“God Said to Abraham, Kill Me A Son.” - Bob Dylan, Highway 61

Hosted by the Tampa Bay Psychoanalytic Society (TBPS) on Saturday, October 17, 2020, John Auerbach elaborated, in a most delightful presentation, the Old Testament story of Abraham and Isaac, and linked it with Bob Dylan’s [Dylan ne Zimmerman received Nobel Prize for Literature in 2016, despite being a known assaulter of women] relationship to his own father [Abraham Zimmerman], as well as with the relationship in general of parents and children. [Thanks to Covid-19, all TBPS Speaker Program meetings are now virtual and so now almost anyone with wifi can attend presentations.] 

One very interesting part of the discussion was introduced by Peter Rudnytsky’s noting of the existentialist Kierkegaard’s ‘teleological suspension of the ethical’ [never acceptable, not even in 'the ends justify the means'] had the group examining Abraham’s dilemma-- unconditional obedience to God’s request to kill Isaac or ethical attention to God’s ‘Thou shalt not kill’ commandment. Recalling [Erich] Fromm, Rudnytsky found “profoundly troubling” any religion that teaches the acceptance of an ideology of authoritarianism and that values obedience to authority above all else. [I was reminded of the evangelical support of an unethical Donald Trump to the ends of a more conservative Supreme Court.]

Auerbach recounted that, after Isaac is spared, there exist no further Bible passages to indicate that Abraham and Isaac  ever spoke again. Imagine, said Jessica Rausch, the trauma to Isaac [ironically, ‘laughter’ in Hebrew] knowing his own father might have killed him. And what if ‘raise him up’ was not raise Isaac up as a sacrificial offering, but rather to raise him up as 'to honor 'him? Abraham’s failure (of character) to protect his son is compared to God’s character in asking Abraham to make such a sacrifice. 

While infanticide/filicide is much more prevalent than parricide, Freud chose the Greek myth of Oedipus to explain the mainstay of sexual development [recall that it is Oedipus’ father Laius who wanted to kill him first]. Auerbach mentions that Freud, in another indication of Freud’s ambivalence about Judaism -- an ambivalence shared by Dylan-- did not choose a Hebraic myth, but a Hellenic one. Anti-semitism in fin de sicle Austria put Freud, despite his success, in a marginalized group; Such groups struggle with self-love over self loathing.

Lastly, in thinking of an authoritarian and powerful God or a loving and just God, Auerbach contrasted the Freudian tripod anonymity, abstinence, and neutrality with the Rogerian triad of empathy, genuineness, and unconditional positive regard. Joseph Assouline wondered if God were not giving Abraham the opportunity to think for himself, or perhaps God had planned to stop Abraham all along, only checking to see how obedient Abraham might be? Is God seeking faith or asking Abraham to ‘wake up?’ The Judaic tradition, Linda Berkowitz reminded us, is continued discussion, a plethora of opinions [think Aron and Henik, Answering a Question with a Question].

TBPS’ next program: November 7, 2020 on Decolonizing the Mind and Anti-Racism literature.

On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous: Immigration, Trauma, Recognition: "Happy Birthday, Ocean!"

Ocean Vuong, an emigrant at age two from war, is a Vietnamese American poet and novelist who debuted his first novel On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous (2019, Penguin Press). Voung discusses his book and his experience on Amanpour and Company (aired 10-31-19). Amanpour found it “compelling” and “a poignant ode to marginalized immigrants.” Voung’s novel is written in the form of a letter to his illiterate mother. 

Vuong’s mother cautioned him as an immigrant “to be invisible,””to go out and disappear,”  “to hide yourself in order to protect yourself,” but Vuong “wanted to be known.” He hoped “to honor [his] journey.” On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is semi autobiographical and a coming of age story about a gay man whose family is working its way out of poverty, Vuong was inspired and empowered by Baldwin’s Go Tell It on the Mountain. 

Vuong recalls being put in timeout by his elementary school teacher and being so invisible that she forgot about him. The other students had gone to lunch when she discovers him still seated in the corner. “It is so easy for a small yellow child to vanish. The hard work, the real work that requires innovation, is to be known,” says Vuong. He found that being an artist is a powerful way to be known.

A lonely boy in Hartford, CT, Vuong wrote his own poems. His teacher thought Vuong had plagiarized them. “It was terrifying to be in trouble for your imagination.” But he also had never felt so respected and feared [for] being “unfathomable.” He notes the two stereotypes of Asian Americans: the math whiz (genetic) and the musical prodigy (from “the unjust (and inhumane) parenting of tiger moms” as if not the musician’s own agency), [see Eng and Han's 2000 paper A Dialogue on Racial Melancholy on the 'model minority'] “and always in service of … European music”  To be an Asian American artist creating original works is “inconceivable” to other.

His mother and grandmother suffered with PTSD and Vuong grew up surrounded by the pervasive violence found in his mostly black and brown neighborhood, with its police brutality, and violence in his home, even toward him. He saw “that anger was the death of creativity and innovation...Anger is a force that extinguishers the wielder as well as the world....As a writer, as a thinker I am most useful to myself and my world when I ask ‘Now, what?...How do we change what happened to us into how we live better?’“