Commentary on "Psychoanalytic Discourse at the Turn of Our Century: A Plea for a Measure of Humility"

New Presbyter is but Old Priest writ Large.

Who among us can reject a call for humility, except for those surviving Nietzscheans who admit to no virtue in that value? It is unseemly to argue for pride and rectitude and not support the openness and dialogue espoused by Arnold Richards. At the same time, humility does not seem to me the right designation for the capacity to listen as a precursor to a true interchange of ideas. The arguments presented, especially that there is “an interplay between the political history of psychoanalysis and the nature of psychoanalytic discourse,” require that we examine the recent history of ideas about psychoanalysis as recorded by Richards. In so doing, we may be able to see the ideas as separate from the politics. He admits that the hegemony and tyrannical exclusion described may be the defensive armor of any camp threatened by new or deviant ideas and that each form of discourse may constrain creative exploration of new paths for psychoanalysis (“New Presbyter is but Old Priest writ Large”). Indeed, Richards's frequent use of the word dialectic reveals his belief and hope that synthesis is always better than thesis or antithesis. He seems to believe also that a strong sense of democracy in an organization is the means to open intellectual exchange. I agree that there has been an educational conservatism in