Both Daniel Gilbert and Sigmund Freud study psychology. Freud came first, of course, and his theories are taught in introductory psychology classes everywhere. So there’s no doubt that Gilbert learned about Freud’s theories and studied them in great detail when he was a psychology student. On pages 36 and 37 of Gilbert’s book, he even takes a quote directly from Freud.
One idea that the two psychologists seem to have in common is the one that Freud describes as the reality-principle. On page 5 of Beyond the Pleasure Principle, Freud says: “Under the influence of the instinct of the ego for self-preservation it is replaced by the ‘reality-principle’, which without giving up the intention of ultimately attaining pleasure yet demands and enforces the postponement of satisfaction, the renunciation of manifold possibilities of it, and the temporary endurance of ‘pain’ on the long and circuitous road to pleasure.” To put this in the plain English, Freud is basically describing the delaying of gratification. We sometimes do things that we don’t like to do, such as going to school or work, in order to attain pleasure later on, such as money to spend on our hobbies and other things that make us happy.
It is possible that Gilbert built on this “reality-principle” idea that Freud spoke about. On page 36, Gilbert says: “People want to be happy, and all the other things they want are typically meant to be means to that end. Even when people forgo happiness in the moment—by dieting when they could be eating, or working late when they could be sleeping—they are usually doing so in order to increase its future yield.” So the idea is the same. We do things that we might not want to do, because we believe that the results of our hard work will make us happy in the long run.
Besides this very striking resemblance that Gilbert’s writing has to Freud’s, I think the two pieces of writing are distinct. Gilbert writes specifically about happiness. He believes that emotional happiness, for example, is “the feeling common to the feelings we have when we see our new granddaughter smile for the first time, receive word of a promotion, help a wayward tourist find the art museum, taste Belgian chocolate toward the back of our tongue, inhale the scent of our lover’s shampoo, hear that song we used to like so much in high school but haven’t heard in years, touch our cheek to kitten fur, cure cancer, or get a really good snootful of cocaine.” Freud, on the other hand, would probably say that we are only fueled by our id’s desires and impulses for sex and/or aggression. But he doesn’t talk about happiness at all when describing the pleasure-principle. After all, you may be feeling pleasure, but that doesn’t mean you’re necessarily happy.
While trying to absorb the myriad concepts in Freud’s “Beyond the Pleasure Principle”, it becomes increasingly apparent that the rumors of his drug habit are undoubtedly true. The reader can easily picture the father of modern psychoanalysis burning the midnight oil with a vial of Colombian marching powder, pounding away on his typewriter and flying from one idea to the next. This text, even when studied from a second hand interpretation, is difficult to wrap your mind around. Although this is a more modern work than Plato’s Republic, it is nonlinear and has no natural flow to immerse yourself into.
The “fort da” game that the toddler invents to begin to feel a sense of control and understanding of his environment and it’s cast of characters is intiguing. It seems somewhat reminiscent of the concept of “peek a boo” and the delight a child expresses when he realizes his playmate has not left after all. I think that Freud included this anecdote to further illustrate the concept of the repetition principle that he discusses throughout the piece. Because the child has yet to develop the necessary verbal skills to express his emotions and ideas, we can only assume that the symbolism that he observes in the game has at least a modicum of truth (it seems that an inference like this could never be empirically verified). By tossing an object away, he rejects it, and by pulling it back, seems to assure himself that it is still there-and at his command, at that. The purpose of his play is to play out the difficulty he has dealing with the disappearance of his mother, who he wants to keep to himself. Coping mechanisms are one of the central concepts of Freud’s theory, as is the obsession to possess one’s mother.
In Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave”, the trick of the light and the prisoner’s bonds prevent them from seeing objects for what they really are. As an allegory, this essay is by its very nature symbolic. The prisoners are like the child in Freud’s anecdote in that they can only understand a shadowy, shallow version of the world and put undue significance into their perception. Like the little boy, the people in the cave derive great pleasure from the comings and goings of the most important elements of their world and place great meaning on them. Children and those who are unable to see the light are both forced to create a system which provides them with comfort, a sense of control, and a feeling of satisfaction in their understanding of the world. The child develops the “fort da” game system, and the prisoner’s develop the system of predicting the appearance of the shadows among their peers. Both of these ideas represent the need we have to create small, insignificant ways to interpret patterns and control our surroundings. Plato’s Allegory also stresses the importance of repeating these ideas, however unsatisfactory they are and however little tangible net outcome results.
Both “fort da” and “The Allegory of the Cave” reflect on happiness in the way we cope with the world around us and the elements that we do not understand. Perhaps the prisoner/philosopher who was released from the cave has a different understanding of the world happiness and thinks it superior to that of his former equals. Perhaps adults think that they have reached a state of happiness in enlightenment that is beyond a child’s capability. However, is happiness a higher state of understanding or does it exist in a more pure form at a lower level of communication and experience? The innate human desire to control your environment and avoid the fear of loss does not subside with age or further analysis. Both texts are complex and could be interpreted a thousand different ways through deconstruction on the same subject of happiness.
p.s. is this not where this goes? always lost
Sigmund Freud, in chapter 2, carefully analyses “children’s play” known as “fort da”. Freud uses the example when a baby has a toy with a string attached, it would throw the toy to a place he cannot see and pulls it back. This example can also be recreated with a game people today know as “peeka boo”. Take a mother trying to play peeka boo with her child for instance. When the mother covers her face with her hand, the child is curious where the face he usually sees went. And once the mother moves her hand to reveal herself, there is a smile on the baby’s face because there she is, right in front of him.
Aristotle’s allegory of the cave states that a man trapped in the cave would not know the shadow of a chair on the wall is a chair because he has never seen it. But once he sees the chair, he would know it’s a chair and make good use of it. Aristotle used the example of a person and the shadow to explain that someone might not be aware of something until he experiences it.
Freud uses his analysis of a baby with his toy to express a similar point as Aristotle and his allegory of the cave – a person cannot experience happiness without first experiencing the opposite. Once the mother of the baby reveals herself, she notices the baby laughing and cheering. That is because the baby never thought of the mother leaving his side until it actually happens. And at that point, the baby realizes what makes him happy. Similarly, Aristotle states that a man does not know what a chair is until he experiences it. In the same sense, if the man were to be happy in the cave, he is not truly happy because he has not experience the outside world. He cannot say he is truly happy because there might be something out there that would make him even happier.
Marianna
JM13D
Response Paper #2, Option 1
Both Daniel Gilbert and Sigmund Freud study psychology. Freud came first, of course, and his theories are taught in introductory psychology classes everywhere. So there’s no doubt that Gilbert learned about Freud’s theories and studied them in great detail when he was a psychology student. On pages 36 and 37 of Gilbert’s book, he even takes a quote directly from Freud.
One idea that the two psychologists seem to have in common is the one that Freud describes as the reality-principle. On page 5 of Beyond the Pleasure Principle, Freud says: “Under the influence of the instinct of the ego for self-preservation it is replaced by the ‘reality-principle’, which without giving up the intention of ultimately attaining pleasure yet demands and enforces the postponement of satisfaction, the renunciation of manifold possibilities of it, and the temporary endurance of ‘pain’ on the long and circuitous road to pleasure.” To put this in the plain English, Freud is basically describing the delaying of gratification. We sometimes do things that we don’t like to do, such as going to school or work, in order to attain pleasure later on, such as money to spend on our hobbies and other things that make us happy.
It is possible that Gilbert built on this “reality-principle” idea that Freud spoke about. On page 36, Gilbert says: “People want to be happy, and all the other things they want are typically meant to be means to that end. Even when people forgo happiness in the moment—by dieting when they could be eating, or working late when they could be sleeping—they are usually doing so in order to increase its future yield.” So the idea is the same. We do things that we might not want to do, because we believe that the results of our hard work will make us happy in the long run.
Besides this very striking resemblance that Gilbert’s writing has to Freud’s, I think the two pieces of writing are distinct. Gilbert writes specifically about happiness. He believes that emotional happiness, for example, is “the feeling common to the feelings we have when we see our new granddaughter smile for the first time, receive word of a promotion, help a wayward tourist find the art museum, taste Belgian chocolate toward the back of our tongue, inhale the scent of our lover’s shampoo, hear that song we used to like so much in high school but haven’t heard in years, touch our cheek to kitten fur, cure cancer, or get a really good snootful of cocaine.” Freud, on the other hand, would probably say that we are only fueled by our id’s desires and impulses for sex and/or aggression. But he doesn’t talk about happiness at all when describing the pleasure-principle. After all, you may be feeling pleasure, but that doesn’t mean you’re necessarily happy.
Lauren Catone
Response Paper-Option 2(ish)
While trying to absorb the myriad concepts in Freud’s “Beyond the Pleasure Principle”, it becomes increasingly apparent that the rumors of his drug habit are undoubtedly true. The reader can easily picture the father of modern psychoanalysis burning the midnight oil with a vial of Colombian marching powder, pounding away on his typewriter and flying from one idea to the next. This text, even when studied from a second hand interpretation, is difficult to wrap your mind around. Although this is a more modern work than Plato’s Republic, it is nonlinear and has no natural flow to immerse yourself into.
The “fort da” game that the toddler invents to begin to feel a sense of control and understanding of his environment and it’s cast of characters is intiguing. It seems somewhat reminiscent of the concept of “peek a boo” and the delight a child expresses when he realizes his playmate has not left after all. I think that Freud included this anecdote to further illustrate the concept of the repetition principle that he discusses throughout the piece. Because the child has yet to develop the necessary verbal skills to express his emotions and ideas, we can only assume that the symbolism that he observes in the game has at least a modicum of truth (it seems that an inference like this could never be empirically verified). By tossing an object away, he rejects it, and by pulling it back, seems to assure himself that it is still there-and at his command, at that. The purpose of his play is to play out the difficulty he has dealing with the disappearance of his mother, who he wants to keep to himself. Coping mechanisms are one of the central concepts of Freud’s theory, as is the obsession to possess one’s mother.
In Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave”, the trick of the light and the prisoner’s bonds prevent them from seeing objects for what they really are. As an allegory, this essay is by its very nature symbolic. The prisoners are like the child in Freud’s anecdote in that they can only understand a shadowy, shallow version of the world and put undue significance into their perception. Like the little boy, the people in the cave derive great pleasure from the comings and goings of the most important elements of their world and place great meaning on them. Children and those who are unable to see the light are both forced to create a system which provides them with comfort, a sense of control, and a feeling of satisfaction in their understanding of the world. The child develops the “fort da” game system, and the prisoner’s develop the system of predicting the appearance of the shadows among their peers. Both of these ideas represent the need we have to create small, insignificant ways to interpret patterns and control our surroundings. Plato’s Allegory also stresses the importance of repeating these ideas, however unsatisfactory they are and however little tangible net outcome results.
Both “fort da” and “The Allegory of the Cave” reflect on happiness in the way we cope with the world around us and the elements that we do not understand. Perhaps the prisoner/philosopher who was released from the cave has a different understanding of the world happiness and thinks it superior to that of his former equals. Perhaps adults think that they have reached a state of happiness in enlightenment that is beyond a child’s capability. However, is happiness a higher state of understanding or does it exist in a more pure form at a lower level of communication and experience? The innate human desire to control your environment and avoid the fear of loss does not subside with age or further analysis. Both texts are complex and could be interpreted a thousand different ways through deconstruction on the same subject of happiness.
p.s. is this not where this goes? always lost
Sigmund Freud, in chapter 2, carefully analyses “children’s play” known as “fort da”. Freud uses the example when a baby has a toy with a string attached, it would throw the toy to a place he cannot see and pulls it back. This example can also be recreated with a game people today know as “peeka boo”. Take a mother trying to play peeka boo with her child for instance. When the mother covers her face with her hand, the child is curious where the face he usually sees went. And once the mother moves her hand to reveal herself, there is a smile on the baby’s face because there she is, right in front of him.
Aristotle’s allegory of the cave states that a man trapped in the cave would not know the shadow of a chair on the wall is a chair because he has never seen it. But once he sees the chair, he would know it’s a chair and make good use of it. Aristotle used the example of a person and the shadow to explain that someone might not be aware of something until he experiences it.
Freud uses his analysis of a baby with his toy to express a similar point as Aristotle and his allegory of the cave – a person cannot experience happiness without first experiencing the opposite. Once the mother of the baby reveals herself, she notices the baby laughing and cheering. That is because the baby never thought of the mother leaving his side until it actually happens. And at that point, the baby realizes what makes him happy. Similarly, Aristotle states that a man does not know what a chair is until he experiences it. In the same sense, if the man were to be happy in the cave, he is not truly happy because he has not experience the outside world. He cannot say he is truly happy because there might be something out there that would make him even happier.