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Michel Foucault (1979) describes how in the course of the 19th century a new type of author arose to whom he refers as “founders of discursivity…. They are unique in that they are not just the authors of their own works. They have produced something else: the possibilities and the rules for the formation of other texts.” Freud and Marx, whom Foucault considers the first and most important of these founders of discursivity, have both
established an endless possibility of discourse…. They have created a possibility for something other than their discourse, yet something belonging to what they founded…. Freud made possible a certain number of divergences—with respect to his own texts, concepts, and hypotheses—that all arise from the psychoanalytic discourse itself [pp. 114-115].
David Schwartz's argument with my paper strikes me as clear, strong, and provocative. Part of what makes his rhetoric so persuasive, however, is that he takes one side of the issue and sticks to it unrelentingly. This has the advantage that his argument seems simple and straightforward, and even morally and ethically compelling. Schwartz suggests that we simply abandon old problematic concepts and theories and move on without being weighed down by old Freudian baggage. I suggest, however, that the problems that Schwartz and I are struggling with, each in our own way, are far from simple or easily resolved. Schwartz's solution seems unsatisfactory to me precisely because (as he acknowledges in his response) it does lead to premature closure and the discarding of valuable ideas.
Schwartz seems to pride himself on his lack of ambivalence and lack of conflictedness, at least when it comes to the task of theoretical revision. He repeatedly urges us to unhesitatingly “clean house” and put these “sacred cows … out to pasture,” to take these Freudian ideas,