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Smorgsboards t1_j44aqzw wrote

Reply to comment by Icy_Violinist_2781 in Nietzsche is better understood as the Father of Psychoanalysis than Existentialism; his philosophy has two components: the diagnosis of our culture's Decadence (under the Ascetic Ideal) and a prescription for health in the Dionysian Counter-Ideal by thelivingphilosophy

Arguably, psychoanalysis does better with sociology than individual psychology.

I feel that way from reading Freud (and reading about Jung) - he describes patterns derived by observing his patients/friends/Greek myths (e.g. Achilles-Agamemnon dynamic in the Iliad is a great example of the OC dynamic) as universals, but in light of evidence that hunter-gatherers may not possess OC (or at least that they certainly appear to carry far less familial resentment), we should really consider that OC is a cultural phenomenon that catalyzed the development of civilization (less fucking the mother part, more killing the father / internalizing his tyranny / competition / forceful patriarchy) and NOT a biological absolute.

He makes a very strong case as to how an individual’s mental illnesses and neuroses are indeed largely a function of social factors.

Also, I’ve only read assorted Nietzsche (like 600 pages or so), I think he certainly thinks of himself as an individualist - the cure to the Death of God and the key to being an Übermensch being a willingness to create one’s own code of ethics and conduct, free of a need to be controlled by a powerful, universalizing source of ethics external to one’s self.

This is also why Adorno & Horkheimer call him an Enlightenment extremist in Dialectic of Enlightenment.

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Ace-0987 t1_j5des45 wrote

Whose psychoanalysis? It is a broad field with only a common theme of the unconscious. Jung was largely sociological and would admit so. His main theory was of the "collective unconscious" and its archetypes which he took from cultural anthropology. Freud was as well in his drawing on Greek myths and pholsophers like nietzche. But ultimately most of what Freud (and probably jung) taught (including OC) was complete bullshit. We still credit Freud as the father of psychology because he introduced the concepts of the unconscious, internal conflicts, defense mechanisms and talk therapy. That's about it.

And most of what nietzche said was bullshit too and internally inconsistent. He contradicts himself and rambles to no end. If he seems to give competing views it's because his views are indeed at odds with one another.

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