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items fitting the show's concept, space, and so on; and that those oppos–
ing the choices are free to disparage the exhibit once it is mounted.
In
the
case of Freud, however, the detractors had gotten a jump start, and de–
manded to be represented within the show itself. Roth was hoodwinked
by them, and played the game by attempting to placate them. He kept
making one concession after another. Finally, as Swales stated to the press,
Roth did not include enough negative matter in the proposed display to
keep the opponents from organizing the virulent campaign that eventu–
ally led the officials at the Library of Congress to postpone the exhibit, at
least for this year. (The latest report from the Congress indicates that the
exhibit will appear sometime after June of 1998.)
Some Viennese friends have called me, surprised and appalled at what
they perceive as American censorship on the one hand and philistinism
on the other; others have said that under the circumstances the Austrian
government ought to withdraw its support. But they all are averse to
openly voice their dismay. Their government officials say that they never
express a view on the content of whatever artistic and cultural endeavors
they support. Our own representatives at the Library of Congress seem to
be equally careful, officially basing the "delay" on not yet having raised
sufficient financial backing.
The press has had a field day, and especially
The New York Times
has
given multiple exposure to Crews who argued, for instance, that "the
panic inherent in the anticipation of professional extinction is the dread of
Freud's disciples these days." (Of course, psychoanalysis is under siege,
and the assault comes from many quarters, but it is in no way connected
to the proposed display of archives.)
The postponement of this exposition has been compared to last year's
controversy surrounding the Enola Gay exhibit at the Smithsonian - as an
example of the efficacy of public outrage. These organizers, in order to
argue that President Truman should not have dropped the atomic bomb,
had not counted on the fact that veterans who had been in the war, and
citizens who remember the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, the daily
bombardments by the Japanese and the death of relatives, would object to
the depiction of the Japanese as victims. Thus the grounds for the con–
frontation at the Smithsonian were the reverse: there, the "politically
correct" rewriting of history had been blithely endorsed and then was
questioned, whereas at the Library of Congress revisionist opponents
went on the attack in order to have their own version of the past ac–
cepted.
As Jonathan Lear stated in
The New Republic,
an argument has been
inflated into a movement. But what is the reason for the force of these
assaults? Admittedly, Freudian psychoanalysts are not about to flood the
