How Modernism Ruined Everything: Freud's Shifting Theories and the Cult of the Self

The podcast traces the evolution of Western religious and intellectual traditions, starting from animism, through mother goddess worship, polytheism, and the radical break of monotheism (specifically Christian Trinity). It then explores the "crisis in faith" brought about by the Protestant Reformation, which removed the church as an intermediary to God, leading to various proposed solutions like wealth accumulation (Calvinism), jihad, and transgression. This historical context sets the stage for philosophical attempts to resolve the crisis of faith, moving from Kant's active subjectivity to Hegel's Geist and Marx's historical materialism. Finally, it introduces Freud's revolutionary and controversial theory of the individual as driven by unconscious sexual forces (id, ego, superego, Oedipus/Electra complexes), contrasting it with Carl Jung's more systematized model of the unconscious (personal, collective, anima/animus, persona, shadow, self). A central argument is the stark contrast between Freud's early and later theories regarding trauma. Initially, Freud advocated for his female patients, asserting that their hysteria stemmed from real childhood sexual abuse, as detailed in his 1896 paper "The Ideology of Hysteria." However, the podcast highlights a dramatic shift in Freud's stance, evidenced by his later writings where he reinterpreted these accounts as infantile sexual fantasies and a desire for attention from women. This change is attributed to external pressures, specifically the financial interests of the fathers paying for the therapy. The episode also distinguishes between the logical progression of Kant, Hegel, and Marx, and Freud's seemingly abrupt and less logical theoretical leap, prompting questions about its origins and popularity. While Freud's later theories are critiqued, Jung's model offers a more constructive path, emphasizing self-discovery as a lifelong process guided by psychotherapy, aiming for mastery of the self through understanding one's conscious and unconscious aspects. The discussion on the impact of urbanization, as described by Georg Simmel, provides insights into the psychological challenges of modern life—anomie, alienation, and disenchantment—which underscore the societal need for psychological frameworks like Freud's, despite their flaws. Understanding these historical and sociological shifts helps contextualize the rise of modern psychology and its cultural implications. The podcast argues that Freud's popularity and the widespread adoption of his ideas, alongside Jung's, formed the basis of modernism, defined as the "cult of the self." This cultural movement, still prevalent today, is characterized by an obsession with self-improvement and self-empowerment. The episode suggests that Freud's system gained influence not primarily for its therapeutic efficacy but because it served to protect the interests of powerful men by shifting blame from perpetrators of abuse to the victims. This reinterpretation of trauma had profound and lasting implications for how society understands mental health, gender roles, and the individual's place within civilization.

The power of montheism is that for the first time in human history, it creates the idea of the individual because when God is everything, you have a direct connection with God and it removes you from the community.

The idea of crisis in faith is how do you truly know as a person whether or not you love God and how do you know God loves you?

By breaking taboos, by transgression against society and showing your true faith in God, you will master your destiny.

Freud argues that the individual is really just unconscious forces embedded within the brain. Okay. So these three forces are the superego, the ego and the id.

Modernism is the cultural movement that we still live in today. Now there are many different definitions of modernism but for us the easiest definition is cult of the self.

My previously communicated assumption that trauma, specifically sexual trauma, cannot be stressed enough as a pathic agent, was confirmed a new. Even children of respected, high-minded parental families fall victim to real rape much more frequently than one had dared to suspect.

Since child masturbation is such a general occurrence and is at the same time so poorly remembered, it must have an equivalent in psychic life and in fact it is found in the fantasy encountered in most female patients. Namely that the father seduced her in childhood.

Furthermore, women should soon come into opposition to civilization and display their retarding and restraining influence. Those very women who in the beginning laid the foundations of civilization for the claims of their love. Women represent the interests of the family and of sexual life. The work of civilization has become increasingly the business of men. It confronts them them with ever more difficult tasks and compels them to carry out instinctual sublimations of which women are little capable.