On Thursday, January 12, 2023 at 8:40:44 AM UTC-5, George Dance wrote:
> On Wednesday, January 11, 2023 at 8:34:46 PM UTC-5, michaelmalef...@gmail..com wrote:
> > On Wednesday, January 11, 2023 at 3:45:12 PM UTC-5, george...@yahoo.ca wrote:
> > > from https://groups.google.com/g/alt.arts.poetry.comments/c/P1ReeaK-WjE/m/mBOuJ-J8CQAJ?hl=en
> > >
> > > On Saturday, January 7, 2023 at 2:16:30 PM UTC-5, michaelmalef...@gmail.com wrote:
> > > > On Saturday, January 7, 2023 at 8:09:33 AM UTC-5, george...@yahoo.ca wrote:
> > > > > On Monday, January 2, 2023 at 3:36:20 PM UTC-5, NancyGene wrote:
> > > > > > On Monday, January 2, 2023 at 8:00:29 PM UTC, michaelmalef...@gmail.com wrote:
>
> > > > > We don't think that George Dance took any psychology courses in college (nor read "Oedipus). Every boy has to symbolically kill his father in order to become a man.
> > >
> > > > > I haven't taken any psychology courses, but I have read /Oedipus Rex/ (if that's what you mean) in translation. I think you misunderstand the plot entirely. Oedipus did *not* want to kill his father -- he killed his real father in a fight, not knowing who it was -- and the only trauma he suffered came from realizing that he had killed his father (not from any failure to do so).
> > > > >
> > > > You're right about Oedipus (the play),
> > >
> > > I'm sorry to interrupt, but this deserves more than to just be glossed over. Once again "Dr." NG has invoked a work they haven't read and don't know the first thing about.
> > It is childish to interrupt in order to point a finger and chant "NancyGene was wro-ong!"
> >
> > I'm sure that NancyGene is familiar with the play.
> Oh, I'm sure you are, and I'm sure NG will confirm your story.
> > She was, after all, referring to it in passing in a Usenet post -- not composing a term paper on it.
>
> > > > however, in terms of Freudian psychology, each boy must overcome (symbolically "kill") his father as part of his passage to adulthood. According to Freudian psychosexual development theory, all male children experience "Oedipal" desires during the "phallic stage" (age 3 - 6), wherein they wish to replace their father as their mother's spouse. Replacing the father is symbolic form of killing him (removing him from his position as head of the family). The sexual aspects of this attachment may be unknown to the child, but still exist within him on a subconscious level. Those suffering from an"Oedipus complex" (a term Freud created) have failed to mature beyond the phallic stage of psychosexual development.
> > >
> > > i can see some truth to that. As he develops consciousness, a pre-schooler is going to develop a bond with his mother -- she's the one feeding, clothing, nurturing, and otherwise 'taking care' of him -- and to see his father as a rival for the mother's attention. That can be aggravated if the father's only relationship with the son is to tell him what to do and to punish him, meaning the son sees their relationship as mainly negative. In such a situation, it would be rational for a boy to turn to his mother as an ally and protector against the father, reinforcing such feelings. So I can conceive of a preschooler imagining eliminating the father, and even wishing for it.
> > >
> > Very good.
> > > But once again, Freud's 'Oedipus Complex' theory sounds like pure psychobabble. Neither the child's affection for his mother, nor his rivalry and grievances against his father, require the sexual explanation Freud postulates. And the argument that those who don't feel any of the "sexual" subtext that he merely postulates must be repressing it sounds like more question-begging.
> > >
> > Do you really have the temerity to challenge Sigmund Freud?
> I'm certainly skeptical of this theory, and I see I'm not the only one.
>
> "Sigmund Freud has always been a controversial figure. The Oedipus complex, a theory that suggests that every single person has deeply repressed incestuous instincts for their parents since childhood, is no less so. Critics of Freud have noted that, despite the case of Little Hans, there is very little empirical evidence to prove the theory’s validity."
> https://www.britannica.com/science/Oedipus-complex
>
> "As more has been learned about child development since Freud's theories were first launched, there has been an increasing lack of support for some of his assumptions about the human personality. Perhaps none of his ideas have met with as much criticism as his psychosexual stages of development. While many modern-day clinicians still find aspects of his stages helpful, most do not adhere to the presupposition of sexual conflict being the central task of developmental maturity. Thus, concepts like Oedipal and Electra complexes are held by a very small minority of professionals overall."
> https://www.europeanmedical.info/cognitive-therapy/other-criticisms-of-freud-and-psychoanalysis.html
>
> "It’s important to note that there’s very little evidence that the Oedipus (or Electra) complex is real. It is not listed as a psychological condition in the current version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, used by clinicians to diagnose psychological conditions and disorders."
> https://flo.health/being-a-mom/your-baby/growth-and-development/oedipus-complex#:~:text=It's%20important%20to%20note%20that,diagnose%20psychological%20conditions%20and%20disorders.
> > Dr. NancyGene and I are in excellent company.
> In that respect, perhaps. I'm not sure about in others. For example, AFAIK Freud only psychoanalyzed people who came to him for help. He may have gone about psychoanalyzing his critics, but if he did I never read of it.
> > > > > As for psychobabble (from Dr. Morrison et al) about "killing" one's father, that sounds like purple poetry rather than factual description. Maturation involves rejecting one's father's rules and authority, and living by one's own rules and judgement instead, but that is not necessarily even a violent process, let alone involving any "killing."
> > > > >
> > > > Yes, but that maturation process involves getting beyond the desire to remove the father from the picture. This is normally accomplished during the latency stage wherein the boy (age 6 to puberty) transfers his desires from his mother to a friend his own age. While this attachment is not overtly sexual, it contains many unhealthy elements that materialize later in sexual bonds (jealously, dependence, possessiveness).
> > >
> > > While I think there's much more to it than just getting a first crush on a girl, I do agree that involves "getting beyond the desire to remove the father." But that is not what "Dr." NancyGoon was claiming. Their claim was: "Every boy has to symbolically kill his father in order to become a man." IOW, maturation means actually "killing the father" in some way -- not in getting past the desire, but in giving in to it.
> > >
> > You are taking her words far too literally.
> >
> > Symbolically killing one's father can take many forms: challenging his absolute authority, breaking free of financial dependence on him, cracking the moral pedestal one has placed him on, etc.
> I did all that, though long after the "latency phase", so maybe it doesn't count to a Freudian.
> > And, yes, it is essential that the boy achieve ascendancy over the father in some tangible way, in order for the maturation to be complete. A boy who simply represses the desire while suffer from various neuroses throughout his life as a result.
>
> > > > Since Boy George (in the poem) was not allowed to play with other children, he was unable to form such a bond -- and consequently, failed to go through the latency stage. He has, therefore, never been able to move beyond the Oedipal (phallic) stage, and still harbors revenge fantasies wherein he burns down a home symbolizing his father.
> > >
> > > First of all, I think you're misreading the poem. "Boy George" specifically mentions not being allowed to play with his "friends" - meaning that he did have friends.
> > Not having friends and not being allowed to have friends are, in Boy George's case, the same thing.
> But not being allowed to play with one's friends (because one has to do chores) is not the same thing as either. It sucked, sometimes, but it is not the same thing as having no friends at all.
> > Boy George didn't have friends because his daily chores (and family restrictions?) denied the opportunity to make friends with the other children.
> The poem doesn't mention him ever playing (except in his room), so you can conclude he never did. It doesn't mention him going to school either, but I'm not sure you'd conclude he never did that, either.
> > > Second, there's no reason to think that a child raised in strict isolation would be unable to ever have "desires" for other women than his mother.
>
> > No one even so much as implied that this was the case.
> "Yes, but that maturation process involves getting beyond the desire to remove the father from the picture. This is normally accomplished during the latency stage wherein the boy (age 6 to puberty) transfers his desires from his mother to a friend his own age.... Since Boy George (in the poem) was not allowed to play with other children, he was unable to form such a bond -- and consequently, failed to go through the latency stage. He has, therefore, *never* been able to move beyond the Oedipal (phallic) stage, and still harbors revenge fantasies wherein he burns down a home symbolizing his father." (*stress added*)
>
> Being still in the phallic stage means still desiring one's mother, does it not?
> > > > > > Evidently Jim's/George's boy never did that and never became a man, but is fixated on the memory of that house, the man who beat him, and the impotence that the boy felt during the beatings.
> > > > > Well, that was the point of my poem: to show a glimpse into the mind of a person traumatized by a past event -- and that you and Dr. MMP think the poem is straightforward autobiography just shows how good it is.
> > > > >
>
> > > > No, George. It shows that you *told* us that the poem was "largely" based on your childhood experiences, and that your father believed in (and put to use) forms of corporal punishment.
> > >
> > > So I did.
> Correction. I didn't tell you that. You went looking through old posts, cherry-picked a few quotes, and told us that.
> >> What I did not tell you was that I'm suffering any trauma as a result of my actual childhood experiences (which were a bit more complex than those presented in my poem), much less that a repressed sexual desire for my mother is the root of it. That's all just "subtext" that you and possibly "Dr.." NancyGoon seem to have made up yourselves.
>
> > You say that you're trauma free, but Grownup George's desire to burn down his father's house, speaks otherwise.
> As I think I told you, it's a dramatic ending; necessary because it's the only place (aside from some normal childhood wishing, that even the speaker downplays) where he expresses his own feelings; the rest is merely a recital of events. Up to then, it could have gone the other way -- he could have wanted to buy the house to raise his own children the same way.
> > (As does Grownup George's calling his childhood home "my Father's house..") That house would be seen as the private property of his father, and not as a family home speaks volumes as to Grownup George's barely concealed resentment.
> I'm happy with the title. It's literally true -- the house was his creation and his property. it sums up the theme the poem's theme -- the house as symbol for the speaker's memory of his father. And there's a couple of allusions in it.
> > As to the second part of your objection, no one has intimated that you still see your mother as a sex object. You're mistakenly attempting to apply all of the possible symptoms of an Oedipal complex to Dr. NancyGene's and my diagnosis of your case.
> Once again, you were the one who brought all that up. I have no idea if cherry-picking "symptoms" is orthodox Freudianism, or if it's your own idea. But I do think that postulating a partial Oedipus complex weakens your case.
>
> <snip>