we might call it, devel­ tions of culture, have made them accessible to conscious
oped into a kind of principle of cultural autonomy, according thought. 2 Freud's view of culture is marked by this adverse
to which cultures were to be thought of as self-contained sys­ awareness, by this indignant perception. He does indeed see
tems not open to criticism from without; and this principle the self as formed by its culture. But he also sees the self as set
was taken from the anthropologists by certain psychoanalysts. against the culture, struggling against it, having been from
In this view a culture became a kind of absolute. The culture the first reluctant to enter it. Freud would have understood
was not to be judged "bad" or "neurotic"; it was the individ­ what Hegel meant by speaking of the "terrible principle of
ual who was to be judged by the criteria of the culture. This culture." This resistance, this tragic regret over the necessary
view, I believe, no longer obtains in its old force. We are no involvement with culture, is obviously not the sole or even
longer forbidden to judge cultures adversely; we may now the dominant element in Freud's thought on the subject.
speak of them as inadequate cultures, even as downright neu­ Freud was, as he said of himself, a conservative, a conserving,
rotic cultures. And yet the feeling for the absoluteness of cul­ mind. The aim of all his effort is the service of culture-he
ture still persists. It may best be observed in our responses to speaks of the work of psychoanalysis as "the draining of the
the cultures we think of as having a "folk" character and in Zuyder Zee," the building of the dyke, the seeing to it that
our tendency to suppose that when an individual is at one where id was ego should be. Yet at the same time his adverse
with a culture of this sort he is in a happy and desirable state attitude to culture is very strong, his indignation is very
of existence. This will suggest the unconscious use we make intense.
of the idea of culture: we take it to be a useful and powerful • The reference is to a passage in the Preface to The Opposing Self, 1955·
 Freud: Within and Beyond Culture 109
10 8 Beyond Culture
cultural environment, and, also, only if the cultural environ­
It can of course be said that the indignation which an indi­
ment is in accord with the best tendencies in himself. This
vidual directs upon his culture is itself culturally condi­
idea is not specifically a Freudian idea. It is the idea, or the
tioned. Culture may be thought of as Kismet-we flee from
assumption, on which the tradition of humane liberal thought
Bokhara to escape its decrees, only to fulfill them in Samarra.
has gone about its business for two centuries. But although
Yet the illusion, if that is what it be, of separateness from
it was not in the first instance derived from Freud, it is con­
one's culture has an effect upon conduct, and upon culture,
firmed by the tendency of certain Freudian ideas. And it may
which is as decisive as the effects of the illusion of free will.
be said to constitute a chief ground of our theories of educa­
For Freud this separateness was a necessary belief. He needed
tion, child rearing, morality, and social action.
to believe that there was some point at which it was possible
But if we speak of the Freudianism which supports so much
to stand beyond the reach of culture. Perhaps his formulation
of our current doctrine, we must also speak of our anti-Freudi­
of the death-instinct is to be interpreted as the expression of
anism. An ambivalent attitude toward Freudianism is perhaps
this need. "Death destroys a man," says E. M. Forster, "but
inevitable and maybe even healthy. But I do not have in mind
the idea of death saves him." Saves him from what? From the
what might be called the normal ambivalence of response to
entire submission of himself-of his self-to life in culture.
At this point you will perhaps be wondering why I said Freud's ideas. Rather, I speak of the particular resentment­
for such it can be called-of Freud's theories of the self in its
that Freud so greatly influenced our idea of culture, for cer­
relation to culture. \Vhat I have described of Freud's tragic
tainly this aspect of Freud-his resistance to culture-is not
sense of culture, of his apparent wish to establish the self
reflected in our present-day thought. We set so much store
beyond the reach of culture, will suggest the ground for this
by the idea of man in culture because, as I say, we set so much
hostility. For the fact is that Freud challenges our sense of how
store (and rightly) by the idea of man in community. The two
the self relates to culture and of how it should relate to culture.
ideas are not the same. But the idea of man-in-culture pro­
He shakes us most uncomfortably in those very ideas which
vides, as it were, the metaphysic, the mystique, of our ideas of
we believe we have learned from him.
man-in-community. It gives us a way of speaking more pro­
Several years ago, in the period of McCarthyism, a confer­
foundly about community, for talking about souls, about
ence of notable American psychiatrists was convened for the
destiny, about the ground and sanctions of morality; it is our
purpose of discovering whether, and to what extent, the psychic
way of talking about fate, free will, and immortality. It is our
health of the nation was affected by the requirement that
way of coming close to the idea of Providence. I of course do
people in civic positions take loyalty oaths and submit to the
not mean that we do not criticize our culture as it actually is.
investigation of their ideas, attitudes, and past associations. 3
Indeed, nothing is more characteristic of our thinking today
than our readiness to observe certain obvious failings and
inadequacies of our cultural situation. Yet in every criticism • "Considerations Regarding the Loyalty Oath as a Manifestation of Current
Social Tension and Anxiety: A Statement Formulated by the Committee on
that 'we utter, we express our belief that man can be truly Social Issues of the Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry and a Panel
Discussion." GoA.P. Symposium NO.1. Topeka. Kansas. October 1954.
himself and fully human only if he is in accord with his
1 10 Beyond Culture Freud: Within and Beyond Culture 11 1

The consensus of the conference was that the atmosphere of my answer from the report of an American writer whom
surveillance and repressiveness must inevitably have an ad­ Freud particularly admired. Mark Twain lived in Vienna at
verse effect upon psychic health generally. It was not merely the time Freud was formulating his theory of psychoanalysis;
said that individuals were being made anxious by the institu­ he attended many of the sessions of the Parliament of 1897
tionalized suspiciousness to which they were being subjected and he described some of them. One event, which especially
or that the threat to their jobs and to their social acceptability horrified him, was the Parliament's surrender of its own au­
made them fearful, and that fear made them cautious and thority, for it invited a militarized police force to march into
secretive. The effect was said to be of a far deeper kind, and the House to remove certain unruly members. Mark Twain
likely to perpetuate itself in the culture. The psychiatrists certainly had no high opinion of the manners of American
pointed out that the ego is that aspect of the mind which deals legislators, but he was appalled by what he observed in the
with the object-world, and that one of its important func­ Viennese Parliament, the show of personal violence, the
tions is the pleasurable entertainment of the ideal of adven­ personal invective of the rudest and most obscene sort. "As
ture. But if part of the object-world is closed off by interdic­ to the make-up of the House itself," he said, "it is this:
tion, and if the impulse to adventure is checked by restriction, the deputies come from all the walks of life and from all
the free functioning of the ego is impaired. The superego the grades of society. There are princes, counts, barons,
is also liable to serious damage. The psychiatrists of the con­ priests, mechanics, laborers, lawyers, physicians, professors,
ference said that "a mature superego can optimally develop merchants, bankers, shopkeepers. They are religious men,
they are earnest, sincere, devoted, and they hate the Jews."
only in a free and democratic society."
Now obviously there is much in this that no one will dis­ This hatred of the Jews was the one point of unity in a Par­
agree with. What the conference says in the language of psy­ liament which was torn asunder by the fiercest nationalistic
chiatry, we all say in our own language. If you enslave a man, and cultural jealousies. And the weakness of Parliament
he will develop the psychology of a slave. If you exclude a meant the strength of the monarchical government, which
man from free access to the benefits of society, his human ruled by police methods; censorship was in force, and only
quality will be in some way diminished. All men of good in­ inefficiency kept it from being something graver than a
tention are likely to say something of this kind as they think nuisance.
Of course no one who knows the circumstances of Freud's
of social betterment.
And yet if we look critically at these ideas, they will be seen life will conclude that he lived under actual oppression in
Vienna. Still, it was anything but a free and democratic soci­
not to go so far along the way to truth as at first we think.
ety as the conference of psychiatrists, or most of us, would
What, to take a relevant example, was the cultural and politi­
define a free and democratic society, and Freud was not an
cal situation in which Freud's thought developed, and his ego
enfranchised citizen of it until his middle years. His having
and his superego too? Dr. Jones tells us something about this
been reared in such a society surely goes far to explain why
in the first volume of his biography of Freud, but I shall draw
1 1 2 Beyond Culture Freud: Within and Beyond Culture 1 13

some of his views of culture are tragic or skeptical, and very far quantity and a particular quality of human energy, and its
toward explaining why he conceived of the self as standing in name was Sigmund Freud.
opposition to the general culture. But the cultural circum­ The place of biology in Freud's system of thought has often
stance in which he was reared did not, so far as I can make been commented on, and generally adversely. It is often
out, impair the functioning of his ego or his superego. spoken of as if it represented a reactionary part of Freud's
Why did it not? Well, certain things in his particular cul­ thought. The argument takes this form: if we think of a man
tural situation intervened between him and the influence of as being conditioned not so much by biology as by culture,
his society. His family situation, for one thing: the family is we can the more easily envisage a beneficent manipulation of
the conduit of cultural influences, but it is also a bulwark his condition; if we keep our eyes fixed upon the wide differ­
against cultural influences. His ethnic situation, for another ences among cultures which may be observed, and if we re­
thing: he was a Jew, and enough of the Jewish sub-culture pudiate Freud's naIve belief that there is a human given in
reached him to make a countervailing force against the gen­ all persons and all cultures, then we are indeed encouraged to
eral culture. Then his education: who can say what part in think that we can do what we wish with ourselves, with
his self-respect, in his ability to move to a point beyond the mankind-there is no beneficent mutation of culture, there is
reach of the surrounding dominant culture, was played by no revision of the nature of man, that we cannot hope to
the old classical education, with its image of the other cul­ bring about.
ture, the ideal culture, that wonderful imagined culture of the Now Freud may be right or he may be wrong in the place
ancient world which no one but schoolboys, schoolmasters, he gives to biology in human fate, but I think we must
scholars, and poets believed in? The schoolboy who kept his stop to consider whether this emphasis on biology, correct
diary in Greek, as Freud did, was not submitting his ego or or incorrect, is not so far from being a reactionary idea
his superego to the debilitating influences of a restrictive so­ that it is actually a liberating idea. It proposes to us that cuI·
ciety. Then the culture of another nation intervened be­ ture is not all-powerful. It suggests that there is a residue of
tween him and what was bad in his own culture: Freud's human quality beyond the reach of cultural control, and that
early love of England must be counted among his defenses. this residue of human quality, elemental as it may be, serves
Then he found strength in certain aspects of his own culture, to bring culture itself under criticism and keeps it from being
bad as it may have been by our standards of freedom and de­ absolute.
mocracy: he loved the language and thus made it his friend, This consideration is, I believe, of great importance to us
and he loved science. at this moment in our history. The argument I made from
And then beyond these cultural interpositions there was Freud's own cultural situation in boyhOOd was, as I know. in
his sense of himself as a biological fact. This sense of himself some degree unfair, for the society of Vienna, although cer­
as a biological fact was of course supported and confirmed by tainly not what we would call free and democratic. was ap­
the various accidents of Freud's cultural fate, but it ,,,as, to parently such a mess of a society that one might, without
begin with, a given, a donnee-a gift. It was a particular difficulty, escape whatever bad intentions it had; and its tol­
1 1 4 Beyond Culture Freud: Within and Beyond Culture 1 1 5
erance of mess may lead us to conclude that it had certain ating idea. It is a resistance to and a modification of the cul­
genial intentions of freedom. Nowadays, however, societies tural omnipotence. We reflect that somewhere in the child,
are less likely to be messes; they are likely to be all too effi­ somewhere in the adult, there is a hard, irreducible, stubborn
cient, whether by coerciveness or seductiveness. In a society cote of biological urgency, and biological necessity, and bio­
like ours, which, despite some appearances to the contrary, logical reason, that culture cannot reach and that reserves the
tends to be seductive rather than coercive, the individual's right, which sooner or later it will exercise, to judge the cul­
old defenses against the domination of the culture become ture and resist and revise it. It seems to me that whenever we
weaker and weaker. The influence of the family deteriorates become aware of how entirely we are involved in our culture
and is replaced by the influence of the school. The small and how entirely controlled by it we believe ourselves to
separatist group set apart by religious or ethnic difference be, destined and fated and foreordained by it, there must come
loses its authority, or uses what authority it has to support the to us a certain sense of liberation when we remember our bi­
general culture. The image of what I have called the other ological selves. In her lecture of 1954 before this Society and
culture, the idealized past of some other nation, Greece, or Institute, Anna Freud spoke of what she called the period of
Rome, or England, is dismissed from education at the behest optimism in the psychoanalytical thought about the rearing of
of the pedagogic sense of reality-it is worth noting that, for children, a period when, as she says, "almost the whole blame
perhaps the first time in history, the pedagogue is believed to for the neurotic development of the child was laid on parental
have a sense of reality. And we have come to understand that actions" and when "it was hoped that the modification of these
it is not a low Philistine impulse that leads us to scrutinize parental attitudes would do away with infantile anxiety and,
with anxiety our children's success in their social life; it is consequently, abolish the infantile neuroses," And Miss Freud
rather a frank, free, generous, democratic, progressive aware­ went on to speak of the following "period of pessimism, when
ness of the charms of Group-Living, an engaging trust in the origin of neurosis was recognized to be due not to en­
the natural happiness of man-in-culture, or child-in-culture, vironmental influences but to inevitable factors of various
so long as that culture is not overtly hostile. kinds." Pessimistic this new period of psychoanalytical
We do not need to have a very profound quarrel with thought may be; yet when we think of the growing power of
American culture to feel uneasy because our defenses against culture to control us by seduction or coercion, we must be
it, our modes of escape from it, are becoming less and less glad and not sorry that some part of our fate comes from out­
adequate. We can scarcely fail to recognize how open and avail­ side the culture.
able to the general culture the individual becomes, how little We must not permit ourselves to be at the mercy of the
protected he is by countervailing cultural forces, how the terrible pendulum of thought and begin now to discredit all
national culture grows in homogeneity and demandingness, that we have learned about cultural influence or conclude
even in those of its aspects that we think of as most free and that parents have been suddenly relieved of all responsibility
benign. And if we do recognize this, we can begin to see why for their children's psychic destinies. Yet this new emphasis,
we may think of Freud's emphasis on biology as being a libet- of which Miss Freud speaks. upon the non-cultural part of
116 Beyond Culture Freud: Within and Beyond Culture 117

our destiny may well serve to renovate and freshen our mode What, to shift our ground from the group to the individu­
of thinking about ourselves. als, made it possible for a Giordano Bruno, or a Socrates, or
The interaction of biology and culture in the fate of man is any other martyr of the intellect, to face his death? I t was not,
not a matter which we have yet begun to understand. Up to I think, that a free and democratic society had successfully
now, entranced by all that the idea of culture and the study of nurtured the maturity of his superego. How very strange is
culture can tell us about the nature of man, we have been in­ the superegol For we say of it that it is the surrogate of soci­
clined to assign to culture an almost exclusive part in man's ety, or of the culture, but one of its functions seems to be to
fate. If the culture goes awry, we say, inevitably the individ­ lead us to imagine that there is a sanction beyond the culture,
ual goes awry-his ego and his superego suffer serious impair­ that there is a place from which the culture may be judged
ment. But history does not always support this view. Some­ and rejected. It often happens that culture is very grateful for
times it does, but not always. It is sometimes to be observed being so judged and rejected, that it gives the highest remi­
that a whole people will degenerate because of a drastic niscent honors to those who have escaped it. But we make it
change in its economic and political and thus of its cultural that much harder to escape the culture, we cut off the possi­
situation. But then too, it sometimes happens that a people bility of those triumphs of the mind that are won in the face
living under imposed conditions of a very bad kind, the oppo­ of culture, if we impose the idea of a self that is wholly de­
site of the conditions of that free and democratic society pendent upon the culture for its energy and health.
which the ego and the superego are said to need for health "Suppose," I heard a student on my own campus say the
and maturity, living, indeed, under persecution, will develop other day, "suppose a man is paranoid-that is, he thinks he is
egos and superegos of an amazing health and strength. right and other people are wrong." He did not really, or he
Whether also of maturity I will not venture to say, for ma­ did not wholly, mean what he said-had he been questioned,
turity is a difficult word to comprehend, and even should we he would have owned to a lively and reasoned admiration for
succeed in knowing what it imports, we might be hard put to the long tradition of the men who thought they were right
carry its meaning from one culture to another: but strength and everybody else was wrong, he would have happily admit­
and health they certainly have, enough to make for survival ted that this isolation in belief was not only a sign of insanity.
on a high cultural level. They have their psychic casualties, But at the moment at which he made his utterance he was
their psychic scars are manifest, but they survive in sufficient speaking with the voice of the tendency of his culture. He was
dignity. And if we ask why they thus survived, the answer not one of the group of my own students who, a short time
may be that they conceived of their egos and superegos as not ago, read with me Freud's Civilization and Its Discontents,
being culturally conditioned and dependent but as being vir­ but he was kin to them, for they told me that Freud had pre­
tually biological facts, and immutable. And often they put sented a paranoid version of the relation of the self to culture:
this conception of their psyches to the ultimate biological he conceived of the self submitting to culture and being yet
test-they died for the immutability of their egos and in opposition to it; he conceived of the self as being not
superegos. wholly continuous with culture, as being not wholly created

....
118 Beyond Culture «(««<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<o»»»»)»»}»»»»}»»»»»»»>>}»»))}
by culture, as maintaining a standing quarrel with its great
benefactor.
I need scarcely remind you that in respect of this "para­
noia" Freud is quite at one with literature. In its essence lit­ Isaac Babel

erature is concerned with the self; and the particular concern

of the literature of the last two centuries has been with the
self in its standing quarrel with culture. We cannot mention
the name of any great writer of the modem period whose
work has not in some way, and usually in a passionate and
explicit way, insisted on this quarrel, who has not expressed
the bitterness of his discontent with civilization, who has not
said that the self made greater legitimate demands than any
culture could hope to satisfy. This intense conviction of the
existence of the self apart from culture is, as culture well
A G 0 0 D many years ago, in 1929, I chanced to read a
book which disturbed me in a way I can still remember.
The book was called Red Cavalry; it was a collection of stories
knows, its noblest and most generous achievement. At the
about Soviet regiments of horse operating in Poland. I had
present moment it must be thought of as a liberating idea
never heard of the author, Isaac Babel--or I. Babel as he
without which our developing ideal of community is bound
signed himself-and nobody had anything to tell me about
to defeat itself. We can speak no greater praise of Freud than
him, and part of my disturbance was the natural shock we
to say that he placed this idea at the very center of his
feel when, suddenly and without warning, we confront a new
thought.
talent of great energy and boldness. But the book was dis­
turbing for other reasons as well.
In those days one still spoke of the "Russian experiment"
and one might stm believe that the light of dawn glowed on
the test-tubes and crucibles of human destiny. And it was still
possible to have very strange expectations of the new culture
that would arise from the Revolution. I do not remember
what my own particular expectations were, except that they
involved a desire for an art that would have as little ambi­
guity as a proposition in logic. Why I wanted this I don't
wholly understand. It was as if I had hoped that the literature
of the Revolution would realize some simple, inadequate no­
tion of the "classical" which I had picked up at college; and
119