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''Life Against Death: The Psychoanalytical Meaning of History'' (1959; second edition 1985) is a book by American classicist Norman O. Brown,〔Brown 1985. p. iv.〕 a radical analysis and critique of the work of Sigmund Freud. Brown tries to provide a theoretical rationale for a nonrepressive civilization, explores parallels between psychoanalysis and Martin Luther's theology, and draws on revolutionary themes in western religious thought, especially the body mysticism of Jakob Böhme and William Blake. The result of an interest in psychoanalysis that began when Marcuse suggested to Brown that he should read Freud, ''Life Against Death'' became famous when Norman Podhoretz recommended it to Lionel Trilling. ''Life Against Death'' has been compared to works such as Frankfurt school philosopher Herbert Marcuse's ''Eros and Civilization'' (1955) and philosopher Michel Foucault's ''Madness and Civilization'' (1961). Though it has been called one of the great nonfiction works of the 20th century by literary critic Camille Paglia, some critics have found it of lesser weight than Marcuse's work. It has been suggested that, despite his objectives, Brown's arguments imply that sexual repression is biologically inevitable. Brown eventually repudiated ''Life Against Death'': he called parts of it "quite immature" and wrote of his ''Love's Body'' that it was written to confuse any followers he acquired due to ''Life Against Death'' and destroy its positions. ==Background== Brown, whose background was in classical studies, became interested in psychoanalysis because of Marcuse,〔Dufresne 2000. p. 111-112.〕 a philosopher associated with the Institute for Social Research based in Frankfurt. Marcuse had little direct concern with Freud while in Frankfurt, but devoted more attention to psychoanalysis in the 1950s,〔Dufresne 2000. p. 103.〕 and in 1953 suggested to Brown that he should read Freud.〔Dufresne 2000. p. 112.〕 Seeking a passage to a "post-Marxist world", Brown began his turn to psychoanalysis partly because he had become disenchanted with politics after the failure of Henry Wallace's 1948 Presidential candidacy.〔Brown 2005. p. 34.〕 In ''Life Against Death'', Brown wrote that he had begun a careful study of Freud in 1953, because he felt the need to reconsider both human nature and the human race's future prospects. Commenting that he had inherited from Protestantism a conscience which dictated that intellectual work should be directed toward ending or minimizing human suffering, Brown addressed the book to everyone ready to consider new ideas and possibilities.〔Brown 1985. p. xvii.〕 Brown proposed a synthesis of psychoanalysis, anthropology, and history, calling analyst Géza Róheim's efforts in that direction pioneer work of significance second only to Freud's.〔Brown 1985. p. xix.〕 Brown also paid homage to Marcuse's ''Eros and Civilization'' (1955), calling it "the first book, after Wilhelm Reich's ill-fated adventures, to reopen the possibility of the abolition of repression."〔Brown 1985. p. xx.〕 Radicals such as Reich and Róheim represented a minority current of opinion within psychoanalysis, which by the 1940s was viewed as fundamentally conservative by the European and American intellectual community. Critics outside the psychoanalytic movement agreed in seeing Freud as a conservative. The left-wing writer Erich Fromm had argued that several aspects of psychoanalytic theory served the interests of political reaction in his ''The Fear of Freedom'' (1942), an assessment confirmed by sympathetic writers on the right. Philip Rieff, in ''Freud: The Mind of the Moralist'' (1959), portrayed Freud as a man who admirably urged men to make the best of an inevitably unhappy fate.〔Robinson 1990. pp. 147-148.〕 In the 1950s, Marcuse and Brown, together with Trilling in ''Freud and the Crisis of Our Culture'' (1955), challenged this interpretation of Freud. They believed that Freud showed that a high price has been paid for civilization, and that Freud's critical element was to be found in his late metahistorical studies, works considered unscientific by orthodox analysts and reactionary by the neo-Freudians.〔Robinson 1990. pp. 148-149.〕 Marcuse and Brown shared a similar general outlook and devoted the most attention to the same Freudian concepts. They saw Freud's greatness in his metahistorical analysis of "the general neurosis of mankind", argued that modern man is sick with the burdens of sexual repression and uncontrolled aggression, attempted to make explicit the hidden critical trend in psychoanalysis that promised a nonrepressive civilization as a solution to the dilemma of modern unhappiness, and accepted the most radical and discouraging of Freud's psychological assumptions: the pervasive role of sexuality and the existence of the death instinct. Brown, unlike Marcuse, had strong mystical inclinations and drew on revolutionary themes in western religious thought, especially the body mysticism of Böhme and Blake.〔Robinson 1990. pp. 223-224.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Life Against Death」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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