Point by point rebuttal to Moran’s cancellation email.

Well I seem to have really touched a nerve with my discussion of the ‘Principle of Constancy’ in Freud. 

This is patronizing of Moran. Again: I was not interested in discussion of Freud to start out with. He tells me on about Thursday that if we aren’t going to talk about Freud, then we perhaps should just cancel the talk. The principle of constancy, he claimed was key to his article. I didn’t read the article that way. I thought his points about Proust were great, but I kind of skimmed the Freud section. It didn’t grab me, and it wasn’t clear, so I suggested it not be a topic. But when Moran said that, no, the Freud section was key in his mind, I then put aside my other plans. I sent him a new draft outline, one putting his Freud discussion front and center. Then beginning with Friday of a summer weekend, I start studying the Freud section of his paper. Again, I didn’t think it would take all weekend. But it was just so confused and so wrong! I ended up going through it sentence by sentence.

Now he patronizingly says he touched a nerve. After I spent all weekend helping him with his own theories. Because he said that the discussion of Freud was important to the paper.

First you denied that there is any mention of it in Laplanche and Pontalis. 

On this point he is correct. I don’t know how I didn’t see it in Laplanche and Pontalis. I thought I searched for “constancy,” and didn’t see it. I recall writing down in at least a draft email that “‘duh. I don’t know how I missed that.” It seems that in whatever emails I sent, that sentence got left out. Because I also remember wavering on whether to say “Duh I can’t believe I missed it.” Why would I take it out? Because it seemed to me to be too obvious. As they say in litigation, the document speaks for itself. It’s not a question of having to tell Moran what my opinion is on whether the entry is in Laplanche and Pontalis. The book speaks for itself. It was obviously a goof on my part. For whatever reason, I didn’t apologize for it.

Then I sent you the whole article that they devote to it, describing what they claim to be its central role in Freud’s ‘economic’ theory of drives.

He did send me “the whole article.” Now as soon as I started looking at it, I saw that it led me down the road of “constancy” versus “homeostasis.” It seemed, as I said to Moran in an email, that Freud was really looking for the concept of homeostasis, but he did not have it available. Once you substitute homeostasis for constancy, you don’t have to go down the road of the Nirvana Principle. So I did follow L&P down that road, but then (as I pointed out in my emails to Moran) and as I have repeated here several times, for Moran’s own purposes in his own article, the key point is not constancy or homeostasis. The key point is satisfaction as action or satisfaction as state. Regardless of how you define satisfaction: you can define it as constancy, as homeostasis, as inconstancy, or disequilibrium, it doesn’t matter. All that matters is that there is a state of mind that the person is trying to achieve. Its being constant is or not is not essential.

This seems to be the key point: that Moran himself makes, but that he loses sight of. I didn’t go on a long discussion of constancy because Moran himself pointed out that’s not the issue. However you define the state of satisfaction, the question remains that that state definition is different than the logical or internal notion of satisfaction.

You did not acknowledge the mistake so I don’t know if we are on the same page here as to what is contained in L&P. 

As I pointed out above, yes I didn’t acknowledge the mistake. (I haven’t checked my emails for this. Maybe it is in there, but for now I’m assuming it is not). The reason I think I didn’t acknowledge it is that L&P speaks for itself. There is nothing to discuss. There is nothing for me to weigh in on or express my opinion about. Yes it’s in there. I didn’t realize that.

I was further confused by the fact that in responding to points from their article, you write as though you are responding to something I had written myself, rather than L&P. 

This is a mistake on Moran’s part. It’s not a big mistake. It’s just something that happens. I started critiquing his article, and I started with three of his sentences. He seems to have assumed that I had made a mistake. He thought the sentences were from L*P not from him. That was his mistake. It’s not a big deal. But this was his error.

I really never thought I would have to argue for the importance of this principle in Freud’s work. 

Well, I don’t know why he thinks that. But there is in fact a lot to argue about. First of all, is it in fact important in Freud’s work? One of my points was that, just as there are different meanings of satisfaction, there are also different meanings of fundamental. One meaning is fundamental as in basic, primitive, early in development. Another meaning is important as in crucial, as in much of Freud depends on it. I pointed out to Moran that it might be fundamental as in primitive, but he was suggesting is was fundamental as in important, and that was far from clear. If we are talking about the principle of constancy itself, I would say it is pretty clear that not much depends on it. And moreover as I pointed out to Moran, it contradicts the basic thrust of Freud’s theories of drives. Drives are not constant. They come in waves like lava. Behavior in Freud’s model is dynamic: the outcome of opposing forces.

So yes you would have to argue about the importance of that principle. I stand by that.

But, to repeat again, that is really not the issue. Moran never replied to my main point, which is that for his purposes, it is not important. For his article, regardless of whether it is important for Freud’s work, the main point is that it is not important for Moran’s work. And that is why I wasn’t spending any time discussing constancy. That is why it didn’t matter to me whether it was important for Freud’s work or not. For purposes of his article, it was a moot point. Now he may disagree wtih me. But he never actually countered my argument. I still don’t know what his position on that is. He canceled me before he weighed in on it.

I never thought that citing the ‘Project for a Scientific Psychology’ would seem an act of betrayal of Freud. In discussions I am familiar with it is read with interest as a fascinating precursor to themes that recur throughout Freud’s career. 

Well, I never said that citing the Project was an act of betrayal. Nor did I say it wasn’t an interesting precursor. In fact, I explicitly stated that I had never read it, but that I wanted to. I explicitly said I was interested in it and wanted to investigate it. But then Moran swerves. For one, he goes to an argument from authority. He appeals do “discussions I am familiar with.” That seems to be code for saying that I don’t have standing to say anything new. If I say anything contrary to the discussions he is familiar with, then he doesn’t really have to pay attention to what I say.

I stand by what I said. Regardless of what the people he is familiar with think. I refuse to be intimidated by these discussions of the in group. I will assert my opinion and ask that it be taken seriously. If he doesn’t take me seriously, or if he won’t consider anything I say that isn’t orthodox, then I too am glad we aren’t talking. I stand by what I said.

To repeat, the issue is not whether it’s interesting. I agree it is. The issue is whether we can use it as a basis for saying what is the essence of Freud’s thought. Moran is using this document to say something about the essence of Freud’s thought. I think—regardless of what everyone he knows thinks—that it is simply outrageous to use that document to characterize the essence of his thought. I didn’t just state this. I took the time to look up Jones’s biography so that I could get the details right. [Again, I am doing all this, on a summer weekend, to help Moran with his own article! And I am not getting paid for this! I take the time to get the facts right, and I take the time to email him, and his response is to dismiss my opinion because it’s not orthodox. The facts I found are these:

What I wrote to Moran was this: “The Project that we have was a document sketched on a train after a visit with Fleiss, and then back filled. It was sent to Fleiss in 1896 and then, evidently, Freud forgot about it. There is no mention of it in Freud's papers after 1896. After Fleiss's death, Fleiss's wife--who was hostile towards Freud and vice versa--sold it to a book dealer on the condition that it not be sold to Freud (knowing he would destroy it). The dealer sold it to Mari Bonaparte. When she told Freud she had acquired the Fleiss papers, Freud was "indignant about the story of the sale and characteristically gave his advice in the form of a Jewish anecdote. It was the one about how to cook a peacock. “You first bury it in the earth for a week and then dig it up again.” “And then?” “Then you throw it away!” He offered to recompense Mme. Bonaparte [and] ... insisted that [the documents] should be destroyed." (Jones biography. Volume 1, Chapter 7. ]

I stand by my statement. He can disagree if he wants. I take no offence. But I do take offence at being canceled. I stand by my statement that given that provenance, it is flatly incorrect to use that document as anything other than an interesting precursor. It is not fair to conclude anything about anyone’s career from a document which the author explicitly disavowed himself of.

You tell me that my readings of Freud make you angry, as though Freud is being disrespected.   

[I will pick up from here tomorrow. ]

You say that it is unfair to say that in the ‘Vicissitudes’ paper that he ‘begins with a biological postulate’, and say “You completely miss all of this when you write, "He begins with a biological postulate" I don't think it's "fair."

You quote the following passage from my paper "Freud invites us to “imagine ourselves in the situation of an almost entirely helpless living being, as yet unoriented in the world, which is receiving stimuli in its nervous substance.” The influx of stimuli is a problem for the organism which is easily overwhelmed and which perceives the stimulus as a threat to its integrity, its fragile ego-boundaries.”

And you say “I adamantly disagree with this paraphrase”, where you accuse me of claiming that Freud’s view is that we simply are identical with such a helpless infant.  Of course I do no such thing.  And what you call a ‘paraphrase’ is simply the quotation of Freud’s own words at the beginning of the essay “Let us imagine ourselves in the situation of an almost entirely helpless living being …”.  You say my description of external stimuli as a ‘problem’ for the organism is “completely unwarranted”.  You say I have done Freud a disservice to treat him this way. 

                Disagreement is fine, of course, but not when conducted this way.  I don’t think it will productive for us to have a conversation.  I’m sorry you have put so much time into it, as have I.  But the tone of our exchanges has got more and more hostile and dismissive on your part and I find myself badly misinterpreted by you again and again. I can’t imagine a good podcast conversation where I would have to fight through that the whole time.  There’s not enough time to hope for something like a fresh start.