Follies of the Wise: Dissenting Essays

Let's be clear about this: "Follies of the Wise" is one sharp book. Comprised of essays written from 1993 and onwards, it includes `The Unknown Freud' and `The Revenge of the Repressed'. Even though Frederick Crews is widely regarded as the fiercest Freud-basher around, these essays by no means deal exclusively with his perception of psychoanalysis as being largely unscientific and the dangers of the recovered memory movement. Writing extensively on UFO's, theosophy and creationism as well as post-structuralism, he dissects anything unscientific, superstitious and snobbish. The last two essays beautifully conveys his love for Kafka and Melville. Furthermore there are two appendixes containing interviews with the author. To be critical is sometimes equated with being offensive. Granted, his style can perhaps hardly be characterized as being mild-mannered, but there is nothing rancorous in it either. There is a difference between being acute and being acrimonious. To me, Frederick Crews is an intrepid advocate of critical thinking and he just happens to be a gifted writer as well. Highly recommended.

Frederick Crews is a retired teacher from the University of California, Berkeley. In this brilliant collection of essays, he passes judgment on `Intelligent Design' creationism, UFO reports, satanic mind control, alien abductions, previous incarnations and telepathy. He demolishes the frauds Freud and Jung, and he exposes the cults of psychoanalysis, theosophy, Zen Buddhism, channelling, rebirthing and past life regression. As he writes, science is "not a body of correct or incorrect ideas but a collective means of generating and testing hypotheses, and its trials eventually weed out error with unmatched success." He suggests, "If knowledge can be certified only by a social process of peer review, we ought to do what we can to foster communities of uncompromised experts. That means actively resisting guru-ism, intellectual cliquishness, guilt-assuaging double standards, and, needless, to say, disdain for the very concept of objectivity." He observes, "trust in the supernatural does get shaken by the overall advance of science. This is an effect not of strict logic but of an irreversible shrinkage in mystery's terrain. Ever since Darwin forged an exit from the previously airtight argument from design, the accumulation of corroborated materialist explanations has left the theologian's `God of the gaps' with less and less to do. And an acquaintance with scientific laws and their uniform application is hardly compatible with faith-based tales about walking on water, a casting-out of devils, and resurrection of the dead." He notes that certain features characterize religious fanaticism - "undue deference to authority, hostility towards dissenters, and, most basically, an assumption that intuitively held certitude is somehow more precious and profound than the hard-won gains of trial and error." He writes, "certain indicators of bad faith ... are unmistakable: persistence in claims that have already been exploded; reliance on ill-designed studies, idolized lawgivers, and self-serving anecdotes; evasion of objections and negative instances; indifference to rival theories and to the need for independent replication; and `movement' belligerence." Unfortunately, he uses his justified attack on Freud to swipe at Marxism, as if exploitation and class conflict were as unreal as the Oedipus complex. Marxism is an ally of reason and common sense against wishful thinking and superstition. Nonetheless, Crews has produced a valuable book that examines and explodes many absurd claims and theories.

Trenchant, devastating critiques of pseudoscience and hokum from "intelligent " design, to the psychoanalyst's couch, to the most hallowed halls of academe. Virtuoso displays of good scholarship, good logic, and good humor. A joy to read, and a brave challenge to the empire of superstition and nonsense.

Nobody, it seems, can argue more vigorously than a convert. Even, as in this case, a convert away from a belief. In this collection of delicious critiques, Crews opens with an assault on a belief he once held - the value of psychoanalysis. Crews had been enamoured of Freud's explanations of the mind until he looked more closely at the evidence. "Looking more closely at the evidence" forms the theme of this collection. The "wise" here, are those who have promoted several academically-based causes without considering the evidence underlying them. The "evidence" in the Freud segment of the book comes in the form of the Viennese doctor's own statements, in letter or book form. Crews discovered Freud to be more concerned with his own grandeur than in the well-being of his "patients". Even during "therapeutic" sessions, Freud paid little or no attention to his patients - a fundamental in the "free association" process. As the doctor developed his notions of the ego, superego and id, he began manoeuvring his patients into fitting his notions. This pernicious tactic was furthered by Freud's followers, particularly in the United States. "Therapists" became adept at formulating scenarios and badgering their subjects until those unfortunates accepted roles they'd never experienced. This practice became prevalent in the "repressed memory" movement that saw families destroyed and innocents jailed for acts never committed. The essayist's most expressive prose takes full flight in the chapters on the US phenomenon of "creationism". For this topic, Crews leaves few writers unscarred. It's easy, of course, to unravel the inconsistencies and convoluted propositions of the current wave of creationist writers. There are no scholars among them - at least none researching the topic, a point Crews makes clear as he easily dismisses them. The real problem is in coping with such professionals as the late Stephen J. Gould, Kenneth Miller and Michael Ruse. Gould's attempt to provide safe, but separate, havens for religion and science was an utter flop. Michael Ruse, who tries to make peace with everybody, only stumbles and renders himself ineffectual according to Crews. Kenneth Miller on the other hand, produced a book that devastated the claims of "intelligent design" - which is neither - then nearly binned his success by trying to wrap the universe in a lightly woven supernatural cloak. Crews sees through the Emperor's garb to perceive what's really there. The final segment of the book brings Crews full circle to his long career as a literary critic. The essay on Melville deserves the widest reading. If nothing else, it prepares the reader for his scathing attack on "post-structuralism". Aimed at readers who have been through the academic courses in the humanities over the last generation or two, the dissection of Lacan and Foucault ideas of what constitutes "truth" and how it is to be discerned would be gut-wrenching, were it not so hilarious.

According to its opening words, "not everyone will like this book", and probably that is true. In particular, people who still believe in psychoanalysis, or just that Sigmund Freud was a great thinker who advanced our understanding of human psychology, will hate this book. Others who have espoused more recent sets of irrational beliefs, such as "intelligent design", will find much to dislike. All of these may well constitute a majority of the reading public, but they should still leave a substantial minority who will appreciate Frederick Crews's surgical skill in dissecting much of the nonsense that passes for science. Much of the early part of the book is devoted to Freud, not only to his ideas, but also to his character as a person and his lack of concern for the well-being of his patients. As a former believer in Freudian analysis, Crews uses his expert knowledge to demolish it thoroughly, noting Freud's inconsistencies, his failure to cure his patients, his lack of interest in subjecting his theories to tests and so on. Karl Popper long ago concluded that what distinguished psychoanalysis from real science was that real science is "falsifiable" -- it is subject to tests that are potentially devastating -- whereas pseudoscientific theories can accommodate absolutely any observation. Rather surprisingly, Popper is not mentioned in the book, though lesser philosophers of science like Thomas Kuhn and Paul Feyerabend do make brief appearances. Nonetheless, it is clear that Crews has absorbed the essential idea of falsifiability. A more recent abuse of science is to be found in claims that repressed memories of childhood abuse can be "recovered" by appropriate therapy, and even that the supposed abusers themselves can be induced to "remember" their past crimes. All of this provides an eerie reminder of 17th century witch-hunting, but Crews shows that its theoretical basis can be found in Freud's early writing, when he thought that the mental problems of his patients were due to repressed memories of traumatic childhood events. A particularly impressive part of the book comes when Crews discusses "intelligent design" as a supposed competitor to natural selection for explaining why the biological world is the way it is -- impressive because it is rare to find a professor of English literature with as complete a command of the essential ideas of modern Darwinism as Crews displays. So far as compromises with religion go, he shows a surer grasp of the issues than some who should know better. In summary, therefore, although it is true that not everyone will like this book, there should be many who will like it very much.