During the last decades of the twentieth century researchers showed that much
of the received history of psychoanalysis consisted of stories that were largely
mythological. Perhaps the most enduring of all these myths is that Freud postulated
his seduction theory as a result of hearing frequent reports from his female
patients that they had been sexually abused in childhood. In this article I
want to focus on this story, one that for most of the twentieth century was
taken as historical fact, and is still widely believed to be so.
According to the traditional account, in the 1890s most of Freud’s female patients
told him that they had been sexually abused in early childhood, usually by their
father. How the … Read the rest
All entries by this author
Psychoanalytic Mythology
Dec 19th, 2002 | By Allen EstersonHaving a Bad Argument Day
Dec 18th, 2002 7:37 pm | By Ophelia BensonHere is an article by Oliver James in which he tries to argue for environmental explanations of sexual proclivities, in particular the male preference for very young women not to say girls, rather than or in addition to genetic ones. This is surely an idea for which a case can be made, but James makes a hash of the job here. Take this passage for example:
… Read the restEvolutionary psychologists regard these facts as grist to their mill – youthful looks are a signal of fertility: get a young wife to get more children out of her, blah, blah, blah, ad nauseam. But they could just as well be explained by the fact that, whereas men can reproduce at any age, women’s
Abductees Go to Harvard
Dec 18th, 2002 | Filed by Ophelia BensonDo we construct memories of sexual abuse the same way we construct memories of alien abductions? Harvard researcher finds the question is highly political.… Read the rest
Pseudo-investigation
Dec 18th, 2002 | Filed by Ophelia BensonA show of journalistic digging without the reality lets the powerful off the hook.… Read the rest
Scientists Against Boycott
Dec 17th, 2002 | Filed by Ophelia BensonThe universality of science is too important to give up lightly, four Oxford professors say.… Read the rest
Listen Up, Sir
Dec 16th, 2002 10:12 pm | By Ophelia BensonSciTechDaily gives us an item from the archive today: Richard Dawkins explaining to the future king why scientific reason is a better way of thinking about issues than intuition. As he points out (and it seems so obvious one shouldn’t have to point it out), Hitler and Saddam Hussein and the Yorkshire Ripper had their intuitions too. John Stuart Mill made, mutatis mutandis, the same point in On Liberty a century and a half ago.
Dawkins also points out that nature is not necessarily admirable or something humans ought to imitate in all respects.
… Read the restNo wonder T.H. Huxley, Darwin’s bulldog, founded his ethics on a repudiation of Darwinism. Not a repudiation of Darwinism as science, of course, for you cannot
Unprized
Dec 16th, 2002 | Filed by Ophelia BensonHistorian de-prized after panel concludes he did “unprofessional and misleading work.”… Read the rest
Manipulation
Dec 15th, 2002 | Filed by Ophelia BensonThe therapeutic and market world-views converge, when “personal well-being” is our only goal.… Read the rest
What Do You Mean, You Don’t Want Your Bones Back?
Dec 15th, 2002 | Filed by Ophelia BensonIt’s not the indigenous peoples themselves who want their ancestors’ remains back, it’s caring academics who insist on returning them.… Read the rest
Argument by Fashion
Dec 15th, 2002 12:00 am | By Ophelia BensonThere is a review of Steven Pinker’s The Blank Slate in the current American Scientist. It raises some reasonable objections to Pinker’s book, including a contradiction I have wondered about too: on the one hand Pinker rejects the “naturalistic fallacy” (also known as the fact-value distinction, or confusing “is” with “ought”), and on the other hand the whole book is an argument that a proper understanding of human nature undermines ideas about social engineering and utopian dreams. Fair enough. But then there comes a very odd paragraph.
… Read the restAt this point in the book I was increasingly struck by resonances with the intellectual conservatism of science warriors such as Paul Gross and Norman Levitt. Pinker’s standard lists of blank-slaters (exponents
The Persistence of Superstition
Dec 14th, 2002 | Filed by Ophelia BensonMagical thinking thrives when the other kind can’t perform miracles.… Read the rest
Secularism is Good
Dec 14th, 2002 | Filed by Ophelia BensonHermione Lee admires Salman Rushdie’s chutzpah: extolling unbelief in a Sunday address in King’s College Chapel.… Read the rest
Identity What
Dec 13th, 2002 8:34 pm | By Ophelia BensonThere is an essay by Martin Jay in the current London Review of Books about “situatedness”, about speaking azza. Azza woman, azza Muslim, azza graduate, azza whatever. The subject is similar to that of Todd Gitlin’s Twilight of Common Dreams: the difficulties and limitations of what we like to call “identity”. As Jay points out, in reviewing David Simpson’s Situatedness: or Why We Keep Saying Where We’re Coming From, it is difficult to decide which bit of our identity is relevant to any given discussion.
… Read the restHow can we know, for example, whether it is more important that a person is a woman, a baby boomer, a heterosexual, Asian-American, a Catholic, a breast cancer survivor, upper-middle class, a college
Rawls and Nozick
Dec 13th, 2002 | Filed by Ophelia BensonIt is instructive to consider the two opposing principles of equality and liberty taken to the extreme conclusions Nozick and Rawls did.… Read the rest
Truth in Advertising
Dec 12th, 2002 8:12 pm | By Ophelia BensonEuphemism is a subject that keeps coming up on Butterflies and Wheels. That’s not very surprising, because much of what we’re talking about is education, writing, public debate. It’s all about language, and euphemism is a well-known and time-honoured way of trying to make one’s case by prettying up crucial facts. George Orwell was particularly good at pointing this out, but he was certainly neither the first nor the last. The tactic was the issue in three stories we linked to recently: the one about incitement to murder as free speech, the one about death threats as a personality quirk, and today, again, a commentary about about death threats as free speech or freedom of religion or piety.
Do we … Read the rest
Threat Envy
Dec 12th, 2002 | Filed by Ophelia BensonWhen piety equals incitement to murder, not to mention murder itself, there is nothing to negotiate.… Read the rest
How to Attract Corporate Interest
Dec 11th, 2002 | Filed by Ophelia BensonIssues of patenting and profit versus free exchange of knowledge surface in new stem cell research.… Read the rest
Troublesome DNA
Dec 10th, 2002 | Filed by Ophelia BensonMormon scientist faces excommunication after DNA casts doubt on Mormon heredity story.… Read the rest
Situatedness and its Discontents
Dec 10th, 2002 | Filed by Ophelia BensonAre we doomed never to be able to see past our own situations?… Read the rest
Be Cool, Don’t Study
Dec 9th, 2002 | Filed by Ophelia BensonReport says social conformity among black students works against academic achievement and for confronting the teacher.… Read the rest