chapter 4

The quote in this chapter that says “it is clear that everything on this planet is relative and has independent existence only insofar as it is distinguished in its relations to and from other things” really interested me. It’s interesting to think about Freud’s idea that if it were always light we wouldn’t call it “light” because it would just be what it is. With no dark to classify light as something different, there would be no classification for it. It’s interesting to think about because Europeans probably didn’t think of themselves as “white” before they found darker skinned cultures, they were just people. Yes, there are words that don’t exactly come from an opposite but many things are indeed defined by what they are based on what they are not. Freud also talks about the iceberg theory which says that there are three parts of thinking, consciousness, precociousness, and unconsciousness. These parts modeled like an iceberg in the water would have a small part out of the water (consciousness) with a small slice visible just under the water’s surface (precociousness) and the mass of the iceberg would be under water (unconsciousness). This implies that about ninety percent of what is in our minds is not necessarily accessible to us. However, this unconsciousness shapes our behavior, it’s a “power within us we cannot control.” There are three forces proposed by Freud in our human psyche as well and they are the id, superego and ego. Id represents lust and desire, superego shows conscience and guilt, and the ego is what tries to even out the two others. These are all unconscious processes that happen “underwater” in the iceberg diagram. Freud goes on to say that we use unconscious behaviors to mask our true intentions. We tend to represent things in our dreams with their opposites. He calls this “reaction formation” which basically means that we express a feeling such as love with its opposite such as hate. So, in a dream, we may love someone and in the dream we would hate them. Saussure says “in language there are only differences” which is interesting to think about. Saussure also talks about semiotics saying that “signs function, then, not through their intrinsic value but through their relative position.” This is similar to what Freud said in that it’s saying words for example, are not just what they are but are defined by what they are not. Freud said “sometimes a cigar is only a cigar” (and not a phallic symbol). This means we could consider the possibility that a cigar is sometimes not only a cigar. What’s interesting is that in this, Freud is possibly coding his own statement in an opposite form to get us to consider the converse meaning. 

Wow I wrote a lot...but I found this chapter really interesting. Especially the part about opposites playing such a large role in our dreams. One of my favorite books is the Tao Te Ching which is pretty much all written in contradictions and opposing statements. For example, verse number 24 says:

"those who stand on tiptoes do not stand firmly"

and verse 81 which is my favorite says:

"true words do not sound beautiful; beautiful sounding words are not true." 

this is actually one of my favorite quotes of all time because to me, it's so incredibly true and to some, it's so very impossible sounding. It always interests me to hear how people take this statement.