Makari Rieff and Schorske Write about Freud

Rieff, Schorske and Makari on Freud: Comparing and Contrasting Perspectives
George Makari argued that Freud was a product of his environment. The culture of Vienna at the time was ripe for something new—but Freudian psychology still needed some external help getting moving, and that came by way of Carl Jung and his experiments which brought a great deal of attention to Freud. Karl Schorske, on the other hand, contends that Freud was less the passive recipient of environmental effects and more the active thinker, whose goal was to give “a meaningful interpretation of Western civilization, and to find his own place in it.” Phillip Rieff, on the third hand, views Freud less as an interpreter of Western civilization and more as a re-maker of civilization—a man of revolutionary ideas that would reshape the West and redirect its course; Rieff saw Freud’s sense of “sublimation” as an essential concept in the psychoanalyst’s tenets: “So long as a culture maintains its vitality, whatever must be renounced disappears and is given back bettered” (5). Freud’s role in promoting the art of sublimation was to unmoor the consciousness from its oppression and allow new expression of the Self to emerge. Thus, one author viewed Freud as a passive recipient of honors that, without the work of those around him, never would have been bestowed; another viewed Freud as an interpreter of the West—a sage who was in the right place at the right time to see just what ailed the West as it suffered from one World War and stumbled into another; a third saw Freud as an active role player in the transformation of the West, not one who simply stood aside to remark on the condition of the West: he was engaged in shaping the West to be something other than what it had been in the past.
Each of the three authors takes a unique approach to the phenomenon of Freud. Makari takes a macro-perspective of Freud, approaching the figure by weaving through the various aspects and characters of his world at the time. Schorske takes a micro-approach, giving Freud to the world by starting off inside the psychologist’s own skin: showing the reader an intimate and up close portrayal of the man. Rieff gives a much more theoretical and philosophical take on the phenomenon of Freud, situating him within historical trends and showing how the psychologists work compares to that of other historical figures, and how the ideas championed by Freud altered the course of history thereafter. The three approaches of the authors helps to give the context that makes them all so unique in how they view Freud. While each takes Freud as his subject, they move toward him in different manners so that, upon seeing him, he appears differently for all three: for Makari, who approaches from afar, Freud is a product of his environment; for Schorske, who approaches from within, he sees the world through Freud’s own eyes; for Rieff, who approaches from the perspective of time, Freud is a transformational figure who alters history.
The types of evidence that they focus on differs in ways, but is also similar. Each writer examines the works of Freud in various ways and gives the reader some sense of the meaning or impact of these works. However, they also focus on different aspects of the life of Freud that they deem important. For instance, Schorske opens up with an anecdote of Freud’s sessions with the American poet, Hilda Doolittle. The intimate setting and their conversation serve as an appropriate starting point for Schorske because this type of evidence allows the writer to get deliver Freud the man to the reader: it is intimate, it is friendly, it is admiring. Makari, on the other hand, focuses on other objects—other events taking place outside the office of Freud, other figures operating in the field of psychology, who had an impact on Freud’s work and who enabled Freudian ideas to land—i.e., they gave Freud’s ideas a perch. Makari looks at types of evidence that are less intimate and personal and more related to the overall field. Makari examines the work of Adler, Stekel, Jung and others, commenting on it and disclosing how their efforts made a difference in the Feudian field. Rieff looks at the evidence in a different way, embracing the works of Freud—but instead of looking for causes explaining their reception in the field, he looks at how their dissemination changed the field. While they all three examine the works of Freud, each ignores the main perspectives that inform the others. Makari, for instance, overlooks the personal and private; Schorske overlooks Freud’s external environment; Rieff overlooks both to focus more on the intellectual side of the historical narrative.
The style of the three writers is dissimilar as well. Schorske has the most immediate and accessible style: he is writing for a reader who wants to know characters, who wants to get involved in the life of the main character—just like one would with a character in a novel. Schorske makes Freud real, tangible, inviting: he opens up the psychologist’s life and world and makes it vivid. Makari is the second most accessible: he provides the reader with more of an examination of the culture of the time—the people, the places: it is like taking a tour through the early 20th century and meeting the famous figures and seeing how they struggled and what effect their works had on the era. Rieff is the least accessible: his work is highly intellectual and seems at times even ineffable. He uses copious footnotes which will sometimes take up the whole of page to underscore the academic style that is important to him as he attempts to make sense of Freud’s place in the field of psychology and psychiatry and how his works impacted the fields.
The “home” discipline of each author also impacts their perspective. Makari’s “home” discipline combines history with psychology and psychiatry. Thus, he has extensive knowledge and understanding of all the variables that connect and intertwine in the realm of psychology, psychiatry and history. It is easy and more interesting for him to take the macro-approach and macro-perspective on Freud that he does. He knows how the strings connect; how, if you lift one, it will touch upon another object further down, and that one will in turn pull on the string of another, causing a fourth and fifth to spin. He traces all these threads and shows how they in turn yield back time to Freud, and pave the way for Freud’s works to be accepted.
Schorske likewise has the “home” discipline of a combination of history—however, his historical fascination is on culture, and cultural history is his specialty. This shows in his treatment of Freud: he examines the man’s culture, the man’s principles and approach to life. He looks the special nuance of relationships and what they reveal. His approach to history is through the personal and private rather than through the lens of events and action and reaction, which is Makari’s main preference.
Rieff’s home discipline is in sociology and cultural criticism. Thus, his perspective is influenced by his own penchant for understanding the theoretical and intellectual underpinnings of events, times, places and people. He sees nothing in history as disconnected from these underpinnings, and for him studying people and places of the past is like picking up large rocks and turning them over to see what lies beneath. The rock itself (the subject) is of less interest than the items that are buried beneath it. What, in other words, is the subject hiding? What is revealed by rolling it over? And, if the rock is large enough, he can ask: How has this rock caused others to adapt and change their trajectory in order to compensate for what this rock is doing to their own lives?
Assessing the relative value of each work by these three authors was performed by defining the criteria that would guide the process. The criteria for selection included style, approach to the subject, the subject itself (the particulars deemed important to the author for focusing on), and how those details provide support for the author’s main point and what conclusions are drawn from them. The authors all choose Freud for their subject, but their styles and approaches differ substantially. Likewise, the particulars that they hone in on are significantly different as well. Schorske approaches Freud’s work from the perspective of the intimate and the personal. The reader is shown how Freud works in action. It is immediate as though it were happening now. The academic and scholarly nature of the work is not emphasized—instead, the practical and poignant aspects of Freud’s work is highlighted. The academic and scholarly nature of Freud’s work is emphasized instead by Rieff, who pours over the volumes and catalogues of psychiatry and psychology to piece together an understanding of Freud’s contributions to the fields and how they impacted them. Makari examines Freud’s works from the standpoint of how others played a part in advancing them, giving the reader a sense of what was going on behind the scenes: it is almost like pulling back the curtain and realizing that there is more to how ideas influence a field than simply publishing a book and sending it off to the market. Others have as much if not a greater role in how one’s ideas are impactful. Makari, for instance, focuses on Jung, noting that Jung would play a major role in the founding of Freudian psychoanalysis. For Makari, the work itself is not as important as how the work became accepted in the first place.
What makes one essay more successful than the others is impossible to say, since each is really offering a different take on Freud and his work. Not one of the three authors approach the subject in the same manner or from the same background, so it is unfair to compare them and say that one is more effective or successful than the others. It would be like saying there is only way to examine a subject or that there is one good way to examine a subject and other ways are less desirable. Each provides a compelling aspect to Freud’s work that sheds a different light on the man’s contributions. Schorske shows Freud’s work from a more personal and intimate point of view. Makari shows the work by examining the intricacies of details surrounding the evolution of the work. Rieff examines the work itself as though from the perspective of an isolated chamber, where the publications of Freud and his ideas can be considered alone but also within the context of other psychiatrists and psychologists so that one can see how they impacted one another and how Freud shaped those who came after.
Makari, for instance, focuses on Freud’s relationship with Jung in order to highlight aspects of Freud’s own thought. This is a particularly effective way of understanding Freudian thought, as it allows aspects of it to stand out in connection with another thinker whose opinions countered that thought or did not align with it at all. For example, Makari shows how Jung and Freud disagree on the issue of libido, and how Jung “inadvertently showed that mysticism was based on archaic complexes” while Jung felt that Freud’s “neuroticism” caused the latter to “disparage and undervalue Jung’s work” (128). This type of comparison and contrasting allows Makari to highlights aspects of Freud’s works that would otherwise not appear were it not for this method of holding one set of works and ideas up to another to see how they interact.
Schorske focuses on the personality of Freud, the inner workings of his mind, his preferences, his opinions, his expressions and likes and dislikes: all of this is equally informative as well, because it shows a side of Freud’s works that are otherwise inaccessible from the outside in. One has to get inside the mind of Freud and see the world from his eyes in order to understand what the man was really all about. For example, Schorske highlights Freud’s personal preference for the religious figurine of Athena: “This is my favorite…she is perfect…only she has lost her spear.” The remark is meaningful and appropriate in its context, delivered as it were to the American female poet and the sexual undertones therein. There are also the philosophical underpinnings of comparing Athena to Hellas—just as there are for examining the differences and similarities between the Jewish professor and the Christian poet, as Schorske does. All of it is extraordinarily meaningful in a way that cannot be obtained from an approach like Makari’s or Rieff’s.
Rieff, however, provides insights that neither of the other two do. He focuses on the academic and scholarly aspects of Freud’s works, on the texts themselves, and the meaning of the words. Makari and Schorske recognize that meaning can be obtained from a multitude of sources and does not have to come specifically from the primary source itself. Rieff, though, sees the primary source as ultimately meaningful because it is where the ideas are most concretely distilled—the place where they can be turned over and examined all around. Rieff gives access to Freud’s works as they exist on paper and as they interact with the mind and with the works of others.
In conclusion, the three authors take three different approaches to the works of Freud. None of the three offers a more successful take on Freud’s works than the other, for each is significant and meaningful in its own way. Each represents an aspect of Freud or of his works, or world, or personality that is not wholly present in the other authors’ approaches. Each in a way helps to inform the other as well. For this reason, each is important and vital in shaping one’s understanding of the work of Freud.

Works Cited
Makari, George. Revolution in Mind. NY: HarperCollins, 2008.
Rieff, Phillip. The Triumph of the Therapeutic. IL: University of Chicago Press, 1987.
Schorske, Karl. “Freud’s Egyptian Dig.” NYBooks.
www.nybooks.com/articles/1993/05/27/freuds-egyptian-dig/