The Triumph of the Therapeutic: Uses of Faith After Freud

I'll be honest with you...Philip Reiff is not an easy read. But he's well worth it. This book takes on Freud and some of his (ironically) patricidal disciples, showing how Freud was instrumental in the dismantling of faith as the organizing principle of culture. In its place, we have "psychological man," whose only organizing principle is self-fulfillment. It's not hard to see where that leads: a culture adrift, pleasure-seeking individuals heedless of the needs of community, and so on. Reiff is such an incisive critic of our present situation that the only theory I have for his not being more widely read and cited is that he's just too darn hard to read. But don't let that stop you.

Hard-to-find book and our son-in-law has really enjoyed it. Great service. Book arrives just in time for Christmas.

Near then end of THE TRIUMPH OF THE THERAPEUTIC / USES OF FAITH AFTER FREUD (1966) by Philip Rieff, chapter 8 examines "various uses of faith in a culture populated increasingly by psychological men. Each [Freud, Reich, and Jung] attacked the connection between morality and a culture about which they expressed strong disapprovals." (p. 232). "The process by which a culture changes at its profoundest level may be traced in the shifting balance of controls and releases which constitute a system of moral demands." (p. 233). Ambivalence Those who think they can win any argument by defining the terms of the discussion as they wish must imagine "Competing symbolisms gather support in competing elites; they jostle each other for priority of place as the organizers of the next phase in the psychohistorical process." (p. 234). "In all cultures before our own, the competing symbols took the language of faith. A language of faith is always revelatory, communicating through some mouthpiece of the god-term a system of interdicts--a pattern of `thou shalt nots,' or taboos. The language of science is not revelatory but analytic; for this reason, the scientist can never claim that his own terms have a prophetic function. His work is non-moral, that is, without interdictory purpose." (p. 234). "A language of hypothesis is culturally neutral. Commitment to hypothesis is made to be abandonable. The scientific psychologist, as clinician, aspires to be neither interdictory or counter-interdictory. Because the clinical attitude aspires to moral neutrality, its therapeutic effect is culturally dubious. ... No culture has yet produced a third type of symbolic--one that would embrace that historical contradiction in terms: a `scientific culture.' If, and only if, a neutralist symbolic becomes operative, may we speak of a scientific culture." (p. 235) ... "Some fresh imbalance is required before the succeeding system of culture can be born, bringing into being a new symbolic of expectations, and, moreover, institutions appropriately organized to enact those expectations, translating the high symbolic into rules of social conduct." (p. 236). ... "Thus even the most stable moral demand systems are inherently liable to change. The primary process of cultural change refers to shifting jurisdictions over categories of social action by controlling and remissive symbolisms of communal and individual purposes." (p. 237). ... "With respect to culture, it is still unclear whether the social sciences will produce control devices, as Comte hoped, or in what sense they may help create and install fresh convictions of communal purpose." (p. 237). ... "Because Freud's doctrine was anti-communal, it could be used as a theoretical basis for elaborating a strategy of self-realization for the therapeutic. Americans, in particular, have managed to use the Freudian doctrine in ways more remissive than he intended, as a counter-authority against any fresh access of communal purpose." (p.238)

In this brilliant work Philip Rieff expands on his first book on Freud, The Mind Of The Moralist. He looks at the moral aspects of the writings of Freud, Carl Jung, Wilhelm Reich and DH Lawrence, in which he sees the birth of Psychological Man and the victory of relativism. He observes that psychoanalysis was instrumental in breaking down standards of morality and undermining religion. But in the 19th century, rationalism had already weakened Christianity in its heartland. The negative trends that replaced it contain no positive symbolism and above all, require no commitment. Rieff does not deny the obvious literary genius of these authors and thinkers but rejects their respective faiths of the inner God, hedonism and impulse. Defining faith as "the compulsive dynamic of culture," Rieff does not think that any of the aforementioned substitutes has what it takes to serve as integrating factor for Western culture. They lack the binding force of commitment, enhance hedonist tendencies and undermine virtue. The feeling of the individual is exalted over the virtuous as a measure of value. This matter is brilliantly examined by Theodore Dalrymple in Our Culture, What's Left of It. He argues that the negation of concepts like good and evil has become the foundation upon which personality is formed. The dangers are obvious. The therapeutic society provides an easy, feel-good substitute to religion that severs the roots, leading to selective morality and shamelessness. I'm not so sure about his criticism of Jung's version of the immanence of God - an ancient concept present in most major religions - but it cannot be denied that the idea encourages New Age drivel, fake spirituality and gross superstition. The Triumph Of The Therapeutic is a brilliant study of faith, psychology and culture and the ties between them, whether one always agrees with the author or not. The writing style is elegant with many a bon mot and memorable turn of phrase. Rieff's observations and predictions are today confirmed by the situation in Europe where the civilizational crisis is most evident. Birthrates have fallen, unassimilated immigrant communities have created two societies in many cities whilst the intelligentsia cling to a false ideology of pacifism that masks resentment at powerlessness and in some instances becomes complicit with evil. This European malaise is very thoroughly examined, from various angles, by Bruce Bawer in While Europe Slept, Claire Berlinski in Menace in Europe, Walter Laqueur in The Last Days of Europe and Chantal Delsol in Icarus Fallen.