How do you pronounce phd?
I’m not an anti-intellectual - honest - even though I’ve been known to say that a philosopher is someone who spends his entire life trying to prove that Tuesday causes Wednesday.
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Actually, I minored in philosophy, and I like reading philosophers like Daniel Dennett, but there aren’t many philosophers like Daniel Dennett (Breaking the Spell, most recently), who thinks and writes clearly and sometimes makes you laugh.
And then there are psychoanalysts.
Adam Phillips is one of those: a British child psychotherapist and general editor of Penguin’s selected works of Sigmund Freud, the inventor of sex as we know it. In this week’s London Review of Books, Phillips has an article titled “In Praise of Difficult Children”, in which the following statement resides:
“Truant minds need to keep on being reminded that there is nothing more disappointing than getting exactly what you want.”
Really. Here is one of those meretricious aphorisms that is either completely meaningless or completely false — a trumped up paradox masquerading as profundity. Common sense might whisper that being stung by hornets is more disappointing than getting exactly what you wanted, as is being audited by the IRS or thrown into a Mexican jail.
A bit later, Phillips says, “The notion of destructive behavior presumes not merely that we know what constructive behavior is, but that this is what we most want…”
Why? Given that there is nothing more disappointing than what we most want? And who’s this ‘we’ you’re talking about, Dr. Phillips? Kindly leave us out of it.
That wascally wabbit.
A psychoanalyst is someone who argues vehemently with himself just so he can show off his skills in breaking up the fight.
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Wow! I didn’t know Freud hung out with Elmer PhD.
Comment by Lynn — February 21, 2009 @ 4:56 pm
And now we have photograph proof! Our investigative reporters obtained this exclusive evidence despite strenuous efforts of the estate (Fudd’s, not Freud’s) to suppress it.
Comment by Al — February 21, 2009 @ 9:04 pm
This guy’s writing only marginally conceals his dismay at never getting laid.
Comment by Steve Alber — February 23, 2009 @ 2:11 pm
Very perceptive. He’s afraid of sex because he’s convinced there’s nothing more disappointing than what he most wants.
Comment by Al — February 23, 2009 @ 3:04 pm