In Chapter 2 of Freud’s text, he carefully investigates “children’s play,” specifically a game of “disappearance and return” which becomes known as “fort da.” Why do you think this game is so important to Freud’s ideas? How does this compare to Plato’s “allegory of the cave”? And, of course, what does any of this tell us about happiness?
In my opinion, this game is important to Freud’s ideas because it is a clear example of the pleasure principle without any economic aspect. The eighteen months old child knows nothing about money and the economic world thus, in his search of pleasure, it is purely pleasure-seeking. In his game of “fort da”, he makes a wooden reel disappear into his little draped cot by throwing to that side and pulls the string attached back to make it reappear. The one thing that fascinated me was that the child would actually make sounds according to which move he is doing, saying ‘o-o-o-oh’ when throwing the reel and saying ‘da’ to greet its reappearance. The child knew what he was doing. Also, to think that the eighteen months old knew that something has to be gone in order to return blew me away. Freud makes the connection of the reel symbolically being his mother’s departure which then I realized how sad the baby was. No child in that age is happy to say bye-bye to his or her mommy and have fun without her. Thus, it seems clear that the baby was waiting for his mother’s return and the game was in replacement till the actual return of something significant.
Moreover, this passage is similar to Plato’s allegory of the cave because once again we are drawn into the child’s world, observing the baby as Freud did. We have never seen the child but yet, here we are understanding how it feels and sharing his emotions. Also, the eighteen months old baby is similar to the man in the cave because they both are not fully aware of the world around them and is only in the learning mode. This whole not knowing what’s around them led me to think is true happiness in not knowing what’s around us? Are people just to busy trying to calculate the benefits and the non-benefits that they complicate themselves in simple situation which will bring them happiness? It’s just my opinion but, I learned in my religion that people were created as simple beings but it it us who complicate our minds and choose whether our situation is happy for us or not. I believe this to be correct because happiness is all in the mind. We people are too complicated. We should think simply and look on to the bright side and wait for good things to happen just like the baby. I think Freud in another sense is saying that not knowing is the best because since the baby does not know about other things like what the mother is going through, the economic hardships that his family is suffering, he is just simply sitting there repeating his game thinking nothing else but his mother’s return.
In chapter 2 of Freud’s text, Beyond the Pleasure Principle, Freud tells us a story of a child’s game “disappearance and return” which becomes known as “fort da” to explain his idea of “pain/pleasant”. Freud observes an eighteen months old child who repeatedly throws a wooden reel, with a piece of string attach to it, away from him while saying the word “fort” (go away) and when he brings it back he would say “Da” (there). Freud believes the child’s action is a relief of anger for his mother who always leaves him alone. The child doesn’t want his mother to leave him and wants to be the master of the situation; so he replaces an object in place of people. He sends the object (her mother) away and brings it back whenever he wants to. Freud analyzes action saying “the answer will perhaps be forthcoming that the departure must be played as the necessary prelude to the joyful return.” The child gains happiness when he sees the toy return even though it would be unpleasant for him to throw it away in the first place. I think Freud is trying to explain that we are just like the child who appreciates things more after we experienced the pain of losing it while gaining happiness as the outcome of the painful process.
Similar to the story of “Allegory the Cave”, the prisoner has been brought up with the belief that the shadows are the only realities. However, after he is released from the cave and sees things in a more real and more correct way, he would appreciate the true reality more than any other people who have been brought up in this true reality. The cost of this different view was years of suffering in the cave, but he enjoys the outcome of the painful process for he gains happiness.
Freud is portraying a happiness that is attained after experiencing a painful process. We might think that this kind of happiness would be more realistic for we use to believe in “no pain, no gain”, however, are we really going to attain true happy with a painful and unpleasant process?
Section II of Sigmund Freud’s Beyond the Pleasure Principle examines the activities of a child; specifically a game of disappearance and return that revolves around the use of the words, “fort” and “da”. Although simplistic in nature, the activities of the child indicate a very analytical, physiological aspect of the “pleasure principle”. The child would throw toys away from his crib while attempting to say fort (gone) and da (there). The child would throw away the toy in hopes that his mother would retrieve it and come back to him. A brief analysis indicates that the actions of the child give away his motive for power, indicating that he gains pleasure in securing domination over his mother’s actions.
In some respects, the Freud’s analysis of the child’s actions has similarities with Plato’s Allegory of a Cave. Both works revolve around an unenlightened individual, the child and a chained man respectively. Both works attempt to speculate the comparisons between the person’s actions and his physiological motives. In both cases, both the child and the chained man may have acted according to their physiological motives, but may not have fully understood them. This brings into mind, Plato’s four stages of knowledge analogy: imagination, belief, thought, and ultimately understanding. Although Freud did not conjure up the child’s actions in his imagination, his belief that the child was acting on the power principle brought him to a breakthrough in thought. Since Freud cannot directly see into the child ‘sub-consciousness, he cannot fully understand the child’s physiological motive, however his analysis based on the four stages of knowledge indicated he tried to.
In the first section of Beyond the Pleasure Principle, Freud speculates the prevalence of the pleasure principle: all individuals have an instinctive drive to experience satisfaction and to avoid pain. However, one may first experience pain of one endeavor to ultimately experience the satisfaction associated with such an endeavor. The example of the child provided in section II is a clear example: The child uses his measly effort to throw the toy away from his crib in hopes of his mother coming back to retrieve it. Although the child would be deprived of the toy due to his actions of throwing it away, he probably reconciles that his mother will come back to retrieve it. His mother’s presence afterwards would be the pleasure. Section II also introduces the concept of the “power principle” that speculates individuals can attain satisfaction from securing domination over the actions and beliefs of others.
In Chapter 2 of Freud’s text, Beyond the Pleasure Principle, the “pleasure principle” is expressed through the story of an eighteen-month-old child’s actions. The child plays this game of “fort-da” where he throws a wooden reel with a piece of string wound around it, repeatedly, over the side of his cot. The concept of “disappearance and return” is incorporated into this game, resulting in two different reactions from the boy – an interjection of “o-o-o-oh” which is meant to be the phrase “fort”, meaning “go away”, at the disappearance of the reel when he throws it away, and a joyful outburst of the phrase “Da”, meaning “there”, at the reappearance of the reel when he pulls it back. Freud’s take on the boy’s interjection is parallel to the boy’s mother’s frequent disappearance. The boy feels this certain anger and distaste towards his mother because of when she leaves, which is expressed by throwing the reel away. He feels the need to have a control over his mother’s presence, or non-presence, which he expresses through his pulling back of the reel, which grants him joy and happiness, just as his mother’s return gives him. This game is important to Freud’s ideas because it expresses how people, such as the boy, seek pleasure and avoid pain or suffering by taking control of a situation in their own way, such as controlling the mother’s absence and presence by means of a wooden reel.
This compares to Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” because of how the prisoner is faced with reality and has to accept the truth of what actually exists after being exposed to it. Similarly the boy accepts the truth of his mother’s presence, or lack thereof, and expresses that through the game. In terms of happiness, I believe both Plato and Freud show that it can be achieved only after experiencing pain, or suffering reality, and overcoming it by accepting reality.
While reading Beyond the Please Principle by Freud, it became increasingly apparent that there is a difference in respect to how Freud describes pleasure and pain from Gilbert. Although it is true that both study psychology, Gilbert studies positive psychology in which one would see events in a positive or optimistic light. However, Freud, not necessarily a pessimist, but rather crude and harsh in terminology and in relation to how he describes the game that his own grandson played as an infant – Fort Da.
The Fort Da game, being a simplistic form of expression of how Ernst would express his feelings and emotions in the form of ‘pain’ for when the toy was gone, and ‘pleasure’ for when it appeared. This is probably the reason why I feel a difference in the tone of both psychologists, one would experiment with his own grandson, while Gilbert would take his surroundings and other experiments run rather than on his own family (at least thats we know so far). But then again, it would seem irrational for one to be a psychologist and not try out experimental methods on his own family – I mean you would be able to learn so much since they’re right there.
In chapter two of Freud’s beyond the pleasure principle, he makes reference to a child that he study for a prolonged period. the child was eighteen months old, the child was for the most part well behaved. although he did have a tendency to play a game where he would throw his toy out of sight and then drag it back by a string that was attached to it, Freud called this game “disappearance and return” or later it was known as fort da. Freud found this child’s game to be important because of how it relates to his idea of the pleasure pain theory. Freud believed that the child would play this game to compensate for his mother leaving and returning without making a fuss. the game would allow the child to be in control of departing and returning. the way this relates to pleasure and pain theory is simply in correlation to the mothers actions of leaving and returning, when the child would throw his toy away this would relate to the painful experience of his mothers departure and when he would retrieve his toy this would be a reflection of the pleasurable experience of his mother returning. this child’s actions would support Freud’s idea that people actions are based on avoiding pain and pursuing pleasure.
The way that this relates to the Allegory of the Cave is in regards to the child being similar to prisoner that had to cope with realizing that his previous reality was false but was freed. whereas the child had to cope with his mother leaving and returning with the Fort Da game. what this has to do in relation to happiness is that happiness or pleasure can be enhanced with the added experience of pain. example the child would not be so over joyed to see his mother had she never left.
“fort da” plays a huge role in Freud’s learnings. This is because it goes down to the Root of all people, and how no matter what the age of a person, no matter sex, gender, and all these different things that differentiate people, they all seek pleasure. Freud is basically saying that a person doesn’t care weather he or she will make a difference in the world, the only thing a person wants is self gratification in what ever he or she does. Children can suppress the feelings they feel, but just because they don’t show it on the outside doesn’t mean they are not feeling it. The child would endure a little pain to be rewarded with happiness in the end. A child,in freuds view, plays the game to show how he feels angry at the mother for leaving. Its amazing how cognitive behaviors can sometimes have different meanings, whether it was on purpose or not
More over what freud is saying is that if a person has an impulse to do something, he or she shouldn’t shy away from doing something, they should go a head and do it. It might seem irrational, but there is a reason why the person got the thought in the first place.
-Diana Tsitlishvili
(ps sorry i handed this in so late i was having problems with the server cos i was at my grandmas all weekend)
Hello!
hola!
Bonjour! (How many languages are we going to get?)
Ahn Nyung!
RESPONSE PAPER #2
In Chapter 2 of Freud’s text, he carefully investigates “children’s play,” specifically a game of “disappearance and return” which becomes known as “fort da.” Why do you think this game is so important to Freud’s ideas? How does this compare to Plato’s “allegory of the cave”? And, of course, what does any of this tell us about happiness?
In my opinion, this game is important to Freud’s ideas because it is a clear example of the pleasure principle without any economic aspect. The eighteen months old child knows nothing about money and the economic world thus, in his search of pleasure, it is purely pleasure-seeking. In his game of “fort da”, he makes a wooden reel disappear into his little draped cot by throwing to that side and pulls the string attached back to make it reappear. The one thing that fascinated me was that the child would actually make sounds according to which move he is doing, saying ‘o-o-o-oh’ when throwing the reel and saying ‘da’ to greet its reappearance. The child knew what he was doing. Also, to think that the eighteen months old knew that something has to be gone in order to return blew me away. Freud makes the connection of the reel symbolically being his mother’s departure which then I realized how sad the baby was. No child in that age is happy to say bye-bye to his or her mommy and have fun without her. Thus, it seems clear that the baby was waiting for his mother’s return and the game was in replacement till the actual return of something significant.
Moreover, this passage is similar to Plato’s allegory of the cave because once again we are drawn into the child’s world, observing the baby as Freud did. We have never seen the child but yet, here we are understanding how it feels and sharing his emotions. Also, the eighteen months old baby is similar to the man in the cave because they both are not fully aware of the world around them and is only in the learning mode. This whole not knowing what’s around them led me to think is true happiness in not knowing what’s around us? Are people just to busy trying to calculate the benefits and the non-benefits that they complicate themselves in simple situation which will bring them happiness? It’s just my opinion but, I learned in my religion that people were created as simple beings but it it us who complicate our minds and choose whether our situation is happy for us or not. I believe this to be correct because happiness is all in the mind. We people are too complicated. We should think simply and look on to the bright side and wait for good things to happen just like the baby. I think Freud in another sense is saying that not knowing is the best because since the baby does not know about other things like what the mother is going through, the economic hardships that his family is suffering, he is just simply sitting there repeating his game thinking nothing else but his mother’s return.
In chapter 2 of Freud’s text, Beyond the Pleasure Principle, Freud tells us a story of a child’s game “disappearance and return” which becomes known as “fort da” to explain his idea of “pain/pleasant”. Freud observes an eighteen months old child who repeatedly throws a wooden reel, with a piece of string attach to it, away from him while saying the word “fort” (go away) and when he brings it back he would say “Da” (there). Freud believes the child’s action is a relief of anger for his mother who always leaves him alone. The child doesn’t want his mother to leave him and wants to be the master of the situation; so he replaces an object in place of people. He sends the object (her mother) away and brings it back whenever he wants to. Freud analyzes action saying “the answer will perhaps be forthcoming that the departure must be played as the necessary prelude to the joyful return.” The child gains happiness when he sees the toy return even though it would be unpleasant for him to throw it away in the first place. I think Freud is trying to explain that we are just like the child who appreciates things more after we experienced the pain of losing it while gaining happiness as the outcome of the painful process.
Similar to the story of “Allegory the Cave”, the prisoner has been brought up with the belief that the shadows are the only realities. However, after he is released from the cave and sees things in a more real and more correct way, he would appreciate the true reality more than any other people who have been brought up in this true reality. The cost of this different view was years of suffering in the cave, but he enjoys the outcome of the painful process for he gains happiness.
Freud is portraying a happiness that is attained after experiencing a painful process. We might think that this kind of happiness would be more realistic for we use to believe in “no pain, no gain”, however, are we really going to attain true happy with a painful and unpleasant process?
Γιά σας!
Option #2
Section II of Sigmund Freud’s Beyond the Pleasure Principle examines the activities of a child; specifically a game of disappearance and return that revolves around the use of the words, “fort” and “da”. Although simplistic in nature, the activities of the child indicate a very analytical, physiological aspect of the “pleasure principle”. The child would throw toys away from his crib while attempting to say fort (gone) and da (there). The child would throw away the toy in hopes that his mother would retrieve it and come back to him. A brief analysis indicates that the actions of the child give away his motive for power, indicating that he gains pleasure in securing domination over his mother’s actions.
In some respects, the Freud’s analysis of the child’s actions has similarities with Plato’s Allegory of a Cave. Both works revolve around an unenlightened individual, the child and a chained man respectively. Both works attempt to speculate the comparisons between the person’s actions and his physiological motives. In both cases, both the child and the chained man may have acted according to their physiological motives, but may not have fully understood them. This brings into mind, Plato’s four stages of knowledge analogy: imagination, belief, thought, and ultimately understanding. Although Freud did not conjure up the child’s actions in his imagination, his belief that the child was acting on the power principle brought him to a breakthrough in thought. Since Freud cannot directly see into the child ‘sub-consciousness, he cannot fully understand the child’s physiological motive, however his analysis based on the four stages of knowledge indicated he tried to.
In the first section of Beyond the Pleasure Principle, Freud speculates the prevalence of the pleasure principle: all individuals have an instinctive drive to experience satisfaction and to avoid pain. However, one may first experience pain of one endeavor to ultimately experience the satisfaction associated with such an endeavor. The example of the child provided in section II is a clear example: The child uses his measly effort to throw the toy away from his crib in hopes of his mother coming back to retrieve it. Although the child would be deprived of the toy due to his actions of throwing it away, he probably reconciles that his mother will come back to retrieve it. His mother’s presence afterwards would be the pleasure. Section II also introduces the concept of the “power principle” that speculates individuals can attain satisfaction from securing domination over the actions and beliefs of others.
Ellora Islam, Response paper 2, option 2
In Chapter 2 of Freud’s text, Beyond the Pleasure Principle, the “pleasure principle” is expressed through the story of an eighteen-month-old child’s actions. The child plays this game of “fort-da” where he throws a wooden reel with a piece of string wound around it, repeatedly, over the side of his cot. The concept of “disappearance and return” is incorporated into this game, resulting in two different reactions from the boy – an interjection of “o-o-o-oh” which is meant to be the phrase “fort”, meaning “go away”, at the disappearance of the reel when he throws it away, and a joyful outburst of the phrase “Da”, meaning “there”, at the reappearance of the reel when he pulls it back. Freud’s take on the boy’s interjection is parallel to the boy’s mother’s frequent disappearance. The boy feels this certain anger and distaste towards his mother because of when she leaves, which is expressed by throwing the reel away. He feels the need to have a control over his mother’s presence, or non-presence, which he expresses through his pulling back of the reel, which grants him joy and happiness, just as his mother’s return gives him. This game is important to Freud’s ideas because it expresses how people, such as the boy, seek pleasure and avoid pain or suffering by taking control of a situation in their own way, such as controlling the mother’s absence and presence by means of a wooden reel.
This compares to Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” because of how the prisoner is faced with reality and has to accept the truth of what actually exists after being exposed to it. Similarly the boy accepts the truth of his mother’s presence, or lack thereof, and expresses that through the game. In terms of happiness, I believe both Plato and Freud show that it can be achieved only after experiencing pain, or suffering reality, and overcoming it by accepting reality.
Mikhail Shimonov
While reading Beyond the Please Principle by Freud, it became increasingly apparent that there is a difference in respect to how Freud describes pleasure and pain from Gilbert. Although it is true that both study psychology, Gilbert studies positive psychology in which one would see events in a positive or optimistic light. However, Freud, not necessarily a pessimist, but rather crude and harsh in terminology and in relation to how he describes the game that his own grandson played as an infant – Fort Da.
The Fort Da game, being a simplistic form of expression of how Ernst would express his feelings and emotions in the form of ‘pain’ for when the toy was gone, and ‘pleasure’ for when it appeared. This is probably the reason why I feel a difference in the tone of both psychologists, one would experiment with his own grandson, while Gilbert would take his surroundings and other experiments run rather than on his own family (at least thats we know so far). But then again, it would seem irrational for one to be a psychologist and not try out experimental methods on his own family – I mean you would be able to learn so much since they’re right there.
response paper 2: option 2
In chapter two of Freud’s beyond the pleasure principle, he makes reference to a child that he study for a prolonged period. the child was eighteen months old, the child was for the most part well behaved. although he did have a tendency to play a game where he would throw his toy out of sight and then drag it back by a string that was attached to it, Freud called this game “disappearance and return” or later it was known as fort da. Freud found this child’s game to be important because of how it relates to his idea of the pleasure pain theory. Freud believed that the child would play this game to compensate for his mother leaving and returning without making a fuss. the game would allow the child to be in control of departing and returning. the way this relates to pleasure and pain theory is simply in correlation to the mothers actions of leaving and returning, when the child would throw his toy away this would relate to the painful experience of his mothers departure and when he would retrieve his toy this would be a reflection of the pleasurable experience of his mother returning. this child’s actions would support Freud’s idea that people actions are based on avoiding pain and pursuing pleasure.
The way that this relates to the Allegory of the Cave is in regards to the child being similar to prisoner that had to cope with realizing that his previous reality was false but was freed. whereas the child had to cope with his mother leaving and returning with the Fort Da game. what this has to do in relation to happiness is that happiness or pleasure can be enhanced with the added experience of pain. example the child would not be so over joyed to see his mother had she never left.
“fort da” plays a huge role in Freud’s learnings. This is because it goes down to the Root of all people, and how no matter what the age of a person, no matter sex, gender, and all these different things that differentiate people, they all seek pleasure. Freud is basically saying that a person doesn’t care weather he or she will make a difference in the world, the only thing a person wants is self gratification in what ever he or she does. Children can suppress the feelings they feel, but just because they don’t show it on the outside doesn’t mean they are not feeling it. The child would endure a little pain to be rewarded with happiness in the end. A child,in freuds view, plays the game to show how he feels angry at the mother for leaving. Its amazing how cognitive behaviors can sometimes have different meanings, whether it was on purpose or not
More over what freud is saying is that if a person has an impulse to do something, he or she shouldn’t shy away from doing something, they should go a head and do it. It might seem irrational, but there is a reason why the person got the thought in the first place.
-Diana Tsitlishvili
(ps sorry i handed this in so late i was having problems with the server cos i was at my grandmas all weekend)