Freud, Incest and Totems.

We have a lot of weird, dusty old books in my house. They are fascinating because I have no idea who the original owners were or how we came to accumulate so many, stuffed in cupboards and on shelves in random parts of the house. One book in particular grabbed my attention. Totem and Taboo by Sigmund Freud. It was first published by Pelican Books in 1919 and looks very well worn. There is a pencil scribble on the front with a signature I can't make out and the year 1940.

I like old books.

Without sounding like a completely pretentious wank, I want to show why I am finding Totem and Taboo a good read. It makes me laugh because of the outmoded, racist concepts used frequently without. But it also has some really interesting points, mainly to do with incest.

The first chapter is "The Savage's Dread of Incest". Compelling title.

The idea of newsworthiness indicates that people are attracted to the most gross, debased subjects (notice the titillation component). This explains the popularity of trash/goss mags and hardcore porn. People want to know about this repulsive, shocking stuff.

This may also explain why there is a book by Sigmund Freud concerned primarily with incest.

So here are some of his ideas. Do you agree?

Freud compares the psychology of the "primitive races" to the psychology of the modern "neurotic" races in order to argue that "we can recognise in their psychic life a well-preserved, early stage of our own development". He uses the aborigines of Australia as his example of these primitive races. However, to Freud's surprise, these "poor naked cannibals" have exercised "the most searching care and painful rigour in guarding against incestuous social relations".

Just try to ignore the whole "poor naked cannibal" part for the time being.

Freud goes on to define Totemism which is what we were all made to learn about in Studies of Religion back in high school. Simplified, a totem is a tribal ancestor of the clan and a tutelary spirit and protector. Therefore members of this totem shall not kill or destroy it.

Something that really caught my attention is that through out Totem and Taboo Freud refers to aborigines as Australians. This book was published in 1919, years  before the Australian government even recognized indigenous people as Australians. So although Freud's writing is imbued with racism he is unconsciously granting indigenous people status as Australians, some years before they were legally declared as citizens.

Ok, so here we get back to the incest part.

Members of the same totem are not allowed to enter into sexual relations with each other. Violating this prohibition threatens the community as a whole and brings guilt upon everyone. The penalty for exogamy is death.

According to Freud, "these savages (exercise greater care) because they are more subject to temptations than we are and hence require more protection against them."

This idea is taken straight out of the Australian government's old laws of paternalism for indigenous people back in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Another idea that interested me in chapter one was Freud's examples of customs from other cultures which prevent "incest dread".  For example, on Lepers Island in Melanesia, the brother leaves his maternal home at a fixed age. He may still visit his home to ask for food but if his sister is there he must run away. If she is not there he can sit and eat by the door. If brother and sister meet by chance, she has to piss bolt out of there as quick as she can. This avoidance also extends to the mother and son. If she sees him in the street she uses the formal address, not the familiar manner of mother and son.

Freud also tells us that on the Gazelle Peninsula in New Britain, a sister, beginning with her marriage, may no longer speak with her brother, "nor does she utter his name but designates him by means of a circumlocution."

I have no idea whether this customs still exist but there are footnotes in the book to back up Freud's examples.

Another Freud idea: a man is led to his love object through the image of his mother "and perhaps his sister" (p. 34).  But if this is true, what does this concept imply for orphans or children who have grown up without any form of guardians/caretakers? Is this a crack in Freud's theory?

Freud also believes that parents remain young with their children. Based on this assumption, he declares that it is better to have children so as to avoid the necessary resignation imposed upon the individual by marriage.

So there are my reflections on Chapter One of Freud's Totem and Taboo.

I don't know why I do this to myself.

This book is truly a mind fuck.