Talk:Norman O. Brown
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Brown's Life Against Death begins "All men dream. Dreaming is a neurotic symptom. Therefore all men are neurotic." Sorry Norm, but if all men dream then dreaming is normal. The logical flaw in his work is right there at the begining. I mean besides the flaw of both Freudianism and Marxism as guides to human nature. Besides, all mammals dream and probably birds also. Brain wave patterns match those of dreaming humans and simple observation shows it. Are all border collies neurotic? Perhaps all parakeets? There are other errors. Brown can't be taken seriously. Calypsoparakeet 03:46, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
Sheesh. Brown is just summarizing Freud here (and in the whole first chapter of Life Against Death). You make it seem like these are his ideas. The whole book is a long complex look at this tricky formula. He's hardly treating it as naively as you suggest here. Of course, Brown does go on to say that "the universal neurosis of mankind" is "the pons asinorum of Psychoanalysis" which, combined with your simplistic dismissal, says pretty much all that needs to be said. Aglie 23:01, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
Well, Freud can't be taken all that seriously, either. At least he has the excuse of being a bit of a pioneer, synthesizing traditional knowledge (which he ignored was traditional) with scientific findings. Jung was smarter (he realized the traditional nature of much of psychoanalysis and became incredibly rich using it), but he, too, was limited by the knowledge of the times. There's little excuse for Brown, who was obviously smart but uncritical of the cultural fossil that psychoanalysis, especially freudianism, had already become. At least he achieved a measure of fame and gained followers while acquiring critics. Dreams, however, seem to be a function of information processing and memory formation and not the secret expression of a burning desire to crap your pants. --Calypsoparakeet 20:32, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
