Freud and the Non-European

The kind of intellectual and moral subtlety that Said calls for is quickly trampled upon as nations are made and remade. But if it doesn’t shape momentous events, it does help record them more scrupulously. Said’s influence grows more fruitfully (if slowly) on fellow academics and writers, who can no longer hope to explain the contemporary world by putting the adjective ‘ancient’ before the noun ‘hatred’; they have to work towards a better sense of the ever-changing historical conditions under which identities appear so eternal.

Said’s treatment is though-provoking and addresses complex issues surrounding a work composed near the end of Freud’s lifetime. Said provides an intriguing critique of Freud’s work that is complemented by Rose’s commentary.

His reading of Freud‘s reading of the history of the Jewish people is undeniably brilliant, and persuades the reader yet further that the attempts by the Likudniks and fundamentalist Zionists to harden Judaism into one particular model of Zionism tied to one particular plot of land is both intellectually flawed and a betrayal of Judaism‘s pluralist history.