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nymeria_reads's review against another edition
I've realized there's no point in forcing myself
mirandamalonka's review against another edition
2.0
First impression: geez, what a racist book.
Second impression: wow, that's a lot of assumptions.
Last impression: this is the best bullshit ever.
Second impression: wow, that's a lot of assumptions.
Last impression: this is the best bullshit ever.
alexpelican's review against another edition
4.0
this book was actually really palatable and interesting to say the least. say what you want about freud but he was clearly very smart!
cabari's review against another edition
Freud thought the essay on Totemism in Childhood was the best thing he ever wrote. Weird and compelling speculative anthropology.
notwellread's review against another edition
3.0
3.5 stars.
Freud’s take on early anthropology and its psychological undercurrents offers the modern reader two things: firstly, an insight into the mode of scholarship used in the 1910s, and some food for thought on the anthropology itself. Although the approach and attitude of the book is rather dated, many of the questions it endeavours to tackle ‘from the source’, and the mental impulses that motivate cultural behaviours, are still debated by anthropologists to this day.
Approaching with a modern scholarly mindset, it’s easy to balk at the immediate reference to ‘savages’ as the subjects of the book. Freud’s initial assumption that tribal peoples are closer to our primitive ancestors is dubious and troubling, and he rarely specifies the particular tribes or cultures he means when he’s talking about the ‘bigger picture’. Despite all this, Freud’s actual analyses do not seem to me particularly reductive or stereotypical, and he makes the same comparisons to what he terms ‘civilised’ societies — once again, it’s the terminology that’s troubling, not so much the ideas (though I cannot say if the German carries the same implications). Since I see the problem of word choice as more a result of the time period, and the position of Freud’s contemporary scholarship (without the benefit of today’s terminology), I would encourage anyone to continue with the book if they can get past this.
However, we still need to decide whether the initial false assumption, that tribal societies are inherently ‘primitive’ in structure, negates the analysis that follows from it — thankfully, I don’t believe it does, because Freud’s examination of these groups and their social psychology, followed by the natural comparisons to his own culture, are still insightful. They can provide an interesting psychological perspective, separate from Western mores, without needing to believe that they resemble prehistoric peoples. Although Freud’s work here is largely discredited by modern anthropologists, lot of the study still takes an approach resembling his (though with fewer generalisations, I would think!), and he does cite some scholarship other than his own. If we treat the tribes as ‘parallel’ cultures, although we may gripe with some smaller points, the analysis essentially still works.
The details of early religion are of the most interest to me, and the primary reason why I read the book: I think these are slightly more creditable when likened to cultures which were already more encompassed by scholarship (i.e. the Romans and Greeks), and especially where we can identify wider ‘trends’ in religion, which are so often found in traditions ostensibly unrelated to one another. It’s interesting to see how the limits and restrictions placed on high-ranking men, especially kings who double as high priests, can be connected to later restrictions placed on non-religious offices (like the higher ranks in the Roman senate), although religious justifications were often used in this case too. Freud uses the comparison of the flamen dialis and his wife (the highest ranking priest in Rome), but I also feel there’s the more obvious example of the emperor coming to double as pontifex maximus, since, even if this was born out of Caesar’s accumulation of offices, it still became important in the emperor’s ‘image’ later on. It’s also interesting to see how this level of power begins to backfire on the individual — just as it’s easy to blame an authoritarian leader for anything that goes wrong, if someone can supposedly control the weather, they’ll be witch-hunted as soon as the weather turns bad.
The greater theme of restrictions and separations is shared in Abrahamic religions (especially in Leviticus and other books of laws), and many of the rules about ‘cleanliness’ seem pretty logical (e.g. the treatment and disposal of corpses), though I would have liked more explanation on why enemy corpses are treated well — is it that the threat of the living person is gone, or based on a fear of retaliation from the spirits? Additionally, some of the rules seemed counterintuitive to me, especially excluding other chiefs after a chief dies, furthering the power vacuum, and shunning widows and widowers, which hardly seems socially conductive. This makes more sense for people who have a special spiritual role, who may benefit from withdrawal from reality, including human relationships (and this is sometimes extended to menstruating women, who were supposedly more open to spirits). I should probably follow this up with more modern anthropological reading, however, as I’m not sure how much of Freud’s ideas here are verified, let alone explained in confident terms.
Some people may find Freud’s view, that the stigma (or taboo) against incest and other issues has to be more psychologically enforced where the barriers are lesser, reductive, but even this could arguably be likened to other social phenomena: that is, supposedly those who are most vocal in their objections have the most guilty consciences. Those people are overcompensating for hidden urges. A bit like when people find naked children objectionable (in art, on the beach, etc.) when they should never be sexualised in the first place. It may not so much be a case of the ‘primitive-ness’ of a society, but rather the need to enforce change in a way that may overcompensate and deny or negate the problems of the past. Even if the person is ‘overdoing it’, they are at least rational in trying to avoid the worst outcomes.
As with the resulting suspicion for magical people where their power stops seeming to ‘work’ for community advantage, this may culminate in killing the individual to ‘release’ their power, gaining it for themselves. Frequently, sons will kill, and even eat, their fathers in the hopes of a transferral of their power. The transferral of power, both political and religious, can be very sinister: it’s one we could even connect to the ‘divine right of kings’ — if you can kill the king and take over, you’ve proved your own ‘divine right’ if God has granted you victory. The theme and problem of violent seizure of power is a universal source of anxiety. Ironically, the tribes have come up with a solution that the West has always lacked in the form of the ‘civilising’ totem, working in tandem with the rules against incest and other taboo acts, allowing them to keep the social order without being overwhelmed by conflict over power.
In the midst of these ‘bigger’ questions, both my and Freud’s extrapolations should be taken with a grain of salt: despite his use of sources, as we might expect from Freud, he speculates and interprets a lot, according to his own theories on behavioural explanations. There’s some charm to this old-fashioned sort of scholarship, in which it’s common for authors to get carried away by their own enthusiasm, but unfortunately creativity is usually inversely proportional to reliability in a text like this. This is probably a case where the reader has to make their own judgement about the value the text has to them. Even where they are framed as wild and primitive by Freud, we could find our own things to learn from these alternate societies, who have found solutions to problems that we have not — even if we accept Freud’s perspective, perhaps we should not assume ourselves to be more ‘civilised’ after all.
Freud’s take on early anthropology and its psychological undercurrents offers the modern reader two things: firstly, an insight into the mode of scholarship used in the 1910s, and some food for thought on the anthropology itself. Although the approach and attitude of the book is rather dated, many of the questions it endeavours to tackle ‘from the source’, and the mental impulses that motivate cultural behaviours, are still debated by anthropologists to this day.
Approaching with a modern scholarly mindset, it’s easy to balk at the immediate reference to ‘savages’ as the subjects of the book. Freud’s initial assumption that tribal peoples are closer to our primitive ancestors is dubious and troubling, and he rarely specifies the particular tribes or cultures he means when he’s talking about the ‘bigger picture’. Despite all this, Freud’s actual analyses do not seem to me particularly reductive or stereotypical, and he makes the same comparisons to what he terms ‘civilised’ societies — once again, it’s the terminology that’s troubling, not so much the ideas (though I cannot say if the German carries the same implications). Since I see the problem of word choice as more a result of the time period, and the position of Freud’s contemporary scholarship (without the benefit of today’s terminology), I would encourage anyone to continue with the book if they can get past this.
However, we still need to decide whether the initial false assumption, that tribal societies are inherently ‘primitive’ in structure, negates the analysis that follows from it — thankfully, I don’t believe it does, because Freud’s examination of these groups and their social psychology, followed by the natural comparisons to his own culture, are still insightful. They can provide an interesting psychological perspective, separate from Western mores, without needing to believe that they resemble prehistoric peoples. Although Freud’s work here is largely discredited by modern anthropologists, lot of the study still takes an approach resembling his (though with fewer generalisations, I would think!), and he does cite some scholarship other than his own. If we treat the tribes as ‘parallel’ cultures, although we may gripe with some smaller points, the analysis essentially still works.
The details of early religion are of the most interest to me, and the primary reason why I read the book: I think these are slightly more creditable when likened to cultures which were already more encompassed by scholarship (i.e. the Romans and Greeks), and especially where we can identify wider ‘trends’ in religion, which are so often found in traditions ostensibly unrelated to one another. It’s interesting to see how the limits and restrictions placed on high-ranking men, especially kings who double as high priests, can be connected to later restrictions placed on non-religious offices (like the higher ranks in the Roman senate), although religious justifications were often used in this case too. Freud uses the comparison of the flamen dialis and his wife (the highest ranking priest in Rome), but I also feel there’s the more obvious example of the emperor coming to double as pontifex maximus, since, even if this was born out of Caesar’s accumulation of offices, it still became important in the emperor’s ‘image’ later on. It’s also interesting to see how this level of power begins to backfire on the individual — just as it’s easy to blame an authoritarian leader for anything that goes wrong, if someone can supposedly control the weather, they’ll be witch-hunted as soon as the weather turns bad.
The greater theme of restrictions and separations is shared in Abrahamic religions (especially in Leviticus and other books of laws), and many of the rules about ‘cleanliness’ seem pretty logical (e.g. the treatment and disposal of corpses), though I would have liked more explanation on why enemy corpses are treated well — is it that the threat of the living person is gone, or based on a fear of retaliation from the spirits? Additionally, some of the rules seemed counterintuitive to me, especially excluding other chiefs after a chief dies, furthering the power vacuum, and shunning widows and widowers, which hardly seems socially conductive. This makes more sense for people who have a special spiritual role, who may benefit from withdrawal from reality, including human relationships (and this is sometimes extended to menstruating women, who were supposedly more open to spirits). I should probably follow this up with more modern anthropological reading, however, as I’m not sure how much of Freud’s ideas here are verified, let alone explained in confident terms.
Some people may find Freud’s view, that the stigma (or taboo) against incest and other issues has to be more psychologically enforced where the barriers are lesser, reductive, but even this could arguably be likened to other social phenomena: that is, supposedly those who are most vocal in their objections have the most guilty consciences. Those people are overcompensating for hidden urges. A bit like when people find naked children objectionable (in art, on the beach, etc.) when they should never be sexualised in the first place. It may not so much be a case of the ‘primitive-ness’ of a society, but rather the need to enforce change in a way that may overcompensate and deny or negate the problems of the past. Even if the person is ‘overdoing it’, they are at least rational in trying to avoid the worst outcomes.
As with the resulting suspicion for magical people where their power stops seeming to ‘work’ for community advantage, this may culminate in killing the individual to ‘release’ their power, gaining it for themselves. Frequently, sons will kill, and even eat, their fathers in the hopes of a transferral of their power. The transferral of power, both political and religious, can be very sinister: it’s one we could even connect to the ‘divine right of kings’ — if you can kill the king and take over, you’ve proved your own ‘divine right’ if God has granted you victory. The theme and problem of violent seizure of power is a universal source of anxiety. Ironically, the tribes have come up with a solution that the West has always lacked in the form of the ‘civilising’ totem, working in tandem with the rules against incest and other taboo acts, allowing them to keep the social order without being overwhelmed by conflict over power.
In the midst of these ‘bigger’ questions, both my and Freud’s extrapolations should be taken with a grain of salt: despite his use of sources, as we might expect from Freud, he speculates and interprets a lot, according to his own theories on behavioural explanations. There’s some charm to this old-fashioned sort of scholarship, in which it’s common for authors to get carried away by their own enthusiasm, but unfortunately creativity is usually inversely proportional to reliability in a text like this. This is probably a case where the reader has to make their own judgement about the value the text has to them. Even where they are framed as wild and primitive by Freud, we could find our own things to learn from these alternate societies, who have found solutions to problems that we have not — even if we accept Freud’s perspective, perhaps we should not assume ourselves to be more ‘civilised’ after all.
ahmadothman's review against another edition
4.0
Freud had a great aim with this book. He wanted to relate the social structures of forbiddance and dread to their origins by a comparison to totemic and taboo systems of primitive tribes around the world - referred to as savages in a fashion true to his era - with the primal thoughts of patients with neurosis while drawing a nearly impeccable social and psychological critique that is somehow Darwinian in its contribution to psychoanalysis; a field he devised and cemented. My only gripes with the book is his disregard to the difference between psychological phenomena and their social reasoning. A critique that is shared and pointed out by a lot of social critiques and famous feminists and anthropologists. And his belief in the european superiority which made his vision myopic on certain aspects of cultural interaction. But he admitted to both in the epilogue of this book
emaang's review against another edition
4.0
Не съм почитател на догматичния изказ на Фройд, а несъмнено и доста от антропологичните данни, на които се опира, са остарели. Въпреки това "Тотем и табу" е увлекателна. Фройд успява да открие невъзможни на пръв поглед аналогии, да нагласи нещата по най-удобния и неочакван начин и накрая да представи тази сложна пирамида от нагони и компенсации, невротични и примитивни ритуали, несъзнавани желания, митове, изтласквания, проекции и т.н. убедително и интригуващо (стига да не се чете като научен труд).
Самият Фройд на едно място пише: "Едва когато предложеният от психоанализата превод на тотема се съпостави с факта на тотемната трапеза и с Дарвиновата хипотеза за първичното състояние на човешкото общество, възниква възможност за по-задълбочено разбиране, шанс да се формулира хипотеза, която на пръв поглед изглежда фантастична, но има предимството да разкрива неподозирано единство между редица изолирани до момента фаномени." Мисля, че подчертаното много точно обобщава цялостния подход на Фройд без да омаловажава изследователския му принос.