Freud's Lectures on Psycho-Analysis

     I do not know how to explain my feeling towards Freud. He is absolutely insane, there is no doubt about that, but that does not mean there is no truth behind what he has learned and taught about psychoanalysis. The first example of how I can see a relation between Freud’s beliefs and myself is the Oedipus complex. Before you make any rash assumption, I do not want to kill my mother nor do I want to marry my dad. This being said, I do have the most problems with my mom and a great relationship with my dad. This holds true for a lot of girls my age, and it no way means I want to end her life, whatsoever. Also, I find striking similarities between my current boyfriend and my dad. I was not initially attracted to him because he was like my father, these are just things I notices as are relationship continued. For example, both cannot hold a phone conversation, exhibit horrible road rage, and are very protective. Are these things I look for in a man? No, but still the two male figures in my life have these characteristics.

     The biggest problem I struggled with while reading Freud’s Lectures was his interpretation of dreams. This is a topic in which I, in no way, agree with him. Freud believes our dreams are “unconscious wishful impulses” which we cannot have in real life, and therefore obtain in our sleep. This struck a personal chord with me, because I am plagued with bad dreams. Being a freshman in college, it was a big change moving out and away from my parents. Even now, in my spring semester, I am still haunted by dreams of my family at home being hurt by an intruder and there is nothing I can do. I have to watch as the gruesome acts take place against my beloved parents. This keeps me from sleeping many nights. Is Freud trying to say that somewhere tucked in my unconscious I want my parents to be murdered? That is absurd. He completely disregards nightmares in all of his lectures on dreaming, which makes him an unreliable source of information on the topic.

     I see a lot of truth behind Freud’s analysis of children. He talks about them as sexual beings, which turns many people off. It is understood that children are not capable of having sex, he uses this term very lightly. Children go through phases in which they learn by pleasure and exploration of themselves. Many of Freud’s patients’ problems can be rooted back to their childhood. Of all of his research, the most evidence supports this topic and it is, in some twisted way, logical. It is common knowledge that we are the most impressionable on at an early age, and the basic skills stay with us an entire lives. If a baby is deprived from being breast fed, they may yearn for sucking (or any action of the mouth) in their adult life – such as smoking cigarettes. In the phallic stage, children explore their body, which includes their genitalia. I am sure no one likes to see that little boy out shopping with his mom with his hand awkwardly in his pants, but this is part of maturing and needed, within a certain extent, to develop properly.

Destruction of the Indies

    Despite the revolting nature of Las Casas’ Destruction of the Indies, I found it very easy to read. It was well organized, and not too lengthy. It is an extreme turnoff when an author goes on about one subject for so long that it becomes overkill and I lose interest. The book was broken up into sections, mostly divided by on which island, or which part of the island, was being discussed. The use of language and rhetoric had a huge impact on the interpretation of the events. Las Casas is not a completely reliable narrator because he often exaggerates numbers or simply creates numbers when he had no real way of knowing. He uses specific adjectives to describe the Indians, such as “delicate” and “obedient,” to make the Spaniards look that much more devious for victimizing such gentle creatures. In reality, the Indians were of a violent nature, often warring between tribes, well before the Spaniards knew what an Indian was. Although, the Indians’ bloody background is in no way an excuse for what the Spaniards did. Las Casas and I can agree on that.

    Sepulveda, however, does not agree with us. In his writing A Treatise for Just Causes for War against the Indians, Sepulveda calls the Indians “sinners,” “subhuman,” and “barbarian.” He also believes that by the Spaniards wiping of the Indians, they are righting the wrong of their entire existence; ‘the wrong’ being that the Indians were not Christians. Las Casas prefers to describe the Spaniards as “tyrannical” and “cruel,” because this supports his claim that the Indians were victimized. Sepulveda and Las Casas use language to convince the reader to also favor the same group as themselves. Sepulveda’s use of the word ‘barbarian’ especially stood out to me because of its connection to Waiting for the Barbarians by John Maxwell Coetzee. In this novel, a large empire ruled an outpost, which was set far away from the capital city. All around the outpost was land that was not owned by anyone; instead it was inhabited by the nomadic barbarians. The Magistrate was the ruler of this outpost, and had no problem with the barbarians because they had always minded their own business; the opposite of the opinion of officials from the capital, who feared the barbarians and deemed them as evil. Waiting for the Barbarians and the Destruction of the Indies reflect each other in many ways. The Barbarians symbolize the Indians, and the Magistrate symbolizes Las Casas. Las Casas did not want to harm the Indians, and the Magistrate did not want to harm the Barbarians. Sepulveda can be related to the officials from the capital city, only seeing the evil in the unknown. The Indians/Barbarians are the unknown to Sepulveda/Capital because there was no witnessing or involvement between the two parties. Las Casas gains credibility by being in the Indies during the destruction, whereas Sepulveda was only a writer who based his works off the accounts of other people.