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little influence outside of psychoanalysis, psychiatry, psychology and
related fields. But the popular term "repression" with its uncertain
antecedents in the concept has probably been one of the most influ–
ential words in the twentieth century.
If
this concept goes astray in
Greenwich Village shall we hold Freud accountable for the way–
ward idea in the same way that a father is responsible for his de–
linquent minor? And whose concept of repression are we talking
about? Freud's or Mabel Dodge Luhan's?
The example of "repression" above is my own, but I wish to
illustrate in this way the hazards of tracing influential ideas. Mr.
Rieffs new moral type reflects with startling accuracy a psycho–
logical attitude and system of beliefs that might be called "the
popular Freud," Freudian ideas that were made over in popular
usage and lost their connections with the original concepts. Strictly
speaking, these are no longer "Freudian ideas." Freud's "influence"
on contemporary ideas and morality cannot
be
traced from his
writings to the social product without accounting for the reshaping
of these ideas by popular usage and by other historical and cultural
tendencies of the times.
It
might even be said that the popular
Freud has had vastly greater influence upon contemporary ideas and
morals than the scientist Freud.
Selma Fraiberg
OTHER PEOPLE'S AFFAIRS
OUR VISIT TO NIAGARA. By Paul Goodman. Horizo n. $3 .95.
THE BEAT OF LIFE. By Barbara Probst Solomon. Lippincott. $3.95.
RABBIT, RUN. By John Updike. Knopf. $4.00.
Without gossip, without the novel, what would we do?
Since it's not enough simply to live, or even to be conscious of what
our own real manner of life may be, or how this differs from the
public versions of our lives-since we must somehow or other share
this
knowledge if either the public or the private manner of life is
to be endurable, we gossip and we read. Gossip creates among our–
selves and our friends a little society that knows something about
