Sigmund Freud, Vienna, Austria, 1936
This is an interesting photograph of Dr. Freud. I am reading some of his quotes from Totem and Taboo and Moses and Monotheism. Freud indulges in outlandish mythology and generally there is not enough of that. But this got me thinking, there are various predictions about the future, such as anticipation of global warming. But anyone who claims science about the future is automatically disqualified because we know for certain that we can’t tell or know the future. Yet we do use our experience and knowledge to project and predict. Dr. Freud worked in reverse; he used his experience to project and reinvent the past. And really we know as little about the past as we know about the future. Even less, we don’t need to exert any special effort to hide the future but we do evoke our outmost mental and emotional capacities to deceive ourselves and others about the past, at the very least we do make an effort to forget. In this regard Dr. Freud’s attempts to reinvent the past are far more challenging than our attempts to predict the future.
Further Reading:
Reinventing the Past with Walter Benjamin
Revolution meets Religion
Worship and a Sense of Injustice
