Author Archives: EKaufman
Posts: 21 (archived below)
Comments: 3
from Laura Cvikevich
Human development is clearly the topic of analysis for both these writers. What’s interesting is how the writers go about approaching this specific focus. You have Freud relating it to children at play, and Daniel Gilbert making an allegory of “the cave”. Whatever the case may be, when it came down to the interpretation of psychological development, I began to see relations between Gilbert and Freud. Both writers would agree in saying, our childhood subconsciously affects our adulthood.
Freud believes that we gain pleasure by replaying or reminiscing on a painful, unforgettable memory because we are aware of the pleasurable outcome that came with it. But what if there wasn’t a positive outcome? What if, nothing came out of this brutal experience or altercation? Then what?
I didn’t even consider Freud’s ideas until I read Chapter 2 of Beyond the Pleasure Principle. He focuses his observations on an eighteen-month-old child named Ernst. Specifically, the reoccurring game the boy plays, when his mother leaves him home for several hours on end, called
“Fort Da”. The game consists of the young boy throwing a toy out of his personal space, and shortly after, retrieving it. The act of throwing the toy was directly related with the mother leaving the son. Retrieving the toy was related to the mothers return. Obviously the throwing of the toy, and the disappearance of the mother was seen as the painful moment. However, the act of retrieving the toy would be seen as the positive outcome. This is where the boy found pleasure. This game was a way for the boy to cope with the absence of his mother. He was aware of the pleasurable outcome of his mom eventually coming home, and because of that, this game was his way of looking forward to his mothers return. It interests me how Freud was able to relate a psychological concept to an eighteen-month-old baby. This eighteen-month-old baby was able to validate Freud’s pleasure/pain principle.
In comparisons to Freud’s “fort da”, the “allegory of the cave” might seem a little farfetched and improbable. Chaining up prisoners since childhood and expecting them to learn from this experience seems like torture to me. Plato relates the cave to the prisoner’s wisdom. He believes that this inhumane experience that can also be viewed as a game will subconsciously affect our adulthood. There were four stages to the cave. Once they were all completed, the prisoners would have taken with them a better understanding of the world surrounding them.
The game, “Fort Da”, and the “allegory of the cave” can both be seen as coping mechanisms. Freud and Gilbert approach the topic in different ways, but ultimately have similar stances when it’s all said and done. The eighteen month old was coping with the absence of his mother, and the prisoners went thru these inhumane stages in the cave, for a better understanding of the world that surrounds them. Happiness is sacrificed in both readings to formulate a true sense of it later on.
from Eugene Frenkel
Reading the last paragraph of Chapter two makes me think that Gilbert based some of his arguments on Freud’s ideas in the last paragraph. “We may add the reminder that the dramatic and imitative art of adults, which differs from the behavior of children in being directed towards the spectator, does not however spare the latter the most painful impressions, e.g. in tragedy and yet can be felt by him as highly enjoyable.” In Gilbert’s arguments he tries to take into account all factors of pleasure no matter how twisted another person might see it. He deems it all as happiness even though it is considered to be sickening. Freud also seems to think that no matter how children play or how painful their games, happiness is still happiness, if they enjoy the game they are happy no matter how the game is played or what effect it could have. Children play to make themselves happy, and to get away from any problems daily life could contain. In Freud’s case the problem involved a child attached to his mother who would go away for long hours. It was painful as a memory and yet the child found comfort in playing the game of disappear and return. This relates to something from the middle ages. The bubonic plague took out a large population of Europe and yet children sang Ring around the Rosie even though it was depressing and it meant death. They found comfort in something that was dangerous by turning it into play. Same with the child, it was dangerous for his psyche for his mother to go away and yet he turned it into play to find solace and comfort. As Freud stated, it may be a tragedy and yet it is highly enjoyable. To the casual observer what the child is doing is sad and yet to one who thinks about it, also as Freud has mentioned, the child is throwing away a toy and then retrieving it, while it causes pain by throwing it away, it also causes happiness and joy when the child retrieves the toy. The child is sacrificing some happiness now, for much happiness later. He knows that the mother will return so he plays the game to constantly remind himself that his mother will always return, he does not force himself into despair, he allows himself to feel happiness and excitement at the return of his mother. As Gilbert stated “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.” This is an important idea and it relates to Freud’s analysis of this child. He is reliving the pain of his mother leaving just so when his mother finally returns he will feel extra happiness. He sacrifices some happiness in the moment so, as Gilbert stated, his future yield of happiness is increased. Gilbert received a lot of his ideas from that quote of Freud’s. The idea of decreasing happiness in the moment to increase its yield in the future, just as Freud observed and analyzed. This also relates to the Ring around the Rosie song that children used to sing. While it seems tragic and depressing, definitely not symptoms of happiness, it also paves the way to happiness. They want to be happy and by reminding themselves of the plague constantly, they know that when the plague finally ends their happiness will have no limit. They sacrifice some happiness now so their future yield of it would be exponentially increased. Though the children are also happy while playing the game since it takes their minds off of their problems, creating an area and moment of safety.
These are some of my thoughts and observations, I especially found that the bubonic plague reference was a good one and one that I enjoyed going into some detail of. What do you think? Are my connections valid or can it be improved?
from Aleksandr Poltilov
Freud observed his grandson invent a game on his own, before the age that one may learn to talk, known as Fort/Da, which translates to gone and here respectfully. This game, he theorized was a way for the child to cope with his his mother being gone. The small boy would through an object away from him and yell sadly o-o-o, and soon after would reel it back in and happily yell “da”. Freud came up with the conclusion that this was a way for the boy to cope with his mother being gone.
This all relates back to Freud’s idea that we as humans always dwell on certain painful moments in our lives as a means for us to learn how to cope with them. No matter what that certain moment is, whether it be pleasant or painful, we as humans constantly reminisce these moments and cope with them in a positive or negative way.
The “allegory of the cave” by Plato similarly relates to the Freud’s observation because it is also about how we go from being immature and naive to having a better understanding of how the world really works. In all four stages that people went through in the cave, they learned about the way the world really works and therefore became more mature in doing so.
In freud’s observation, we see that this way of coping brought on a certain sense of happiness in the boy. Through his unique way of reminiscence of his mother being gone, he was able to relieve his pain about his mother being gone and was therefore happy.
from Elizabeth Kim
From what I’ve learned about Freud, I know that at times his ideas can seem bizarre or farfetched. I was skeptical going into this because I was expecting him to relate everything to something sexual. Knowing this, I was surprised at how straightforward Beyond the Pleasure Principle was. In Chapter 2, Freud goes into detail describing a game that he has decided to call “fort da.” While observing an eighteen month old boy named Ernst, Freud noticed that he would toss away a toy, say “o-o-o” and then shout “da” once the toy was back in his possession. Freud named this exchange “fort da” or “disappearance and return.” It also seemed important to note that the little boy was for the most part quite well-behaved and would be fine even when his mother left him alone for hours. However, Ernst’s game left a deep impression on Freud’s studies and shaped his pain/pleasure principle.
Was “fort da” the child’s way of coping with the disappearance and subsequent return of his mother? Or was the child trying to display his anger at being left alone by tossing away a toy but getting it back later? Freud ultimately came to the conclusion that Ernst’s game was something we all do: replaying painful memories as a way of understanding and coming to terms with it. It all ties in with his “pleasure/pain” ideas. Although contradictory, he found that people find satisfaction with repeating moments of discomfort. We gain pleasure by replaying or reproducing the pain of a particular moment in our lives because we know that the conclusion is good.
Like Plato’s “allegory of the cave,” Freud’s “fort da” is about development and maturation of the mind. However, Plato goes into more detail and lays out more steps of development than Freud. Both mention that our childhood subconsciously affects our adulthood. We can only appreciate the outdoors if we have spent time in the “shadows,” and we learn our basic coping skills from the games of pretend we play as children. Chapter 2 also tells us something about happiness. We don’t necessarily find joy in positive times alone. Sometimes, reflecting on instances in our lives that have angered, saddened or frightened us can also bring happiness. This is because self-reflection is a sign of positive progress and can show you have far you have come.
Although Freud’s idea of gaining pleasure from replaying painful moments sounds plausible, can’t reliving these moments result in wallowing and self-pity which only brings more pain?
– Elizabeth Kim
from Philip Chen
Sigmund Freud spent his time observing and interpreting a young child’s actions in the second chapter of Beyond the Pleasure Principle. The young child as Freud observed had a “troublesome habit of flinging into the corner of the room or under the bed all the little things he could lay his hands on”. He would accompany the action with a gratified “Ooooh”. Freud then observed the child playing with a toy that had a string attached to it. Instead of dragging the toy, the child would throw it over the side of his bed and pulled it back up to see it again. The game the child played became known as “Fort Da”. The words Fort and Da translate directly to Gone and There and thus those two words became the name of the game. Freud concluded that the child created the game through experience – the leaving and returning of his mother. The child attempted to be happy in the absence of his mother. Freud uses the example of “Fort Da” in an attempt to explain that actions made when you are an adult are subconsciously influenced by experiences in the person’s childhood. The process of repetition can be traced back to childhood.
Plato’s allegory of the cave and Freud’s “Fort Da” isn’t exactly comparable. They each apply to different concepts. The allegory of the cave describes different stages of knowledge of man – the uneducated to the all-knowing. “Fort Da” was used by Freud as an example of repetition at a young age and a child’s ability to cope with the absence of parents.
I’m unsure about what Freud’s view on happiness is besides his pleasure principle. The idea that pleasure is the driving force behind everything. This essay by Freud adds another reason for our actions and addresses many loopholes with the pleasure principle. I’m more in line to agree with Aristotle’s view of happiness – a life of knowledge and learning.
from Joseph Dabo
Freud presents his essay as a critique of the assumption that as humans we are drawn innately to gaining as much happiness and pleasure as we can. Freud disagrees with this assumption. He argues that we all have a mental perception of displeasure or pain. Our minds or perception is more drawn to dealing with the pains we experiences and this helps us to gain pleasure or happiness as a byproduct. Freud was writing after the time of WWI. At the time that event was the most displeasurable things humans had experienced.
Gaining pleasure is not our dominant trait but most of the processes of our mind do end up in pleasure. He explains this concept with his investigation of “Fort Da” or “Child’s Play.” Freud experienced and analyzed the actions of a little boy who was constantly throwing away his toys in a bid to say Fort Da or gone away. The boy was not throwing away his toys and picking it back again because he found pleasure in that experience but instead, he was dealing with the painful things in his life that is his mother who was constantly away and his father who was off to war. Dealing with the pain was what brought the young kid happiness or pleasure. So the boy’s happiness had to deal with his own perception of what happiness was.
In the same way, Plato’s Allegory of the cave is very similar to Fort Da. In the Allegory, Plato compares men in a state of ignorance to prisoners in a cave unable to turn their heads. Directly behind the prisoners, fire burns. Between the fire and the prisoners, puppeteers who are behind the prisoners, hold up puppets that cast shadows on the wall of the cave. The prisoners cannot see the real objects but all they see are shadows. In the minds of the prisoners, the shadows are real objects but when released they see that their perception of reality was different. Plato’s allegory also shows that what is considered as happiness is different for different people in different situations. Pain can be seen as pleasure or happiness by another person.
I totally agree with the views of Freud and Plato. A person’s definition of pleasure or happiness is all perceptive. What is good for the goose is not always good for the gander so to speak. For example, a religious martyr who goes through torture and death because of his/ her beliefs will be viewed by another person as experiencing displeasure and in no way happy. However, even through that pain, the martyr might be happy inside knowing and believing that he is doing God’s will. Still a question remains, which kind of happiness is superior, gaining happiness by dealing with pain or gaining happiness through pleasurable things?
from Diana Achibar
Nature versus nurture has always been a theory questioned by many humans. Many people find it important to know what causes their actions and how exactly they occur in the ways which they do, whether it is due to the environment surrounding us or if it is hereditary. It becomes quite clear to me that society itself and experience with the outside world play huge roles in how humans develop mentally. In Freud’s Beyond the Pleasure Principle he addresses “children’s play” and when observing an eighteen month old baby he discovers that the baby has turned an experience into a game. He states that the baby “was in the first place passive, was overtaken by the experience, but now brings himself in as playing an active part, by repeating the experience as a game in spite of its unpleasing nature” (14). As a child, you are yet to discover new wonders in the world, so through experience you begin to form reactions that enable you to feel different emotions that you are born with. Such an example is one that leads me into believing that nature and nurture come hand in hand. Without nature you would not have nurture since nature is what enables us humans to practice the innate traits we are born with, such as happiness.
In Plato’s The Republic Book Seven “Allegory of the Cave” he tells a story about prisoners who are chained and live their entire lives in a cave having no connection to the outer world other than a bright fire off in the distance. I believe that its significance of this allegory is to demonstrate that one’s surroundings is a vital part in determining their morals and beliefs. Since the prisoners grew acceptance of the dark cave they were in, they did not know that there was actually much more in the world, and having lived such a long time without any doubt, it was hard for them to believe that there really could be something beyond the bright fire. Their senses and innate traits had adapted to the surroundings of the cave and they had become content and satisfied with their lifestyle. In both Freud’s and Plato’s pieces, nature and nurture intertwine and enable the characters to further develop mentally and create certain beliefs and morals that shape one’s own personal idea and definition of happiness.
Response 2–Allen Chan
In Chapter 2 of Freud’s Beyond the Pleasure Principle, he concentrates the majority of this chapter onto his observations of a Child’s Play. In his observations, Freud had noticed that a child would “allow” a beloved/pleasurable toy to disappear his play. Freud mentioned that instead of, for example, combining his favorite toy (the reel w. the string) with the his other toys, instead, the child behaves somewhat masochistically, continually depriving himself of his favorite toy in order to see it return again (hence the name fort da :going away/there). This game is very important to Freud’s theories as from my primitive and basic knowledge of Freud, he seem to base many of his theories on adult actions being subconsciously influenced by traumas and neuroses developed in childhood. In addition, this fort da/child’s play stage is seems to at least deflate a good amount of the presumption that “pleasure” is the driving force of a person’s conscious and subconscious goals (as even a child in his most primitive stage of development would act in a manner that would contradict the pleasure principle).
The only comparison I can see between chapter two and Plato’s allegory is their use of “stages” to describe different stages of human development. Both authors/writes seem to focus their writings on the mental development of a human. Although, in this particular excerpt Freud did not elaborate on the child’s stages development and also made no reference to some of his more controversial theories (which, to my limited knowledge has something to do with a child’s oral, anal, genital fixations etc.) This however, tells me that happiness can also be motivated subconsciously, although since I lack any anecdotal “proofs” as I do not remember most my early childhood.
-Allen Chan
Response 2 from Andrey
Andrey Syzdykov
Response paper # 2 – Option #2
In chapter 2 of “Beyond the Pleasure Principle” written by Sigmund Freud, he talks about a game of “disappearance and return” later to be known as fort da. This game is important to Freud’s ideas because it essentially counters his pleasure principle, which states that people tend to do things to further their own pleasure while avoiding all forms of pain. This said counter to the pleasure principle appears in the first part of the game, which is the disappearance part. The toddler throws the wooden reel out of sight, which signifies the loss of his mother. He then reels it back in to “reunite” with his mother. Freud wonders why the boy chooses to willingly hurt himself by recreating the loss of his mother into a game, and in the end figures that it’s all for the return stage. After all, there is no return without separation.
This can relate to Plato’s “allegory of the cave” in the sense that the baby, when deprived of his “object happiness” (his mother), he then reverts into the imagination stage to seek a form of comfort. This serves as a temporary form of happiness until the mother returns. What makes this relevant to us is that we often revert to the imaginary stage to keep us happy as well. If you are hungry but can’t get food at the moment, you compensate by imagining the tastes of different foods inside your mouth. If you want sex but can’t get it, you may turn to pornography and imagination (onanism). These examples, as base as they are, show us that you can fool yourself into achieving a temporary happiness. Yet is this imaginary trick really enough to make you truly happy? Also, are there some things out there that you just can’t use this trick for?
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