Published, Vol. 3, Winter 1994, Journal of the Centre for Freudian Analysis and Research, p34-44.
Available
From https://jcfar.org.uk/past-papers/ at https://jcfar.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/From-a-Seminar-on-the-first-four-chapters-of-Civilisation-and-its-Discontents-Richard-Klein.pdf
OR
P7 to 12 of www.Freud2Lacan.com / Freud/Philosophy (47. CIVILIZATION AND ITS DISCONTENTS (Das Unbehagen in der Kultur)
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Section Headings
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- The beautiful and the sublime
- The oceanic feeling
- Jouissance and the sublime
- The paternal metaphor
- The beautiful
- The narcissistic structure of the ego
- The signifier of the phallus.
- Freudian ethics
- Genital love and happiness
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References
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General Reference
-Civilization and its Discontents (Das Unbehagen in der Kultur) : 1929 : Sigmund Freud, SE XXI p58-145,
see this site /3 Sigmund Freud (19290101 or Index of Sigmund Freud’s texts)
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Section 1 & 2 & 6 – Reference to Romain Rolland
-P34 Klein states,
- The beautiful and the sublime
In Chapter I in a letter to Freud Romain Rolland expresses his experience of what he calls an oceanic feeling as one of eternity and limitlessness and claims that it is the source of religious feeling. In opening his Civilisation and its Discontents on an aesthetic judgement which has the earmarks of the sublime and in remarking briefly in Chapter II on the judgement which elevates an object to the status of the beautiful, it seems to me that Freud is inviting the reader to explore these notions further especially since he considers them as operations in psychic structure.
- The oceanic feeling
For my taste Romain Rolland’s oceanic feeling is not an especially impressive illustration of the sublime. He orients it on the source of religious feeling. In other words, it falls into the field of the Other of guarantee which always incarnates the Father of protection. It structures the sublime as noble or as splendid, two of the three effects of the sublime in critical philosophy. The third effect is terrifying. The terrifying sublime does not seem to have the same structure in that it excludes the Other of guarantee and the Father of protection.
The oceanic feeling does conform to a category of the sublime called mathematical, being immeasurably great. Whether Romain Rolland imbues it with the power of nature which is the category of the dynamical sublime is not clear, cannot be decided from Freud’s comment on his letter.
…
P35 Klein, Judging the sublime prepares the subject for the advent of the moral law. The subject in a confrontation with it is in a state of fear and helplessness. In actual fear no judgement can be made, says Kant. The subject must cross through fear, must face destruction unflinchingly and courageously. Fear is not without an object written a to give it its real status. According to Kant the subject must resist it morally which brings pleasure. The Thing makes the moral law appear. Romain Rolland orients the oceanic feeling on the source of religious feeling which is a sign of the advent of the moral law as contained in the Name-of-the-Father.
– p40 Klein, 6. The narcissistic structure of the ego
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When the id speaks, the subject of the unconscious is concealed in an ego. The subject becomes a signifier and is concealed in the beautiful. In the syllogism of love the ego acquires a guarantee from the Other. In so far as the immeasurably great of Romain Rolland’s oceanic feeling is falling under the father of protection, it is not the Freudian sublime but the noble and splendid sublime of the Other of guarantee.
–Romain Rolland
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia
Romain Rolland 29 January 1866 – 30 December 1944) was a French dramatist, novelist, essayist, art historian and mystic who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1915 “as a tribute to the lofty idealism of his literary production and to the sympathy and love of truth with which he has described different types of human beings”.
He was an admirer of Mahatma Gandhi and Rabindranath Tagore, wrote a still relevant biography of Gandhi, and is also noted for his correspondence with numerous writers and thinkers across the globe including Maxim Gorki, Rabindranath Tagore and Sigmund Freud.
Correspondence with Sigmund Freud
1923 saw the beginning of a correspondence between psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud and Rolland, who found that the admiration that he showed for Freud was reciprocated in equal measures (Freud proclaiming in a letter to him: “That I have been allowed to exchange a greeting with you will remain a happy memory to the end of my days.”). This correspondence introduced Freud to the concept of the “oceanic feeling” that Rolland had developed through his study of Eastern mysticism. Freud opened his next book Civilisation and its Discontents (1929) with a debate on the nature of this feeling, which he mentioned had been noted to him by an anonymous “friend”. This friend was Rolland. Rolland would remain a major influence on Freud’s work, continuing their correspondence right up to Freud’s death in 1939
–Civilisation and its Discontents (Das Unbehagen in der Kultur) : 1929 : Sigmund Freud
SE XXI p64-65 of James Strachey’s translation, The Introduction,
The views expressed by the friend whom I so much honour, and who himself once praised the magic of illusion in a poem, [1] caused me no small difficulty. I cannot discover this ‘oceanic’ feeling in myself. It is not easy to deal scientifically with feelings. One can attempt to describe their physiological signs. Where this is not possible-and I am afraid that the oceanic feeling too will defy this kind of characterisation-nothing remains but to fall back on the ideational content which is most readily associated with the feeling. If I have understood my friend rightly, he means the same thing by it as the consolation offered by an original and somewhat eccentric dramatist to his hero who is facing a self-inflicted death. ‘We cannot fall out of this world.’ [2] That is to say, it is a feeling of an indissoluble bond, of being one with the external world as a whole. I may remark that to me this seems something rather in the nature of an intellectual perception, which is not, it is true, without an accompanying feeling-tone, but only such as would be present with any other act of thought of equal range. From my own experience I could not convince myself of the primary nature of such a feeling. But this gives me no right to deny that it does in fact occur in other people. The only question is whether it is being correctly interpreted and whether it ought to be regarded as the fons et origo of the whole need for religion.
[1] [Sigmund Freud’s Footnote added 1931 :] Liluli [1919].-Since the publication of his two books La vie de Ramakrishna [1929] and La vie de Vivekananda (1930), I need no longer hide the fact that the friend spoken of in the text is Romain Rolland. [James Strachey adds, Romain Rolland had written to Freud about the ‘oceanic feeling’ in a letter of December 5, 1927, very soon after the publication of The Future of an Illusion.]( The Future of an Illusion : 1927c : Sigmund Freud, SE XXI, see this site /3 Sigmund Freud (19270101 or Index of Sigmund Freud’s texts.)
[2] Christian Dietrich Grabbe [1801-36], Hannibal: ‘Ja, aus der Welt werden wir nicht fallen. Wir sind einmal darin.’ [‘Indeed, we shall not fall out ofthis world. We are in it once and for all.’]
– Note
From Wikipedia, In November 1927, Freud’s new book The Future of an Illusion was printed, and one of the copies was sent by him to Rolland. Rolland responded with a letter to Freud, writing that he should also consider spiritual experiences, or “the oceanic feeling”, in his future psychological works:
Mais j’aurais aimé à vous voir faire l’analyse du sentiment religieux spontané ou, plus exactement, de la sensation religieuse qui est […] le fait simple et direct de la sensation de l’éternel (qui peut très bien n’être pas éternel, mais simplement sans bornes perceptibles, et comme océanique). [10]
But I would have liked to see you doing an analysis of spontaneous religious sentiment or, more exactly, of religious feeling which is […] the simple and direct fact of the feeling of the eternal (which can very well not be eternal, but simply without perceptible limits, and like oceanic). [11]
[10] Masson, Jeffrey Moussaieff (6 December 2012) [1st ed.: 1980], The Oceanic Feeling. The Origins of Religious Sentiment in Ancient India, Springer Science & Business Media,
[11] P173 of Parsons, William B. (17 June 1999), The Enigma of the Oceanic Feeling. Revisioning the Psychoanalytic Theory of Mysticism, Oxford University Press,
— Letter from Rolland to Freud, 5th December 1927
Letter from Rolland to Freud, December 5, 1927, in Selected Letters of Romain Rolland, ed. Dore, Francis, Selected Letters of Romain Rolland, Oxford University Press.,1990 Delhi. See above for an excerpt.
–Letter from Sigmund Freud to Romain Rolland, July 14, 1929
(1929).Letters of Sigmund Freud 1873-1939,51():388
Sigmund Freud
Berchtesgaden, Haus Schneewinkl
July 14, 1929
My dear Friend
Your letter of December 5, 1927, containing your remarks about a feeling you describe as “oceanic” has left me no peace. It happens that in a new work which lies before me still uncompleted I am making a starting point of this remark; I mention this “oceanic” feeling and am trying to interpret it from the point of view of our psychology. The essay moves on to other subjects, deals with happiness, civilisation and the sense of guilt; I don’t mention your name but nevertheless drop a hint that points toward you.
And now I am beset with doubts whether I am justified in using your private remark for publication in this way. I would not be surprised if this were to be contrary to your wishes, and if it is, even in the slightest degree, I should certainly refrain from using it. My essay could be given another introduction without any loss; perhaps it is altogether not indispensable.
So if you have any compunction about my quoting this remark I ask you to prevent me from abusing it by dropping me a friendly line.
Please bear in mind that I always think of you with feelings of most respectful friendship.
Very sincerely yours
Freud
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Citation
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-Section 6 is reproduced as a commentary on Lacan’s ‘Me, the truth, I speak’ at
Session of Seminar XV : 19th June 1968 : Jacques Lacan, see this site /4 Jacques Lacan (19680619).
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