tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post4315184362926615573..comments2024-03-28T16:22:14.888-07:00Comments on Steve Sailer: iSteve: Do the French still believe in Freud?Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger84125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-5879237899621549062014-05-11T20:19:26.479-07:002014-05-11T20:19:26.479-07:00They believe in it enough for a popular philosophe...They believe in it enough for a popular philosopher like Michel Onfray to be confronted with accusations of being an antisemite for trying to topple freudianism down. <br /><br />It sounds weird to us in North-America that anyone outside of departments of english still takes Freud seriously. <br /><br />Jewish ideas suceed differently in different lands. Neoconism is still not the mainstream in France while it reigns supreme over here. Freudianism was successfully uprooted here but it's still going strong in France.ogunsironhttp://www.gmail.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-38415292658769106362014-05-11T18:31:54.487-07:002014-05-11T18:31:54.487-07:00"Freudianism" to many people simply refe..."Freudianism" to many people simply refers to any assumption that subconscious mental activity is central to many mental dysfunctions. What is lost in this generalization is that for<br />a few decades before Freud gained<br />regard, the study of subconscious mental activity toward re-ordering mental dysfunction was a robust domain of medicine (and later psychology ) Many persons from the US and other nations came to France to study under Charcot and Janet. Morton Prince was one such. The neurologist Sigmund Freud from Vienna was another such. It is deserving of a good deal of scrutiny as to just how Freud managed to take over and re-define all this prior work. Morton Prince, in particular, was dismayed by this<br />grand captivation. The Soviets wrangled around in spasmodic attempts to sift out of "Freudianism" that which was scientifically tenable and that which was lost to science. They never got to harbor in the effort.<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-20658497363390478632012-01-26T16:00:52.581-08:002012-01-26T16:00:52.581-08:00demographis of Freud's patients/
deomgraphics ...demographis of Freud's patients/<br />deomgraphics of people undergoing psychoanalysis in the US in the, say, 70's and 80's.<br /><br />First of all, many people underwent psychoanlaysis (the writer Contrad Aiken, e.g. ) as a<br />personal exploration and an intellectual journey, not under the presumption that their mental functioning with outside of normal limits. <br /><br />The association techniques that Hans Eysenck (see his DECLINE AND FALL OF THE FREUDIAN EMPIRE) attributes to Galton's genius and that were used by Freud, do not <br />depend upon "silly theories" etc.<br /><br />Anecdotal reports I've received indicate that psychoanalysis is<br />almost always based in urban areas and typically the person undergoing it is a youthful male<br />businessman (businessman? It costs about $200 a session , which 2x a week would amount over a year to a helluva a lot of beer money. ) The process is a what vis a vis contemporary treatments of mental maladies would amount itself to a kind of "slow medicine", as it were. There is every reason to believe that with normal personalities, the process is a gradual percpetual/emotional prothesis to a keener rate of maturation and a keener rate of consolidating productive personality functions. <br /><br />Mr. Sailer appears unable to perceive anything in Freudianism<br />that would account for the rather long period of ascendancy it had in intellectual circles as well as in medical/psychological circles.<br />It appears in retrospect never to have had a wide range of efficacious application. Eysenck's own "bombshell" research done in the 50's demonstrated a "hidden in plain sight" aspect that had not been perceived--namely that while people undergoing psychoanalysis usually improved, matched groups of people receiving no treatment but having the same troubling neurotic symptoms also tended to improve in the same way and to the same extent--i.e., Mother Nature and Father Time were turning the wheels. <br /><br />The irony is that psychanlysis probably was efficacious as a means of expedited personal growth.<br />But in an age of informally therapeutic use of marijuana, LSD (now legal for therapy purposes in Switzerland ), etc. and improved<br />scientifically rigorous treatments via cognitive-behavioral therapy,<br />etc., it is not cost effective for most people. But it is "a bit much" to assume that it gained such broad regard by offering nothing real to anyone real.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-11586460292054847302012-01-26T00:24:02.165-08:002012-01-26T00:24:02.165-08:00Sometimes, when the mother is depressed, in utero,...<i>Sometimes, when the mother is depressed, in utero, I mean when she is pregnant or at birth, sometimes the child can be autistic,”</i><br /><br />This sort of thing is coming around again through the back door of epigenetics. Not real epigenetics like 'bone cells make bone, skin cells make skin. How the F does that work?' But the 'you don't know that blacks are blacker or less intelligent genetically w/o epigenetics' silliness.<br /><br />Very soon now, expect to see articles about how a depressed pregnant women programs the fetus for a higher risk of depression [substitute various things for depression as you like] as the next desperate alternative to genetic inheritance. It is then a hop and a jump to mom didn't smile enough, so the kid is epigenetically modified to be autistic.<br /><br />Too bad Maya beat me to it.<br /><br />The appeal of mom-based pseudoepigenetics [to coin an overly long word that no one will ever use] will be especially strong to explain black pathologies. Dad's aren't around to have any non-genetic influence, and they aren't available for their genetic influence to be measured.<br /><br />As to the mother's of autistic kids and their personalities, an analogy to mental retardation may be apt. Some retarded children also tend to have physical differences and health problems, but have totally normal parents and siblings. They have 'organic retardation' caused by things like trisomy or nonreciprocal translocations, or a single badly broken gene. Other retarded people have 'familial retardation' and are physically pretty normal, and have IQ scores not much lower than their dim parents and siblings: they got lots of alleles that have small IQ effects.<br /><br />There may be 'familial autism' that is a tail of a polygenic trait, they'd tend to have 'weird' relatives. Other kids have 'organic autism caused by a single genetic difference with a huge effect. Could actually be worth looking into.robnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-83642725301842106702012-01-25T06:49:53.934-08:002012-01-25T06:49:53.934-08:00Are there any statistics on the demographics of Fr...Are there any statistics on the demographics of Freud's patients?<br /><br />By and large, were they not just a bunch of crazy neurotic nutso kooky Jewesses with too much time on their hands?<br /><br />And might not some of Freud's theories be more true of those particular patients [which he actually observed] than they would be of the wider Austrian population [to include Hapsburgian Papists, Lutheran Christians, Gypsy Roma, Turkish Ottomans, etc etc etc]?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-29320398251608105012012-01-24T07:29:47.191-08:002012-01-24T07:29:47.191-08:00"Are high IQ people more likely to have autis..."Are high IQ people more likely to have autistic kids? If so, why?"<br /><br />Yes. Because autism is the sickle cell disease of nerds.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-43901156334823838682012-01-24T01:07:54.126-08:002012-01-24T01:07:54.126-08:00The only real difference was that these mothers we...<i>The only real difference was that these mothers were more diligent about keeping things orderly which makes sense when you think about it. Otherwise, they probably skewed towards the higher end of the IQ spectrum with at least one parent, usually the father, demonstrating an aptitude for math.</i><br /><br />Are high IQ people more likely to have autistic kids? If so, why?catpersonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-5854541743693153002012-01-23T14:34:52.482-08:002012-01-23T14:34:52.482-08:00The author of the Nature article on the genetics o...The author of the Nature article on the genetics of autism is a functionary of GSK, the pharmaceutical corportation (a fact he failed to disclose).<br />"New Autism Twin Study Demolishes Decades-Long Belief in Genetic Causation"<br />http://www.ageofautism.com/2011/07/new-autism-twin-study-demolishes-decades-long-belief-in-genetic-causation.htmlDutch Boyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02687679491743923216noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-32339794165726194722012-01-23T14:31:58.723-08:002012-01-23T14:31:58.723-08:00Severely autistic kids have been around for a long...Severely autistic kids have been around for a long, long time. Europeans just called them by different names. Witness:<br /><br />"Eight years ago [in the year 1532] at Dessau, I, Dr. Martin Luther, saw and touched a changeling. It was twelve years old, and from its eyes and the fact that it had all of its senses, one could have thought that it was a real child. It did nothing but eat; in fact, it ate enough for any four peasants or threshers. It ate, shit, and pissed, and whenever someone touched it, it cried. When bad things happened in the house, it laughed and was happy; but when things went well, it cried. It had these two virtues. I said to the Princes of Anhalt: "If I were the prince or the ruler here, I would throw this child into the water--into the Molda that flows by Dessau. I would dare commit homicidium on him!" But the Elector of Saxony, who was with me at Dessau, and the Princes of Anhalt did not want to follow my advice. Therefore, I said: "Then you should have all Christians repeat the Lord's Prayer in church that God may exorcise the devil." They did this daily at Dessau, and the changeling child died in the following year.... Such a changeling child is only a piece of flesh, a massa carnis, because it has no soul."Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-18722611319656289652012-01-23T06:06:18.681-08:002012-01-23T06:06:18.681-08:00Has it ever occurred to you people that if some ra...Has it ever occurred to you people that if some radicals had come up with a way to cause autistic spectrum disorders in the children of high IQ parents, they would've done it deliberately. Are you aware that we're living in an era in which nut jobs will harm innocent individuals in order to work for this abstract ideal called social justice?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-81874241380716045932012-01-23T04:52:00.171-08:002012-01-23T04:52:00.171-08:00"Right! The mothers of children with major pr..."Right! The mothers of children with major problems with theory of mind and in fact with any kind of information or thought that isn't purely perceptual processing (and even that's usually only a relative strength), that is, autistics, are not surprisingly more likely to show a relatively similar pattern themselves, relative to the general population,"<br /><br />I strongly disagree. I've known a few difficult yet very emotional mothers of autistic children, well within the range of normal, skewed to the left of the political spectrum behavior. The majority of these moms were pretty neat, interesting women with excellent communication skills and a great sense of humor. Their houses were comfortable and inviting. Everyone had a good feel for home decorating and the coping skills to run a functional household despite having a child with a disorder requiring numerous accommodations wrt typical family life. The only real difference was that these mothers were more diligent about keeping things orderly which makes sense when you think about it. Otherwise, they probably skewed towards the higher end of the IQ spectrum with at least one parent, usually the father, demonstrating an aptitude for math.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-16880335712178205452012-01-23T01:23:20.857-08:002012-01-23T01:23:20.857-08:00Freudian quackery is still very widespread in Euro...Freudian quackery is still very widespread in Europe.ATBOTLnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-13274497568571244222012-01-23T00:42:53.162-08:002012-01-23T00:42:53.162-08:00It makes intuitive sense, and in every case that I...It makes intuitive sense, and in every case that I met an autistic kid or adolescent, his mother fit the patterns you'd expect.<br /><br />Doesn't mean its the mother's behavior at fault. It might just be genes. Wierd mom has wierd kids.<br />-Osvaldo MandiasAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-45435199332562464492012-01-22T21:59:06.093-08:002012-01-22T21:59:06.093-08:00Right! The mothers of children with major problems...<em>Right! The mothers of children with major problems with theory of mind and in fact with any kind of information or thought that isn't purely perceptual processing (and even that's usually only a relative strength), that is, autistics, are not surprisingly more likely to show a relatively similar pattern themselves, relative to the general population, to some degree of severity that doesn't preclude them having offspring. "Refrigerators" is not a wholly wrong way to describe this.</em><br /><br />The genetics of autism is apparently complex. While a population with "major problems with theory of mind" may exist, it is almost certainly not the whole story. For instance, sometimes parents and parent's/family genetics don't fit this suggested model. Check out "sporadic autism": <br /><br />http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_autism<br /><br />"The large number of autistic individuals with unaffected family members may result from copy number variations (CNVs)—spontaneous alterations in the genetic material ..."<br />"The mathematical models suggest that about 50% of autistic cases are caused by spontaneous mutations."<br /><br />A credible non-wiki source (a recent Nature article):<br /><br />http://www.nature.com/ng/journal/v43/n6/full/ng.835.html<br /><br />"Exome sequencing in sporadic autism spectrum disorders identifies severe de novo mutations"<br /><br />"Evidence for the etiology of autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) has consistently pointed to a strong genetic component..." "We sequenced the exomes of 20 individuals with sporadic ASD (cases) and their parents, reasoning that these families would be enriched for de novo mutations of major effect. We identified 21 de novo mutations, 11 of which were protein altering."<br /><br /><br />I take it this suggests sometimes mutations (which are always occurring, if nothing else blame cosmic rays) muck up the creation of complex brains. That's all. A bit scary, how much can go wrong.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-28438735380580228392012-01-22T17:36:47.502-08:002012-01-22T17:36:47.502-08:00The first use of "risible" in English (1...<i>The first use of "risible" in English (1557) is attested about 50 years earlier than the first use of "laughable." </i><br /><br />I bet you can count on one hand the number of times you've heard anyone use "risible" in conversation.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-38900478106710930872012-01-22T16:43:55.795-08:002012-01-22T16:43:55.795-08:00having said that, i come from a long line of autis...<i>having said that, i come from a long line of autists -- aspergians (it runs in the family!) -- and it's not like i could ever have learned (from my family) to be socially functionate. neither of my parents were "refrigerator parents," afaiac -- but it's not like we were ever a cosy, sensitive-to-other's-emotional-needs family. everyone was too busy working on the model trains. (~_^) </i><br /><br />Right! The mothers of children with major problems with theory of mind and in fact with any kind of information or thought that isn't purely perceptual processing (and even that's usually only a relative strength), that is, autistics, are not surprisingly more likely to show a relatively similar pattern themselves, relative to the general population, to some degree of severity that doesn't preclude them having offspring. "Refrigerators" is not a wholly wrong way to describe this. <br /><br />It's the causal model that's all wrong.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-42374729241005822592012-01-22T14:56:22.062-08:002012-01-22T14:56:22.062-08:00By the way, Lacan was born into a conservative Cat...<i>By the way, Lacan was born into a conservative Catholic family, Jesuit-educated, and, as a youth, a far rightist.</i><br /><br /><br />Corruptio optimi pessima.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-32553716115122489392012-01-22T14:55:21.577-08:002012-01-22T14:55:21.577-08:00Can we please suppress the spread of the word &quo...<i>Can we please suppress the spread of the word "risible" before it becomes the latest pseudoengish to take hold.<br />What's wrong with "laughable"?</i><br /><br /><br />The first use of "risible" in English (1557) is attested about 50 years earlier than the first use of "laughable."Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-13785155442595392452012-01-22T13:14:55.915-08:002012-01-22T13:14:55.915-08:00Re "Autistic people do not try to bite off th...Re "Autistic people do not try to bite off their hands."<br /><br />This is a simple question of fact. Google on "autism hand arm bite biting" or "autistic self-mutilation arms" for numerous hits. I am not talking about high-functioning verbal autistics who can be out in society, but autism so severe it is coupled with retardation. This sort of thing:<br /><br /> http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/article.aspx?Volume=157&page=1574&journalID=13<br /><br /> "Naltrexone Treatment for a 3-Year-Old Boy With Self-Injurious Behavior"<br /><br /> "As a result of this behavior he had multiple ecchymotic lesions and callous formations on both arms. These lesions were most notable on the left arm and covered approximately 70% of the left forearm surface with oozing areas."<br /><br />Here is someone looking for arm protection for an autistic child, you occasionally see pictures of autistic children wearing such protection:<br /><br /> http://www.healthboards.com/boards/autism-spectrum/567047-protection-bites-forearm.html<br /><br />This is more the level of autism I'm talking about:<br /><br /> http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19198918<br /><br /> "ECT for self-injury in an autistic boy."<br /><br /> "The patient ... required usage of bilateral arm restraints and protective equipment (i.e., padding on shoulders, arms, and legs). All areas of daily functioning were profoundly impacted by dangerous self-injury."<br /><br />You may have been lucky not to be exposed to autistics severe enough to be institutionalized as children so they can be closely supervised by the proverbial 300 pound men in white coats.<br /><br />Re "The genetic component in autism is without question."<br /><br />Autistics have human bodies and deserve all our normal love, respect, and care. But really severe austistics don't have human minds. Luckily they are rare. Mothers of all autistics deserve all the help they can get. My point was the behaviors of mothers of severe autistics likely has/had no effect on the child, due to the severity of the autism. It's not even clear the child ever recognized the mother. I don't doubt there is a genetic component, perhaps even total for some forms of autism, but it's not clear-cut. There's probably plenty of ways for brains to fail to get wired up correctly, some genetic, some disease/damage, some environmental etc.. It simply doesn't make sense to dismiss it all by blaming just the behavior or the genetics of the mother. The brain is so amazing, it's a wonder it works at all...Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-45153112854386088182012-01-22T12:42:39.924-08:002012-01-22T12:42:39.924-08:00"Freud's risible theories are worthy only..."Freud's risible theories are worthy only of ridicule."<br /><br />Can we please suppress the spread of the word "risible" before it becomes the latest pseudoengish to take hold. <br />What's wrong with "laughable"?<br /><br />Not that I'm trying to "redact" your thoughts.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-66391437333377406962012-01-22T12:39:29.740-08:002012-01-22T12:39:29.740-08:00This isn't so surprising when you think of how...This isn't so surprising when you think of how French intellectualism has always been above all literary. They are truly a people of books, narrative, generalization, and language. It's a spirit they've always had. A commenter said sarcastically, "Psycholanalysis is a science" to them. Exactly. It's hard for us grasp how until pretty recently, things like philology and philosophy were a kind of "science" to continental Europe. That British breakaway of logical empiricism didn't take shape on the continent fully until the 20th century. In some ways, it hasn't truly taken hold in France. Even Germans seem to have a bit of the old view of a more "holistic" view of science.<br />I've always had the sense that the French lag took hold in the post-Napoleonic era. Before that, there was a lot of French contribution to the development of modern science (Descartes, the metric system, etc), but they just didn't want to abandon that rather literary taste for theorizing across the disciplines and to infuse literary reference in particular.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-46196321089405833012012-01-22T12:31:27.473-08:002012-01-22T12:31:27.473-08:00the disenfranchised.
Who is it that's not al...<i>the disenfranchised.</i><br /><br /><br />Who is it that's not allowed to vote?helene edwardsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-38184438343656597762012-01-22T11:56:34.018-08:002012-01-22T11:56:34.018-08:00"A lot of the modern ideas you ridicule are n..."A lot of the modern ideas you ridicule are not so much stupid, but compassionate, and intended to make everyone feel worthy."<br /><br />This makes them stupid.<br />Can you hear yourself?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-19755086479790316952012-01-22T10:21:26.697-08:002012-01-22T10:21:26.697-08:00Freud is in the unfortunate position of Marx, he s...Freud is in the unfortunate position of Marx, he started an ideological cult and is not wholly responsible for subsequent nonsense like Lacan. ie 'je ne suis pas "Freudian"'.<br /><br />There is a core of sense in Freud's model since he focuses on the importance of the unconscious in driving human nature, particularly unconscious sex drives. Darwin's sexual selection theory covers similar ground.<br /><br />Freud's strength was his combination of classical literary and scientific hydraulic metaphors. This stamped him as a Renaissance Man. <br /><br />Unfortunately metaphors only get you part the way there. You also need an abstract logical model that has empirical testability. Freud's couch-bound case-study theory is designed to generate confirmation bias in "testing".<br /><br />More generally, Freud's theory is mostly built on the internal dynamics of the mind. There is little in there grapple with the external dynamics of society. <br /><br />Behaviourism is the exact opposite, being all external socialisation, no internal mentalisation.<br /><br />Socio-biology complements internal biological drives with external sociological constraints. Much better allround.jack strocchihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17534084770633227131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-39134548917237346152012-01-22T08:47:31.535-08:002012-01-22T08:47:31.535-08:00"A lot of the modern ideas you ridicule are n...<i>"A lot of the modern ideas you ridicule are not so much stupid, but compassionate, and intended to make everyone feel worthy."</i><br /><br />Past a certain point, compassion <i>is</i> stupidity. You're a self-described "cat person". So consider "crazy cat ladies". They are certainly compassionate and think every cat is worthy. And they end up harming--even killing--more cats than they help.<br /><br />For a long time now, I've looked at the left and thought "They are all crazy cat ladies now".<br /><br />Compassionate inclusiveness is, past a certain point, just plain stupid. And leftists* passed that point long ago.<br /><br />*Yes, I'm including you. I wouldn't want you to feel unworthy.Kylienoreply@blogger.com