[Buddha-l] Sudhir Kakar

[jkirk]

On Wednesday 04 July 2007 10:12, Katherine Masis wrote:

> You're welcome, and thank you and Franz Metcalf for recommending 
> Sudhir Kakar.

If you are collecting writings by Sudhir Kakar, one little gem is his review
of Jeffrey Masson's book <cite>The Oceanic Feeling: The Origins of Religious
Sentiment in Ancient India</cite> Masson's book, written when he was still
deeply enamored of Freud (whose character Masson later went on in Oedipal
fashion to assassinate), was an attempt at (in Kakar's words) "reducing
great men to the sum of their neuroses." And so we are treated in Masson's
books to a penetrating analysis of the Buddha as an anorexic with a morbid
fear of intimacy, of Krishna as a sex addict with a morbid fear of intimacy,
of Ramakrishna as a schizophrenic with a variety of erotic dysfunctions (and
probably a morbid fear of intimacy), and...well, you get the idea. Kakar's
review, entitled "Reflections on psychoanalysis, Indian culture and
mysticism," takes Masson to task for his analysis of individual cases but
also shows how reckless and irresponsible it is to try to psychoanalyse a
human being whom one has never met and with whom one has never interacted in
any way at all. This, in any case, is how I remember the review, but the
memory is 25 years old. The review appeared in Journal of Indian Philosophy,
vol 10 (1982), pp. 289-297. It is followed by a review article by Stella
Sandahl entitled "To psychoanalyse a civilization" (pp. 299-303).

--
Richard Hayes
======================
Wow! Thanks, Richard, for bringing Kakar's review of Masson. I so far have
avoided reading Masson (although I did start to read his book on how animals
have emotions, but gave up on it due to lack of evidence--animals do have
emotions but I prefer Darwin and ethologists to Masson on this case).
Avoided reading more Masson because of all the rather convincing negative
reviews of his various books. Didn't he also take off on Karen Horney? (What
an unfortunate name for a psychopanalyst.)In doing the book you just cited,
however, Masson "identified with the aggressor" so to speak by committing
the same typical psychoanalytic sin that Freud did in 'Moses & Monotheism',
and also in 'Totem & Taboo'! Perhaps Kakar mentioned those two books as
well. 

Joanna

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