Item — HN Reader

step 1. Psychologist identifies "defense mechanism" preventing people from accepting unpleasant truths.

step 2. Psychologist being aware of defense mechanisms, declares with no apparent evidence/testing that they are immune to them.

step 3. Psychologist ends up with beliefs no different than anybody else.

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Edit:

I'm unclear what to even make of the article. To read it as a criticism of Freud that he fell onto religion when his own death was near? To read it as a celebration of religion that a controversial and disowned psychologist turned to it in his old age? Or just an assortment of historical facts without any larger relevance?

Also, maybe I'm a little turned off by the typo in it. Makes it feel unreviewed.

1 comments

Your comment appears to break at least three of HN's guidelines:

"Don't be snarky."

"Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something."

"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize."

Would you mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and sticking to the rules when posting here?

It's particularly important not to post like that when (a) there aren't any comments in a thread yet—threads are sensitive to initial conditions and we if start with a routine internet putdown, there's a good chance the thread will never recover; and (b) when the topic is provocative, which Freud is, and religion also is.

Freud certainly didn't "end up with beliefs no different than anybody else", as the article makes clear, and if you have some reason to believe that he ever claimed immunity from defense mechanisms, I'd like to know what that is. It doesn't sound like Freud to me.

I invited keiferski to repost this article because I had no idea that Freud's views on religion changed at the end of his life, and the backstory to his publication of "Moses and Monotheism" is dramatic. There are also plenty of side-things in this article that are fascinating, such as his "parting gift" to the Gestapo and his views of America. Even the Nietzsche quote about Jesus was completely new to me. Basically this is just a surprisingly good and interesting article, at least if the general topic is of interest to begin with, and if it isn't, there are plenty of other threads to join.