Pynchon and Catholicism

[Mark Kohut]

Hey, I'm no trained psychoanalytic reader of history. Projection, is that
what trained depth psychologists in the Freudian tradition do? I dunno,
mate.

I think Eric says Catholic 'hate' is not pan, was mixed with some
self-love---love is strange---and therefore had more grace in the everyday.

I can't see Trumpism quite anywhere here but elaborate? I did see Trump in
Eric's words when he wrote of how when we lost our communal sense of
identity, and grew up feeling alienated, weak and helpless like Mickey, we
could not stand that psychic pain so we filled ourselves with endless scorn
for
weak others--projection fer sure-- and endless greed. Our things and money
 were our psychic good drives by analogy.

One can see how, if TRP was influenced by this work, it led to discovering
Norman O Brown's work. (This book is 1941!)

On Sun, Sep 27, 2020 at 5:01 AM David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:

> So, to condense, Eric argues that Catholic pan-hate resulted in less
> self-hate?  Isn't that what is called "projection" these days?
>
> Doesn't that define Trumpism?
>
> David Morris
>
> On Sun, Sep 27, 2020 at 3:36 AM Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Eric Fromm in *Escape From Freedom* says that the feeling of
>> 'predestination" ala Luther and Calvin although present in
>> Acquinas' Catholicism because of the understanding of God's omniscience is
>> very different, producing avery different
>> character structure overall.
>>
>> He quotes Acquinas cutely: Aquinas saying doing extra good things
>> sort speeds up predestination of oneself. (my paraphrase).
>>
>> Anyway, unlike the self-hating Protestants---they had to in order to
>> hate so many others so totally, Eric says--Catholics hated themselves less
>> (in general).
>
>
>