Peter Gay
Peter Gay
Peter Gaywas an American historian, educator and author. He was Sterling Professor of History at Yale University and former director of the New York Public Library's Center for Scholars and Writers. Gay received the American Historical Association'sAward for Scholarly Distinction in 2004. He authored over 25 books, including The Enlightenment: An Interpretation, a multi-volume award winner; Weimar Culture: The Outsider as Insider, a bestseller; and the widely translated Freud: A Life for Our Time...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionHistorian
Date of Birth20 June 1923
CountryUnited States of America
Peter Gay quotes about
I am not comfortable with the life-against-death generalization that Freud makes; it strikes me as too convenient.
Freud, Jung thought, had been a great discoverer of facts about the mind, but far too inclined to leave the solid ground of "critical reason and common sense." Freud for his part criticized Jung for being gullible about occult phenomena and infatuated with Oriental religions; he viewed with sardonic and unmitigated skepticism Jung's defense of religious feelings as an integral element in mental health. For Freud, religion was a psychological need projected onto culture, the child's feeling of helplessness surviving in adults, to be analyzed rather than admired.
To have a liberal temperament is a kind of psychological boon, To be able to understand that someone you disagree with is not just a terrible creature but somebody with whom you disagree.