Chapter 9. 1974 Rio de Janeiro. Brazilian Lectures

Q: Why is so much emphasis laid on the analysis of envy, as if this were the earliest anti-life emotion; before envy made its deadly appearance in human life we had been sentenced to death for pride. If it is pride that is the basis of the extravagant and undisciplined desire for spiritual possession – and this desire is to be like God – why do we not look into the content of idealization which pride seems to be? Why do we omit to analyse boasting and vanity, described as two of the twelve degrees of pride?

Bion: I feel that the question itself depends on a certain cultural procedure about which I am doubtful. It seems to belong to the domain of a culture in which things have a beginning and a middle and an end; and an essential part of the same culture is a narrative account which also has a beginning and a middle and an end. I think it serves a purpose; indeed, we still talk a language belonging to the same kind of domain of verbal expression. But suppose one encounters some quite different form of expression. One could call it, say, the form of expression which is common to a Chinese way of verbalization using ideographs expressing ideas by graphic description. The direction from bottom to top, or from right to left, may be suitable for a mode of thinking which is fundamentally different from ours, but it becomes difficult to communicate when we are talking the language from top to bottom, or from left to right – or from pride to envy, or envy to pride, or sex to rivalry. In practical analysis the analyst may see which comes first – unless, of course, we defer to reality and wish to express an order, if there is one, which is general. There are disciplines which have satisfied themselves of the order. In the practice of psychoanalysis we are concerned with finding out. But the whole

question of logical thought has to be revised. In so far as we are still learning, what we know is open to revision. For example, one can say today that it is an erroneous idea to i