In the early Cold War years, popular and expert discourses concerning child development, adult sexuality, and gender and family roles reflect the popularization of Freud in the United States. In the following passage, Robert W. White discusses Americans’ reverence for Freudian psychoanalysis in 1950. White characterizes Freud as “the scientist of the irrational.” How might the popularization of Freudian psychoanalysis reflect both fears of sexual chaos and fears of nuclear apocalypse in the Cold War era?
The first half of the 20th century has seen mankind scale astounding heights of rationality and fall to incredible depths of irrationality. If we fix our eyes on scientific achievement, we discover a world transformed for human use and happiness, but if we think of political history, we peer into mires of passion, hate and murder. Many thoughtful people, living in an age of such promise and such betrayal, have found a needed symbol and hero in Sigmund Freud, the man who dared look steadily at the dark forces within us and who held out hope, however cautiously, that they might be better governed.
Freud can be seen as the scientist of the irrational, who used our best instrument – scientific method – to investigate our worst selves, and who told us, in the cool disillusioned spirit of the scientist, what chances we might have of happiness. It may be that Freud is climbing to the status of a modern Copernicus or Darwin; at all events it is a task of our period to come to terms with what he said.
Freud’s contribution amounted to a revolutionary picture of human nature. It was worked out in the course of treating neurotic patients, and its strongest factual root still lies in those very intimate thoughts and feelings which only a sick person seeking help would be willing to disclose. Freud hunted relentlessly for meaning – motivational meaning – in the dreams, errors, resistances and symptoms of his patients, and he satisfied himself that these were all manifestations of instinctual energies struggling for discharge through the many barriers imposed upon them by civilization. He saw the young child as a creature of love and hate, of sex and aggression, whose strivings had to be much sacrificed to the demands of constraining parents. These contests more or less permanently shaped the child’s personality. If the instincts were too badly defeated, neurosis might follow in later life, and the early inhibitions could be undone only by a protracted process of recollection which brought the ancient issues back into adult consciousness. The grave irrationalities of human behavior could thus be traced to repressed and distorted instincts, driven to unconscious cover by the constraints of the family circle.
Robert W. White, “Discussions of the Scientific Validity of Psychoanalysis, and of Freud the Moralist” [Book review], Scientific American, 201:3 (September 1959), 267-68.
Freudians ideas grew in the US as the movement for a well oiled family grew as well. Society felt the need to create a picture perfect home-life in order to combat the fears of nuclear attack. The government influenced society to believe they could make a difference in their own house. Thus Freudians beliefs that children are influenced greatly by their parents allowed parents to look up to Freud’s ideas. In order to not obsess over fear, the parents were able to obsess over raising the best children and making a perfect family. As the fears of sexual chaos grew during the Cold War Freud’s opinion on a persons sexual choices that are hidden in the worst part of us can reflect the terror of the post war. This was the first time in history where teens and young adults were more open about and willing to discuss having sex before marriage. Freud believes a persons sexual thoughts start at a much younger age, so he can account for the sexual liberation that began in the Cold War. Parents though have a fear of this sexual chaos impacting their own child, so put all the pressure on themselves ensure polite and responsible children.