Freudian Discourse

We're reading Freud in class now, something I've never done before.

"Oh Freud," I say to my book as I read, "poor, poor Freud." Because obviously the guy had no idea how ridiculous some of the things he said are.

You know that guy who just shows up at social events and starts talking about things no one cares about/which make everybody uncomfortable? That was probably Freud, back in the day. Like, at those early-twentieth-century Austrian dinner parties, after everyone finished their schnitzel and their spaetzle and was quite comfortable drinking Austrian tea and eating Austrian pastries, Freud would probably open his mouth and say, "About psychosexuality-" or "On the matter of the id-"

And then the butler, per his pre-party instructions, would say quite loudly, "Would any of the gentlemen care to come into the drawing room for a rousing game of Guitar Hero?" or whatever they did at early-twentieth-century Austrian parties.

When his nieces and nephews got married, they would fret over where to put Uncle Sigmund on the seating chart, because of course they were the sort of people who use place cards at wedding dinners which I think is a bit silly but some couples seem to find them necessary because they want to separate certain relatives in order to avoid an abundance of awkwardness. Now that I think of it, Freud was probably the reason place cards were invented in the first place.

Had Freud's contemporaries written children's books on how they felt about him, they probably would have written books entitled such things as No, Freud!

And Don't Let Freud Drive the Bus!

 

And If You Give a Freud Encouragement.



Sample text: "If you give a Freud encouragement, he's going to ask you some invasive psychological questions. When you answer the questions, he'll probably write a case study about you. When he's finished, he'll publish it. Then he'll want to turn his observations of your behavior into a book. He'll start writing a draft. He might get carried away and turn his observations into a universal theory that isn't sufficiently justified and may or may not involve words of Greek and vague insults towards America."

I'm learning a lot at college.